Everyone says its a masterpiece but I've never liked Schindler's List. Terry Gilliam comes close to explaining some of what bothers me about the film below:
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I'm an Irish novelist currently living in St Kilda, Australia
"Hardboiled charm, evocative dialogue, an acute sense of place and a sardonic sense of humour make McKinty one to watch."
---The Guardian
A couple more books, a few birthdays, some shuffleboard then a period spent in the digestive tract of earthworms, followed by molecular breakdown, the sun boiling into space, the heat death of the universe, atomic decay, perpetual darkness, a trillion years of nothingness and then, if we're lucky, brane collapse, a new singularity and a new Big Bang.
About Me
I'm an Irish novelist currently living in St Kilda, Australia
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More about me
I was born and grew up in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland. After studying philosophy at Oxford University I emigrated to New York City where I lived in Harlem for seven years working in bars, bookstores, building sites and finally the basement stacks of the Columbia University Medical School Library in Washington Heights.
In 2000 I moved to Denver, Colorado where I taught high school English and started writing fiction in earnest. My first full length novel Dead I Well May Be was shortlisted for the 2004 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award and was picked by Booklist as one of the 10 best crime novels of the year. The sequel to that book The Dead Yard was selected by Publishers Weekly as one of the 12 best novels of 2006 and won the Audie Award for best mystery or thriller.
In mid 2008 I moved to St. Kilda, Melbourne, Australia with my wife and kids. My last book Falling Glass was Audible's Best Mystery or Thriller for 2011. I've just published a new novel for Serpents Tail called The Cold Cold Ground.
In 2000 I moved to Denver, Colorado where I taught high school English and started writing fiction in earnest. My first full length novel Dead I Well May Be was shortlisted for the 2004 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award and was picked by Booklist as one of the 10 best crime novels of the year. The sequel to that book The Dead Yard was selected by Publishers Weekly as one of the 12 best novels of 2006 and won the Audie Award for best mystery or thriller.
In mid 2008 I moved to St. Kilda, Melbourne, Australia with my wife and kids. My last book Falling Glass was Audible's Best Mystery or Thriller for 2011. I've just published a new novel for Serpents Tail called The Cold Cold Ground.
You can read a review of my latest book, The Cold Cold Ground, in The Guardian, here. You can peruse the review from the Irish Independent, here or the review in The Times, here. The Glasgow Herald's verdict is here and The Sydney Morning Herald chips in, here. Not to be outdone The Irish Times weighs in, here and the Irish Sunday Independent adds its two cents, here. If you want to know what all the fuss is about you can be a good chap and get The Cold Cold Ground on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Audible.com or at your local bookshop.
WORK IN PROGRESS:
All Hail McKinty!
"If Raymond Chandler had grown up in Northern Ireland he would have written The Cold Cold Ground."
---The Times
"Hardboiled charm, evocative dialogue, an acute sense of place and a sardonic sense of humour make McKinty one to watch."
---The Guardian
"A literary thriller that is as concerned with exploring the poisonously claustrophobic demi-monde of Northern Ireland during the Troubles, and the self-sabotaging contradictions of its place and time, as it is with providing the genre’s conventional thrills and spills. The result is a masterpiece of Troubles crime fiction: had David Peace, Eoin McNamee and Brian Moore sat down to brew up the great Troubles novel, they would have been very pleased indeed to have written The Cold Cold Ground."
---The Irish Times
"McKinty is a big new talent."
---The Daily Telegraph
"McKinty is a gifted man with poetry coursing through his veins and thrilling writing dripping from his fingertips."
---The Sunday Independent
"McKinty is a big new talent."
---The Daily Telegraph
"McKinty is a gifted man with poetry coursing through his veins and thrilling writing dripping from his fingertips."
---The Sunday Independent
"Adrian McKinty is fast gaining a reputation as the finest of the new generation of Irish crime writers, and it's easy to see why on the evidence of The Cold Cold Ground."
