Has anyone ever truly read The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman? Does anyone know what the hell it's supposed to be about? For that matter, does this review have a spoiler? Does it make sense that a scene depicting realism, for that matter, involve a man lodged upside-down in a makeshift womb? I don't know. I've tried to get past the first page of the book but I find that I go into brain-freeze, my thumb seeks solace in my mouth, and I scrunch into a fetal position not unlike Steve Coogan in the movie. I've come to the conclusion that when a work is so far ahead in the future to be rendered the apex of post-modernism, it's probably best to let it alone and have people think you're an intellectual because there it stands in plain view, a book with a handsome cover, in your bookshelf.
An unfilmable novel. Hell, an unreadable at that! But here it is, the first critical success of 2006: A COCK AND BULL STORY is the film to crack the shell and open the merry chaos that is Lawrence Sterne's crazy universe. Knowing that this novel is no walk in the park for anyone, Michael Winterbottom comes up with a mockumentary that details the creation of the movie we're watching which itself is about the adaptation of the book. This loop sets the stage for a flurry of events which transpire at a crazy pace parallel to the "events" of the book. Star and co-star clash on who's the bigger star, Tristram's own birth needs more and more takes, and then there's the "minor" issue that Widow Wadman, a major player of the novel, is nowhere to be seen in the screenplay and in walks Gillian Anderson who is cast as the Widow, who's scenes wind up in the cutting-room floor anyway.
Parallel to these events are others that mirror the ones in Federico Fellini's 8 1/2. Steve Coogan the actor in the movie is married to wife Jenny who has arrived to be with him during this filming with her infant son (who will play a part in the movie). Their relationship is not as strained as Guido and Luisa Anselmi but they are seen as on the cusp of being estranged. Carla's equivalent is her polar opposite, a film buff who's also part of the production crew, also named Jennie, who like Carla talks on and on about intricate, almost elaborate subtext of symbolisms that Steve succumbs to in one flirtatious scene when she comes on to him. He, like Guido, returns to his wife though, and despite the odds the movie becomes reality -- a very skewered one at best and one that leaves the audience saying, "Huh?" That is the main irony and in borrowing the original music score composed by Nino Rota it grounds A COCK AND BULL STORY in 8 1/2's sense of the absurd that continue even after the credits roll.
An unfilmable novel. Hell, an unreadable at that! But here it is, the first critical success of 2006: A COCK AND BULL STORY is the film to crack the shell and open the merry chaos that is Lawrence Sterne's crazy universe. Knowing that this novel is no walk in the park for anyone, Michael Winterbottom comes up with a mockumentary that details the creation of the movie we're watching which itself is about the adaptation of the book. This loop sets the stage for a flurry of events which transpire at a crazy pace parallel to the "events" of the book. Star and co-star clash on who's the bigger star, Tristram's own birth needs more and more takes, and then there's the "minor" issue that Widow Wadman, a major player of the novel, is nowhere to be seen in the screenplay and in walks Gillian Anderson who is cast as the Widow, who's scenes wind up in the cutting-room floor anyway.
Parallel to these events are others that mirror the ones in Federico Fellini's 8 1/2. Steve Coogan the actor in the movie is married to wife Jenny who has arrived to be with him during this filming with her infant son (who will play a part in the movie). Their relationship is not as strained as Guido and Luisa Anselmi but they are seen as on the cusp of being estranged. Carla's equivalent is her polar opposite, a film buff who's also part of the production crew, also named Jennie, who like Carla talks on and on about intricate, almost elaborate subtext of symbolisms that Steve succumbs to in one flirtatious scene when she comes on to him. He, like Guido, returns to his wife though, and despite the odds the movie becomes reality -- a very skewered one at best and one that leaves the audience saying, "Huh?" That is the main irony and in borrowing the original music score composed by Nino Rota it grounds A COCK AND BULL STORY in 8 1/2's sense of the absurd that continue even after the credits roll.