10 avril 2007

What I'm reading...

Responding to Girish and Darren:

Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilych (to be followed by The Kreutzer Sonata, Master and Man, and Family Happiness).

Edgardo Cozarinsky's The Bride from Odessa (which I will resume adapting to script form once I convince my computer to function again).

I'm not much for embroiling myself in multiple narratives at the same time, so that is mainly it. Though I might list the score to The Host also; I tend to 'read' music much as books or films rather than turn to it/them for the enjoyment of the familiar.

After these things are finished I will select one of two dozen or so books stacked on my shelves as possible 'next reads'... My guess is the winner will be Giorgio Bassani's The Garden of Finzi-Continis (and no, I haven't seen the film). When I get home I will list the rest of the books in the pile (computer willing).

Let me add that if I could find a copy of Tarkovsky's diaries I would drop everything and devour them.

"I have four razors and a dictaphone." - Andrei Tarkovsky


Do not miss Girish's post, which closes with an amazing Peter Wollen excerpt on the philosophical and stylistic differences between Von Sternberg and Rossellini that's too lengthy to copy here in good faith.


UPDATE:
Here's the list of books vying for 'next to read' status on my shelf. Note that for me, almost all of these books are somehow film-related:
Petrolio - Pier Paolo Pasolini
Making Pictures: A Century of European Cinematography
My Name Is Red - Orhan Pamuk
The Brothers Karamazov (reread)
Mila 18 (reread)
The Wretched of the Earth
The Cave - Saramago
Death in Venice
Notes from Underground
Journey to the End of the Night (reread)
The English Patient
Refelctions on Violence - Sorel
Bread and Wine (reread)
The Culture of Time and Space: 1880-1918
Wine - Andre Domine
The Hot Zone
Everyman and Other Morality Plays

5 commentaires:

girish a dit…

Hey, Dave--thanks for the Cozarinsky link! I didn't know about Words Without Borders. And I've been meaning to watch Cozarinsky's Cocteau doc, which I've never seen.

David McDougall a dit…

Girish - I've never seen any of Cozarinsky's films, but Dans le rouge du couchant sounds especially exciting to me. Words Without Borders is frequently spectacular... a few months ago they published Mohsen Makhmbalaf's screenplay for "Love's Turn."

RC a dit…

what an interstingly diverse list...it looks like a fun future read list for sure.

David McDougall a dit…

Well, my influences are diverse on purpose, and I'm really excited to get to Petrolio and The Garden of Finzi-Continis, but Girish has nearly got me sold on picking up Nicole Brenez's book on Abel Ferrara first... I'll reassess once I finish with the Tolstoy and my adaptation of the Cozarinsky.

PS, the Cozarinsky piece I link to is the title piece to a collection of short stories, but I'm just reading this one for now.

David McDougall a dit…

apparently Cozarinsky edited a collection of Borges' writings on film... looks like I'll have to pick that up as well.