After Seeing All the King's Men:
Oct. 2nd, 2006 08:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
saavedra77Saturday, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ryuusama and I finally went to see Steven Zaillian's All the King's Men, with which we both were duly impressed:
Although a number of reviewers panned Sean Penn's performance, I thought that he did a superb job of getting into the skin of Robert Penn Warren's wily, ruthless, good-ol'-boy, Willie Stark. Penn conveys all of Stark's shrewdness, drive, and bombast, and he does it with what sounds (at least to my Yanqui ears) a remarkably convincing Louisiana twang. Jude Law is sullenly adequate in the role of Jack Burden, but since this character is ultimately just one of the sattellites caught up in Stark's gravity well, I didn't mind awfully. James Gandolfini is well-cast as political boss Tiny Duffy, although he could have used a dialogue coach to smooth the Jersey nasality out of his accent. (Hey! I did it! Right? Right ...?) But at least Gandolfini gives the impression of trying to sound Louisianan. Anthony Hopkins makes a fine Judge Irwin, but this version of the Judge evidently went to Cambridge instead of Tulane or Ole Miss.
But I was most impressed by how faithful Zaillian's film is to Robert Penn Warren's book: the script relies heavily on Warren's pithy, evocative language; the sets, costumes, and props lovingly recreate the world of the novel. In fact, the elements of the film which most distinguish it from the book are features of Louisiana history and culture that Warren left out--including several touches which more closely link Stark to his historical model, 1930s populist strongman Huey Long.
On the whole, Steve Zaillian's adaptation gave me almost everything that I had missed in the 1949 adaptation: the density, the sense of place, the moral ambiguity, and the tragic sense of the novel. Definitely the most satisfying film I've seen in a theater, lately.
ryuusama and I finally went to see Steven Zaillian's All the King's Men, with which we both were duly impressed: Although a number of reviewers panned Sean Penn's performance, I thought that he did a superb job of getting into the skin of Robert Penn Warren's wily, ruthless, good-ol'-boy, Willie Stark. Penn conveys all of Stark's shrewdness, drive, and bombast, and he does it with what sounds (at least to my Yanqui ears) a remarkably convincing Louisiana twang. Jude Law is sullenly adequate in the role of Jack Burden, but since this character is ultimately just one of the sattellites caught up in Stark's gravity well, I didn't mind awfully. James Gandolfini is well-cast as political boss Tiny Duffy, although he could have used a dialogue coach to smooth the Jersey nasality out of his accent. (Hey! I did it! Right? Right ...?) But at least Gandolfini gives the impression of trying to sound Louisianan. Anthony Hopkins makes a fine Judge Irwin, but this version of the Judge evidently went to Cambridge instead of Tulane or Ole Miss.
But I was most impressed by how faithful Zaillian's film is to Robert Penn Warren's book: the script relies heavily on Warren's pithy, evocative language; the sets, costumes, and props lovingly recreate the world of the novel. In fact, the elements of the film which most distinguish it from the book are features of Louisiana history and culture that Warren left out--including several touches which more closely link Stark to his historical model, 1930s populist strongman Huey Long.
On the whole, Steve Zaillian's adaptation gave me almost everything that I had missed in the 1949 adaptation: the density, the sense of place, the moral ambiguity, and the tragic sense of the novel. Definitely the most satisfying film I've seen in a theater, lately.
