Atonement the movie C/D

i had an alternative thread title for this.

it was pretty rude.

i think put together with that other thread, we can build up a picture of what charlieno4 likes about this film.

I am thrilled at the possibility that the luscious McAvoy may finally be in a watchable film.

My thoughts on the book and (baseless, hysterical) fears for the movie here: "The Child In Time" by Ian McEwan (NO SPOILERS PLEASE)

I've not seen it yet, but I've gathered that it's fairly faithful to the book in plot, structure, and concept, which is great in one way, but bollocks in another, because it's made me realise that most of my great, far-flung theories on the book (which I only read this summer, obvlious to the adaptation) are in fact generally-understood tenets. Someone else has hijacked my vision!

To be fair, in the novel McEwan makes you think it's your vision, and then hijacks it himself. It's a fantastic trick, and I'd imagine the film does the same, playing out a meaningless love-story that the selfish reader relates to, with two characters who don't stand for anything but themselves (and, by extension, the reader), before pulling the rug out at the end.

I wonder, however, if the film upholds my Freudian reading of the novel, with discussion of writing and the unconscious, and oodles of ingenious reader suggestion. It's doubtful.

I hate Ian McEwan

Keira Knightley, mark of quality.

I thought it was just incredible for about 77 different reasons

If any of these weren't derived directly from the (brilliantly devious) source text, I'll be amazed.

I, too, had severe Knightley reservations, but again, I'll have to see it for myself before leaping to judgement (as I so shriekingly did on the McEwan thread).

i think put together with that other thread, we can build up a picture of what charlieno4 likes about this film.

-- That one guy that hit it and quit it, Thursday, September 13, 2007 1:10 PM

hey! (um, i don't know what you're getting at, i just feel i should probably be indignant)

xpost many of my 77 reasons are (I think) purely of a cinematic nature - but i haven't read the book so that's admittedly a tough call.

i like war movies but they couldn't even afford stukas :/

Keira Knightley, mark of quality.

Well, the key to avoiding this prejudice was to hit EJECT after the first 30 mins of the first Pirates potboiler. As I did.

30 secs for the sequels

The book is awesomely, obviously cinematic in terms of McEwan's deeply sensual, suggestive prose (and indeed the sets practically draw themselves), but deeply uncinematic in self-referential, reader-conscious literary concept. I'm sure they've managed to do a 'Tristram Shandy' and transposed literary concept onto cinematic concept, however. Thence, presumably, stems your astonishment.

Enrique, the whole POINT of book two was that it wasn't a battle between two sides, it was a battle to restore the reader's happiness by getting one man and one man only back to Britain alive. How else did he generate such unbearable suspense? The whole book dangled Robbie Turner in front of our eyes like a particularly enticing currant bun.

ew gross eng lit students

xp

How else is a young actress supposed to start in films, by making something GOOD? (tho the last version of Pride & Pejudice by this director had its fans)

xpost

wasn't you one? :p

(and c'mon, i'm right)

i think keira knightley scrubs up pretty good.

a scrubber, you say?

Keira's Lizzie Bennett was heavily ripped-off from Jennifer Ehle in the TV series, which she's pretty much admitted, but was still good nonetheless. I think she's terrific in Atonement.

it's made me realise that most of my great, far-flung theories on the book (which I only read this summer, obvlious to the adaptation) are in fact generally-understood tenets

what are they?

To quote a Facebook wall-exchange I recently had:

"The thing about Atonement is that it calls the entire fictional process into account with its astonishing closing page. It ought to have been filmed by Michael Winterbottom or something; the novel deliberately sabotages its own reality through the sabotaging of Bryony's fiction; I'm sure this could have been mirrored filmically. Furthermore, the opening half, set on that one day, unfolds inevitably, the writer psychologically inducing the reader to write the novel before reading it. The reader generally will achieve this, and will continue to do so throughout; this is how the punchline so pulls the rug out from under our feet. Aside from all this, however, the novel is written with a fantastic sensuality; the love-scene is as erotic (tenderly violent) as they come, and the parapraxes he absent-mindedly assigns each character (Robbie's letter, Paul's "You've got to bite it", his own list of tragedies at the start of part two to which Robbie adds his own, thus placing his very self, Ian McEwan, amongst the pantheon) allow the reader to integrate with the characters' viewpoints. In fact, the greatest parapraxis, the greatest error, is the unfinished act of love between Robbie and Cecilia; this psychological hook compels the reader to wish their love consummated; our frustration grows when we learn that they met but never made love. This, indeed, is why we dislike Bryony so intensely at the end of Book One; she has not only interrupted a sexual experience in which we have a vested interest, but she has sullied the life of a near-perfect male character whose perfection will be assured with the completion of his love.

