Jane Eyre 1996

January 11, 2015January 13, 2015 | Paul Wake Baker

Adapting a classic novel to the big screen is always a dicey proposition. The screen writer and director have a limited amount of time, yet there is so much in a classic novel that readers depend on for a satisfying experience. Indeed, there is so much that is germane to the internal logic of a novel of depth that the story itself is resistant to adaptation within a two hour format. That was proven conclusively with the BBC film Pride and Prejudice, presented as a television mini-series five hours long.

Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre presents particular problems because each of the three distinct elements of the story warrants telling, yet the third section is difficult to fit into a film. Adapted for the screen by Hugh Whitemore and legendary director Franco Zeffirelli, this 1996 script, like others before it, concentrates on Jane’s childhood and her relationship with the master of Thornfield Hall, but compresses the third part of the book into a few hasty minutes.

For a full synopsis of the story, I refer readers to my review of the novel Jane Eyre. In short, it is the story of a girl, Jane Eyre (Anna Paquin), in the middle years of 19th Century in England, orphaned and mistreated by her aunt, then sent to an impoverished school for girls. She grows up to become a teacher (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and is employed at Thornfield Hall by the housekeeper, Mrs. Fairfax (Joan Plowright) as governess for a little French, ward of the master of the hall, Mr. Edward Rochester (William Hurt). She falls in love with him, but he is married to a madwoman, so Jane runs away and is taken in by a clergyman, St. John (Samuel West) and his sisters. The clergyman employs her as a school teacher, but asks her to become his wife and travel with him as a missionary. She refuses and instead goes back to Thornfield Hall, only to find that it has been destroyed in a fire. Discovering that Rochester’s mad wife died in the blaze, she reunites with the man she loves.

Director Franco Zeffirelli is a master at camera composition, use of landscape, and color and this film certainly reflects that. It is beautiful in every respect and can be enjoyed simply for that aspect. Both Anna Paquin and Charlotte Gainsbourg are wonderful as Jane Eyre at ten and seventeen. They look so much alike that they are certainly believable as the same person. That Gainsbourg is made to look plain is a step above most adaptations of the novel and it makes her extra believable in the role. She also infuses the character with the simplicity and independence that make Jane Eyre such a memorable character. The creation of Jane Eyre in this film is really terrific! William Hurt is fine as Rochester, though he is plainly a little too good looking for the part. There are also a few times when I didn’t believe him as an Englishman, although there is nothing glaring about the performance. It is solid, but not overly impressive. The supporting cast is really terrific, especially Joan Plowright as Mrs. Fairfax, Leanne Rowe as Helen Burns, John Wood as Mr. Brocklehurst, Fiona Shaw as Mrs. Reed, Geraldine Chaplin as Miss Scatcherd, Amanda Root as Miss Temple, Billie Whitelaw as Grace Poole, and Maria Schneider as Rochester’s mad wife Bertha. Elle McPherson, the model, also makes a cameo as Blanche Ingram, the society woman set on marrying Rochester for his money.

Zeffirelli spends adequate time on Jane’s childhood, especially in framing the friendship between her and Helen Burns. The middle section that concentrates on the evolving relationship between Jane and Rochester is extremely well done. The affection between them is difficult to achieve, partly because they are such different people, but Gainsbourg and Hurt work very well together and Zeffirelli helps the viewers to see it happening without using words. It is masterfully done.

Whitemore and Zeffirelli take a big chance, however, by introducing the characters of St. John and his sister Mary as go-betweens when Jane’s aunt Mrs. Reed becomes ill before dying. Although it tightens up the plot in a creative way, it also puts in place the means of Jane ending up with them later on and leads the screenwriters to completely eliminate what might be the best scene in the entire work: Jane’s wandering the moors alone after she leaves Rochester. In the novel and in other screen adaptations the scene is extremely powerful. Jane, without caring for her own life, wanders aimlessly, sleeps in a ditch and is at death’s doorstep when she stumbles onto St. John’s home. By cutting out that scene, the screen writers have her go directly to St. John based on his prior association with her and her illness is skirted over very quickly. Likewise, Jane’s enormous confusion over St. John’s proposal is also missing. In the novel, her thoughts on the proposal provide the entire basis for her return to seek out Rochester and that inner logic hurts the entire last part of the movie.

