wsanders

You must be patient to appreciate the greatness in this film. It's long, but portions of it are as majestic as any film even made, there is some astonishing camera work, and, yes, some of it is trademark Tarkovsky, ponderous and with seemingly superfluous imagery and dialogue.

I like "Solaris" more (in fact is one of my favorites), if only because the bafflement of the characters in "Solaris" at the alien presence is more perfectly matched in that film to Tarkovsky's often baffling style. But if "Roublev" is your favorite movie, I'm not going to argue with you. Roublev's, his brethren filmmakers', and, occasionally our own, struggle to create great things speaks powerfully from this film.

I couldn't help recognizing all the parallels in style between OT and "The Pianist", almost as if the "The Pianist" was the grownup version of the same story, using the same sets and crew. Dickens was witness to England's own holocaust; young children were routinely hanged for trivial crimes, and eventually the English got fed up and simply began transporting them to Australia. Dickens took no small part in these reforms.

For Dickens fanboys, the movie might be a travesty, but all adaptations are travesties, ask any author except those writing with selling their book to Hollywood in mind. The conventions of the time forced Dickens to tell his story in a different way, with plenty of space for diversions and side plots. Were Dickens around now, think of a combination of Garrison Keillor and Bono, I think he'd reluctantly approve, with the same reservations as any author would on seeing their baby stripped down and pimped up for Hollywood. But Polanski's treatment (and Ben Kingsley's funny and tragic Fagin) preserves the humor, tragedy, brutality, and call for reform in proportion to the novel. his is not Masterpiece Theatre, with 12 hours of screen time, you can only cram part of the story and characters into a two hour picture. This is a tribute to the core of the story, viewed though the eyes of one who has witnessed a Holocaust of even greater magnitude. I consider it a faithful adaptation.

What, exactly, went horribly awry in this film? Was it the hideously inappropriate corporate product placement? Was it the studious solemnity of Tom Hank's performance, and the resulting uncomfortable laughter at dental procedures and love for volleyball? The sheer obviousness of the film's attempts to grab at our heartstrings? Was the ending much admired in France? The whole caboodle looked great "on paper" I am sure. Robinson Crusoe! Rip van Winkle! Tom Hanks! Somewhere, in committee, were the makings of something that looked fine, yet, in its execution, went terribly wrong. No discredit to Broyles or Hanks, but the rest is left at as an exercise for film students and fans - excellent fodder for - what the heck happened with this? Like a fine wine, corked.