The Sheltering Sky (Bertolucci, 1990)

[John Cope]

Thank you very much, Mr. Hare, I'm now using one of these as my desktop background.

On another note, and now that you've brought this wonderful movie to my attention again, what ever became of the documentary that was shot during the film's production? It included interviews with Bertolucci as well as Bowles (in which he, apparently, voiced his doubts about the whole enterprise). I can't recall the title off hand but I do seem to remember that it was separately released somewhere. Annoyingly, it's not on any of the DVDs.

[Lino]

It's called Desert Rose, I believe and it's to be found on the second disc of that wonderful french edition.

[leo goldsmith]

Am I correct in assuming that you all like this film? I haven't seen it in a while, but every time I read the book I revisit the film and am surprised at how bad it is. A shame, because I always suspected that Timothy Spall was created in a lab to play Eric Lyle.

Maybe it's time for another look. So, not to discuss film or anything, but why do you like it?

[htdm]

Are the French subtitles forced (for both discs)?

[Faux Hulot]

Am I correct in assuming that you all like this film? I haven't seen it in a while, but every time I read the book I revisit the film and am surprised at how bad it is.

Thanks for confirming my suspicions, Leo. I absolutely adore Bowles, and I've never read any assessment by anyone who appreciates his work that leads me think I'd feel any differently about it than you do. I too am very curious to know what people here liked about it.

[kinjitsu]

Am I correct in assuming that you all like this film? I haven't seen it in a while, but every time I read the book I revisit the film and am surprised at how bad it is.

Thanks for confirming my suspicions, Leo. I absolutely adore Bowles, and I've never read any assessment by anyone who appreciates his work that leads me think I'd feel any differently about it than you do. I too am very curious to know what people here liked about it.

Maybe revisiting this film with an open mind and fresh eyes might help you enjoy the fine qualities of this rather stunning film... There is much to admire beyond Storaro's extraordinary cinematography, which captures more than just the physical ambiance of time and place, and both Winger and Malkovich are in fine form here, as is Scott. Having read much of Bowles' work, I can appreciate his view that his book is unfilmable, however, a novel and its film adaptation are entirely different creatures, so I have to disagree with him on that point. My biggest (and perhaps only caveat) is that Bowles' voice-over narration is not present throughout which lent a poetic element to the opening and closing sequences.

[skuhn8]

I love this film too. And love the book...and do well by not making any connection between the two. Well put: two different creatures. I've read the book twice and seen the film about three times...and always years apart as I don't want either fresh in my mind when approaching it's "mate". Stunning cinematography, beautiful languid pace. I get the impression that Minghella studied this one closely when directing the English patient. Such a gentle approach to the mystical, a sensitive treading upon life and living, dying and death. And reinventing the self almost totally without language--verbal that is--but with glances, poses, those eyes like Falconetti's. On and on and on. Yup. love this one.

[leo goldsmith]

Maybe revisiting this film with an open mind and fresh eyes might help you enjoy the fine qualities of this rather stunning film...

The film is no doubt beautifully shot (but then I bet Storaro's work on Exorcist: The Beginning is pretty hot, too).

Anyway, I remain skeptical, but maybe I'll give it another shot. The usual book vs. movie debates don't usually bother me (even with similarly "unfilmable" books like Catch-22), but perhaps I'm too swayed by my love of the book in this case. I'll put it on my (nonexistent) list of films to see, somewhere below Crash and (the other) Crash.

[leo goldsmith]

Yes. Trying to draw comparisons between book and film is always pointless. And in this case it's almost as absurd as comparing, say Burrough's Naked Lunch with Cronenberg's adaptation (which is excellent.)

Well, this is clearly not at all true -- one of the great pleasures of loving both a book and its film adaptation is watching the dialogue that is enacted between them (Naked Lunch is a good example, as is Time Regained, The Thin Red Line, and so on).

But I take your point, and your appreciation for Bertolucci's film is intriguing. I just wonder why yours are the first positive responses I've ever heard about this film. Still, I'm happy to see cracks in the consensus (even if I'm iffy on BB's films, excepting Luna).

[Faux Hulot]

Maybe revisiting this film with an open mind and fresh eyes might help you enjoy the fine qualities of this rather stunning film...

My mind is plenty open, thank you very much; I have, however, never actually never seen the film. Like Leo, I was looking for comments as to why people here liked it, as most of the reviews and comments I've read were not at all positive (particularly from those who know Bowles). Thanks for your input.

Trying to draw comparisons between book and film is always pointless. And in this case it's almost as absurd as comparing, say Burrough's Naked Lunch with Cronenberg's adaptation (which is excellent.)

