The Adapted and the Dead
Let me join the chorus in saying that a cultural era passes
with the death of Norman Mailer, a time when writers (and filmmakers and
artists in general) were regarded as something heroic and iconic and not just purveyors
of products and backdrops for corporate advertising. Also, I’m personally
pissed off because I was looking forward to the next two installments of
Mailer’s Hitler trilogy that began with the publication this year of “The
Castle in the Forest.”
No doubt Mailer’s youngest son John Buffalo is mourning too,
but perhaps his grief is mitigated somewhat by the prospect of adapting his
dad’s entire catalogue of novels and books through his production company. Starting
with the first, “The Naked and the Dead,” a project the younger Mailer
announced the day after Norman’s
death, causing some to suggest that he could have been more discrete and waited
at least until the old man was in the ground.
Actually, a new adaptation is a good idea, because the
first, made in 1958 by the feisty Raoul
Walsh, nonetheless was a little tame (it
doesnt even include the word “fug,” Mailer’s euphemism for the familiar four
letter word). Though I do recall a chilling scene in which Aldo Ray squishes a bird in his bare hands. As for the
book, it’s not the Great American Novel (the closest Mailer got, I’d say, is
“The Executioner’s Song”) but towards the end, when an annoyed American officer sitting on the crapper
inadvertantly strategizes the defeat of all the Japanese forces on the island, it’s like Tolstoy via Joseph Heller.
Some, however, might doubt the younger Mailer’s ability to do the book justice. Others might point out that he could do no worse than the pater
familias himself, as witness “Tough Guys Don’t Dance.” Having recently seen much of Norman’s
screen ouevre, I’d say he was a pretty bad filmmaker, but he truly revered cinema as an
art. He also had his moments of genius and ecstasy, and, and being
who he was, those moments embody the times in which he lived and which he
shaped. Mostly, he believed film and literature and art could be transcendent,
and with his passing that crazy notion inches a little closer to oblivion as
well.