XDA

Went with Sheila to Tristram Shandy etc. playing at the Esquire and had a good time. The trailers for this somewhat old movie (2005) tout it as a move of the unfilmable book (very early--1760--serialized novel by Laurence Sterne) of the same name, but not the same subtitle. My observation is of course you could film it. There it is. The question is why would you want to? I have forgotten whole sections of the book which I read 30 some years ago, and I didn't actually like it all that much then. The lead actor (Steve Coogan) says into the camera that it is the first post-modern novel except that it was long before any modern period to come after. Let's just say the novel is sui generis and not everyone's cup of tea. Pretty much the same for the movie, but...

Like I say, I had a good time watching it. The director is Michael Winterbottom who did the great 24 Hour Party People. It's pretty much in the same style with the same actor talking into the camera, and the same hit or miss sense of humor. The book is labeled a comic novel but that's not how I remember it. The movie, on the other hand is very funny in places--the womb shots and the hot chestnut down the pants being the best bits (although the seductive Naomi Harris talking about the greater significance of the battle scenes of Lancelot du Lac by Robert Bresson and anything significant about Rainer Werner Fassbinder movies was pretty darn funny too-- Angst Essen Seele Auf my ass). This is a film about making a film (like Day for Night) and it has the easy camaraderie all good British movies seem to have lately. The upshot of the making a movie about making a movie is that it captured, I think, the experimental, even playful nature of Sterne (who was admittedly before his time) better, far better than a straight page by page adaptation.

Steve Coogan is great--he reveals more of himself than I have seen any actor do in a long time and it's not always a pretty picture. Vain, petty, self absorbed, foolish, and those are his good characteristics. He does redeem himself with a brief scene with his girlfriend's baby, his son. He comforts and changes the crying baby and then sings 'My Bonnie lies over the ocean' to him until he goes back to sleep. As he said of the father of Tristram, Walter Shandy, two seconds shown holding the child will make up for everything else he did; and it's true.

I liked the actress, Shirley Henderson, playing the actress playing the servant Susannah. Most people will remember her as Moaning Myrtle in the Harry Potter films, but I liked her best as the alcoholic light Opera singer (Leonora Braham--Yum Yum) in the movie about Gilbert & Sullivan, Topsy-Turvy, which is a must see. After you've seen her in that, the, uh, distinctive voice she has sounds pure sex, at least it does to me. I don't react to it exactly like Pavlov's dog (which is actually shown in the movie), but something like it.

I also have to apologize to Sheila for telling her that the Siege of Namur took place during the War of the Spanish Succession (which turns out to have been waged 1701 to 1714). It certainly was not; the siege Uncle Toby could never get over occurred in 1695 during the 9 Years War, also known as the War of the Grand Alliance and the War of the English Succession (among others). Sorry for the misinformation; it took me a while to put my finger on it.