I agree, and part of what I appreciate about Cronenberg's Lunch is his not even attempting to literally adaptating the unfilmable, opting instead for something equally imaginative that triangulates adaptation, biography, and essay.

Apart from the alarmingly diminishing quality of Bertolucci's output over the years, part of what always filled me with trepidation about Sky were the numerous accounts I've read that suggested the director made hash of Bowles' overall tone, which in the novel of Sky (and for that matter, all of his work) is inseparable from content. Even worse were reports of an new ending that trashed the meaning of the original text.

I've always sided with Dashiell Hammett in regards to film adaptations from books: when asked by a reporter how he felt about what Hollywood had done to his books, he replied with a shrug, "What do you mean? They're all still there on the shelf." But personally I prefer to see it taken even further, at least as far as Peter Greenaway when he rails against literary adaptations as being vestiges of 19th century thinking, and the film of Sky always appeared to be nothing more than yet another literal-minded book-to-film translation, which frankly I find simply dull over other sins. I guess I should just get around to watching the damned thing, and shutting my mouth in the meantime.

[Gordon]

There's a story to be told. It is told with text. It is re-presented, elaborated or 'riffed' visually/musically in the film adaptation. Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake have been filmed - that always staggers me. I have not seen either, but Joyce wanted to see both made into films, especially Ulysses, and the film version is said to be more successful than the Finnegan's Wake film, which is hardly surprising, what with the latter being the epitome of 'complex fiction'. Both should be adapted again for the screen in the coming years, I feel. Screenwriter Tadeusz Kwiatkowski and director Wojciech Has's 1965 film of Count Jan Nepomucen Potocki's, The Manuscript Found in Saragossa is one of the great triumphs of film adaptation, I feel; it was a story written (unknowing, obviously!) to be filmed one day and the execution is sublime. I love the book and film with equal passion.

I have not read or seen The Sheltering Sky. I almost rented the UK edition, but I believe that it's 1.33:1 - can anyone confirm this? I may have to buy the R1. I feel that one should everything Storaro ever shot, frankly.

[Galen Young]

The subs are optional on both discs.

Thanks for the info -- that's fantastic! I'm ordering this tonight! Love this film and the book, the differences between the two doesn't bother me one bit. Saw it in the theatre several times when it was released, the first time was while on acid. (hard to forget that) The Timothy Spall character gave me nightmares for weeks after...

[HerrSchreck]

I can certainly understand both sides of this adaptation argument. Proponents of the FILM side of the argument are missing the fact that many folks go to see films of famous books because they want to see A Film Of That Famous Book. When they don't get what's advertised they feel a little pissed off, a little like they've been lied to... one fair technique I'd say is the strategy used when the narrative is obliterated in a less than faithful adaptation, which is simple: not using the original title a la BLADE RUNNER ("Do Androids Dream...") or EYES WIDE SHUT ("Traumnov.."), so this way the liberties taken do not result in angered literary fanatics and furious writers... like August LeBreton flumping down in front of Jules Dassin pulling a fucking pistol coming on with "God dammit where is my book.. ferchrissakes..?" Dassin, one of my favorite directors of all time, was notorious for this sort of author-abuse.

If you go to an advertized performance of Beethoven's 9th, and some innovative, fabulous new musical director/conductor with fashionably messed up hair & permanent 3-day stubble busts out his own compositions with a few figures from the 9th thrown in, patrons should be rightly pissed, and it causes them to pass right over via a bad mood & thus nonreceptive disposition what might be a genuinely fantastic piece of new music. If you went to a public reading of a classic literary work and it wasn't what was promised at all but some original work-- or a stage performance of HAMLET.. and some ambitious playwright gutted the thing with his own rank embellishments to the Bard without informing the audience beforehand that this wouldn't be Straight Classics... the audience paying cash is not going to want to hear some artsy smartass telling them about Grow Up Awready-- they paid cash for an advertized entertainment with a label on it. Not wanting smoked oysters with your chocolate ice cream does not make you blank to Art Nuance... it makes you a normal paying consumer in an Expensive World. Label the thing already whyncha? Happy surprises aside, there's a time for enjoying PreExisting Classics, and there's a time to see Original New Work By Imaginative Young Bucks. Not wanting the more presumptuous of the latter to fuck with the former Without Telling Folks Beforehand van cultivate steam blasts outa the ears. Frankly from the standpoint of a writer (actors & directors already reaping the lion's share of cash and public adulation for the 'creation' of a world in many cases already fully imagined & realized by the screenwriter) I find the abuse of novels in this fashion--that is, without retitling those films which revamp the entire entity-- sickening. What makes it worse is that a bad film can tank a good novel, and oftentimes regardless of the merit of the film, once people see the film they feel they 'know' the story and therefore skip the book. I was so high on Bill Burroughs when LUNCH came out (it remains in my top 3 novels), I was a little baffled as to what the flick would consist of but was nontheless excited-- and went to see it twice in the cinema, the second time because I fell asleep the first time. I've not seen it since then, obviously need to go see it again with a less defensive mind.

