Eric SamulskiReview of Stranger than Fiction
July 16th 2007 07:09
Stranger than...
I love films written by writers for writers. Films that are sprinkled with in-jokes and little literary gems for the hack writer rather than the blah-blah book-bending cry-babies. Stranger than Fiction is one and I can think of two others.
The Third Man is brilliant – there’s this line from the military dude;
“Don’t worry, he’s just a scribbler full of drink.”
What hack hasn’t been there. Although now-a-days it’s the bouncers and they usually do worry.
Then there’s the beautiful scene where the hapless “Western” writer Holly Martins is mauled to death by the literary wankers – if only Holly had a gun.
Throw Mama from the Train is another. It’s got the phoney writer getting all the fame while the real writer languishes in a bitter and twisted hate-filled psychosis – know that feeling. It’s got that hung up on one word – all work stops trying to find that perfect word, that right word that… And of course there’s Owen’s dad and the coin story which steals the show.
Stranger than Fiction has some beautiful touches. The bare feet, the manic coffee drinking, the stubbing out cigarettes in spit-filled tissues and the writer tapping out the novel on a typewriter. But the foundation of the story is this all too familiar concept. While most first books are autobiographical eventually a writer has to turn to new material. Writing about relatives is dangerous so you look to the world around you. You start writing about what happened last week, yesterday and then in this strange morphing of fiction and non-fiction you start to get ahead of yourself and you write things before they happen. Like you’re writing down your future – talk about freaky.
And now there’s a film that touches on it.
So I’m not mad.
That’s nice to know.
Until next time and happy film-making.
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