On the other hand, Zeffirelli brings the film in at slightly under two hours. It is a beautiful movie, with many positive aspects to it, not the least of which is the most believable Jane I’ve yet seen. Paquin and Gainsbourg are absolutely marvelous and that means a lot in a story that absolutely depends on the believability of the title character. I find it a little annoying that William Hurt has top billing because his character is truly ancillary to Jane.

It is a good film and should be seen by all fans of Jane Eyre.

**Read my review of the novel Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte!**

This 1847 classic novel both delights and confounds a modern reader.

Told mostly in first person past (with brief lapses into first person present) by the heroine, Jane Eyre, the book was originally subtitled An Autobiography. It begins with Jane as a young girl of ten years as an orphan living with her Aunt Reed at Gateshead Hall.

Read my review of the 1997 ITV movie of Jane Eyre.

This film adaptation of the classic novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë was originally aired on Great Britain’s ITV in March of 1997 runs approximately one hour and 45 minutes. Obviously, a great deal had to be cut from the story in order to fit it into that kind of time parameter, but Kay Mellor’s script concentrates rightly on the romance between Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester and the Gothic suspense of Thornfield.

Read my review of the 2011 Cary Fukunaga movie of Jane Eyre.

This adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel Jane Eyre was produced in 2011. Directed by Cary Fukunaga from a script by Moira Buffini, this is clearly the best of the recent movie versions of the novel. Ms. Buffini’s script is faithful to the novel, yet innovative in the way it tells the story, bringing a passion lacking in the other attempts.

Words and Pictures

January 7, 2015 | Paul Wake Baker

Which is more important: words or pictures?

This is at the core of this powerful 2013 film about education and artistic expression. The script by Gerald DiPego is extremely well written and the direction by Fred Schepisi is outstanding, but the real reason for this movie’s success is in the two great performances by Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche as the two teachers who inspire their students to understand and to achieve more than mere talent can produce.

Jack Marcus (Clive Owen) teaches writing at Croyden, a high end preparatory school in Maine. A professional writer himself, Jack is flirting with losing his job because of functional alcoholism and a lapse of productivity, having failed to publish in quite a few years. In addition, the school literary magazine which he edits has gone downhill, producing flat, uninspired writing and nothing original from him. His principal, Rashid (Navid Negahban), confers with head of the governing board, Elspeth (Amy Brenneman) about Jack’s conduct and they give him a warning that his status will be reviewed at the next meeting.

The new Honors Art teacher, well-known painter Dina Delsanto (Juliette Binoche), who suffers from severe rheumatoid arthritis and walks with the aid of a cane, challenges her students to go beyond themselves to create better art. Using the old phrase “a picture is worth a thousands words” she tells her students that words are cheap and useless, thus fueling the “war” between the two arts at the school and inspiring the students to achieve more.

Drinking heavily and fighting to keep his job, Jack tries to write something new and inspiring, but all he can create is insipid, so he steals a poem that his son wrote and publishes it in the literary magazine as his own. It is so good that Dina uses it to inspire her students to make drawings and painting based on it. Three students figure prominently in this battle of the arts: Emily (Valerie Tian) an Asian painter, Cole (Josh Ssettuba) an African-American graphic artist, and Swint (Adam DiMarco), a writer and would-be cartoonist. Swint, a show-off has a crush on shy Emily and he begins to harass her, eventually going so far as to distribute an obscene cartoon of her throughout the school. Jack has defended Swint, but when he discovers the cartoon in Swint’s sketchbook, he turns the boy in and Swint is expelled.

When Dina gives terrific testimony of Jack’s behalf at the board meeting, his job is saved. He brings her flowers and they consummate their simmering love, but Jack gets up in the night, finds a bottle of vodka in her refrigerator and proceeds to get drunk. He tells her about plagiarizing the poem from his son and then, losing his balance, he falls into Dina’s most important painting, smearing it. She throws him out and Jack must begin to confront his own problems for the first time, facing his alcoholism and trying to redeem his own spirit.