We look today at MIDNIGHT COWBOY as one of the most sublime pieces of art on the face of the earth. Myself included. But guess what? It's all
right there in the Herlihy novel (I'm such a maniac for the film, some years ago my girlfreind paid a pretty penny for a rare first edition hardcover). The beauty, the exuberant sadness of loneliness, the poignancy of the friendship between the two men, the details of the voyage including the Texas backstory w Crazy Annie. But where is the novel (aside from in antisceptic plastic guarded by pythons & furious scorpions in my top drawer)?

There are some incredible adaptations which make a movie out of the novel written by the author: CLOCKWORK ORANGE, DRUGSTORE COWBOY are two examples. If the studio/director do not think they can make a film out of the book they want to make a film out of, they should not mislead the public by keeping the title of the book they cannot make a film out of: they should have the integrity of Kubrick or Scott viz EYES or B RUNNER, and change the title for this new animal, while retaining 'based on...' in the promo material.

That said I have not seen THE SHELTERING SKY... don't laugh; I just feel very passionately about this subject (really?).

[skuhn8]

I can certainly understand both sides of this adaptation argument. Proponents of the FILM side of the argument are missing the fact that many folks go to see films of famous books because they want to see A Film Of That Famous Book. When they don't get what's advertised they feel a little pissed off, a little like they've been lied to... .

I don't think we're "missing the fact". It's more of a matter of: hey, if you don't know the difference between a book and a film that's your tough luck. You're analogy with Beethoven's 9th is inappropriate because Beethoven's 9th is Beethoven's 9th. There may be slight variations in tempo and in size of the orchestra but it's a complete work of art much as a reissue of a novel may change the font and cover but it's going to be the same. I used to look forward to seeing films of my favority novels and then leaving the cinema descrying: "The book is MUCH better." I stopped that when I was about 20, when I began to recognize the difference between film and movies.

But then: As for title, yes, I think you have something there. The director himself should really see the benefit to his own work's autonomous integrity...but then producers love a marketing tie-in if it's a hot property.

[Galen Young]

...performance of Beethoven's 9th, and some innovative, fabulous new musical director/conductor...

Do you count Wendy Carlo's performance of the Ninth on A Clockwork Orange in your diatribe?

That said I have not seen THE SHELTERING SKY... don't laugh; I just feel very passionately about this subject (really?).

Well, then you ought to see the film and then decide for yourself! (then I'll stop laughing)

Literature and cinema are such completely different mediums, experienced in completely different ways. (active and passive, respectively. duh, I know....) A novel that I happen to love that one day finds itself made into a film -- no way is the screenwriter/director ever going to translate it same way that I did in my mind's eye. Never! Not even how the dialogue is inflected! If I judged every novel to film adaptation by this ridiculous standard, then every single one of them would suck.

My pleasure of seeing a novel turned into a film is seeing how another human translates what I saw into what they saw. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. C'est la vie. I don't understand all this hand wringing trauma about the wanton mutilation of, oh so sacred text. I guess you could always cry into your pillow about it, or, just pick up the damn book and read it again, creating that very personal movie of it in your mind...(that's what I do!)

[HerrSchreck]

I can certainly understand both sides of this adaptation argument. Proponents of the FILM side of the argument are missing the fact that many folks go to see films of famous books because they want to see A Film Of That Famous Book. When they don't get what's advertised they feel a little pissed off, a little like they've been lied to... .

I don't think we're "missing the fact". It's more of a matter of: hey, if you don't know the difference between a book and a film that's your tough luck. You're analogy with Beethoven's 9th is inappropriate because Beethoven's 9th is Beethoven's 9th. There may be slight variations in tempo and in size of the orchestra but it's a complete work of art much as a reissue of a novel may change the font and cover but it's going to be the same. I used to look forward to seeing films of my favority novels and then leaving the cinema descrying: "The book is MUCH better." I stopped that when I was about 20, when I began to recognize the difference between film and movies.

But then: As for title, yes, I think you have something there. The director himself should really see the benefit to his own work's autonomous integrity...but then producers love a marketing tie-in if it's a hot property.

