Film pairings — Sort of (From Book To Film)

 Often we hear of all these non-profits, some of them governmental, some not, doing various kinds of missionary-style work in poor or developing, but almost always vulnerable nations with propped up governments. A lot of funny business goes on in these places, usually in the Middle East or in various African locales.

Last night I happened upon a film, The Gunman, Sean Penn did a fine job of trying to tell the story of the greed and corruption behind or surrounding the best of the do gooders. As a paid assassin, Penn’s character tries to live the rest of his life making up for his previous bad acts. But he is a witness to the truth and THEY come for him. As they had for the others. It can be seen as just another action film.  However only seen as superhero crap — if that is what you are looking for – the film is mediocre.  

If you are looking for more, you’ll find it. It is a microcosm of most governments – certainly ours – where those at the highest levels of power are protected against prosecution of the crimes they committed against the people over whom they have the power.  And as long as the few have the money and the influence, and the many are too frightened or dumb – I should say uninformed, shouldn’t I? – nothing will change.  Even Penn’s character is only activated when he realizes he is in the crosshairs and essentially, has nothing to lose.  If this were an action film, he would win in the end. Instead it flirts with noir, something the novel has in spades.

For me this was extraordinary cinema. A man, with right on his side, against the impossible. I hadn’t realized as I watched it that I had previously read it. The directors, Penn being one of them, took some liberties. The Gunman was based on The Prone Gunman, the short novel by the acclaimed French crime novelist Jean-Patrick Manchette and first published in English by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights Bookstore in 2002.

Jean-Patrick Manchette

In addition to Penn, the cast of The Gunman include Javier Bardem, Idris Elba, Ray Winstone and Jasmine Trinca

Watch it no matter what the online reviewers have to say.  And read the book.  Both are worth the time and could be done in the same evening.  If you are staying in, maybe some Pernod or Absinthe.  Okay, stay in.

I have written previously about Manchette.  If interested in reading more, go here

Observation — 1955, Stage Set For New Leaders

President Dwight Eisenhower suffered a heart attack.  Winston Churchill resigned.   West Germany officially became a country.  The unions AFL and CIO became the ALF-CIO.  Unemployment was 5.5 percent. One of the longest-lived TV series, “Gunsmoke,” made its debut on CBS. In books, the best seller lists boasted some highbrow titles: James Baldwin’s Notes of a Native Son, Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s Picture of a Gone World, Mary McCarthy’s A Charmed Life and Vladmir Nabokov’s controversial Lolita. On the Waterfront swept the Academy Awards.  It was also a big year for James Dean.  Both East of Eden and Rebel Without A Cause were released with praise.  Marty, The Trouble With Harry and Lady and the Tramp filled movie theaters in 1955.  People listened to “Rock Around The Clock” by Bill Haley and His Comets, “Maybellene’ by Chuck Berry and ‘Heart of Stone” by the Fontane Sisters.  The world lost Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann, Carmen Miranda and Charlie Parker.  In a coincidence too strange to make up, both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were born.  So were Whoopi Goldberg and John Grisham. If you were around, what were you doing during this year of the wood sheep?

The Ultimate Independent Bookstore — Happy 60th Birthday

When I was in high school I discovered the Beats — Corso, Ginsberg and a whole slew of writers and poets that were unlike any I had read in literature class. In fact, these writers who were obviously treading on the established views of everything, weren’t even mentioned in the classroom. However, because of a smart, brave and progressive librarian — thank you Ms. Cohen wherever you are — I found them.

Coney Island of the Mind, by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, more than any other book, set my mind on fire. So years later, many years, when I learned that St. Martin’s Press was going to publish my first novel, The Stone Veil, I was thrilled. But for some reason I hadn’t grasped the notion that I had actually become a writer. The New York Times gave the first book a short, but generally favorable review and that too made me feel good. Borders had my books on the shelves in my hometown and I was even nominated for a prize. But the feeling of legitimacy didn’t arrive until I found a copy of my third novel, Eclipse of the Heart, in the downstairs mystery section of City Lights Bookstore in the Italian San Francisco neighborhood of North Beach.

Though I was never to be on the cutting edge of much of anything, let alone literature, I had long admired those who were. And those who were riding that sharp edge had roots in that specific bookstore. Perhaps even more important to me was the fact that City Lights published Ginsberg’s Howl and fought against attempts to ban it all the way up to the Supreme Court where the bookstore’s fight helped preserve freedom of the press for all of us.

City Lights is still publishing books others might consider too controversial or not commercial enough for mass distribution. The second floor is dedicated entirely to poetry. The main floor shelves are full of fine, timeless literature from around the world. There is also a section of limited distribution, hand-made independent magazines and collections of prose and poems. Down a narrow stairway, into the cellar, are mysteries and science fiction as well as the best picks of books on a wide range of subjects.

The North Beach bookstore is a San Francisco historic landmark, anchoring a neighborhood full of historic landmarks. It should be designated a national treasure.While most of the City Lights authors — Rexroth, Burroughs, Bukowski, Shepard and Bowles to name a few — are gone, the poet and painter Ferlinghetti, born in 1919, can still be seen bicycling on Columbus and Grant.

(first posted June 29, 2011)

261 Columbus Avenue (415) 362-8193 www.citylights.com