Picspammage over in picspam shallow visual communication land.
I picspammed for the first episode of the 1967 BBC Forsyte Saga over on my tumblr. Well, it was a Soames picspam not a full episode picspam. I'll widen my scope when I do episode 2, "A Family Scandal". There will be Nyree Dawn Porter spam to match the Eric Porter spam.
Thus I demonstrate that I am not as mono-fannish as all that. I am secretly duo-fannish. It's just that there's no active fandom for The Forsyte Saga. No fic, no newletters, no ship wars, no kink meme with people requesting Soames/Winifred dubcon incest or Soames/Young Jolyon hatesex with watersports, Jo tops. Thank goodness. I don't think I could cope.
Apparently the Clarke shortlist sucks: Compare Nina Allen and Christopher Priest, who have the same reaction expressed rather differently. Am possibly out of step with the mainstream of reaction, in that I think Priest was being completely reasonable. His reaction to the Miéville novel is more sadness about unachieved potential than anything else, and he's right about the Tepper. But consider the good news! This means that SF awards wank season is incoming. Look forward to more hyper-literate sniping about the Hugo list soon!
Music: I have episodes 1 to 100 of The Future Sound of Egypt in my collection and I have just been listening to them in order and I cannot complain about it. Great work music.
Thus I demonstrate that I am not as mono-fannish as all that. I am secretly duo-fannish. It's just that there's no active fandom for The Forsyte Saga. No fic, no newletters, no ship wars, no kink meme with people requesting Soames/Winifred dubcon incest or Soames/Young Jolyon hatesex with watersports, Jo tops. Thank goodness. I don't think I could cope.
Apparently the Clarke shortlist sucks: Compare Nina Allen and Christopher Priest, who have the same reaction expressed rather differently. Am possibly out of step with the mainstream of reaction, in that I think Priest was being completely reasonable. His reaction to the Miéville novel is more sadness about unachieved potential than anything else, and he's right about the Tepper. But consider the good news! This means that SF awards wank season is incoming. Look forward to more hyper-literate sniping about the Hugo list soon!
Music: I have episodes 1 to 100 of The Future Sound of Egypt in my collection and I have just been listening to them in order and I cannot complain about it. Great work music.
Long answer: I knew I was in for trouble with the new adaptation when I read the producer talking about how much she hated the first adaptation and enduring scenes of people *talking* (the horror) was just like watching paint dry (her actual words) and how the large Forsyte family needed to be simplified because modern viewers just wouldn't be able to follow everything. Like fucking hell. Modern TV viewers are human beings who *love* family sagas just like we always did.
Damian Lewis is a good actor miscast as Soames. Gina McKee was just horribly miscast. Rupert Graves was an awesome Young Jolyon. The script, beyond the annoyance of its family streamlining, was uneven. I found the whole affair baffling.
Eric Porter's Soames is more difficult to like than Damian Lewis's. He's pricklier and far more guarded. *This* Soames (and the Soames of Galsworthy's novels) would never, ever, ever even on point of death blurt out to his daughter why Irene hates him so. But if you want your protagonist tortured and suffering even when he's being a dick, this is the Soames. And of course later he grows and changes.
Things to know: The BBC adaptation is much longer. It is black & white. It had the usual tiny BBC budget and you will be able to tell. The video technology of the time made cuts expensive to accomplish, so the directing is very stagey with a lot of long single-take scenes. The actors are theater actors. They have amazing control of their voices and can actually perform through those long takes. This also means that the visual grammar is very different from modern television. The shorthand is not as shorthandy as what we're used to. The pace is slower.
The adaptation of the three later novels in the series, the post-War ones, isn't as interesting as the adaptation of the first three. The novels weren't as interesting, so... yeah.
Kenneth More isn't as good a Young Jolyon as Rupert Graves. There, I said it. In the Connie Willis Remake world of our future, my computer-generated Forsyte adaptation will pit Eric Porter against Rupert Graves. And the point of contention shall be played by Nyree Dawn Porter who was freakin' gorgeous all through her life.
Edited at 2012-03-31 04:05 pm (UTC)