Le bruit et la fureur

A great source novel, a fine director, a terrific cast and two very good writers so what could possibly have gone wrong? Something obviously did for at best Martin Ritt's film of William Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury" never rises above camp which is fine by me just so long as you don't expect anything more than a trashy piece of Southern Gothic.

This was a Jerry Wald production and was aimed at an adult audience or maybe just an adult American audience who took these shenanigans for granted, (its Deep South setting has always been a source of fascination). It's a family saga, (naturally), and set on some kind of plantation, (naturally), though perhaps the most interesting aspect is that the black servants are much more forward thinking than their white employers.

A miscast Yul Brynner, (with wig), is the head of the household; Joanne Woodward, (too old for the part she is playing), is the rebelious young girl whose mother, (Margaret Leighton), abandoned her as a baby but who has now returned to the fold; Ethel Waters is the 'Mammy' character, Jack Warden is the 'idiot' uncle, Francoise Rosay is Brynner's mother and Stuart Whitman, the carny with an eye on Woodward. With such a disparate cast you could say they are a very strange family. On the plus side it certainly looks good; Charles G Clarke shot it in Cinemascope and it is certainly lush. It might have been better if it had been even trashier; as it is it's somewhat po-faced. If you must have Faulkner go with "The Tarnished Angels" or even "The Long Hot Summer".

Watching this adaption of William Faulkner's The Sound And The Fury I can only wonder he must have thought of this abortion of his work. This film seems to have been influenced by Harold Robbins more than Faulkner.

For one thing the novel is a far better subject for a mini-series as it takes place over a couple of generations and is written from several points of view, not the straight linear narrative we get here. Secondly the novel was updated to present day meaning 1959 Mississippi. The civil rights era was on in Mississippi in 1959 and the attitudes expressed here would have been lost in 1959. The novel came out in the late Twenties and some of the action went back a generation earlier.

These Compsons are one dissolute bunch and the only one of the family holding them together is Yul Brynner as Jason because heaven forfend he realizes they're not rich any more and that big mansion has gas and electric bills that need paying. He actually works for a living. The hope of the family may be Joanne Woodward as Quentin who is the illegitimate daughter of the most dissolute of all the Compsons Margaret Leighton.

Leighton has been living away from the family and the genteel Mississippi folks she's been brought up with because of her disgrace with Woodward's birth. But she comes back and that sets off a whole chain of events that causes everyone to reevaluate how things are going for the Compsons.

Ethel Waters did her last role in The Sound And The Fury as the family maid. Her family even in the servile position that blacks had in Mississippi in those days is still stronger than the Compsons even Yul Brynner. Too bad no musical number got worked into the script for her.

The cast is a superbly talented one and they do their best with a hard to recognize Faulkner work, but the film as a whole comes up way short.

This is "based on" William Faulkner's classic novel, The Sound and The Fury. If you were wondering how they managed to get the nifty incomprehensible narrative onto the big screen...they didn't, instead opting for all the clichés of the Steamy South.

Of the two Quentins in the novel, the filmmakers decided to do away with male Quentin and instead focus on Caddy's illegitimate daughter. This did not upset me as much as it does some fans of the novel- all Quentin really does is lust after his sister. The scene in which the incestuous desire is most apparent is transposed to the big scene, except it's girl Quentin (Joanne Woodward) being forced to say her sleazy travelling circus artist's name by her "uncle" Jason (Yul Brynner).

In this film, the novel is re-done as Quentin's coming-of-age. Jason is now adopted rather than being her blood uncle so the writers can have their cake and eat it. Quentin is Jason's only hope to save his adopted family's good name: his adopted sister Caddy (Margaret Leighton)is an ageing nympho; one brother is an alcoholic; and the other one, Benjy, is a mentally-retarded mute. The parents were no good either.

It's almost a parody of Southern Literature: nymphos, lushes, incest, lust, and it's quite entertaining on this level. However, the casting choices were poor. Joanne Woodward has a lovely Southern accent but she was pushing thirty when she played seventeen-year-old Quentin, making her look more like an idiotic woman rather than a schoolgirl (although this family are a bunch of misfits). Yul Brynner does not exactly come to mind when you think of a Southern brute but he is suitably brutish and sensual. Jason in the book was hardly sensual but the film-makers need their romance.

Margaret Leighton isn't that bad as Caddy. It's not clear why her brothers would be so infatuated with her but she fills the role of decadent mother quite well.

Whoever is playing the travelling circus man is risible, as is the person who wrote the dialogue. We get a bunch of clichés, pseudo-meaningful lines and illogical flirtation. It all looks like somebody filmed a dud Tennessee Williams play.

If you're looking to punish a student too lazy to read the novel, please show them this film. Unless you desperately need your fix of steamy Southern melodrama, I would return to Tennessee Williams. Poor William Faulkner must have got a bit of a shock when he saw this.

I came across this movie one afternoon on the FOX channel. There seemed to be well known and respected actors and actresses in it, so I decided to watch it. I was a bit disappointed in the development of the plot. There were times when I was confused as the movie went from one scene to another; from one character to another. I was left scurrying to figure out who was who and what their part was in the overall plot. I also felt that the movie moved a bit slow. A few times I actually became a little bit bored. Yul Brenner played his deep dark part to a "T". Joanne Woodward's character was a little bit ditsy for me, and I was surprised to find on this website that she was 29 years old when she made this movie. Kind of old to be playing a "school girl" who had to go to summer school. That part was not believable to me at all. She did look much younger than her 29 years but not that much. I wished that they had developed Quentin's (Joanne Woodward) relationship with her mother a bit earlier, since the character she played in the movie was affected by the absence of her mother while she was growing up. The ending was good, and I am glad that Quentin learned a very important life lesson about men and love at an early age. A lot of woman do not learn that lesson until it is too, too late. I was also glad to see in the last moments of the movie that Jason (Yul Brenner) was more softhearted than I had thought when he gave Quentin what was due her.

OK...this is one of the WORST adaptations of all time. For those who say "it's BETTER than the original novel"...are you MAD!!! Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury" is one the the greatest American novels ever written (just because it can't be read by someone with a 5th grade education doesn't mean it isn't any good). The only thing this film has in common with the novel is the title and the names of the characters. Overall...it it dreadful, and fans of the novel are encouraged to stay away from it.

Oh...and who's brilliant idea was it to cast Yul Brenner as Jason. UGH!