Fantastic deep dive into the production chaos. The sign language switcharoo mid-shoot is the kinda stuff that gets glossed over in retrospectives but it really explains why the final product feels so disjointed. Ran into something similiar once where we tried bilingual subtitles halfway thru editing, dunno if its ever really workable.
Thank you! I got to hear William H. Macy speak to a screenwriters group once and he gave some terrific writing advice I've never forgotten: "If you can't shoot it and you can't act it, don't write it." He was talking about screenplays specifically, but it's interesting how novels can delve so much into the interior of a character that a filmmaker is working uphill to make a movie based on it. The Player by Michael Tolkin was one they figured out how to dramatize, with Tolkin adapting his own novel. That didn't happen here.
Hey Joe, good morning! I’m not a real big fan of critics per se… Siskle and Ebert for movies, and Hilburn for music… Always thought they were full of themselves, but use them as a reverse barometer (as Custer said of Little Big Man 🤣) anyway, loved Jean Auel’s first book, started to lose interest in the second book, by the third book it kind of felt like it became a soap opera… the movie, to me, just felt flat… anyway, as always, your background information and analysis is very entertaining… Great job, thanks! CPZ
Thanks, Zeke! As big a fan as I am of Siskel & Ebert, they weren't chiseling the Ten Commandments with their reviews. Like referees, they didn't have the luxury of time and could whiff on calls, particularly among movies that already had poor word of mouth. When it comes to The Clan of the Cave Bear, though, I think they got the call right.
Fantastic deep dive into the production chaos. The sign language switcharoo mid-shoot is the kinda stuff that gets glossed over in retrospectives but it really explains why the final product feels so disjointed. Ran into something similiar once where we tried bilingual subtitles halfway thru editing, dunno if its ever really workable.
Thank you! I got to hear William H. Macy speak to a screenwriters group once and he gave some terrific writing advice I've never forgotten: "If you can't shoot it and you can't act it, don't write it." He was talking about screenplays specifically, but it's interesting how novels can delve so much into the interior of a character that a filmmaker is working uphill to make a movie based on it. The Player by Michael Tolkin was one they figured out how to dramatize, with Tolkin adapting his own novel. That didn't happen here.
Hey Joe, good morning! I’m not a real big fan of critics per se… Siskle and Ebert for movies, and Hilburn for music… Always thought they were full of themselves, but use them as a reverse barometer (as Custer said of Little Big Man 🤣) anyway, loved Jean Auel’s first book, started to lose interest in the second book, by the third book it kind of felt like it became a soap opera… the movie, to me, just felt flat… anyway, as always, your background information and analysis is very entertaining… Great job, thanks! CPZ
Thanks, Zeke! As big a fan as I am of Siskel & Ebert, they weren't chiseling the Ten Commandments with their reviews. Like referees, they didn't have the luxury of time and could whiff on calls, particularly among movies that already had poor word of mouth. When it comes to The Clan of the Cave Bear, though, I think they got the call right.