Obviously, in a movie like this, the writing is paramount and I give extremely high marks to Gerald DiPego for his literate and organic script. Director Fred Schepisi thought his words were important enough that he was kept on the set during the filming in order to make changes himself, rather than bringing in any other writers. But even though writing is important, this film also stands or falls based on its art and Juliette Binoche, doing her own painting, brought a sense of legitimacy by creating terrific paintings and drawings all her own.

Of course, there is no real battle between art and literature. They are two completely different and equally valid arts. On the surface, they would appear to be complete opposites, but, as with all creation, the goal should be the same: to touch the human heart. This movie does that, in part, due to the organic nature of the writing and the painting that fills it. When I say that a work of art is organic, I mean that it grows naturally out of its components. The story in Words and Pictures has more to do with Jack’s own frailty and his dependence on alcohol. It is that dependence that brings his life into complete disarray, despite his other endearing qualities, and it is his control of that weakness that allows him to become a complete person again. The same is true of Delsanto’s art. Like, Jack, she has floundered for many years, not because of a lack of inspiration, but because her own degenerating body has had her full attention. She needed something to wake her up and Jack’s challenge is what brings her back to life creatively. Her art grows beyond her own injured body to become something beyond what she had been capable of.

Writing an organic script that is completely natural is not an easy process, but DiPego has created a real beauty here.

Clive Owen drives the film with his performance. The center of the film, he is realistic in every way as an American teacher. His control of the language, his phrasing, and his maniacal love of good writing is infectious and he seems to be a terrific teacher. Likewise, Juliette Binoche gives a wonderful performance as Delsanto, nuanced, layered, and impressive.

This film has a strange, emotional power that elevates in the same way that Stand and Deliver moves one to aspire. Immensely satisfying! I highly recommend this movie!

L

January 6, 2015January 20, 2015 | Paul Wake Baker

The Lady Vanishes

Set in the fictitious European country of Bandrika, this 1938 British comedy-mystery remains one of Alfred Hitchcock’s best movies. Based on the 1936 novel The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White, the script by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder is truly funny, even the suspenseful parts. Enhanced by Hitchcock’s own wit, it emerges as a truly entertaining popular film that reaches well beyond his normal confines of mystery and suspense.

Leap Year

Genre films are really hit and miss. If you’re quite lucky, you’ll get a hit, but producers find out all the time that it’s really easy to think you’ve got a winner and then just miss. This is especially true with romantic comedies, which are perhaps the most difficult genre to score a hit. Usually, either the comedy fails, the situation isn’t quite creative enough, or–most frequently–the leads just don’t have chemistry, which comes back to the casting.

Little Women (1994)

This Robin Swicord adaptation of Luisa May Alcott’s classic novel is very good, considering that the movie comes in under two hours. Overall, it is a very good film. This is the fourth adaptation of Little Women to the screen, it stars Wynona Ryder, Susan Sarandon, Claire Danes, and Kirsten Dunst.

Lost in Austen

The general fascination with Jane Austen is continued in this 2008 four-part British television film, originally aired by ITV and released in the United States as a three hour film. Amanda Price is a modern Jane Austen stuck in an unromantic relationship with a boozy, uncouth guy, Michael (Daniel Percival) and living in a flat in Hammersmith with a girlfriend, Pirhana (Gugu Mbatha-Raw). All she really wants is to be left alone so she can immerse herself in Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

Lovelace

This film is a 2013 biographical picture about the life of Linda Boreman, beginning at the age of 20 and going through her marriage to Chuck Traynor and the release of her biography, . Under the trade name of Linda Lovelace, she starred in the 1972 pornographic breakthrough movie Deep Throat and that is her lone claim to fame aside from her biography, Ordeal.

The Breakfast Club

January 6, 2015 | Paul Wake Baker

Yelling one minute, giggling the next, while cool music plays throughout. Welcome to The Breakfast Club, John Hughes’ 1985 comedy-drama about five teenagers confined to a Saturday detention in the Shermer High School library in Shermer, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.

Each one of the five kids represents a different kind of high school culture. Although wrestler Andrew Clark (Emilio Estevez), teen beauty Claire Standish (Molly Ringwald), and brainy Brian Johnson (Anthony Michael Hall) come from wealthy families, they each represent a separate segment of high school society. Likewise, rebellious John Bender (Judd Nelson) and spooky Allison Reynolds (Ally Sheedy) come from the wrong side of the tracks, but one is brash and outgoing while the other is quiet and shy.

