Warning: contains spoilers for The Essex Serpent TV adaptation and novel.
The pendulum swings of fate in most stories mean that whether they have a happy ending depends on where the storyteller chooses to stop. Quit while things are ahead, that’s happy; keep going until it swings back the other way, less so. The Apple TV+ version of Sarah Perry’s 2016 novel The Essex Serpent chooses to keep going past the deliberately ambiguous end of Perry’s story until it reaches the happy ending the novelist avoided.
It’s an understandable move; the six-episode TV adaptation foregrounds the romantic plot between Cora and Will (Claire Danes and Tom Hiddleston) and so generously gives that story a definite ending. The novel encompasses a broader spectrum, and as it chiefly revolves around themes of ambiguity and doubt, it characteristically leaves readers in a less secure place.
Was the Serpent Real?
If...
The pendulum swings of fate in most stories mean that whether they have a happy ending depends on where the storyteller chooses to stop. Quit while things are ahead, that’s happy; keep going until it swings back the other way, less so. The Apple TV+ version of Sarah Perry’s 2016 novel The Essex Serpent chooses to keep going past the deliberately ambiguous end of Perry’s story until it reaches the happy ending the novelist avoided.
It’s an understandable move; the six-episode TV adaptation foregrounds the romantic plot between Cora and Will (Claire Danes and Tom Hiddleston) and so generously gives that story a definite ending. The novel encompasses a broader spectrum, and as it chiefly revolves around themes of ambiguity and doubt, it characteristically leaves readers in a less secure place.
Was the Serpent Real?
If...
- 6/13/2022
- by Louisa Mellor
- Den of Geek
Animation director on the Beatles film Yellow Submarine
The animation director Jack Stokes, who has died aged 92, had an energetic career that lasted more than 50 years, of which the highlight was his work on the Beatles' groundbreaking animated feature film Yellow Submarine (1968).
Jack's connection with the Fab Four was first established in 1965, when the London animation studio Tvc was commissioned to produce an animated television series The Beatles. It was a great ratings success in the Us, although it was never shown in the UK. Made to the typical standards of TV cartoons at that time, it showed no hint of what was to come with the feature film.
He was contacted by the Beatles again to do the animated titles and inserts on their Magical Mystery Tour film, which aired on the BBC on Boxing Day 1967. The following year came Yellow Submarine: there was barely a script to work from,...
The animation director Jack Stokes, who has died aged 92, had an energetic career that lasted more than 50 years, of which the highlight was his work on the Beatles' groundbreaking animated feature film Yellow Submarine (1968).
Jack's connection with the Fab Four was first established in 1965, when the London animation studio Tvc was commissioned to produce an animated television series The Beatles. It was a great ratings success in the Us, although it was never shown in the UK. Made to the typical standards of TV cartoons at that time, it showed no hint of what was to come with the feature film.
He was contacted by the Beatles again to do the animated titles and inserts on their Magical Mystery Tour film, which aired on the BBC on Boxing Day 1967. The following year came Yellow Submarine: there was barely a script to work from,...
- 3/28/2013
- by Roger Mainwood
- The Guardian - Film News
As Japan reels from the tsunami, archeologists claim to have discovered the lost city of Atlantis, a fabled place built-like much of the world-in the crosshairs of nature. In this week's Newsweek, Simon Winchester looks into whether the giant tsunami demolished the legendary city.
To the grim list of cities and places wrecked and ruined by the indescribably awful majesty of earthquake-powered tsunamis-Sendai and Fukushima most recently, Banda Aceh in Sumatra six years ago, the west of Java more than a century back-must now be added one that is more famous and enigmatic than all the rest: Atlantis. For it now turns out that the island-city that for centuries has captured the public imagination as the world's oldest philosophical wonderland may well have existed after all-and it may have done so right where it has long been thought to have been sited: close to the eastern shores of the Atlantic Ocean.
To the grim list of cities and places wrecked and ruined by the indescribably awful majesty of earthquake-powered tsunamis-Sendai and Fukushima most recently, Banda Aceh in Sumatra six years ago, the west of Java more than a century back-must now be added one that is more famous and enigmatic than all the rest: Atlantis. For it now turns out that the island-city that for centuries has captured the public imagination as the world's oldest philosophical wonderland may well have existed after all-and it may have done so right where it has long been thought to have been sited: close to the eastern shores of the Atlantic Ocean.
- 3/20/2011
- by Simon Winchester
- The Daily Beast
Tim Burton tampers with the children's classic to his cost in this lifeless reimagining of Lewis Carroll's book
Tim Burton is in love with the Victorian age. His childhood idol was Vincent Price, who started out playing Prince Albert on stage, specialised in Victorian morbidity and made one of his final screen appearances in Burton's Edward Scissorhands. Burton's last film, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, was a bracing excursion into Victorian melodrama, and it was inevitable that his interest in mythology and the adolescent imagination would eventually attract him to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Appropriately his London office was once the home of Arthur Rackham, who succeeded Sir John Tenniel as Alice's illustrator.
