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Gion in Burbank
Feb. 16th, 2005 01:09 pmThe DreamWorks film version of Memoirs of a Geisha is in post-production. The trailer is not yet available, but there is a tiny gallery. I will now commence obsessing and fretting until the release is set and I have seen the finished product.
This is among my very favorite novels of all time, in a league with The Handmaid’s Tale, Watership Down, and Wicked (none of which were done true justice in their respective film/stage versions). Naturally I’m concerned.
The original incarnation of the project was headed by a rather non-committal Steven Spielberg, an idea I was never quite comfy with anyway, so I wasn’t sorry to see him drop the ball for other projects that were more up his alley. Truthfully, I’d been hoping it would be picked up by a Japanese director, and perhaps even be produced in the Japanese language with subtitles. But after two years of hearing nothing I stopped checking up on it, only to discover last month that it was already in the can, the project having been adopted and recast by director Rob Marshall.
This worries me. A choreographer whose only directorial credit is Chicago... uh, well... I’ll say nothing except that this would be a triple quantum leap from that project to this, and one requiring an insight that I hope he possesses and employed.
The previous cast were a pan-Asian mix of actors mostly unknown in the West. Working largely in the US, Marshall’s cast features some heavy hitters like Ken Watanabe and Gong Li, along with many Asian-American and Chinese actors and a rather sad under-representation of Japanese contributors both on and off screen. That’s the part that has me most concerned. The intricate subtleties of Japanese culture, and the evasive, web-like flower world of Gion, aren’t something that can be understood or presented like, well, like Chicago. (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
scholargipsy, talk me down quick).
I realize I’m just borrowing trouble here, and I’ll say no more until I’ve seen the finished product. It might not sound like it, but I’m sitting on my hands impatiently and can’t wait to see it, for better or for worse.
This is among my very favorite novels of all time, in a league with The Handmaid’s Tale, Watership Down, and Wicked (none of which were done true justice in their respective film/stage versions). Naturally I’m concerned.
The original incarnation of the project was headed by a rather non-committal Steven Spielberg, an idea I was never quite comfy with anyway, so I wasn’t sorry to see him drop the ball for other projects that were more up his alley. Truthfully, I’d been hoping it would be picked up by a Japanese director, and perhaps even be produced in the Japanese language with subtitles. But after two years of hearing nothing I stopped checking up on it, only to discover last month that it was already in the can, the project having been adopted and recast by director Rob Marshall.
This worries me. A choreographer whose only directorial credit is Chicago... uh, well... I’ll say nothing except that this would be a triple quantum leap from that project to this, and one requiring an insight that I hope he possesses and employed.
The previous cast were a pan-Asian mix of actors mostly unknown in the West. Working largely in the US, Marshall’s cast features some heavy hitters like Ken Watanabe and Gong Li, along with many Asian-American and Chinese actors and a rather sad under-representation of Japanese contributors both on and off screen. That’s the part that has me most concerned. The intricate subtleties of Japanese culture, and the evasive, web-like flower world of Gion, aren’t something that can be understood or presented like, well, like Chicago. (
scholargipsy, talk me down quick).I realize I’m just borrowing trouble here, and I’ll say no more until I’ve seen the finished product. It might not sound like it, but I’m sitting on my hands impatiently and can’t wait to see it, for better or for worse.