The teacher who rides herd on the five of them is Richard “Dick” Vernon (Paul Gleason), an assistant principal who is rough and disillusioned with his profession. The only other adult character of any consequence is the philosophical janitor, Carl Reed (John Kapelos) who enlightens both Dick and the kids.

John creates the drama as he pushes against the rich kids and makes fun of the dork, both strutting his anger at coming from a poor, ignorant family and concealing his own fear for his future. He teases Claire about being a virgin, Andrew about being a dumb jock, and Brian about not fitting in. As the day goes on, they gradually become friends, laughing, dancing, shouting, and opening up about their deepest truths and fears.

There isn’t much of a plot here, but that’s not important. Most of the movie dedicates itself to the theme that in spite of outside differences, we’re all pretty much the same, a pretty good message in any time or place. The generous ensemble script allows room for each character to bloom.

Most of the acting is excellent, although the emotional outbursts now seem a little over the top, as are the stock characters. The movie is really excellent except when it tries to go deep. Of the five teens, Ally Sheedy really stands out as the best and that is partly because her character doesn’t fit into a mold and partly because she infuses it with a great deal of originality.

The best part of the film is the comedy and when it’s good, it’s really laugh out loud good and it carries the movie beyond the simple teen angst that colors the drama. A fun movie. At an hour and a half, the timing is perfect and it is almost impossible to stop watching once you start, always a sign that a movie is doing its job.

Rivers and Tides Andy Goldsworthy: Working with Time

January 5, 2015 | Paul Wake Baker

The violent colors of autumn leaves, an iron-rich rock that turns water blood red, blackened stalks, great slabs of ice, thorns, chipped rocks: these are the materials that Andy Goldsworthy uses to create his ephemeral art.

One of the most creative artists in the world, Goldsworthy purposely creates beauty from nature that nature herself will destroy sooner or later and mostly sooner. He is also a photographer, which is essential to document the works of art that sometimes last only moments and sometimes years before they are gone. Working from his home base in Penpont, Scotland, he travels the world interacting with water, stone, and growth to form both small and massive creations that inspire and delight.

This beautiful documentation of his work was lovingly created by German writer, director, and cinematographer Thomas Riedelsheimer for Mediopolis and Fernsehproduktion Gmbh with incredible music by Fred Frith.

Beginning on the isolated shores of Nova Scotia, Goldsworthy acclimatizes himself by building a twisting line from icicles, bending and shaping them into what appears to be the lazy oxbow of a river, gleaming white in the sun as it slips into and out of a rock on the shoreline, waiting only for the sun to melt it. Riedelsheimer’s camera lingers on the swirls as a river rushes into the sea and the tide moves in to smother it. On another day, Goldsworthy builds a gigantic pine cone from rocks along the shore, but the balance is so delicate that it keeps falling apart and he must start over again. The tide is out, but it will come back in by 3:00 PM so he must work fast to get it finished. There is not enough time, so he must give up. He explains that as he works with the rocks, he gets to know them, to understand how they fit together. On the third day, his giant pine cone stands on the shore and he watches as the tide comes in, completely covering it with sea water, but when the tide goes back out, it is revealed again, still standing. Gathering driftwood, he creates a hemisphere of sticks on the rocks, building and coming together with a perfectly round hole in the top. A man wanders by and the two of the watch as the tide rises, swirling the wood back out into the sea that threw it up on the shore in the first place.

At home, in Penpont, he works on a hillside, among the long-haired oxen, pulling reeds from the ground and arranging them on the hill with brilliant bronze points flowing away from a jet black circle in the center. Using thorns, he tacks sticks to the branch of a tree, intersecting them until they form a perfect center in the middle. He wraps leaves tightly around themselves to create a gigantic snail.