This is a retarded post. Why in hell do you see the 9th as a closed finite circle yet literature as available to rape while maintaining the same title? A finished piece of art is a finished piece of art. If I steal Munch's best-known version of SCREAM and razor the head out & replace it with a really bad portrait of you, then advertize it as THE SCREAM, folks is gonna have knotty prostates having a Real Bad Time paying tickets for that sucker when they hear I brought it to town and see that it's you.

Your misty eyed magic permissiveness, attributable because you get all moist in the dry goods applying a capital F to the word film as though there's a soft metaphysical riddle in there you applied peristalsis to beyond the age of 20, that content-labels are not supposed to mean anything... simply because this is "Film" (breathy swoop into the room with a cape holding chardonnay)... it's rediculous.

My singular point is, once again: if it aint what you say it is, don't be a dork saying it is nontheless. The we all get a bad time setting Hungarians against Americans. Just because you take a steak outa the restaurant and put it in a photograph don't mean you can put it inna poultry-photo exhibition... or some other retardo example trying to quantify the permission this citizen is granting because it's leaving one Zone (lit) and migrating to another (film).

My beef applies primarily to those cases, incidentally, where the author sold the rights thinking One Thing was gonna be made... then went to the theater & nearly fainted (along w the audience in most cases) seeing that behind his back was produced Another Thing Entirely... thereby bouncing a potentially nice book inta the market septic tank by default with their tissue of studio drek. If a writer actively takes part in the project (as Burroughs did w NL) then-- if the movie sucks so bad that the audience turns their back on him-- he is just as responsible. At least his career and work is in his own hands, and he shares responsibility for any audience disappointment if the film is pure smut.

[skuhn8]

no, yours is a retarded post--nuh nuh nuh NUH! [insert big wet strawberry sound with spattering chardonnay]

Pipe down shrek and have a glass of my chardonnay! I loved the imagery in your post meant to visualize my pretentiousness. Whatever. Until I was 20 I viewed movies as throwaway entertainment that occasionally dabbled and inevitably failed to reach "higher art" by adapting famous books. I didn't put much into it and got little out of it. About that time I saw film as an art form in itself. That's all I'm saying.

So, all said and done, you're really stuck on the issue of title, then? So if Sheltering Sky were called "Life Sucks in the Desert" or something, it would be more appropriate (not that particular sucky title of course, but in general)? Makes sense, but I still don't understand why people go into a cinema expecting their fav book to be faithfully handled; this, after the past 90 years or so of screen adaptations have been pretty clear on the matter that yes, they're going to cut off that head on Scream (great flick by the way!)

And what's the Hungarian American thing you got going in there? I didn't understand the sentence. Is there a word or two missing? Just curious.

I don't really see how I set you off. I thought you raised a good point (or more) and thought I indicated so.

[skuhn8]

< another retarded post>
oh yeah, reminds me that that's where Sting got the words for The Police's "Tea in the Sahara". I'm surprised that people don't like Stealing Beauty or The Dreamers. Perhaps they don't compare to his greatest, but I think their still lovely films. Stealing Beauty is one of my "this damn Hungarian winter makes me want to kill myself" remedies.
</another retarded post>

[HerrSchreck]

Hey now, using lines outa nowhere like "it's your tough luck" would indicate a certain amount of swaggery strut in your first come-on... I dunno whats the problem w a little carbonated sarcasm, ultimately to a post which began with me saying I understand both sides of the issue. The next poster said my post was a rant... then tried to fit me in a box where I theoretically have a problem with people creating within the tradition of molding variations on existing themes i e Wendy Carlos.

I am talking about advertising, labelling your product-- with freighted, classic titles which very sharp, smart studios use because they know they are going to get loads of folks (not like you and I) to jump outa their seats and run to see their favorite tales TOLD-- saying you are doing One Thing yet in reality Doing Quite Another. To help you think what I mean think of going to a supermarket for a specific product with limited funds, or even to the Old Vic to see your most beloved play.

I specify "folks not like you & I" because these are the vast bulk of ticketbuyers, simpletons who do not even know what a grip or a dolly is, are not sensitive to lighting, mise-en-scene... do not regard film as we do: they hear a favorite book is going to be made and they run to the cinema because they want to see the story made. These are the people who are the vast financial support of any writer or artist today. Capturing & holding their attention during precious Shots At The Big Time is any 'name's' bread & butter. Getting it sunk by meddling, p.c.-fearful execs is all too frequent...

