In that most credible of sources, the popbitch mail out, it mentions David Cronenberg is to start work on a movie of Martin Amis's 'London Fields'. I'm sure the worth of the latter's writing could be debated for hors, but I happen to like that book a lot. Likewise I think Cronenberg can be great. So I guess this is just a wee note that this could be happening .. I hope it does come to light.
Cronenberg does Martin Amis
- Thread starter michael
- Start date
woops
is not like other people
weird! who'd a thought it?
d'ya reckon he'll cronenberg the story up with a horrible mutant marmaduke and a scary mutant psychic nicola.
and since the merits of this mans writing can be debated for months, i like this book a lot too. its the last really good novel he wrote if you ask me. he gets a lot in there without getting too grandiose or self indulgent. some nice symbolism to think about.
did that film of dead babies ever come out?
anyone see the rachel papers starring dexter fletcher?
d'ya reckon he'll cronenberg the story up with a horrible mutant marmaduke and a scary mutant psychic nicola.
and since the merits of this mans writing can be debated for months, i like this book a lot too. its the last really good novel he wrote if you ask me. he gets a lot in there without getting too grandiose or self indulgent. some nice symbolism to think about.
did that film of dead babies ever come out?
anyone see the rachel papers starring dexter fletcher?
k-punk
Spectres of Mark
I HATE Martin Amis (Don Watson in the NME at the time of Money... 'Martin Amis is regarded as a serious literary force... by Martin Amis. Don't join him in his malady'), though I confess I haven't been able to get to one of the end of his novels... get too snarled up in all those self-regarding 'well-wrought' sentences... Snooty public schoolboy slumming it Saul Bellow brown-nosing 'good writing' ...
is London Fields the one with 'Keith Talent'?
Think Cronenberg is toning down the mutations and melting bodies.... Spider was a masterpiece of understatement, lacking most of his trademark techniques, and set entirely in Britain obv... maybe he will be able to do something with Amis....
is London Fields the one with 'Keith Talent'?
Think Cronenberg is toning down the mutations and melting bodies.... Spider was a masterpiece of understatement, lacking most of his trademark techniques, and set entirely in Britain obv... maybe he will be able to do something with Amis....
cortempond
Active member
London Fields - Sprawling Mess
He will have to do a lot of tightening up - the book is wayyyy too long. I'm sure he'll turn the female character, Nicola Six, into something like Bujold's in Dead Ringers. It all has to do with the casting. Don't know who would be able to fill the role of Keith Talent. Will it be an all British cast?
Cronenburg has a great track record of making "difficult" books into films. Crash and Naked Lunch were seen as being unfilmable because of the content and style. History of Violence is supposed to be an incredible film - based on a graphic novel. So who knows what he'll do to Amis. Hopefully it will be as subversive and dark as most of his films.
He will have to do a lot of tightening up - the book is wayyyy too long. I'm sure he'll turn the female character, Nicola Six, into something like Bujold's in Dead Ringers. It all has to do with the casting. Don't know who would be able to fill the role of Keith Talent. Will it be an all British cast?
Cronenburg has a great track record of making "difficult" books into films. Crash and Naked Lunch were seen as being unfilmable because of the content and style. History of Violence is supposed to be an incredible film - based on a graphic novel. So who knows what he'll do to Amis. Hopefully it will be as subversive and dark as most of his films.
history of violence
i watched this earlier today and it is absolutley brilliant, his best in ages. Very simple with some real poetry, this is all i'm going to say about it though as it would be easy to spoilt it .
its a very face based film and the lead character has the perfect face for his part.
,cortempond said:
i watched this earlier today and it is absolutley brilliant, his best in ages. Very simple with some real poetry, this is all i'm going to say about it though as it would be easy to spoilt it .
its a very face based film and the lead character has the perfect face for his part.
P
Parson
Guest
cronenberg is GREAT when he talks to npr
check it
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4934043
check it
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4934043
He's been about a lot of late talking almighty shite about Iraq and terrorism. He's taken a real turn for the Hitchens, if you know what I mean.
swears
preppy-kei
Odd, I thought they fell out over Iraq? Amis seemed very anti-war to begin with.
Did you read that long Guardian piece? Well written (in exactly the kind of 'well-wrought' sentences style K-punk describes above) but utter utter pernicious nonsense about terrorism, and how the west is a repository for the "enlightenment" blah blah blah. Same shit when he appeared on Newsnight the other month. I didn't know that he fell out with Hitchens (which one?) but his obsession with Enlightened Western values as supreme is totally of a piece.
swears
preppy-kei
This project probably isn't going ahead anyway, but I don't see how London Fields would make any sense politically now. Being set in '99 as imagined in '89 it mixes cold-war dread with 80s wideboy mundanity. I found it equally hilarious and horrific, there's a mean streak in Amis' work I find very entertaining.
Hmm. But there's so little actually there. I mean take "Money" for example. Its a bit like living in a more capitalist pig version of my own head (utterly selfish and absorbed in his own paranoid medical complaints)... but reading one page of it is enough, I found...
swears
preppy-kei
You don't see Money as a vicious satire of Capitalism? It's one of the most left-wing novels I've ever read.
Anyway if this isn't anti-war I don't know what is:
"A utopian example: the crippled and benighted people of Afghanistan, hunkering down for a winter of famine, should not be bombarded with cruise missiles; they should be bombarded with consignments of food, firmly marked LENDLEASE - USA. More realistically, unless Pakistan can actually deliver Bin Laden, the American retaliation is almost sure to become elephantine. Then terror from above will replenish the source of all terror from below: unhealed wounds. This is the familiar cycle so well caught by the matter, and the title, of VS Naipaul's story, Tell Me Who to Kill."
From: this article.
Anyway if this isn't anti-war I don't know what is:
"A utopian example: the crippled and benighted people of Afghanistan, hunkering down for a winter of famine, should not be bombarded with cruise missiles; they should be bombarded with consignments of food, firmly marked LENDLEASE - USA. More realistically, unless Pakistan can actually deliver Bin Laden, the American retaliation is almost sure to become elephantine. Then terror from above will replenish the source of all terror from below: unhealed wounds. This is the familiar cycle so well caught by the matter, and the title, of VS Naipaul's story, Tell Me Who to Kill."
From: this article.
Well, yes and no. Satire always seems to appear to attack, but in fact celebrates the things it despises, if not in the eye of its creators then certainly in the eyes of its targets. Yuppies love anti-yuppie satire, no?
I think to clarify (and backtrack the fuck up?) he may well have been anti-war, but his position on terrorism is asinine and totally in line with the Hitchens take on the "battle of civilizations" (yuck).
I think to clarify (and backtrack the fuck up?) he may well have been anti-war, but his position on terrorism is asinine and totally in line with the Hitchens take on the "battle of civilizations" (yuck).
swears
preppy-kei
Hmmm... I suppose he's a bit like Robert Hughes: an old fart who's a mixture of left and right but does make the odd good point. I can understand why people are turned off by his style, once you get into it though, it's very evocative.
Jenks should weigh into this one really. Because, unlike me, he actually knows something about literature!
Jenks should weigh into this one really. Because, unlike me, he actually knows something about literature!
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