None of this will be in the film. In fact, the only bit I expect them to pull off is Robbie's ultra-pathetic return with lost boys in tow. As a reader, I knew that was going to happen AS SOON AS the accusation was made.

I read Atonement about a month ago whilst holidaying in Cyprus, and my analysis of it stems not from A-level buit from my studies of Freud last year. I believe Robbie actually mentions Freud in the novel; a clue, perhaps, that McEwan himself is well-versed in Writing And The Unconscious. I'm studying post-1979 literature for my finals; I immediately wanted to write an essay on the novel's use of parapraxes, but then I discovered it had been filmed, and realised that addressing the now-tainted book would draw the deep disdain of all my professors."

More on that McEwan thread I linked above. The keystone, from a male perspective at least, is that we ALL wish we'd made Robbie's letter-exchange-error, and from then on we're living, through him, some kind of idealised life, which is shockingly EVAPORATED before our helpless eyes.

(oh, and the unfinished love-scene, obv.)

fucking students! jeez. (JOEK)

what is parapraxis please?

Greek island?

heh, a parapraxis is an unwitting mistake that divulges psychological information about the perpetrator. in other terms, a freudian slip.

it calls the entire fictional process into account with its astonishing closing page. It ought to have been filmed by Michael Winterbottom or something

verily, the first director ever to have messed with the fictional process.

I was giving an obvious example to a layman.

(a FELLOW layman, I ought to have said)

Stop digging now

hey, if you've got a problem with my analysis, come up with a counter-example!

The ending of the book is competely obvious!

but maybe that's what you meant above when you said you realized your far flung theory was the generally accepted take

I was giving an obvious example to a layman.

-- Just got offed, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:17 (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(a FELLOW layman, I ought to have said)

-- Just got offed, Thursday, 13 September 2007 14:18 (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

PARAPRAXIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I sense a meme in the making.

It's going to be a couple of weeks before I can see this film, although I'm looking forward to it hugely. Hopefully the thread will be all J@ggered out by then and ppl will be talking a little more sensibly.

Is this the reward for trying to make sense of a confounding piece of literature?

When you say that the end of the book is completely obvious, akm, you have a point, in that the 'reunion' scene with her older sister is SO artificial and 'obvious' in feel that you can almost smell a rat even then. Everything goes exactly as you might have planned, and you can sense a stagey acting out of written roles; it's hyper-real and therefore unreal. Also, the real writer, McEwan, has been slipping in hints throughout that he's in control, and that he can do more or less as he wants, even if it does sink the reader's hopes.

Back to the film, though: I'm sure I'll really like it, and I'm sure it'll hold fairly close to my vision of the novel.

i didnt like the book.
will i like the movie?

zeno, you hate cardiacs AND atonement, i'm beginning to notice a pattern. you're the anti-me!

i hate cardicacs. atonament i just don't like.
and if im the anti-you, we might get along as statistic shows...

the statistic being http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbknGnZXHUk

I read the novel, thought it was an OK tearjerker, can't quite understand what is supposed to make it into such a masterpiece, and can't recall what was so "astonishing" about the last page... surely not all that "the protagonist is the real author" stuff? I can't see what's so revolutionary about that, even Agatha Christie probably did that...

the first half was very good - the 2nd half too try and one-dimensional, and the ending overrated,yeah

Yep, think I'd go along with that.

nonononononono, you're meant to have worked out that the protagonist is the real author miles beforehand. what the last page does is affirm McEwan's control, and it does it through its flippant dismissal of our emotional manipulation.

i read it only because Updike recommended it, and i was going blind after the review. i love Updike, what can i do.

xpost
Must have passed me by. I'll have another look at the last page, if I still have the book.

I'll read the last page if I don't have to read the rest of the book

it's a shame you have to waste so much time and pages for that last "wow" one, if it's a "wow" that is..

If you read the novel again, just keep thinking "What is the author trying to make me feel?" It's seductively simple to read the novel passively, to be swept along indulgently, and to be caught unawares by the 'tearjerking', but actually (in retrospect) perfectly logical ending.

Those pages aren't wasted, btw.