Finding refuge (as the above poster) in the ether of existentialist wheedling of dialog-vapor is silly-- why bother labelling anything at all since there are citizen-by-citizen variations in cerebral processing of dialog(!). Is the soft swim thru dialog ambiguity so morphiney & deep that one cannot define a plot any longer? Where does the line reside therefore? Call anything anything? What if you tell the public you're doing HAMLET-- and it's a flick about a chicken farmer who pumices the warts on his ass with a cinderblock? Will irritated folks demanding their money back be ignorant?

Most of the decisions I'm talking about are made (revamping novels but keeping the title for money purposes) are made by studio heads who have Final Cut on the film and in their infinite wisdom don't think certain plots will 'work' and they "fix" wonderful stories that could work well on film, be easily made by the director, and please the audience... fix them right into box office disaster. Few writers are as "fortunate" as the infuriated pistol-pulling LeBreton who have craftsmen like Dassin create a masterpiece out of a novel's single set piece. I daresay a vast bulk of these changes, particularly nowadays, are made against the directors wishes. And most novelsts find it so hard to survive nowadays that they find it difficult to turn down a rights offer from a big studio, but in most cases are not involved in the adaptation screenwriting process, and have heart attacks in the cinema when they see the horrid deep-fry that was done behind their back... making their book dead-by-association because the title, in the ingorant public's mind, is not only the movie but the book as well.

You can point to a cinematic history of unfaithful adaptations... i e those titles which have been warped with the title retained. That doesn't take into account the probably greater number of books that had films by another name based on them. In these difficult & often painful cases of a bad film I'd love to see consistent usage of new titles while retaining the "Based on the book ____ by ___". That's integrity, and I salute those studios that have that kind of discipline.

On the other hand even if the film is mediocre, the book can get a bounce in sales that it would not have gotten before. And of course there are horrible books that get their rights picked up & changed into something nice. It's a complicated issue-- like I said I see both sides-- but generally writers, and books, get the smelly end of the stick all too often in the film biz.

[Dylan]

"The Dreamers" and "Stealing Beauty" are both neat films. I don't think "The Sheltering Sky" is in the same league as most of his others. It's a noble failure, at best.

Vittorio Storaro's cinematography is spectacular. But halfway through this film, no matter how good it looked, I was impatiently waiting for it to end. In my opinion, it's full of weak delivery of dialogue, meandering exploration of culture, and boring melodrama. It felt like a very beautifully shot and directed Lifetime movie.

I will certainly give it another shot someday though via the French R2 (whenever I can afford to buy a film I don't particularly care for, solely for the extras since the film involved the talents of so many people I admire). Meanwhile, I don't remember the R1 being terrible, but it wasn't as luminous as your captures..

[skuhn8]

Yes, definitely watch it again. I don't see how you can put this in the same league as Little Buddha. Seriously. Good to see someone championing Stealing Beauty and Dreamers, but it's hard to miss the strength of Sheltering Sky. I'm watching it now as a matter of fact (intermission). Beautiful. And I don't see any weak dialogue delivery here, unlike Buddha with the Keanu Reeves/Chris Isaak Actor's Studio Power Duo.

[Dylan]

Well, it's definitely better than "Little Buddha" (which still had some great cinematography, of course), but a lot of "Sheltering" seemed 'off' when I watched it...but to be fair, there was a lot of it 'on' as well. I do hope to watch it again soon.

[HerrSchreck]

Hah! A worthwhile discussion. (Sound of an egg timer dinging)

I could savage my own Lord High Emperor Murnau and-- seperately, German Expressionism (a medium FW was not, in truth, all that gigantic a direct part of)-- owing to the key contributions of One Uncelebrated Man. Read the screenplay for SUNRISE, for example. Everything-- all the camera movements, all the collagelike superimpositions, the symbolic closeups of heels in mud... Murnau was basically reproducing very specific visualizations & story very clearly delineated by Carl Mayer's script. The movie originated entirely-- script, camera, mise en scene-- in this most fabulous of screenwriter's brain, and in the precise form seen onscreen.

[John Cope]

A quick question: isn't there also a Bertolucci commentary on the French disc? Is it in French or Italian?

Oh, and Little Buddha is fantastic.

[Cinesimilitude]

Since people are trashing "The Dreamers" and "Stealing Beauty," both of which I believe are wonderful films where he communicates a passionate and accomplished understanding of youth, I'll come in and say that I believe, along with "Little Buddha," "Sheltering Sky" is the weakest Bertolucci film, and certainly not in the same league as his others.

WORD. Sheltering Sky was ok, but took a massive turn for the worse once Malkovich got sick. it was boring as hell from that point on.