The Sound and the Fury

Filming ordinary books is easy; it's the stuff of the film business. Filming one of the greatest English language novels of the 20th century is really hard. Really hard.

The script is a worthy and very creditable effort which makes concessions to film and audience comprehensions; something Faulkner flouted when he forced readers to deal with the opening sixty pages of this remarkable book.

The telling is true enough, it keeps to the thread of the stories; the compromises between book and film are understandable; the portrayals are strong and the director has Faulkner's echo to work with. It is a solid entry to the book and no doubt it will be the thing students use instead of reading it.

The question is whether it works in its own right and that is more problematic because if one comes to the film via the book the comparisons are interminable. If a viewer sees it as is they could quibble with its purpose and narrative, still atypical, especially in these conventional times.

The essential quality of Faulkner's prose is effaced; it has to be as the camera replaces the text, and that is a huge loss for multifarious reasons, in particular the extreme subjectivity which must be diluted through the objective lens.

Even so, the film is admirable for its talent and effort; nor does it waste the viewer's attention.

This movie was a complete waste of time. This movie keeps on repeating itself throughout its entirety. He should whether he believes in god or not pray for forgiveness for this piece of garbage. If I had to hear "She smells like the trees." or some crap like that one last time I would have went full mental just like Franco did in the movie.

I watched this movie today in a blizzard mainly because it was a classic novel and because James Franco was in it. I never read it so I had no idea what I was in for. Right from the beginning I had a feeling of doom looming over this family. While I will admit it was very confusing there was an undercurrent that consistently led me to believe something terrible was about to happen. The score of the film took one even deeper into this morose feeling. When it was over I actually felt ill and had a raging headache. Now I must read this novel. I feel this alone makes this film earn a ten star rating.

I feel Mr Franco was successful in allowing you to peer into the subconscious of the characters and let your mind fill in the fine details. I suppose this is the way it was written. This film took me someplace I did not want to be but I could not turn away. I found it fascinating and am looking forward to reading the book.

I was surprised by the low reviews of this movie by the critics. Once I got into it, I was drawn in by the various characters. This movie is worth watching.

I watched this on netflix, expecting it to be ridiculous. It turned out to be a credit to Franco's seriousness and ambition. The tone was right, the pacing was right, the visual language was right, and I thought three of the principle characterizations were fantastic (Jason III, Quentin the son, and Jason IV). Actually I liked the Dalton Ames and Cady and Luster. And the Mother too. Anyway, I accepted from the beginning that a movie adaptation of TSTF is a huge challenge - it's a book I know pretty well, and I imagine anyone who sees this movie without having read TSTF a few times would wonder WTF? So hats off to James Franco. He's such a hottie that I don't think people give him credit for serious work. Here's it's deserved.