From Sunday's Times and News-Star
In
one of my favorite panel cartoons, two dinosaurs sit on what’s left above water
of a small island. In the distance, Noah’s Ark floats in the rain as one
dinosaur says to the other: “Oh crap! Was that TODAY?”
And
now you know why dinosaurs became extinct. It was either the flood, or Zumba.
The
biblical Noah has gotten a bad rap for centuries now. First they made fun of
him while he built the ark, then they were mad because he closed the door at God’s
command when the rain began, even though he didn’t rub it in and say, “I told
you so!”
Likely
he’ll take some shots this week too. Russell Crowe plays “Noah” in the movie by
the same name that opened Friday. It’s not going to be like the story in the
book. I haven’t even seen it yet but I have been to the movies plenty and few
movies are like the book. This one can’t be because there’s not enough in the
original story to make a Hollywood movie that would make any money at all.
So,
to stop at least some of the flood of disappointment, remember that the movie
is just a movie. It’s not a re-telling of Noah’s depicted in the Bible, though
it’s based on the story. It’s not a documentary; it’s only a movie.
Sigourney
Weaver isn’t really on the run from a space creature in “Alien.” Bruce Dern
didn’t really shoot John Wayne in the leg and back in “The Cowboys.” Nobody
protested Bill Murray and Harold Ramis for making “Ghostbusters,” because they
were fairly sure a gigantic Stay Puft Marshmallow Man wasn’t really going to
try to take over their city.
If
you want a movie that follows a book almost exactly, try “Lonesome Dove” or
“Field of Dreams” -- although the original book title from which the story
comes is “Shoeless Joe Comes to Iowa” and they had to cut a main character –
The Oldest Living Chicago Cub – because of time. Otherwise, the movie’s the
book and the book’s the movie.
So,
if we go to “Noah” expecting the original Noah story, we’re bound to be
disappointed. Not as disappointed as the people who couldn’t get on the
original ark, but still disappointed.
I
have anticipated the movie since I saw the previews. What’s not to like? You’ve
got impending doom, a huge ark, the animal factor, and Hollywood tools to make
this all “come alive.” And you have, as the elderly Methuselah, Anthony
Hopkins, who grabs the silver medal behind Robert Duvall as my favorite actor.
Photo finish. Hopkins has played a psychotic ventriloquist controlled by his
dummy in “Magic,” a brilliant doctor/cannibal in “Silence of the Lambs,” a
possessed priest in “The Rite,” and the main characters in both “Nixon” and
“Hitchcock.” He’s even been Quasimodo in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”
Man’s
got game. Man never gets old. (Unless he’s playing Methuselah.)
If
you’ve been to a movie before and if you have a working knowledge of “the drama
as a genre,” you know that in “Noah,” these things will most likely happen:
Somebody
will punch out, probably unexpectedly. Could be during the building of the ark
or the loading. “Watch out for that hippopota…! Too late. Poor Shem. Poor, flat
Shem…”;
Someone
will fall in or out of love, and somebody else will fall in or out of love with
one of those people. If this happens on a boat, and it rains for 40 days and
nights, even the sloths are going to know something’s up;
There
will be a close-up of somebody who is facing a Life Crisis. Dramatic lighting.
Tense music. Somewhere, a dog will bark. Or a seal. On a boat it’s always tough
to tell.
Somebody
will protest the movie but don’t let it be you: again, it’s just a movie. Moviemakers
are trying to entertain and make money. My guess is it will do both and might
even cause someone who’s never read the original story to read it, in context.
Most often, no matter how good the movie is, the book is almost always better.
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