Watching WHITE NOISE on Netflix...

[Erik T. Burns]

I watched it last night. It was fairly faithful to the book (I had
forgotten about the denouement with Mr Gray & the Germanic nuns). But
DeLillo's dialogue came out a bit stilted and weird, very performative,
with a whiff of early Woody Allen to the endeavor. I was hoping for a more
subtle read, to really build up the dread. Instead the dreadful parts were
more screaming horror than creeping angst.

Also, my memory of the book is that the Airborne Toxic Event is never
really explained or seen or determined, it's just there, off in the
distance. I could have done without the dramatic action scene.

I'm not a big fan of Adam Driver (though he was alright as Ben Solo) and I
thought Don Cheadle (who is a brilliant actor) was miscast as Suskind (he
might have been a better Gladney, and Driver could have done Suskind well
enough). That said, the absolute best part of the whole movie was the first
10 minutes with Suskind faffing on about the joie de vivre of the American
car crash scene.

anyway, it was worth the two hours for this longtime DeLillo fan, but it
joins a (large) pile of "movies that were better as books" in my mind.

On Mon, Jan 2, 2023 at 10:48 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> It is an intriguing film, with heavy meta commentary.  All of the
> characters are creating meta-worlds in their brains, and constantly trying
> to force reality into their comforting meta versions.
>
> On Sat, Dec 31, 2022 at 5:07 AM Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > I'm loving it.
> >
> > The Airborne Toxic Event looks positively eldritch, and the score that
> > accompanies its full revelation is absolutely perfect.
> >
> > In front of the camera, everyone is great in this film. The kids, in
> > particular, as we already know how great Driver, Gerwig and Cheedle are.
> >
> > Anyone else watching?
> >
> > yer old pal Jerky
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>