How to read a film.

Years and years ago, I saw some year-end program on PBS in which well-known authors were asked two questions (well, at least two; memory's really vague here - it was a long time ago): Which book would you recommend viewers make a point of reading, New Year's resolution-like, in the coming year? And which book are you determined to read yourself? John Updike recommended Proust's Remembrance of Things Past and then admitted that, while he'd started a few times, he hadn't yet made his way through Laurence Sterne's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Wonder if he ever has.

Those of us who try to read a novel before seeing its adaptation (and sometimes even succeed) have had our work cut out for us this year, turning the last page on the Le Carré only to pick up the Capote, but Michael Winterbottom's Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story presents a challenge of a different order. If you live in one of those selected cities in the US, you have until January 27.

Whether or not you make it, John Mullen's backgrounder on Sterne and his novel in the Guardian makes for a delightful cheat sheet.

Posted by dwhudson at October 18, 2005 7:05 AM