The Architecture of Expectations

This is a story that began in 2005. I remember reading a book review in the New York Times; I must have been in Bronxville, given when it was published, but I have no real setting for it.  Just a vague memory that the review looked interesting, that I skimmed it because the words “revealing the premise” were in the first sentence, and that I vaguely thought, “oh yes, I should read that sometime.”

The book in question was Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I’d never read anything else by Ishiguro, though I knew of The Remains of the Day. Still, this was a book that caught my eye mainly because it managed to get itself taken seriously despite whispers of “sci-fi” and “thriller” in its wake.

But I didn’t pick it up right away, and there it sat, on my lengthly list of books to read, some day, when the occasion arose.

And then, a few months ago, a trailer hit.

It’s not a terribly good trailer, in some ways; it gives away the central conceit of the story, and it’s a tad melodramatic (but then, the film might be too, I suppose). But what it did do was trigger my memory of the original review.

So I ended up getting the book on mp3 from the library, to listen to on the train. Rosalyn Landor, the narrator, was really excellent, and I fell in love with the narrative through her telling of it. It was a great thing to listen to on a train, watching suburbs turn into city and vice versa.  The book does a really stellar job of fully exploring a conceit while, at the same time, not forcing it down your throat.  The characters are alien and human all at once, and they drive the novel forward.  It’s certainly dystopian, but it’s not Orwell; it reminded me a bit of The Handmaid’s Tale, in some ways.

But it was a curious thing. Because I’d seen the trailer, the characters were definitely shaped by the three lead actors in my imaginings.  Not perfectly of course; rewatching the trailer, I realized I’d switched some details up, filled in images differently, forgotten some things and misremembered others.  So the book, in my head, was neither the “pure” experience, unfiltered by the knowledge of who would play certain roles, nor was it shaped as it would have been if I’d seen the film first.

The upshot of my enjoying the book so much has been nervousness about the film, despite a great desire to see it. With the book so fresh in my mind, is it even possible that I’ll like the movie? Or will I like the movie more for the pleasant associations it will have with a book I just finished enjoying not that long ago?

Movie adaptations, after all, have a very fine line to tread.  On the one hand, part of their marketing relies upon people who’ve either read the book or intended to; on the other, it’s certain that many people who see the film will have no experience with the book whatsover.  At once, you have to make a film that stands as a film while being true enough to the source material to please those who are trading off the name in the first place.  It’s very hard, and I’ve had both experiences as a moviegoer – adaptations that are loose, but enjoyable, and those that are faithful, but still miss an essential spark.

With any luck, I’ll be reviewing the film of Never Let Me Go in this space sometime soon.  But in the meantime, I’m examining my expectations a little more closely.  What do I want from the film, exactly? And knowing my expecations might be disappointed, can I buffer myself a bit?  Perhaps I’ll be happily surprised, in fact, and the whole thing will be moot.

It’s going to be a thoughtful movie (no explosions and no true macguffins, I’m sorry to say), but it does have a complex, quiet scifi aspect to it that, I expect, will be ignored by those who wish it to be a serious film.  It is a DRAMA, not science fiction, because it is a serious movie about serious things.

To this, I say, someday maybe people will realize that it can be both. And for this alone, I hope the film succeeds, even if in a quiet way.  Because a good movie is a good movie, regardless of what sort of trappings its plot relies upon.

Marlowe, First Person, and the Voiceover

I recently finished reading Farewell, My Lovely, the second Philip Marlowe novel. (The second one to be written, at least – there’s nothing in it that requires a reader to have any familiarity with The Big Sleep, the prior book.) I enjoy Chandler a lot, even if I’m a Hammett girl in my heart of hearts.

But one thing I think Chandler handles really skillfully is the nuance of first person narration. Sam Spade is described from without, but Marlowe unfolds slowly, subtly from within. “I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun. I put them on and went out of the room.” It sums up the classic private eye succinctly and vividly.

And his dry, self-deprecating narration is conversational, as if he’s telling you the story over drinks in a dark bar. Even in action scenes the tone remains: “He bent me. I can be bent. I’m not the City Hall. He bent me.”

This style became iconic, and I’ve seen its influence in Mickey Spillane’s Dead Street and Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files novels, for two examples off the top of my head. The narrator who’s not untrustworthy, per se, but whose perspective you learn to allow for is a clever device in thrillers that allows the reader to root for a protagonist who can vary from jerk with a heart of gold to anti-hero.

Between this tendency and the prevalence of private eye radio dramas in the early 20th century, it was perhaps inevitable that voiceover would become an iconic component of film noir. But I have a confession.

I’m not a fan of the voiceover, 9 times out of 10. Especially in private eye movies.

It can be done well, of course, and certain films are so perfect with it that it’s hard to imagine them without (Sunset Boulevard springs to mind). And when the narration occurs because the character is describing something to another within the film, I almost never object (Double Indemnity and Out of the Past, for a couple examples).

But I think Howard Hawks made an excellent decision not to use voiceover in The Big Sleep, tempting as it might have been. Marlowe’s voice is distinctive, but films aren’t about voice. Though sound is important, film remains a visual medium. We don’t need to learn about Marlowe through his own descriptions and asides. We can see what he does in front of us, without a filter. Adding his take is redundant.

This is not to say there’s no place for voiceover, ever. With a film like Detour, that seems to be checking off every box on the film noir checklist, the structure rests on the narration, and the accusatory “you” creates distance rather than complicity. (In a more complex film like Sunset Boulevard, it serves multiple purposes, and rises above being a narrative buttress of sorts.) It’s a tool, but it’s a tool that works better with context, most of the time.

And, for a modern viewer, a certain layer of self-awareness is necessary. Sin City could use voiceover, and in fact required it, because of its nature as a pastiche; it deliberately evoked the hardboiled crime stories of the past. Blade Runner, in its theatrical release, just felt a little clunky in tipping its hat to noir using the voiceover, without accomplishing much by doing so. (Though this is hardly the only reason most people seem to prefer the director’s cut.)

It feels a little pat to say “I don’t object to voiceover if you do it well.” But I think that the device undermines itself, in some ways, by trying to marry the devices of classic crime fiction to crime cinema. Now, of course, there’s a whole history of narration in film to riff on and play with (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, anyone?), and it can be clever.

But with your Marlowes and your Spades, they don’t have to tell us the story. They’re too busy living it. And the pleasure of watching them is more than enough.