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The Day of the Locust.

post #1 of 7
5/9/09 at 3:47am
Thread Starter 
A title that has some resonance, but few people are really familiar with it. I just saw the 1975 film version of the book, and I would quite recommend it.

This is an unrepentantly dark film with a nasty ending. In actuality, it is a rather shocking ending, rather more visceral in my opinion than say, Audition.

Amongst the fine performances, Burgess Meredith and Donald Sutherland excel in their grotesque portrayals. The landscape is at times surreal and one gets the impression that P.T.Anderson's Magnolia was based on this.
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post #2 of 7
5/9/09 at 4:03am
I prefer the book to the film. It's a great Hollywood novel. I should ad that there's something utterly modern (or perhaps timeless is the word) about it as a portrait of life in Los Angeles. The incidental absurdities of the celebrity culture combined with the mundane details of living in an industry town, plus the distinctive elements of the landscape, capped off by the fires. I like LA novels in general, but this is my favorite.
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post #3 of 7
5/9/09 at 4:16am
Thread Starter 
LA with all that blemished sprawl bleached by an ever-present sun is just tragic. It's also sublime in a way. I should add that this film's periphery characters are beautiful accents--the dwarf cradling a bloodied cock, the weird homosexual/fat/old autograph hounds. It brings to mind a rouged Dean Stockwell lip-synching Roy Orbison in Blue Velvet. Another good LA reference is Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon.
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post #4 of 7
5/9/09 at 9:03am
I read the book first, and watched the movie a few years later. While I watched it, I was too busy telling myself "This is a big disappointment, the book is A LOT better" to really connect with the film. I'll watch it again soon, and give it another chance.
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post #5 of 7
5/9/09 at 4:59pm
Thread Starter 
Really, there are few films that do a good book justice if one wants to look at it that day.

Luchino Visconti's Death in Venice may be one of the few, helped along, I think, by the very symbolic and aesthetic nature of Thomas Mann's writing.
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post #6 of 7
5/9/09 at 11:16pm
Magnolia's one of my favorite movies, so I'll have to check this out.
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post #7 of 7
5/10/09 at 12:50am
I never realized there was a film version, will be watching this in the near future.

The book contains probably the best riot scene in all of literature.

That Nathanael West is virtually unknown outside of literary circles has always mystified me. Day of the Locust and Miss Lonelyhearts are two of the most deliciously dark short stories Ive ever read.
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