---The Glasgow Herald
"McKinty is a storyteller with the kind of style and panache that blur the line between genre and mainstream."
---Kirkus Reviews
"McKinty's literate expertly crafted crime novel confirms his place as one of his generation's leading talents."
---Publishers Weekly
"McKinty crackles with raw talent. His dialogue is superb, his characters rich and his plotting tight and seemless. He writes with a wonderful and wonderfully humorous flair for language raising his work above most crime genre offerings and bumping it right up against literature."
---The San Francisco Chronicle
"McKinty keeps getting better. He melds the snap and crackle of the old Mickey Spillane tales with the literary skills of Raymond Chandler and sets it all down in his own artful way."
---The Rocky Mountain News
"The first of McKinty's Forsythe novels, "Dead I Well May Be," was intense, focused and entirely brilliant. This one is looser-limbed, funnier...so, I imagine, is the middle book, "The Dead Yard," which I haven't read but which Publishers Weekly included on its list of the 12 best novels of 2006, along with works by Peter Abrahams, Richard Ford, Cormac McCarthy and George Pelecanos."
---The Washington Post
"McKinty, who grew up in Northern Ireland, has an ear for language and a taste for violence, and he serves up a terrifically gory, swiftly paced thriller."
---The Miami Herald
"There's nothing like an Irish tough guy. And we're not talking about Gentleman Gerry Cooney here. No, we mean the new breed of bare-knuckle Irish writers like Adrian McKinty, Ken Bruen and John Connolly who are bringing fresh life to the crime fiction genre."
---The Philadelphia Inquirer
"McKinty's writing is dark and witty with gritty realism, spot on dialogue, and fascinating characters."
---The Chicago Sun-Times
"If you like your noir staples such as beautiful women, betrayal, murder, mixed with a heavy dose of blood, crunched bones, body parts flying around served up with some throwaway humour, you need look no further, McKinty delivers all of this with the added bonus that the writing is pitch perfect."
---The Barcelona Review
"I really enjoyed [Dead I Well May Be’s] combination of toughness and a striking literary style. Both those things are evident in Hidden River. McKinty is going places."
---The Observer
"This is a terrific read. McKinty gives us a strong non stop story with attractive characters and fine writing."
---The Morning Star
"[McKinty] draws us close and relates a fantastic tale of murder and revenge in low, wry tones, as if from the next barstool...he drops out of conversational mode to throw in a few breathtaking fever-dream sequences for flavor. And then he springs an ending so right and satisfying it leaves us numb with delight and ready to pop for another round. Start the cliche machine: This is a profoundly satisfying book from a major new talent and one of the best crime fiction debuts of the year."
---Booklist
"The story is soaked in the holy trinity of the noir thriller: betrayal, money and murder, but seen through with a panache and political awareness that give McKinty a keen edge over his rivals."
---The Big Issue
"A darkly humorous cross between a hard-boiled mystery and a Beat novel."
---The St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"A roller coaster of highs and lows, light humour and dark deeds, the powerful undercurrent of McKinty's talent will swiftly drag you away. Let's hope the author does not slow down anytime soon."
---The Irish Examiner
"A virtual carnival of slaughter."
---The Wall Street Journal
"McKinty has once again harnassed the power of poetry, violence, lust and revenge to forge a sequel to his acclaimed Dead I Well May Be."
---The Irish Post
"A pacey, violent caper in which McKinty vividly portrays [Belfast's] sleazy, still-menacing underbelly."
---The Sunday Times
"McKinty writes with the soul of a poet; his prose dances off the pages with Old World grace and haunting intensity. It's crime fiction on the level of Michael Connolly with the conviction of James Hall."
---The Jackson Clarion-Ledger
"The Bloomsday Dead is the explosive final installment in a trilogy of kinetic thrillers."
---The New York Times
"Adrian McKinty has garnered nothing but praise for his first two books. The third in the trilogy The Bloomsday Dead should leave no doubt that he is a true star. Fast moving and highly engaging this is a great book. McKinty just gets better and better."
---CrimeSpree
"Until The Dead Yard's relentless, poignant ending you'll turn these pages as quickly as you can."
---The Cleveland Plain Dealer
"McKinty's Dead Trilogy has been praised by critics, who call it "intense," "masterful" and "loaded with action." If your reading pleasure leans toward thrillers offering suspense, close calls, wry wit, sharp dialogue, local color and sudden mayhem, you wont do better."
---The Sacramento Bee
"Le Fleuve caché d'Adrian McKinty impressionne par la richesse et la diversité de son ton et de son écriture, passant avec aisance du lyrisme ample de la nostalgie de l'amour perdu au rythme saccadé du narrateur sous l'emprise de l'héroïne. Ce livre rare et maîtrisé est une réussite bien digne de la Série noire."
---Le Figaro
Eine eigentlich simple Story, die natürlich bereits als Grundlage für Hunderte Bücher und Filme diente, macht Adrian McKinty zu der mitreißenden Odyssee eines jungen Mannes, der in der Lage ist, sich seiner Umwelt anzupassen wie jene Kakerlaken, die er in seinem Harlemer Appartement jagt, studiert und sowohl angewidert awie anerkennend entkommen lässt. Nicht umsonst 1992 angesiedelt, ist Der sichere Tod der kongeniale Kommentar zum Wesen der Neunziger.
- Jochen König, krimi-couch.de
"McKinty - that guy is a friggin genius."
---Ken Bruen
"McKinty is a cross between Mickey Spillane and Damon Runyan, the toughest, the best."
---Frank McCourt
"McKinty is an exciting new talent."
---Ed McBain
"Daddy's book is really boring."
---Sophie McKinty (aged 2 1/2)
"McKinty is a storyteller with the kind of style and panache that blur the line between genre and mainstream."
---Kirkus Reviews
"McKinty's literate expertly crafted crime novel confirms his place as one of his generation's leading talents."
---Publishers Weekly
"McKinty crackles with raw talent. His dialogue is superb, his characters rich and his plotting tight and seemless. He writes with a wonderful and wonderfully humorous flair for language raising his work above most crime genre offerings and bumping it right up against literature."
---The San Francisco Chronicle
"McKinty keeps getting better. He melds the snap and crackle of the old Mickey Spillane tales with the literary skills of Raymond Chandler and sets it all down in his own artful way."
---The Rocky Mountain News
"The first of McKinty's Forsythe novels, "Dead I Well May Be," was intense, focused and entirely brilliant. This one is looser-limbed, funnier...so, I imagine, is the middle book, "The Dead Yard," which I haven't read but which Publishers Weekly included on its list of the 12 best novels of 2006, along with works by Peter Abrahams, Richard Ford, Cormac McCarthy and George Pelecanos."
---The Washington Post
"McKinty, who grew up in Northern Ireland, has an ear for language and a taste for violence, and he serves up a terrifically gory, swiftly paced thriller."
---The Miami Herald
"There's nothing like an Irish tough guy. And we're not talking about Gentleman Gerry Cooney here. No, we mean the new breed of bare-knuckle Irish writers like Adrian McKinty, Ken Bruen and John Connolly who are bringing fresh life to the crime fiction genre."
---The Philadelphia Inquirer
"McKinty's writing is dark and witty with gritty realism, spot on dialogue, and fascinating characters."
---The Chicago Sun-Times
"If you like your noir staples such as beautiful women, betrayal, murder, mixed with a heavy dose of blood, crunched bones, body parts flying around served up with some throwaway humour, you need look no further, McKinty delivers all of this with the added bonus that the writing is pitch perfect."
---The Barcelona Review
"I really enjoyed [Dead I Well May Be’s] combination of toughness and a striking literary style. Both those things are evident in Hidden River. McKinty is going places."
---The Observer
"This is a terrific read. McKinty gives us a strong non stop story with attractive characters and fine writing."
