SCREEN-L Archives

March 1997, Week 1

SCREEN-L@LISTSERV.UA.EDU

Options: Use Monospaced Font
Show Text Part by Default
Show All Mail Headers

Message: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Topic: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Author: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]

Print Reply
Subject:
From:
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 5 Mar 1997 15:05:29 -0400
Content-Type:
text/plain
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (43 lines)
Molly Olsen
03/05/97 03:05 PM
 
tifcasla @ mail.internet.com.mx wrote:
 
Hi.  I would like to get some information on the film Sleepers (Norman
Levinson, I think, starring De Niro, Hoffman, Pitt, Gassman).  Does anybody
know if it is based on a real story?  By the way, did you like the film?  I
am not quite sure.  It has some great moments, but I think it was far too
long and a bit "soap opery".
___________________________
 
SLEEPERS was based on the bestselling book by Lorenzo Carcaterra.  It's
supposedly autobiographical but the facts are controversial; some people
say he exaggerated them and some say he made the whole story up.
Personally, having read the book and seen the movie, the movie is very
faithful to the book, and I don't see how he could make up such a story
when several of the characters are still alive and well and not coming out
against it.
 
I liked the film and while it is very melodramatic, so is the book; not
only that, but the moral good guys/bad guys, revenge-is-good tone is
carried over perfectly from the book.  That should be the controversial
element if you ask me -- was it right, what the kids did to their
tormentors?  Carcaterra paints himself and his friends as heroes in the
book but seems to completely miss the boat on the fact that they've become
just like their tormentors, that they've sunk to their level with (SPOILER
ALERT) the murder and cruelty they inflict on the guards and their
families.  This doesn't come across as clearly in the movie but I like the
fact that Levinson preserved that element of moral ambiguity.  The careful
viewer will be critical of the characters' actions.  If it is all true,
maybe Michael is the only one who really did the right thing by not killing
anyone, and sacrificing his legal career to put the (remaining) guilty
parties in jail.
 
Molly Olsen
Associate Producer, Discovery Channel Multimedia
[log in to unmask]
 
----
To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L
in the message.  Problems?  Contact [log in to unmask]

ATOM RSS1 RSS2