Ray Bradbury was my favorite writer when I was a kid, and a recent conversation with Michelle LaPerriere reminded me of this. At the MICA library I checked out a copy of Bradbury Stories, a collection of 100 selected tales, of which "Banshee" is one of the best and most satisfying.
Bradbury is a master at the art of description and imagery, and while the film version (created for the 1980s HBO series Ray Bradbury Theater, which hasn't aged very well, I'm afraid) gets some of the details right, there were other things I would have changed. The Banshee is the best thing about the film, but even she could have been made more ethereal and otherworldly. Peter O'Toole is the playboy movie director, and the object of the Banshee's affection/loathing; In my version, thought it would be interesting to "cast" a younger version of O'Toole as Doug (many of Bradbury's stories have a hero named Douglas) the screenwriter protagonist whom the director cruelly insults and teases and then dares to go out into the woods to meet the woman with a "face of snow...dressed in a long, moon-colored dress...nothing in the world would ever frighten her again." I think my favorite elements are the wisp of the Banshee's shawl on the left and the trapezoid of orange light from the house on Doug's face.
No comments:
Post a Comment