---The Morning Star
"[McKinty] draws us close and relates a fantastic tale of murder and revenge in low, wry tones, as if from the next barstool...he drops out of conversational mode to throw in a few breathtaking fever-dream sequences for flavor. And then he springs an ending so right and satisfying it leaves us numb with delight and ready to pop for another round. Start the cliche machine: This is a profoundly satisfying book from a major new talent and one of the best crime fiction debuts of the year."
---Booklist
"The story is soaked in the holy trinity of the noir thriller: betrayal, money and murder, but seen through with a panache and political awareness that give McKinty a keen edge over his rivals."
---The Big Issue
"A darkly humorous cross between a hard-boiled mystery and a Beat novel."
---The St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"A roller coaster of highs and lows, light humour and dark deeds, the powerful undercurrent of McKinty's talent will swiftly drag you away. Let's hope the author does not slow down anytime soon."
---The Irish Examiner
"A virtual carnival of slaughter."
---The Wall Street Journal
"McKinty has once again harnassed the power of poetry, violence, lust and revenge to forge a sequel to his acclaimed Dead I Well May Be."
---The Irish Post
"A pacey, violent caper in which McKinty vividly portrays [Belfast's] sleazy, still-menacing underbelly."
---The Sunday Times
"McKinty writes with the soul of a poet; his prose dances off the pages with Old World grace and haunting intensity. It's crime fiction on the level of Michael Connolly with the conviction of James Hall."
---The Jackson Clarion-Ledger
"The Bloomsday Dead is the explosive final installment in a trilogy of kinetic thrillers."
---The New York Times
"Adrian McKinty has garnered nothing but praise for his first two books. The third in the trilogy The Bloomsday Dead should leave no doubt that he is a true star. Fast moving and highly engaging this is a great book. McKinty just gets better and better."
---CrimeSpree
"Until The Dead Yard's relentless, poignant ending you'll turn these pages as quickly as you can."
---The Cleveland Plain Dealer
"McKinty's Dead Trilogy has been praised by critics, who call it "intense," "masterful" and "loaded with action." If your reading pleasure leans toward thrillers offering suspense, close calls, wry wit, sharp dialogue, local color and sudden mayhem, you wont do better."
---The Sacramento Bee
"Le Fleuve caché d'Adrian McKinty impressionne par la richesse et la diversité de son ton et de son écriture, passant avec aisance du lyrisme ample de la nostalgie de l'amour perdu au rythme saccadé du narrateur sous l'emprise de l'héroïne. Ce livre rare et maîtrisé est une réussite bien digne de la Série noire."
---Le Figaro
Eine eigentlich simple Story, die natürlich bereits als Grundlage für Hunderte Bücher und Filme diente, macht Adrian McKinty zu der mitreißenden Odyssee eines jungen Mannes, der in der Lage ist, sich seiner Umwelt anzupassen wie jene Kakerlaken, die er in seinem Harlemer Appartement jagt, studiert und sowohl angewidert awie anerkennend entkommen lässt. Nicht umsonst 1992 angesiedelt, ist Der sichere Tod der kongeniale Kommentar zum Wesen der Neunziger.
- Jochen König, krimi-couch.de
"McKinty - that guy is a friggin genius."
---Ken Bruen
"McKinty is a cross between Mickey Spillane and Damon Runyan, the toughest, the best."
---Frank McCourt
"McKinty is an exciting new talent."
---Ed McBain
"Daddy's book is really boring."
---Sophie McKinty (aged 2 1/2)
Who's been dropping by
What's Next For Me?
A couple more books, a few birthdays, some shuffleboard then a period spent in the digestive tract of earthworms, followed by molecular breakdown, the sun boiling into space, the heat death of the universe, atomic decay, perpetual darkness, a trillion years of nothingness and then, if we're lucky, brane collapse, a new singularity and a new Big Bang.
Me & the Mrs in our survivalist bunker
Adios and thank you for stopping by....
