Short Cuts

"Short Cuts" was, in my opinion, a great movie.  Some of the complaints in the class were about the fact that the movie did not follow the stories exactly.  For the movie, though, I think it was necessary to take the stories and put a new and modern twist on them.  It was interesting because, although there were so many stories, they all related to each other somehow.  Also, the cast was stellar in portraying the characters.  I thought the film was successful in evoking a multitude of emotions.  My biggest problem with the movie was the time restrictions.  Since we could only watch one hour of the film per day, we missed minor parts that ended up being very important to the film.  Furthermore, as the movie was so long, splitting it up between days made following the different story lines very confusing.  The use of multiple story lines was another problem we discussed in class.  I think if we had been able to watch the whole film in one sitting, this would not have been a problem.  I thought incorporating all the stories together was a successful move on the director's part.  By including all the different stories, the director was able to bring so many of Raymond Carver's characters to life.  Since all of Carver's stories focused on different types of people, many different personalities were represented.  With a variety of people, the interaction between characters was very interesting.  The biggest surprise to me was the end of the film when the teenage girl is murdered.  I definitely did not expect it and while, at the time, I thought it came out of left field it seems to fit in with the rest of the devastating circumstances.  I really enjoyed the film, I only wish we would have been able to view it more efficiently.

Raymond Carver

Usually I would be turned off by the anticlimactic outcomes of Raymond Carver's stories, for some reason, though, I really enjoy reading them.  While they are easy to follow, they address the complexities of everyday life.  "Jerry and Molly and Sam" was sort of disturbing to me.  Although there are no really life changing or devastating events, the fact that the main character is almost trapped in his life is unsettling.  For part of the story I was waiting for some kind of big action to take place, but as I read further, the story just didn't seem to need a plot twist.  I am really interested in Raymond Carver for this reason.  I think it's amazing that he can take such mundane aspects of life and turn them into captivating stories, there's some detail that just draws you in. The story revolves around a lost dog but extends further into the life of an unfaithful family man, the commonalities within the story allow readers to relate to the characters in a strange way. Also, the fact that the title of the story, "Jerry and Molly and Sam" comes from very briefly mentioned characters adds to the oddness.  "A Small Good Thing" has the same ability to draw you in without any extreme drama.  Although this story has a more grim outcome, the lack of action throughout the entire story is very similar to that of "Jerry and Molly and Sam".  From reading the two stories I can assume that Carver felt a need to address the depressing events of everyday life. It seems that Raymond Carver was very interested in characters that have become nothing more than victims of circumstance. Carver's ability to translate monotony into a successful story is really amazing to me.  I am looking forward to "Shortcuts" and seeing how Carver's stories are adapted to film.