Clive Exton is a curse. Well, he's hardly unique in his offense, but he's who has ruined this day for me.
Its because he is the adapter who has taken an enriching thing and bastardized it. Agatha Christie as enriching? Yes, if you care about how narrative is put together. Her narrative constructions took the idea of a in-story reader and elaborated it in ways that opened the technique. The detective story is a means for folding the reader into the story. He watches, and constructs a narrative from artifacts, discoveries, filling in the gaps. We watch both, him constructing while we do and the events that surround his constructing.
At the end of the Poirot stories, though all sorts of strange tricks have been pulled by everyone, the end the same, by Poirot telling the story to the participants of the story. Many of those now readers are surprised.
This dynamic in the books is supported by some internal dialog. We don't see the story, we see what is going on in Poirot's mind as he gets bits of the story. How this is conveyed to the screen is one of the most intriguing problems in cinema. Some of the Christie adapters try interesting strategies. Exton bulldozes over all the worthy superstructure of the book, and merely gives us a story already formed.
We do not engage, we merely watch our silly TeeVee, and plan to be surprised and amused at the end.
Its a cinematic travesty.
Many of her stories have unique characteristics, unlike, say, Sayers and Gardener. The deal here is that she was the wife of a Mideast archaeologist who wrote about a Mideast archaeologist who has a deep secret associated with a former marriage with that woman, and which bears violent fruit.
So this is an especially rich work, and Exton is an especially blunt instrument.
Other than that, other than the soul and lungs and bones having been ripped out, this is pretty. It has comparatively rich sets and less than stellar characterizations.
Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.
Its because he is the adapter who has taken an enriching thing and bastardized it. Agatha Christie as enriching? Yes, if you care about how narrative is put together. Her narrative constructions took the idea of a in-story reader and elaborated it in ways that opened the technique. The detective story is a means for folding the reader into the story. He watches, and constructs a narrative from artifacts, discoveries, filling in the gaps. We watch both, him constructing while we do and the events that surround his constructing.
At the end of the Poirot stories, though all sorts of strange tricks have been pulled by everyone, the end the same, by Poirot telling the story to the participants of the story. Many of those now readers are surprised.
This dynamic in the books is supported by some internal dialog. We don't see the story, we see what is going on in Poirot's mind as he gets bits of the story. How this is conveyed to the screen is one of the most intriguing problems in cinema. Some of the Christie adapters try interesting strategies. Exton bulldozes over all the worthy superstructure of the book, and merely gives us a story already formed.
We do not engage, we merely watch our silly TeeVee, and plan to be surprised and amused at the end.
Its a cinematic travesty.
Many of her stories have unique characteristics, unlike, say, Sayers and Gardener. The deal here is that she was the wife of a Mideast archaeologist who wrote about a Mideast archaeologist who has a deep secret associated with a former marriage with that woman, and which bears violent fruit.
So this is an especially rich work, and Exton is an especially blunt instrument.
Other than that, other than the soul and lungs and bones having been ripped out, this is pretty. It has comparatively rich sets and less than stellar characterizations.
Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.