The making of the film: The Good Soldier

[med_cat]

It is the 100th anniversary of the publication of Ford Madox Ford’s pre-First World War novel, The Good Soldier, a seminal book of the 20th century. It opens with this sentence: “This is the saddest story I ever heard,”-spoken by the narrator, John Dowell-my part, in the Granada TV adaptation filmed in 1980.

Read further: http://robin-ellis.net/

Comments

[elenbarathi]

Cool; I will pass this along to me bro. Thanks!

[med_cat]

My pleasure! Have you read the book or seen the film?

[elenbarathi]

No, I haven't seen either - they sound good, but pretty heavy. I must confess, in summertime I read almost nothing but brain-candy and old favorites, the kind of books one can pick up or set down at a moment's notice. When the Autumn rains set in, I have more focus for serious reading.

[med_cat]

Yeah, the book (and hence the film) isn't a happy story...

[duathir]

Thank you for this - I have re-posted it here.

[med_cat]

You are most welcome; pleased to hear you found it of interest and worthy of reposting :)

It is an interesting book and film...have you read/seen it?

[duathir]

It looks very interesting. I have not read or seen it, but I have read poetry by Ford Madox Ford.

[med_cat]

How interesting. I didn't know he had written poetry as well; I'll have to check it out. Do you have some particular favorites among his poems?

I'd read the book before seeing the film, and I recommend doing that, b/c it gives one a better understanding of the background--naturally, they couldn't fit all of the book's intricacies and psychological explorations into the film.

It is quite a good film, however, and faithful to the book as far as possible, given the difference between the written and audiovisual media.

The style of the book is interesting as well, you'll see when you read. The film can be found on YT and is linked to in the article, as you probably saw. The full text of the book is available online, for instance, here:

http://www.eldritchpress.org/fmf/gs.htm

Enjoy the reading/watching and I would love to hear your thoughts when you finish :)