Re: Who wrote Holden Caulfield
Pasha Paterson (gpaterso@richmond.edu)
Sun, 01 Nov 1998 22:35:47 -0500
I can't believe anyone could be so incensed about the recent movie
rendition of Romeo and Juliet, going so far as to call it "not
Shakespeare"! A fellow student and I followed the movie through
Shakespeare's script and found that the only differences were caused
by the time limit imposed by modern movie convention. The morph from
16th to 21st century was absolutely inspired. I couldn't keep my
mouth closed any more than I could keep my eyeballs in my head. My
only complaint was of diCaprio as a slightly girly Romeo. At times
he sounded like a schoolgirl, especially in his opening ravings on the
beach, IMHO.
I strongly agree that anything that inspires people to read good
literature like the R+J movie should be encouraged. I wish the same
people who transformed R+J would do a similar rendition of MacBeth.
I even tried to do that very thing as a short story, but I botched it.
While Green Day's Salinger reference is pretty vague, I guess that if
it inspires people to read TCIR, it's worthwhile.
__________________________________________________________________________
At 14:17 11/01/98 +1100, Camille wrote:
>
>> >I haven't heard it, but I don't think that I would want to.
>> -Liz Friedman
>
>Why on earth not ??? This reminds me of an argument I had last year with
>Marion Potts, the head of education at Sydney Theatre Company and her Ned
>boyfriend, who is also a drama teacher. We were talking about Romeo+Juliet,
>the then-recent movie. Marion said `It's ridiculous, it's not Shakespeare,
>kids are coming out of it saying `Why did everyone talk so funny?' Ned and
>I were quite to the contrary: we had both personally observed fifteen year
>old girls putting down their Baby Sitters Club books and taking the
>Complete Shakespeare with them to read in bed!
>
>My point is - *anything* that can enlighten, lead a path into or otherwise
>entice anyone to read a fine piece of literature and enjoy it - even a
>really bad cable adaptation, even the Classics Illustrated comic book
>version - is worth it. There's absolutely no reason to be snobbish about
>it. Apart from anything, it actually is a good song and in a lot of ways
>the spirit of Punk is more close to the spirit of Holden than anything
>else. The guys from Green Day loved the book and loved Holden - why
>shouldn't they proclaim this and even make one kid read the book when they
>otherwise wouldn't have?
________________________________________________________
G.H.G.A.Paterson (804)662-3737 gpaterso@richmond.edu
________________________________________________________