Working on a commission at Storm King Arts Center in Mountainville, N.Y., Goldsworthy directs workers in the creation of a wall that snakes like a river through the trees, disappearing down into a pond and re-emerging on the other side to continue on. Splashing through a stream, he finds red rocks with a high iron content and breaks them down into dust. He either mixes the dust with water that pools in holes in rocks, creating a blood red circle, or he tosses a ball of the dust into the river, making large, bright red splotches in the stream. Using thorns, he connects a train of leaves that unwinds in the river like a large, green snake.

Riedelsheimer’s camera follows him as he makes a huge volume of art, most of it destined for immediate destruction by the world from which it is created. Along the way, Goldsworthy talks about the philosophy of his art and the nature of time and existence. Creation and destruction are obviously at the heart of his work, but the two acts work within a given time. For example, creating his gigantic cone of rocks on the beach before the tide comes in to cover it or listening to the wind as he works on his tree sculpture, knowing that in the space of minute the delicate structure can fall. Nature itself is in a constant rhythm of creation and destruction. Goldsworthy looks at the example of his iron rock, how it solidified over the eons, how it even now contains the water that runs through everything and how, once pulverized, he can return it to the river as dust, knowing that it will again coalesce in the riverbed.

Time is like the images of the river that are a recurring motif in Goldsworthy’s work. It swirls around us constantly from moment to moment, pulling in something here, discarding something there. Existence, like Goldsworthy’s creations, is ephemeral.

We are like the river that passes through it.

I admit that documentaries have never been my favorite form of film, but recently, due to the influence of my friend, Harlan Heald, I have begun to watch more and more of them, especially films about artists–and this is one of the best, because it is not just about art, but it exists as a work of art in itself. It is a film that I can watch over and over and every time it makes me feel more a part of the natural universe I inhabit. It is a creation of great beauty.

The DVD contains two disks. Disk 1 contains the film, plus a number of short films about some of the individual projects, as well as information about Goldsworthy, Riedelsheimer, and the production company. Disk 2 contains a very interesting film about a project where Goldsworthy created 13 gigantic snowballs, each containing a different texture (one contained pine cones and another contained cow hair) that were deposited on various streets throughout London at mid-summer, to melt during the longest day of the year. Riedelsheimer followed the process as well as filming the reaction of a great many Londoners to finding this monstrosities on their streets. It also contains an in-depth interview with Riedelsheimer.

This is a DVD that could easily be a part of anyone’s collection as it can be viewed over and over again with enjoyment. The colors a beautiful, the cinematography is wonderful, and the philosophy is very enlightening.

I highly recommend Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy (Working with Time).

The Spectacular Now

January 3, 2015 | Paul Wake Baker

The Spectacular Now aims much higher than any run-of-the-mill teen romance and its success in achieving a film that goes beyond the limits of genre is to be highly commended, yet there are problems in the movie and it would make the film an excellent study for any film theory class. Because this is a special film in many ways, this review contains spoilers, so beware if you haven’t seen the movie.

Sutter Keely (Miles Teller) is a high school senior who is the life of the party. His girlfriend, Cassidy (Brie Larson), just happens to be the coolest girl in school. He sits down at his computer to answer an essay question for a college entrance exam. What was your greatest challenge and how did you face it?

His answer centers around how Cassidy has just dumped him. Always helpful, he had been trying to set up a friend with a girl, but she happened to come with another girl and he just happened to be sitting with her in his car at lakeside drinking when Cassidy discovered them. He’s almost always drinking, but he doesn’t see that as a problem and he figures that he’ll get Cassidy back pretty quickly, but she has already hooked up with the star athlete, Marcus (Dayo Okeniyi) and has left Sutter in her dust.

He goes out to party and ends up enormously drunk. The next morning, he is awakened by a girl who finds him laying in someone’s yard passed out. The girl, Aimee Finecky (Shailene Woodley) is also a senior at his school, although he doesn’t remember her name. A semi-geeky girl who likes science fiction and graphic novels, Aimee is way too normal for Sutter, but he can’t find his car so he helps her do her mother’s paper route and ends up having a lot of fun. He asks her out to lunch, then to a party. He still isn’t over Cassidy, but she can no longer deal with his lack of ambition and drinking. Aimee, who has never had a boyfriend, is just happy that he likes her. He might be a good student, but he just doesn’t care. There is a certain ennui about him, even though he puts up a good front. Part of his problem is that his mother, Sara (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is a single parent and she keeps him apart from his father. Sutter remembers playing baseball with his dad and completely blames his mother for “kicking him out of the house.” His sister, Holly (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), who is married to a lawyer, doesn’t really care about their father.

