Comments on: Passages from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2008/07/18/passages-from-james-joyces-finnegans-wake/ • • • Being a journal by artist and designer John Coulthart, cataloguing interests, obsessions and passing enthusiasms. Thu, 18 Mar 2010 21:04:57 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: John http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2008/07/18/passages-from-james-joyces-finnegans-wake/comment-page-1/#comment-58488 John Tue, 29 Jul 2008 13:58:54 +0000 http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2008/07/18/passages-from-james-joyces-finnegans-wake/#comment-58488 Hi Emma. Yes, I was rather hasty in my judgement there, this is as much a piece of cinema as the Strick <em>Ulysses</em>. The textual surface of <em>Finnegans Wake</em> is so dense, often punning in several languages at once, that the actual narrative thread gets buried. One of the things Ms Bute's film does is bring that thread to the surface. This film is also notable for Mary Ellen Bute having been a significant abstract film-maker decades earlier. None of her contemporaries in that world went on to produce something like this. Hi Emma. Yes, I was rather hasty in my judgement there, this is as much a piece of cinema as the Strick Ulysses. The textual surface of Finnegans Wake is so dense, often punning in several languages at once, that the actual narrative thread gets buried. One of the things Ms Bute’s film does is bring that thread to the surface.

This film is also notable for Mary Ellen Bute having been a significant abstract film-maker decades earlier. None of her contemporaries in that world went on to produce something like this.

]]> By: Emma http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2008/07/18/passages-from-james-joyces-finnegans-wake/comment-page-1/#comment-58486 Emma Tue, 29 Jul 2008 13:40:44 +0000 http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2008/07/18/passages-from-james-joyces-finnegans-wake/#comment-58486 This is a beautiful, strange little film, thanks for pointing it out. Think you're a bit unfair in calling it no more than an illustrated reading: it stands up on its own as a piece of cinema I think. Worth watching -especially for someone like me who hasn't quite got round to reading the book yet... Wish someone would do a proper version of Ulysses - maybe as a very long, slow and peculiar TV series. Can't see that happening on British TV any time soon. This is a beautiful, strange little film, thanks for pointing it out. Think you’re a bit unfair in calling it no more than an illustrated reading: it stands up on its own as a piece of cinema I think. Worth watching -especially for someone like me who hasn’t quite got round to reading the book yet… Wish someone would do a proper version of Ulysses – maybe as a very long, slow and peculiar TV series. Can’t see that happening on British TV any time soon.

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