Humiliation, unhappiness, discord are the ancient foods of heroes---Jorge Luis Borges
The measure of a writer isn't success, but how hard he tried to do what he knew he couldn't do---William Faulkner
I believe in the power of the imagination to remake the world, to release the truth within us, to hold back the night, to transcend death, to charm motorways, to ingratiate ourselves with birds, to enlist the confidences of madmen---J G Ballard
I read the dictionary once . . . It turns out that the zebra did it --- Steven Wright
Times are bad. Children disobey their parents and everyone is writing a book---Cicero
Made in Ireland
19 comments:
Schindler's Ark was a legitimate story for Spielberg to tell, but still, Gilliam is absolutely right. The problem is best illustrated by the gas chamber scene. When has a gas chamber scene ever been so horrifically and realistically (and, up to a point, bravely) represented on screen? But what happens? Only in Spielberg world. The first twenty minutes of the movie, though, Schindler worming his way into the Nazi orbit, almost no dialogue, are superb.
Alan
I think its Primo Levi who says somewhere that he is incapable of telling the story of Auschwitz because his is the story of a survivor when the real story is the story of those who arrived and were immediately killed.
I just finished a novel by Vasily Grossman called Life and Fate which has an extraordinary series of chapters following a diverse group of Russian Jewish characters who end up in a cattle car together going west. It ends with them arriving at a death camp where everyone of them is unceremoniously murdered.
Yeah, he's right, but all he's really saying is that Kubrick and Speilberg were both products of their times (and "Eyes Wide Shut" is a comedy, isn't it, some kind of parody but I just didn't get the jokes, right?).
I just read an interview with Spielberg in which he points out that "Close Encounters" is about a man who abandons his family and how no studio would approve that script today. Because Gilliam is right, movie studios today feel their job is to comfort and lightly entertain. And really, they always did.
Hollywood studios answer to financiers so their movies are a pretty good way to see what Wall street thinks of the audience. If the audience had rejected "Schindler's List" studios would have made different movies.
John
I've heard Spielberg say that same thing about Close Encounters but he doesnt blame the studios he says that he wouldn't have written that story that way now because he thinks its unfair of Richard Dreyfus to abandon his family like that. To me that's a bit like George Lucas "fixing" Star Wars to have Han Solo shoot second in the fight in the Cantina. What makes Dreyfus interesting is his monomania, what makes Han Solo interesting is that he's actually a bit of a cad who'll shoot a guy in the back or under a table.
I think there was a good film in Eyes Wide Shut but you can't blame Kubrick for the unlikely and ultimately disastrous fact that Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise had zero sexual chemistry together.
I like some films--and books-- where they wrap it up all neatly, and some films where they don't. It really depends more on whether you trust the authority and intention of the director or author, doesn't it? I mean kids making films often have weird enigmatic endings, but you're never really sure if they just wanted to do something cool, or whether there is some actual thought behind it. I'm not really willing to do that thinking that Gilliam talks about unless I'm pretty sure that there is a mind behind the work that's interesting enough to do that for. I was pretty young when 2001 came out, but I think adults too at that point took the ending as slightly mystifying and wrote it off, being much more engaged with HAL. Didn't it become more intriguing as Kubrick became more recognized?
I doubt I've ever seen Schindler's list straight through. But I don't think the story of one person's tiny but successful attempts in the face of overwhelming failure is a bad story to tell. It isn't the story of the Holocaust, but of one individual's decision in the face of evil. I don't think we can really have too many examples of individual heroic resistance, since they are so few and far between.
Mordecai Richler wrote an article called "Why I Hate Schindler's List" maybe fifteen years ago? Can't seem to find it online though.
I get Gilliam's point and don't disagree with it, though I don't agree completely. You're right in saying the truest Auschwitz story is that of a person who arrives at the camp and is immediately dispatched, but that's not the whole story, either.