Aimee falls in love with Sutter, but he continues to drift, fantasizing about getting back together with Cassidy. He gradually comes to love Aimee as well, but he does not think he is good enough for her. The sad thing is that he’s right. Sutter doesn’t know what to do with himself. He’s drifting through high school, he doesn’t want next year to happen, and he doesn’t want to make any plans. In a scene with Cassidy, she begs him to think about the future, but he tells her that all that matters is the “now,” enjoying each moment as it happens.

Accepted into a college in Philadelphia, Aimee tells him that she can’t go because her mother won’t let her so they make a pact: if Aimee will stand up to her mother about going to college, then Sutter will confront his own mother about seeing his dad. He asks her to the prom and gets her to start drinking alcohol, giving her a personalized flask when he picks her up. Later, she tells him that she has decided to go to Philadelphia and tells him he should go there with her, that they could get a place together and get jobs while she goes to school. He doesn’t commit himself to it, but he also doesn’t tell her “no.” Marcus confronts Sutter about Cassidy, but Sutter tells him that there’s nothing between them. When Marcus wishes he could make her laugh like Sutter does, Sutter advises him that all he needs to do is relax, to live in the “now.”

When Aimee badgers him into investigating his father, Holly finally gives him the phone number. Sutter calls his dad (Kyle Chandler) and arranges a meeting, bringing Aimee with him when he goes to visit, but when he discovers that his father is an alcoholic skirt chaser, he sees his own future. Depressed, he drinks heavily as he drives them back home. Aimee tries to comfort him, telling him that she loves him, but he belligerently tells her to get out of the car. When she does, she gets hit by another car.

Although she’s not seriously injured, Sutter’s depression reaches a whole new level. They graduate, but he feels no joy in it. She waits at the bus station for him to join her, but he drives by and lets her go off on her own. Drunk again, he plows down the mailbox in front of his house and gets into a violent argument with his mother. When he screams at her that she doesn’t love him, she comforts him and tells him that he is a gentle and giving man. Sutter breaks down and sobs in her arms.

Confronting the computer screen and the question of what his greatest challenge is and how he overcame it, he types in a confession that he is his own greatest problem and that it is a problem he must solve every day going forward, finally recognizing that the “now” will come again tomorrow. In the final scene, he joins Aimee in Philadelphia.

Even though this film is riddled with problems, there are also many things to like about it. There is a simplicity in the script by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber (adapted from the novel of the same name by Tim Tharp) that is quite engaging and the realistic approach of director James Ponsoldt keeps the viewer constantly involved in the story. Sutter is a complex person and I have to give high marks to the creative team for making such a deeply layered character and wonderfully consistent throughout the entire film. Surely, the temptation to make the film a pure romance must have been quite strong, but the movie works hard to keep Sutter real and to deal realistically with his problem, which is immense for a boy of his age.

It is dramatic, it contains a theme that is built and explored in a way that many other films should aspire to, it is very carefully written and well-thought out.

In addition, there are a couple of excellent performances in the movie by Jennifer Jason Leigh (I didn’t even recognize her) as Sutter’s mother and Kyle Chandler as his father. Each of these actors brings a depth and a reality to their roles that goes even beyond the well-crafted script. All of the other supporting actors do a good job as well.

The problems are mostly in the production, but one problem in the writing really holds the movie back. There is nothing likable about Sutter. As I watched the movie, it was easy to identify him as the protagonist and to feel a certain amount of angst for him, but the writers did nothing to help me like him or really care about him. My first instinct was to blame the performance of Miles Teller, but I realized at some point that the story should have shown something else to make me care about what happened to him. That was missing.

Shailene Woodley gives a fine performance as Aimee, but I believe she may have been miscast. Given the beauty of the actress and Aimee’s terrific personality, I found it simply impossible to believe that she never had a boyfriend or that she was a wall flower. Girls that special rise to the top because those around them inevitably recognize what’s great about them and give them a special position in the social order. In fact, Aimee is so special that it is really difficult to believe that in her isolation she could love someone like Sutter.

