March 24, 2006
tristram shandy (a cock and bulll story)
The easy delights of Tristram Shandy float mostly in the metacinematic, as when actor Rob Brydon, pondering his fate as a not-leading man, proposes to identify the color of his rotting British teeth "Tuscan Sunset," or the unremarked-upon casting of absurdly handsome Jeremy Northam to stand in for director Michael ("Mark") Winterbottom.
Despite the addition of a metacinematic layer (or, perhaps, given the nature of the book, one ought say supermetacinematic), the flick flits by in at what seeems like about an hour. This feels like an impossibility, though not one lingered over; what's most appealing in this version of Tristram Shandy is neither its imbrication nor slightness, but the insouciance with which it stages both — as if to be an affect guide for making unfilmable films. What next: the HBO Neuromancer? Gravity's Rainbow in the form of a trailer?
Posted by jane at March 24, 2006 06:18 PM | TrackBack