This 1968 film is on TCM Saturday (May 15th) at noon. If you have never seen it, it's a surreal adaptation of the John Cheever story, starring the great Burt Lancaster who wears a swimming suit for the entire film.
It's truly an original, directed by Frank Perry, who made some fantastic movies in the sixties and seventies, and is seldom mentioned today. What studio would make this film today?
14 comments:
The film deserves its iconic status. The Cheever story, though, believer or not, is better than the film. However, reading the story after seeing the film can be a challenge because the mind (well, my mind) cannot keep the text separated from the image of Burt Lancaster and the director's splendid work.
This raises an issue: Are there not stories or novels that have been forever altered by films, so much so that it is nearly impossible for readers now to "enjoy" the reading experience without having it influenced by the film viewing experience?
I would nominate STRANGERS ON A TRAIN as an example of the problem.
Perhaps you, Patti, and your readers have others to add.
Finally, to return to the original point, dig out your Cheever and read the story. It is magnificent.
I have read it many times, R.T. He is among our greatest short story writers. And Perry was a great choice to give the movie its own feel. Yes, a great topic. Movies that forever altered a novel. Not necessarily improving on it, but changing it.
The simple answer is no studio would make this movie today. And few publications would publish Cheever's brilliant story, "The Swimmer." We live in decadent times.
PBS recently showed the David Tennant Hamlet and the newspaper said this:
"There was a time, back when cable was young, we all thought classics like Hamlet would find a regular home on an arts-oriented basic network — like one of the ones that offer Dog the Bounty Hunter, Top Chef Masters or Hoarding: Buried Alive tonight instead. But it has become abundantly clear that if PBS doesn't do it, no one will."
I remember a PBS version of the Kurt Vonnegut story, Who Am I This Time that was fantastic.
You have to wonder why cable channels don't make these kinds of movies. Or even more adaptations of more recent stories like The Swimmer. And I have to disagree with stories like that not getting published today, they still do, they just don't get much attention.
Cable is producing some very good TV shows but the movies, even on HBO, tend to be didactic rather than thrilling. Too bad.
I remember when Bravo did better.
IFC and Sundance and to some small extent (lower budget, censorship) Ovation are stepping in for Bravo and A&E.
IFC or LionsGate or ThinkFilm would buy a 2010 version of THE SWIMMER at Sundance or Toronto or SXSW. THE NEW YORKER publishes George Saunders and William Vollmann and other writers unworthy of the heritage of Cheever and Tillie Olsen and Shirley Jackson and James Thurber...work averages a bit better in other magazines, even a few that also publish Saunders.
John, I wonder if you're thinking of the PBS production of OF TIME AND TIMBUKTU or another Vonnegut adaptation...
One I've never heard of. I like Lancaster and will remember this.
The only way The Swimmer would be produced today was if Lancaster became a seething green alien at the end of the first act and everything form then on was in 3-D. Fine fine film, Patti.
Patti - Oh, this is one I've never seen. I'll have to rectify that. And actually, R.T. asks a terrific question about movies that forever alter the reading experience...I'm going to think about that...
Thank you, Patti, for reminding me of this film! A beautiful, surreal journey through the backyards of Westchester County in the 1960's. I read the story first and liked it. All Cheever tends to run together for me; his voice is so pitch-perfect that any story you pick up can change your life. So what I admired about the film was how the director had teased out certain themes and made the tightly constrained Cheever world world so much wider. A very successful adaptation.
And the ending was strange and wonderful.
I've read the story a few times, never seen the movie. Cheever's piece reminds me of Steinbeck's WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT in that it seems a snapshot of mid-20th century life but is, of course, timeless.
The Swimmer is a very vivid memory of mine. Back in the day when BBC2 on Sunday night was essential viewing for films. A brilliant film.
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