In his desire to make the movie realistic, I believe that Ponsoldt must have encouraged Teller and Woodley to improvise much of their dialogue because it seems so genuine, however, the constant use of “awesome” and “amazing” and “cool” becomes almost funny at some points. Sure, it’s probably realistic. One can imagine real teens talking this way, but it sure makes them seem a lot less intelligent. There should be an argument on this point because the question of realistic dialogue comes up over and over again. My own personal opinion is that the clever screenwriter will use just enough teen clichés to make the dialogue believable, but back off before it becomes a running gag. I think what happened in this movie was improvisation on the actor’s parts. I don’t know that for a fact, but it feels that way. Good and bad.

The ending probably should have been retooled as well.

Although the scene of Sutter writing his new answer is effective, I never had the feel of a real denouement, a crystal moment of realization in which Sutter knows how he needs to change his life and dedicates himself to doing so. Maybe it is more realistic that he has a hint of what he needs to do and points himself in the right direction, but in the interval between breaking down with his mother and writing his new answer, I would have liked to see something that really gave him a positive direction.

Even given all of these problems, I still recommend this film, not only to film students, but to people who want to see a teen romance that has some backbone to it, a film that challenges itself to do better and makes a very positive footprint in the right direction.

The good outweighs the bad.

The Renegades of Pern by Anne McCaffrey

January 2, 2015 | Paul Wake Baker

The Renegades of Pern does not neatly fit into the pattern of all of the other books covering the 9th Pass of the Red Star. It is splintered into lots of little stories and covers the time period just before the beginning of the main Dragonriders of Pern Trilogy, running all the way up to the very beginning of All the Weyrs of Pern. It contains both vital information regarding the main story line and vast amounts of story that just don’t really matter at all. It is fragmented. Telling several semi-coherent stories all at once, it covers a vast amount of time and makes for difficult reading. It is based around some of the characters from the short story, “The Girl Who Heard Dragons,” contained in the story collection of the same name, most notably the girl Aramina and K’van.

The Prologue jumps around, compressing a full eleven years before the 9th Pass begins. It sets of the idea of holdless men and women, from Fax’s taking of various holds, driving smaller holder into homelessness, to Toric storming out of his native sea hold to make a fresh start, to the artist Perschar’s travels, all the way up to Fax’s death before the real story begins in Chapter One. The Prologue also introduces a female villain, the older half-sister of Lord Larad of Telgar Hold. Lady Thella, a headstrong young woman, was betrothed to a lesser holder by her dying father, but she will have no part of it. When Larad confines her, she escapes, stealing maps, horses, and supplies.

The Lilcamp trading train is surprised by the first fall of Thread as the 9th Pass begins, suffering many casualties. Kimmage Hold agrees to put them up, but only if they work and tithe. Jayge, son of the head trader, accepts the constriction, but his favorite Uncle Readis leaves them and joins Thella’s band of thieves and murderers. Twelve Turns pass and Thella develops her gang into a cunning and tough, holdless bunch, fugitives sought by both holders and dragonriders. Masterharper Robinton, at this point, has recruited the artist Perschar to infiltrate the group and draw portraits of the outlaws. Thella hears about Aramina, a girl in living in the Igen caverns, who can hear dragons. She plans to capture Aramina and use her to spy on the weyrs, but Aramina’s family leaves before Thella can pull it off. Her band then attacks the Lilcamp train and a number of people are killed before Jayge can ride for help. In the aftermath, he finds a roll of portraits drawn by Perschar, but he removes Readis’ picture before turning them in. Jayge joins Lord Asgenar’s army in Lemos in hopes of exacting his revenge on Thella. They discover a deeply covered cave system in Telgar and, with the aid of dragonriders, stage a morning attack, but Thella and several of her leaders escape. Searching for Thella in the Igen caverns, Jayge meets Aramina and falls in love with her, but she is taken to Benden Weyr where Weyrwoman Lessa intends to match her up with a dragon hatchling. While waiting, she is housed at Benden Hold where Thella finally manages to capture her and whisk her away. Jayge finds Readis and the two rescue Aramina, but Readis is killed during their escape. Jayge then gets them an assignment to transport runner beasts to the Southern Continent. Lost in a storm, the boat sinks and Jayge and Aramina are carried ashore by shipfish (dolphins) to the Paradise River Hold, where they settle down to raise a family. Their first son is named Readis.

