White Noise has always been one of my favorite books. Don DeLillo is a cerebral writer. He is an artist of words. I put him in a category with Shakespeare, Joyce, Hemingway, Beckett. My original 1986 paperback is filled with many dozens of bookmarks & annotations. It spoke to me as a universal parable of modern American existence. It was not a situational comedy. It was not a snapshot of life in the 1970s. It was not sci-fi or satire. It was all of the above & more & way beyond.
What was brilliantly insightful & funny on the page becomes petty & clever self-consciousness on the screen. Comes off like Shakespeare as performed with earnest sincerity by an untalented community theater group. Lines should have been spoken with little or no inflection, Twilight Zone-style. There are far too many layers of unnecessary "acting". An overabundance of actorly quirks & mannerisms. It all comes off like bad sketch performing.
There used to be film directors capable of converting novels into cinematic masterpieces. Three who come to mind are John Huston, Stanley Kubrick, and Andre Tarkovsky. Their kind has apparently reached extinction.
PS Why does IMDB require a fixed number of characters in a review. And why does it now require you to search for "Celebs" on its site versus individuals or just plain people? Oh well, soon, I guess, we will all be replaced by Chatbots.
What was brilliantly insightful & funny on the page becomes petty & clever self-consciousness on the screen. Comes off like Shakespeare as performed with earnest sincerity by an untalented community theater group. Lines should have been spoken with little or no inflection, Twilight Zone-style. There are far too many layers of unnecessary "acting". An overabundance of actorly quirks & mannerisms. It all comes off like bad sketch performing.
There used to be film directors capable of converting novels into cinematic masterpieces. Three who come to mind are John Huston, Stanley Kubrick, and Andre Tarkovsky. Their kind has apparently reached extinction.
PS Why does IMDB require a fixed number of characters in a review. And why does it now require you to search for "Celebs" on its site versus individuals or just plain people? Oh well, soon, I guess, we will all be replaced by Chatbots.