Also, has it not occurred to many people that Bryony's 'atonement' is achieved through (deliberately) having every single warm-blooded reader loathe her guts for a good three-quarters of the length? It's 'her' portrayal, although ultimately McEwan is the one who elicits both our hopes and our hatred.

Wright may have botched the ending, but Redgrave doesn't.

yes, Vanessa does all she can, as Armond says, to "pick this high-priced twaddle out of the Anthony Minghella gutter." (I wonder if AW knows that's Minghella interviewing Briony.)

That was the biggest C-U-N-T on a movie screen since Speed Levitch.

Yeah, I am sure Ed and I will unpack this film's use of that certain word at great length over the next month.

I saw this with an oldish (obv) audience on the Upper West Side, and some woman a few rows back did the tsk-tsk tongue-on-teeth clicking thing whenever something unfortunate happened. It was like a duet with Briony's typewriter.

^ladies like that would be a blast to watch Salo with^

i found this movie a little difficult to sit through. i have not read the book, but from writings upthread, i imagine this adaptation does not do it any justice.

OK, no more posts from me here until I've seen the movie. Deal.

-- Just got offed, Thursday, 13 September 2007 16:03 (3 months ago) Bookmark Link

Spread the word! We're safe in here!

I would love to see a MAD parody.

I think Atonement brings up an important and urgent subject, something we often hear about in court cases namely: Can you trust kids? Without even realising the complexity of that issue, the film is on the opposite side of the child. Briony is, all by herself, supposed to be blamed för an adult worlds fucked up attitude towards sex and the inability to take kids seriously. There isn't a more obvious way to show how children are sacrificed because adults are acting like idiots. Atonement sentences the child to a lifelong punishment for having to - against her better judgement - pointed out an innocent man and let Briony carry the shame til her death. I mean, hasn't anyone else found this to be disgusting? Is it any different in the book?

typewriter music was annoying.

I saw this with an oldish (obv) audience on the Upper West Side, and some woman a few rows back did the tsk-tsk tongue-on-teeth clicking thing whenever something unfortunate happened.

^^same thing happened to me. Except I was in Brisbane.

i haven't seen the movie but in the book briony is overcome with shame and constructs a weird lit-alt-reality to compensate.

and briony is an annoying bitch, i don't care her age

Briony's guilt/suffering seems meant to be seen as tragic, if not particularly easy to empathize with or on the scale of the lovers' fate.

(Of course, if it had all only happened 50 years later, there would be few 13-year-olds in the Western world who wouldn't know what was up in the library. But then they wouldn't hafta shag there etc.)

I think it's more subtle than her having no idea what they were doing in the library. It's that she's not ready to deal with sexuality, especially female sexuality, and so sublimates her confused and jealous feelings into the "Robbie is a sex maniac" line.

On a similar note, though, my mum expressed incredulity that a girl of Briony's age and background in the 1930s would recognise the c-word at all.

One as intellectually curious as Briony probably would've come across it.

in Chaucer!

Lovelace: I don't understand what you're saying at all. How are adults to blame for what Briony did? If you're saying she should have been taken more seriously, well how would that have helped? Alba's right and she just wasn't mature enough to deal with it. It works because she's a believable character - if you want her to be a metaphor for sacrificed innocence instead, well that would have made for a rubbish story.

I enjoyed the first section of the book -- Alba OTM on McEwan being great at describing the way kids think -- but isn't the "twist" at the end just an old hat, Roald Dahl-ish, Tales-Of-The-Unexpected-style "twist in the tale"? Didn't Richard Matheson et al do this kind of meta-ending to death in the 50s and 60s? Aren't we only bowled over it because it's a work of "literary" fiction. I mean, isn't it basically just Anthony Powell does "Duck Amuck"?

typewriter music was annoying.

yep. I thought it was a cute gimmick for the opening sequence, but then it carried on for the entire. fucking. movie.

I didn't think this was very special at all.

i'm generally fuck-the-haters on this one. not read the book. it got a little bit tricksy at the end.

maybe it would have been better as a straightforward melodrama without the big meta conceit, though still told from briony's pov.

i got confused by the bit with the french dude: was that stuff all "true" (i.e. he and briony had met)?

NO and NO

k

good call re the french dude, that's the one bit i never really got.

i knew vaguely about the "twist" so throughout i was sort of reading it that way -- everything after the country house anyway. i figured he was meant to stand for robbie in some way. but because i more than half-expected robbie himself to turn up at the hospital with his wound, it threw me a bit.

her (cliched) scene with the french dude was her first stab at ameliorating reality with a bit of fiction. not subtle, but the scene works ok on its own. The confession/non-confession at the older girl's apartment was a bit too subtle for me, or maybe i wasn't paying attention enough. the sound was bad in the theater too, i think i liked it enough to rent it someday and see what they were on about exactly.