Gilliam is absolutely correct about the failure of civilization, but here I think David Simon has the best take on SCHINDLER'S LIST, even though he addressed it via THE WIRE. The system--whatever it is--will not save you. Those who are saved will be saved through the actions of individuals. Whether it's Cutty and his boxing school or Bunny Colvin and Namond Brice or Oskar Schindler and his "employees," victories are most likely to be achieved one at a time.
Hold on a minute, Gilliam.
Despite the fact that the story is true or at least based on historical events, this isn't the "right" story to tell?
I might be able to see his point (but probably not even then) if Spielberg and co. had created this fictional universe where some Jews are saved by Schindler, but that's not the case here.
What's so wrong about telling a story where good, albeit in a relatively small way, overcomes unspeakable evil?
Gilliam's fighting the hypo, if you ask me.
-Brian O
Seana
I like that idea about authority. I think you're on to something. I suspect that it also helped that Arthur C Clarke cowrote the script - one of the smartest of the scifi writers of the golden age.
Matt
I had a quick look and I can't find it either.
Dana, Brian,
I don't disagree with your points, but I will say that it was Spielberg himself who said that he wanted to and did make a film about the holocaust. Spielberg calls S.L. a holocaust movie when it isn't.
I also HATE the fact that everyone speaks English with fake German accents. I think that that's an artistic calamity. Even in films like the Longest Day and the Battle of the Britain they had the Germans speaking German not Ve Haf Vays of Making You Talk German.
I've never seen the movie, but I've always felt a bit uneasy about a feel-good movie -- you know, one that "Everyone says [is] a masterpiece -- about the Holocaust.
Primo Levi, on the other hand, because he wrote on such an intimate scale, comes close to being able to encompass the incommensurable in a work of art. ======================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Firstly, I absolutely *heart* Gilliam and have done since I was very young but I find his argument a bit trite and a bit pretentious: Spielberg isn't as good because he ties everything up neatly. Film makers who force you to think are therefore better.
Rubbish. There is room for both types and to claim one is better than another is absolute bobbins.
Kubrick is a better film maker than Spielberg. Miles better but I know that I would rather watch Close Encounters or Indiana Jones (not part 4) again than 2001 or Barry Lyndon.
I agree with Brian about Schindler's List;Its a true story that Spielberg waited years to direct. I think he even offered it to Billy Wilder at one point.
Rob
I'd rather watch Barry Lyndon but thats neither here nor there.
I think there's two points here:
1. Spielberg calls SL a holocuast film so I think its legitimate to ask if its a successful holocaust film? I think Gilliam's right to point out that it isnt a holocaust film because SL is a success story whereas the holocaust was the triumph of human evil and was not a story of success.
2. Does Schindler's List work as a piece of art regardless of its provenance or what the director thought he was trying to do? Again I don't think it does at all. I think the tone is wrong, the humour is forced, the silly accents are distracting, I don't think Liam Neeson is very convincing at all, I think the music is intrusive, the sentimentality is overwhelming and invasive, etc. For me as a work of art it fails on almost every level. (I thought Ralph Fiennes was good and I liked the cinematography).
Peter
The problem with Primo Levi is that he is too acute as an observer. It's actually painful to read Levi.
The problem with Primo Levi is that he is too acute as an observer. It's actually painful to read Levi
Some of the details of the interactions between the camp inmates are almost unbearable.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not defending the film, rather attacking the snobby attitude of Gilliam and others.
Surely the response of the people depicted in the film is more important than that of critics in deciding whether the film is a 'Holocaust film' or not. (BTW, 'Holocaust Film' is an ugly, ugly phrase).
Thanks for sharing that -- an extremely fascinating video. Gilliam is so wise. Unfortunately, I don't really like his work :S
The review by Mordecai Richler seems to have been published under the name "Mordecai Michler" ... here are the specs:
Cambridge Public Library
Results for Advanced Search Publication Title ("Saturday Night") And
Date (1994-06-01) And Issue Number ("5") And Volume Number (109)
Title: Schindler's List
Author(s): Mordecai Michler
Source: Saturday Night. 109.5 (June 1994): p34.
Document Type: Movie review
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