The characters, language, puzzles and predicaments of Carroll's 1865 novel and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, became and remain part of the texture of our lives, as embedded as ancient mythology and more endearing.
Tim Burton is in love with the Victorian age. His childhood idol was Vincent Price, who started out playing Prince Albert on stage, specialised in Victorian morbidity and made one of his final screen appearances in Burton's Edward Scissorhands. Burton's last film, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, was a bracing excursion into Victorian melodrama, and it was inevitable that his interest in mythology and the adolescent imagination would eventually attract him to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Appropriately his London office was once the home of Arthur Rackham, who succeeded Sir John Tenniel as Alice's illustrator.
The characters, language, puzzles and predicaments of Carroll's 1865 novel and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, became and remain part of the texture of our lives, as embedded as ancient mythology and more endearing.
- 3/7/2010
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Sad news to end the week on tonight. The actor and director Lionel Jeffries has died at the age of 83.
He’ll be a familiar face to those of us who watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang endlessly, his role as the eccentric and irrepressible Grandpa Potts was a huge part of the buoyancy and charm of the film and he contributes hugely to its timeless appeal.
Jeffries was also well known as a director, bringing the children’s classic The Railway Children to the screen in 1970, he also wrote the screenplay and it is perhaps the most enduring of his films.
I didn’t realise this until tonight but he was also behind the camera of the 1978 adaptation of Charles Kingsley’s The Water Babies, which is a strange and, at times, haunting film yet full of joy in its mix of live action and animation. Both films are worth a watch,...
He’ll be a familiar face to those of us who watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang endlessly, his role as the eccentric and irrepressible Grandpa Potts was a huge part of the buoyancy and charm of the film and he contributes hugely to its timeless appeal.
Jeffries was also well known as a director, bringing the children’s classic The Railway Children to the screen in 1970, he also wrote the screenplay and it is perhaps the most enduring of his films.
I didn’t realise this until tonight but he was also behind the camera of the 1978 adaptation of Charles Kingsley’s The Water Babies, which is a strange and, at times, haunting film yet full of joy in its mix of live action and animation. Both films are worth a watch,...
- 2/19/2010
- by Jon Lyus
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Prolific actor and director who made the much-loved film The Railway Children
As an actor Lionel Jeffries, who has died aged 83, was a master of comic unease. This was perhaps fuelled by the personal unease he felt in a sex-and-violence era which overtook the gentler sensibilities he sometimes brought to his acting. But he was able to bring these sensibilities fully to bear in his scriptwriting and film directing, particularly in his much-loved adaptation of the classic children's novel The Railway Children. With the latter, he left an indelible mark on the British film industry and generations of teary-eyed viewers.
The son of two devoted workers for the Salvation Army, Jeffries disliked personal publicity and was a zealot when preparing a role (he ran two miles every morning before appearing in the musical Hello Dolly! after an absence from the London stage of 26 years). He deplored permissivism, and was not...
As an actor Lionel Jeffries, who has died aged 83, was a master of comic unease. This was perhaps fuelled by the personal unease he felt in a sex-and-violence era which overtook the gentler sensibilities he sometimes brought to his acting. But he was able to bring these sensibilities fully to bear in his scriptwriting and film directing, particularly in his much-loved adaptation of the classic children's novel The Railway Children. With the latter, he left an indelible mark on the British film industry and generations of teary-eyed viewers.
The son of two devoted workers for the Salvation Army, Jeffries disliked personal publicity and was a zealot when preparing a role (he ran two miles every morning before appearing in the musical Hello Dolly! after an absence from the London stage of 26 years). He deplored permissivism, and was not...
- 2/19/2010
- by Dennis Barker
- The Guardian - Film News
Would we have had Alien, Planet of the Apes and The Time Machine if it weren't for a certain bearded Victorian?
Darwin, Evolution and the Movies is a one-off festival of film and live comedy to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species on 24 November 1859.
Over this weekend the festival is running at three separate venues across London. Classic films you rarely get a chance to see on the big screen, such as 2001: A Space Odyssey and brand new shorts commissioned as part of Darwin200 make up this small but perfectly formed festival.
If Darwin had chickened out in 1859 and decided to put his dusty manuscript back in the drawer, allowing Alfred Russel Wallace to take the fame, and the flack, the genre of science fiction that we take for granted probably would not have evolved to become the seductive, cultural force that it is.
Darwin, Evolution and the Movies is a one-off festival of film and live comedy to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species on 24 November 1859.
Over this weekend the festival is running at three separate venues across London. Classic films you rarely get a chance to see on the big screen, such as 2001: A Space Odyssey and brand new shorts commissioned as part of Darwin200 make up this small but perfectly formed festival.
If Darwin had chickened out in 1859 and decided to put his dusty manuscript back in the drawer, allowing Alfred Russel Wallace to take the fame, and the flack, the genre of science fiction that we take for granted probably would not have evolved to become the seductive, cultural force that it is.
- 11/20/2009
- The Guardian - Film News
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