Withered Blossom
Added 9/28/2009
This film adaptation at only 105 minutes simply leaves out way too much of the James Joyce classic. It especially leaves out much of the humour, which is inexcusalbe in a heavily satirical book. Lengthy chapters are reduced to "cameo" appearances or are omitted entirely. Comparisons with the 1967 film adaptation are inevitable so I will confine myself to three:
First: Stephen Rea is a fine actor but simply too old here to be playing Leopold Bloom. Rea looks like a late middle-aged wreck of a human being and not the early middle-aged, damaged but still optimistic character that dominates the book. Milo O'Shea nailed the spirit of the part in the earlier film.
Second: This version is simply too glossy, the cinimatography too well done, the characters in period costume looking too much like they just reported direct from wardrobe and make-up. By contrast the 1967 version, although given a contemporary setting, was filmed in black and white and has the right sense of gritiness about it. It also gets across more of the humour.
Third: Hugh O'Conor is a much livelier Stephen than Maurice Roeves and the one notable improvement over the first film adaptation.
In short: If you wish to see Ulysses on film best to skip this version and stick with the 1967 original, which is far from perfect but closer to the spirit of the book. Still better, get the unabridged audio recording from Naxos read by Jim Norton and also available from Amazon.
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The worst movie I have ever seen
Added 4/6/2009
An utterly puerile production. I have seen better acting in school plays and primary school plays at that. How could anyone believe that Buck Mulligan was a student ... even a mature student? One reviewer thought Stephen Rea's rendering of Bloom was memorable in its vulnerability - it looked more like stage fright to me.
It contains practically nothing of the character of the book, and why start with Molly? or was that just to catch the attention of the prurient.
The pace of the film was painfully slow which of course made it impossible to capture the constant turmoil in the minds of the characters.
One of the charms of the novel was the change in style from episode to episode in which the film Ulysses (1967) was at least partially successful.
Do not waste time with this. Watch the 1967 version.
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Bloom is an Irish film of the James Joyce novel Ulysses by director Sean Walsh. Let me be up front- I think Ulysses is a vastly overrated book, with moments of superbness and many more moments of wretchedness. It was Joyce, Woolf, and their ilk that started a good deal of art down the road to narcissistic hermeticism. That all said, while the film Bloom is not a great film, in and of itself, it is a good film, with moments of brilliance, and does a far better job at explicating the events of the first Bloomsday, June 16th, 1904, than the book ever has, despite what pretentious critics say.
Basically, nothing much happens on that day, yet three main characters- a married couple, Leopold (Stephen Rea) and Molly Bloom (Angeline Ball), and an aspiring artist and scholar named Stephen Dedalus (Hugh O'Conor)- protagonist of Joyce's earlier A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man. The three perambulate about the world of Dublin on that day, meeting and missing each other on several occasions. Dedalus is trammeled by his own inadequacies, and rebelling against the established order, while the Blooms deal with the slow death of their marriage, precipitated by the untimely death of their son, and aided by Molly's flagrant infidelities. Yet, the book takes these circumstances and subordinates them to the intellect, in the conceit of `stream of consciousness' writing, which is basically unpunctuated interior dialogue. Of course, the thing about stream of consciousness is that it is really the conceit, not the real way people think, lest punctuation would never have gotten started. Think of how often your thoughts veer and back up, U-turn and screech to a halt. The mind is certainly not like a river, but more like a potholed city street.
The film, however, does not suffer from these limitations. The visual image can work on multiple levels with far more immediacy than the word, so the `day' of the book can be easily condensed. Some Joyceans will complain that the film takes things out of order, and mixes many of the chapters together, yet a) this is a film, not a book, and b) that is akin to deriding those who deride Joyce's approach in the book (regardless of whether or not he succeeds- I vote nay), as well as being the height of hypocrisy. There are marvelous images, and truly the cinematography is the best thing in the film. Rea is also great as Leopold Bloom, while ball and O'Conor also have moments of brilliance- including Molly Bloom's closing soliloquy- the last chapter in the book- which the filmmaker wisely opens and closes the film with, so that Molly is indelibly stamped in the viewer's mind while most of the rest of the film explores Leopold and Dedalus.... Almost all of the flaws in the film are carryover flaws from the novel. Film, in fact, would seem to be a medium that Joyce was born to indulge in. Had he been born thirty or so years later I think he may have become the first great screenwriter, and may never have dabbled in novels. Film is far closer to poetry than prose, and Joyce's prose certainly is among the closest published skirts near poetry. Instead of `not doing justice' to the book the film really makes the book far more relevant to readers- hardcore or casual. Its only flaws, outside of the book's, is that it could have been a bit more daring. I mean, if Ulysses is rent of nudity, just how avant garde can it be?
Overall, I recommend this film on its own right, and as sort of a Cliff's Notes to the book, especially considering the excellent director's commentary. But, it's a so-so book to begin with, so take the former notation in that light. Yes?
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Bloomsday or Doomsday
Added 11/14/2007
This film reinforces my belief that some books cannot be translated to film. The depth of imagination required to follow and appreciate the intricate interweaving of the Ulysses story/plot/action can only, as far as I know, be achieved within the human mind. The movie industry simply doesn't have the technology to achieve such a feat on the screen. This was a valiant effort, but my anticipated visual bloomsday felt more like a doomsday.
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Filming the unfilmable
Added 10/19/2007
Joyce's novel is impossible to film because the peculiarities of its form are unique to the written language. It is the same reason that many films cannot be reduced to words because there is more to them than just a story. "Ulysses" is more than the chain of events through a single day; it encompasses literary allusions, numerous writing styles, and other elements that contribute to the whole, that no film could capture. This is why the film is entitled "Bloom" rather than "Ulysses:" it is an entirely different medium inspired by the novel, not a visual copy of it.
Approaching it as a separate work, rather than a failed transfer of the novel to the screen, avoids disappointment. The cast, mostly lesser-known (at least to me) Irish actors, is wonderful, especially Angeline Ball as Molly Bloom. Her soliloquy is worth the price of admission, and probably contributed to her winning the IFTA Best Actress award for her portrayal. The commentary by director Sean Walsh is one of the better ones I have come across, explaining both his general approach to the film as well as explaining individual decisions. For the viewer unfamiliar with the novel's storyline and the different styles of each chapter, the commentary will assist in their following the action.
The sole disappointment is Stephen Rea, whose familiarity compared to everyone else is distracting. Rea delivers his lines in a thickly accented, incomprehensible mumble that glaringly pointed to the disc's major flaw - a lack of English subtitles (the subtitles are in Spanish only).
In all, a valiant effort.
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