Good Will Hunting And The Silly Way That New Fiction Ties Up So
Dave Koch (dkoch@sas.upenn.edu)
Mon, 05 Jan 1998 09:07:52 -0400
Hello Everyone --
Someone recently wrote in about a perceived similarity between the new
movie Good Will Hunting and Catcher. First, I didn't like the movie at all
and, to be honest, see no similarity whatsoever, but to each his own and
all of that (I'm interested to see how everyone here sides on this matter,
too). But the movie(ok, before I go on with this, I might as well come out
and say it: I absolutely hated the movie; I thought it was awful) got be
thinking about JDS, though not in the way the original poster was referring
to.
In the movie, as with much fiction writing today, everything-and here I
mean to say every single thing--raps up in the end so entirely that it's
literally painful to watch. My friend who watched it with me complained
that there was an "economy of words" meaning that nothing at all was said
for the sake of the saying -- everything had to connect in the end in an
'isn't that cute' sort of way that makes fiction entirely unenjoyable. And
this, of course, is entirely the opposite of what goes on in JDS's fiction.
Why has the esthetic shifted to nice, neatly worked out happy endings all
the time. Stories aren't stories anymore -- they're paint by numbers
annoying pieces of sugary-sweet crap. (Did anyone else read the cover
article of yesterday's NYT Book Review? I think it's related somehow, but
I'm not quite sure why.)
Another thing that annoyed the hell out of me was the dedication to
Ginsberg. The audacity it takes for an up and coming screen writer to
produces this crap and then think he's done something worthy of dedicating
to the memory of Ginsberg amazes me.
All for now -- Dave