Spoilers herein.
Christie isn't appreciated much these days. She wasn't great at evoking the tone of a place, nor creating fully dimensional characters. She wasn't a master of the language. Today, we seem to prefer florid language, novel insertions into situations, (cats, priests, exotic locals and professions) and `psychological' weight.
But where she excelled was at understanding the elements of the mystery and devising plots that were not just clever but clever in ways that recognize the fact that it is a mystery story. Often the characters include a writer (or someone in showbusiness). And the twist would be an artifact of the telling of the story rather than the action within the story. She might have the narrator be the murderer, or have the murder victim be misidentified by the reader (and incidentally the people involved). Reading her work, at least in the middle years, is a lesson in understanding the form and bending the content to suit.
It is a postmodern idea not appreciated in our postmodern times. That is especially so when films are made of her stories. The BBC usually does a `faces and places' treatment, where characters and settings are supposed to amuse us until the end when we are surprised. The ending isn't the resolution of a puzzle, a tussle between writer and reader, but rather an expected but undeserved gift.
This particular production is less offensive than the BBC ones, especially the Poirot ones. It bears little resemblance to anything she wrote. But the spirit is dimly there: we have a confusing barrage of individuals and situations. The clues aren't presented fairly enough, but in a story this abbreviated they cannot be.
I think there is a lesson here. This script is close in tone to the overwhelming possibilities and suspended clearances of the books. But it is a dreadful film because we expect to know where we are and where we are going. I am convinced that mixing Christie books and film is quite a challenge. I have not seen it done well, and imagine it to be a fruitful filmschool exercise.
The business of the MacBeth witches was too clumsy to have come from anyone who actually knows the play.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.
Christie isn't appreciated much these days. She wasn't great at evoking the tone of a place, nor creating fully dimensional characters. She wasn't a master of the language. Today, we seem to prefer florid language, novel insertions into situations, (cats, priests, exotic locals and professions) and `psychological' weight.
But where she excelled was at understanding the elements of the mystery and devising plots that were not just clever but clever in ways that recognize the fact that it is a mystery story. Often the characters include a writer (or someone in showbusiness). And the twist would be an artifact of the telling of the story rather than the action within the story. She might have the narrator be the murderer, or have the murder victim be misidentified by the reader (and incidentally the people involved). Reading her work, at least in the middle years, is a lesson in understanding the form and bending the content to suit.
It is a postmodern idea not appreciated in our postmodern times. That is especially so when films are made of her stories. The BBC usually does a `faces and places' treatment, where characters and settings are supposed to amuse us until the end when we are surprised. The ending isn't the resolution of a puzzle, a tussle between writer and reader, but rather an expected but undeserved gift.
This particular production is less offensive than the BBC ones, especially the Poirot ones. It bears little resemblance to anything she wrote. But the spirit is dimly there: we have a confusing barrage of individuals and situations. The clues aren't presented fairly enough, but in a story this abbreviated they cannot be.
I think there is a lesson here. This script is close in tone to the overwhelming possibilities and suspended clearances of the books. But it is a dreadful film because we expect to know where we are and where we are going. I am convinced that mixing Christie books and film is quite a challenge. I have not seen it done well, and imagine it to be a fruitful filmschool exercise.
The business of the MacBeth witches was too clumsy to have come from anyone who actually knows the play.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.