I confess I'm more inclined to take the melodrama on its face rather than stepping back to look at the film's thematic ambitions. Its handling of the 'meta' stuff is more ambivalent, less subtle, and ultimately less effective than Pan's Labyrinth's exploration of the same conceit, more or less so I'm taking the more charitable route and resolving to just enjoy the show. I like me some Keira Knightley.

taken on its face, it'd be more popular

however that's a bit like saying Jonathan Pryce really does escape at the end of Brazil.

well I don't mean ignoring what happens per se, just not letting its success or failure hinge upon it. for me personally. i actually favor the pollyannish, transcendent reading of Pan's and Brazil(and many other films, prob.) but not this one, which is probably the proof in the pudding in my heart of hearts.

i think the scene where she visits cecilia and robbie's there is really well done -- it's 'off', you can tell it's an imaginary conversation. i think they overcomplicate the flashback structure at that point, however: the idea he has survived dunkirk isn't clear enough at that point.

hm/whoa/hm. this was so heavily dramatic it almost made me laugh but for the horrible simple truth of how life can turn on a dime good or bad.

that's the interesting part. fiction vs reality stuff here wasn't the thing that compelled me, i guess, whereas the theme of heaviness/lightness of life could have offered something deeper and surprising - and sort of did in places. also, war, holy fucking shit it blows my mind. i'm v glad this wasn't ultimately a love story. though maybe it was.

christ, this was one of the most annoying books i have ever read, with one of the most irritating, cheap-feeling denouements. i rarely feel as though time spent reading is time wasted, but after finishing this i felt i'd been robbed.

Keira Knightley's character really has little to do but simmer and be an open wound.

-- Dr Morbius, Monday, 7 January 2008 16:26 (1 month ago) Link

well, that's got to be a good thing since the woman has approximately three facial expressions, four at a push. why is she everywhere all the time? she is a dreadful actress! she was fine in the hole and bend it like beckham, where subtlety or nuance were not only unnecessary but would have weakened the portrayal of her characters, thickly-drawn as they were, but given anything more demanding and she can single-handedly wreck an entire film. I'm happy for her to be rich and successful, i just wish she wasn't successful at something she is so utterly, utterly shit at. fuck off and be a model or a tv presenter or something.

does briony actually need to see the "i drink your milkshake" note?

her seeing robbie and cecilia wallbanging would be enough, wouldn't it? in conjunction with her feelings toward him and the argument she saw earlier.

on the other hand, maybe it's only robbie's unintentional directness of approach in the note that wins him the shag?

it definitely is.

it's an icebreaker.

ugggggh. ok, this was a very attractive movie to look at, great cinematography and staging of dunkirk, but can someone please tell me if the horrifc script was the fault of the screenwriters adaptation or actually an accurate transfer of the book? this will save me from making any effort to ever read McEwen if the book is to blame.

this movie was just embarrassing and terrible. oh also, the typewriter noises? fuck the guy who thought of that.

typewriter noises?
that's all i remember from this boring shit.

btw, those were OSCAR WINNING typewriter noises, ffs.

The book's better, yes.

oh also, the typewriter noises? fuck the guy who thought of that.

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/images/object_images/535x535/10303151.jpg

"Yeah, well motherfuck you and John Wayne, too!"

-- Christopher Latham Sholes

Oh,i also remember that british chick being all wet.

the book is hideous

The slackness of the second half (Dunkirk, etc.) is the movie's fault -- the book is tighter than that. But the endings are pretty similar.

typewriter noises were indeed terrible.

Book way better than film--was very disppointed in the movie after the first half. Annoying the way the main character's haircut didn't change for 60 years (but she''s 3 actresses playing the ONE WOMAN do you see, do you see?). But as I read somewhere or other, Keira Knightely really does wear that green dress.

liked both the book and the film. loved the tracking shot.

this was the worst adaptaton of a "major" novel I've seen in years.

You don't get out much (not that this was great by any stretch of the imagination.)

christ, this was one of the most annoying books i have ever read, with one of the most irritating, cheap-feeling denouements.

otm!

You don't get out much (not that this was great by any stretch of the imagination.)

If I saw more feeble adaptations like this, I might stay home forever.

Vanessa Redgrave a total class act though.