Kennelco Film Diary

(2005) dir. Michael Winterbottom
viewed: 10/14/06

Not particularly familiar with the “source” material as it is, Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, which I understand to be a sprawling novel that is often cited as pre-post-modern in the play with its subject, its fractured narrative approach, and its humor.  So, I can’t say much about it, but that I understand that Michael Winterbottom tried to approach the “unadaptable” novel much along the lines of its spirit and sprawling, rambling nature.  He adds to the self-referential qualities of the initial text by turning the film into a self-referential work across several levels: the actors in the movie, the movie within the movie, the characters in the movie as adapted from the novel, and Tristram Shandy himself, narrator.  It’s a stab at a deconstructivist interpretation of a work of simliar nature.

Where it really succeeds, I think, is in its humor.  Steve Coogan is brilliantly funny, as are several other of the cast.  There are some very funny sequences and it manages to be clever without being overly clever most of the time.

For some reason, in the back of my mind, I haven’t esteemed Michael Winterbottom as a director, but I am not sure why.  I think, despite his interesting last name, I had him confused with some other English director who made a lot of crap.  Going over Winterbottom’s filmography, I see only two films that I’ve seen: Butterfly Kiss (1995) and
Butterfly Kiss (1995) and 24 Hour Party People (2002), both of which I found pretty interesting.  He also seems to have adapted two Thomas Hardy novels, neither of which I have seen, but I have been converted in recent years to great appreciation for Hardy.

On one level, this movie is primarily a comedy, presented in a goofy, split-personality approach, which is fairly fun as well.  The thing it reminded me the most of though, which sounds more like a criticism, but maybe doesn’t get to the point are Christopher Guest’s series of “mockumentaries” which started out brilliant and have gotten more and more naff and pleased with themselves.  Shandy is a far sight more fun and complex than those films, but there is an aspect of that in it.

Steve Coogan is brilliant.  Did I say that already?