I’ve read this book a number of times and I am now at the point where I completely disregard the entire “renegade” portion of the book and instead concentrate only on the advancement of the main story line, which I think must include Jayge and Aramina’s Paradise River Hold, but does not include Thella or any of the hundred odd pages dedicated to her story. If you are reading the book for the first, I’d suggest that it be read, but thereafter, it may be skipped with no loss of story at all.

Although many scenes of that story line take place in the Northern Continent, it is Southern that is the main focus, particularly the story of Toric becoming Lord Holder, Piemer meeting and falling in love with Jancis, and further discoveries at Landing, including the Catherine Caves and, most importantly, AIVAS, the artificial intelligence voice address system that will dominate the next book in the series, All the Weyrs of Pern. Piemer, during his many travels in the south, meets Jayge and Aramina when he stumbles upon Paradise River. He is fascinated by the many ancient articles the couple have found and use, most of it plastic. Afterward, Jayge and Aramina become recurring characters.

Many of the events throughout The Dragonriders of Pern Trilogy and The Harper Hall Trilogy are included in The Renegades of Pern, but shown from other characters’ perspectives. For instance, when Mardra finds the empty sack that Piemer has escaped from, the entire scene is shown from Toric’s point of view as he puts up with the Weyrwoman berating him in front of his holders and craftsmen. That alone–showing familiar events from different points of view–makes this book worth reading. If you are a fan of the entire saga of the 9th Pass and can’t get enough of the story, here is a retelling of familiar events from a different perspective!

Those who have already read All the Weyrs of Pern may have been a bit surprised by the sudden intimacy of Piemer and Mastersmith Jancis (granddaughter of Mastersmith Fandarel), but she plays a significant role in The Renegades of Pern. Piemer meets her after the discovery of the Catherine Caves and she is only a Journeywoman at that point. In fact, McCaffrey seems to have deliberately created an error in Jancis’ rank. The end of The Renegades of Pern seamlessly dovetails into the beginning of All the Weyrs of Pern with no time at all allowed for her to suddenly attain her mastery. Be that as it may, she is a terrific character and a perfect tonic for Piemur’s acidic character.

The Renegades portion of the book comes a conclusion when Thella puts together one final band of thugs and sails south to find Aramina and try to kill her, blaming her for all that has gone wrong in her life. Piemer, Jancis, Jayge, and Aramina fight the band and win. Jayge gets the pleasure of killing Thella and exacting his revenge at last. During this trip, Jancis discovers a map at Paradise River, detailing the plan for Landing. She is intrigued by two sites that haven’t yet been uncovered: Amin Annex and AIVAS.

With Piemur’s help, she begins to unearth them, coming to the solar panels that allow AIVAS to power up. Jaxom and Ruth join them, then the others and at the end of the book, they find a way in and discover the long abandoned computer that drives the story forward into All the Weyrs of Pern.

In this sense, it is a vital connecting book in the main story line. The central flaw in the book is the character of Thella.

In my opinion, Anne McCaffrey, for all the wonderful characters and situations that she has created in this saga, has one fatal flaw and that is her villains. They all come across as one-dimensional characters. You can see it in Avril Bitra in Dragonsdawn, Fax in Dragonflight, Meron and Kylara in Dragonquest, and fatally in Thella in The Renegades of Pern. To be effective, readers must understand the central driving force that makes villains perform their evil acts. If there is not sufficient believable motivation, the character is flat and unbelievable. I have this problem with all of the above-referenced characters and that is the main flaw in The Renegades of Pern and it is why I always skip over Thella’s scenes when I re-read the book.

Nevertheless, this book is a key connecting the end of The White Dragon with the latter two books in the series and it contains many wonderful scenes and the development of Piemer and the introduction of Jancis.

That part of the novel is wonderful and can be joyfully read and re-read many times.

Paul Wake Baker

Author of Spirit Wind and Walk Against Time

Month: January 2015