The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Film of the Week!

Last week, my friend Tara and I went to see a 30th anniversary screening of the movie Clueless starring Alicia Silverstone.  While I'm still trying to wrap my head around the notion that the film is that old, I also began pondering the belief that some writers' works are timeless.  And I'm not talking about the fact that we're still discussing Amy Heckerling's brilliant script 30 years later.  I'm talking about the fact that we're still discussing the original basis for that script more than 200 years after it was written.  Heckerling based her script on Jane Austen's 1816 novel Emma.  Some stories and themes are so universal that they still resonate across generations and even cultures.  It actually astounds me that one could take a story written in 18th century England and adapt and re-set in 1990s Los Angeles.  And it totally worked.

Over time, as copyrights expire and more and more cultural works enter the public domain, more and more "re-imaginings" pop up, usually retelling the original story from the perspective of another character.  In the last few years, we've seen new perspectives on The Great Gatsby (retold by the character Jordan Baker in Nghi Vo's novel The Chosen and the Beautiful) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (as told by the slave Jim in Percival Everett's novel James).  Even Winnie the Pooh has been completely reimagined as a horror character (the universally panned 2023 film Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey--and no, I'm not making that up).

In most cases, the original is just re-adapted into another movie or television production using the same settings.  This is especially true of Austen.  Not to knock it, but how many adaptations of Pride and Prejudice do we really need out there?

Of course, if I had to hazard a guess, I would say that nobody has been adapted and re-imagined quite like William Shakespeare.  Dig this--the man's been dead for more than 400 years and he had not one but two of his plays on Broadway this past season.  Romeo & Juliet even managed to snag a Tony nomination for Best Revival of a Play.  We have annual festivals throughout the world celebrating his works.  The man is responsible for so many idioms in the English language including "break the ice," "wild goose chase," "in a pickle," "brave new world," "heart of gold," "wear your heart on your sleeve," and "it's Greek to me," just to name a few.  Some years back, I even bought a set of six shot glasses each with a Shakespearean insult on it.  (I'm still waiting for that perfect moment to refer to someone as a Banbury cheese or a cankerblossom.)

Like Austen, Shakespeare is ripe fodder for recontextualizing.  In this week's film, Joe "Mac" McBeth (played by James LeGros) works in a fast-food joint in suburban Pennsylvania in the early 1970s.  His wife Pat (Maura Tierney), who works with him, is much smarter and more ambitious.  She becomes convinced that they could run the place better than their boss, Norm Duncan (the late, great James Rebhorn).  Pat concocts a plan for Mac to rob the place and kill Norm, assuming the police will follow the robbery angle and they can just take over the restaurant.  Unfortunately, Lieutenant McDuff, the vegetarian police detective assigned to the case (the always wonderful Christopher Walken), suspects something more sinister is afoot and continues to investigate the murder, all set against a killer '70s classic rock soundtrack (even if it is a little heavy on Bad Company tunes--R.I.P., Mick Ralphs).

If you know your Bard, you've already guessed that this is a contemporary re-working of Macbeth (and I'm not in a theater, so I can say the title).  While I'm not as obsessed with Shakespeare as I feel I probably should be, I do consider myself a fan and was more than a little impressed by this adaptation and how well it worked even in a contemporary (or, at the very least, 1970s) setting.  Written/adapted and directed by Billy Morrissette, the film made its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2001.  This week, please enjoy Scotland, PA.

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.

Yours in peace love and rock and roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill