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Post a Comment On: Steve Sailer: iSteve

"20th anniversary of Tom Wolfe's "Bonfire of the Vanities""

17 Comments -

1 – 17 of 17
Anonymous Udolpho said...

The book about Bonfire (the movie) was more illuminating than the movie itself. DePalma peaked with Carrie.

12/10/07, 10:16 PM

Anonymous Roger Thatchery said...

Really? Posner is America's most distinguished jurist-intellectual? According to whom? Other red diaper babies? Mr Sailer, I will argue that your perception of Posner is another product of the media echo chamber.

Certain lawyers have assaulted the Second Amendment for 100 years on the basis that the phrase "the people" is plural. Yet the same phrase "the people" is understood as singular everywhere else in the Bill of Rights, especially in the First Amendment. Can we say that this is the height of intellectual consistency?

The Fourth Amendment states plainly "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated" and yet this man Posner spends his career opposing the legal concept of a right to privacy.

Gee, for some reason I don't believe it would have helped one bit for the Founders to declare outright that "the people have the Right to Privacy" in the Fourth Amendment to the Bill of Rights. Certain lawyers would surely work for decades to construct a path around that statement.

And as soon as I saw the name Posner I knew that a tribal reference was sure to follow:

"(the sort of thing we attribute to Kafka)"

Who is "we" Mr Posner? Your fellow Americans? Your fellow Westerners? Please. The gentiles have never given a damn about Kafka. Franz Kafka is another genius whose obscurity has been delayed by ethnic cheerleading.

And as regarding the judge switched to black judge for Hollywood's sake, well, that's a lot like the battlefield lawyer in James Jones' Thin Red Line being switched to Greek for the film version, isn't it? And a zillion other instances, of course.

The culture must be policed after all. And here's the kicker: If, as Commissar, you do a really thorough job of cultural police work, then even fringe element blog owners will find themselves falling in line without even realizing it!

12/11/07, 12:33 AM

Blogger Martin said...

Sherman - Ed Harris

Fallow - John Hurt

The judge - Alan Arkin

12/11/07, 4:04 AM

Blogger Steve Sailer said...

Alan Arkin, yes, definitely.

12/11/07, 4:13 AM

Anonymous Jimbo said...

I'm trying to remember - was Hugh Grant around at that time? He would have made a brilliant Fallow...

12/11/07, 4:22 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I imagined Fallow as looking a lot like Christopher Hitchens.

12/11/07, 3:11 PM

Blogger Ron Guhname said...

From Wikipedia:

"Walter Matthau was initially offered the role of the judge, but demanded a fee of US$1 million. The producers balked at meeting his price and signed Alan Arkin instead for a modest $150,000. Arkin was replaced by Morgan Freeman when the studio decided to change the judge's ethnicity from Jewish to African-American in order to moderate criticism of the film's racial politics, and dialogue was added to have the judge give the final denouncement towards the manipulative actions of the main characters. Lastly, F. Murray Abraham, who has a significant part in the film, chose to not be credited over a contract dispute."

12/11/07, 3:27 PM

Anonymous Jim O'Sullivan said...

DePalma is awful. The most overrated ever. All of his work stinks. Even though hes's usually trying to do nothing more complicated than imitate great filmmakers.

This one finally let everybody realize how bad he is. I mean, how could you take a great book like that and turn it into the biggest turkey since Heaven's Gate? Oh, that's how!!

12/11/07, 3:53 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

McCoy's transition from the nailbiting, carved freize Sherman at the pinnacle of a vain society to the masculine, at ease, "now I dress for jail" Sherman, a better and happier man, at the bottom suggests a kind of final, encompassing, blanket barb directed at all of Wolfe's targets in Bonfire and just about everyone else. Presenting Sherman as a bit ridiculous at the end and compressing his post-transformation period into just a few pages creates a kind of vanishing effect for this message, however, into the sea of the rest of the book (the "dress for jail" remark, for example, maybe the most significant defining moment for the better Sherman, only comes in the faux-NYT article amid a flurry of other concluding details). The conclusion adds an incendiary, Dostoevskian kick to the novel (which follows the basic structure of Crime and Punishment) in Sherman's brief quasi-punishment phase, with Wolfe as a mocking Savonarola, who having created a pile of satired vanities, strikes a match at the end to light the fire.

12/11/07, 8:22 PM

Anonymous Martin said...

Alan Arkin would have been good in the role of the judge. Or perhaps Vincent Gardenia.

Sherman McCoy: Tom Cruise (if he had been older then)

ADA Kramer: Ron Silver

Peter Fallow: Gary Oldman

It's a shame that the studio decided to take out most of the racial politics, as that was about half the story.

12/11/07, 10:15 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

How many other examples of "great book-terrible movie" can rival Bonfire?

I can't think of any off the top of my head -- but I predict that the Angelina Jolie version of Atlas Shrugged will make the list, if it ever gets made!

12/12/07, 10:03 AM

Anonymous Svigor said...

Oh I dunno, I really dig Scarface. Not every day you create the ultimate scumbag immigrant epic poem and shoot the numinious immigrant myth full of holes.

12/12/07, 11:46 AM

Anonymous Svigor said...

How many other examples of "great book-terrible movie" can rival Bonfire?

The Stand was pretty good/horrible.

12/12/07, 11:48 AM

Anonymous ben tillman said...

My one year in Manhattan coincided with the publication of this book. It really was true to life. I agree completely, Steve -- great book, terrible movie. Hanks was *not* Sherman McCoy material.

12/12/07, 8:03 PM

Anonymous Fred said...

I haven't seen the film version of Atonement yet (read the book when it was short-listed for the Booker Prize), but judging by the reviews it might be a rare example of a great movie from a great book.

12/12/07, 11:01 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Actually, the Duke Lacrosse mess has strong echoes from Wolfe's latest book, "I Am Charlotte Simons." That book was partly based on his visits to Duke.

David Brooks remarked that all scandals appear twice, first in a Tom Wolfe story, then in real life.

Wolfe is currently working on a book based in Miami, concerning immigration. Just up your alley.

12/14/07, 8:57 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

The 2007 "Tom Wolfe Award for Wrestling the Beast and Bringing the Lurid Carnival of American Life to Heel" Goes to...

New York Magazine's "New York Look Book", 2007.

12/17/07, 4:47 PM

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