This Month's Books - November 2005

Beowulf by Anonymous, translator unknown (this online version)
The first time I've read this translation. It's more literal than Burton Raffel's, and it seems to have heavier alliteration, which sometimes makes for better reading aloud (it's almost impossible to read it silently). But it is harder to understand and I don't think it grasps the original meaning as well as Burton Raffel's. Still, Beowulf is Beowulf.


Persuasion by Jane Austen
Very good, all of it. The writing quality and characters especially (the character introspection was excellent). I will have to read them all again, but this may be my favorite of Miss Austen's books so far.


On Directing Film by David Mamet
Mr. Mamet is both a screenwriter and director. In this book he propounds his theory of film and how, therefore, a film should be made.

A film is a story told by a series of juxtaposed images. The film is built of smaller story segments, the scenes, which are in turn made of smaller segments--"beats," he calls them--which are made of several shots, which are the smallest segment. The job of the smaller segments is to show action in the simplest possible way, and combined they form a meaning in each of the scenes and the ultimate story of the film. Because a film is built this way, the shots or beats themselves do not have to be "interesting"--they do not have to tell the story. The same goes for the actors--they don't have to act interestingly, they just have to perform the actions. The story itself will make them interesting.

He also talks about some of the problems with modern filmmaking. A lot of modern films do not have a good story or structure, and a lot of modern directors are more concerned with personal expression or making things "interesting" than they are with telling a good story as simply as possible. Because the story itself is not interesting, they have to add things to make it interesting: eye candy or "artistic" style, or graphic detail. But if the shock value is all that holds the audience, then each successive film will have to be more and more graphic. If moviemakers would simply concern themselves with telling a good story as simply and clearly as possible, we wouldn't have a lot of the problems we do. (Personal note: I think by this standard Alfred Hitchcock would be a very good director but Peter Jackson would be a very bad one. Artistic expression and all that.)

It is a good book, well worth reading if you are interested in making films or just interested in the filmmaking process. (Be warned, however, that there is some mild language and a few other things that might not be suitable for children.)