As I Lay Dying

source: As I Lay Dying

Addie Bundren (Beth Grant) is dying. Her son Darl (James Franco) takes his brother Jewel (Logan Marshall-Green) on a delivery. It's $3 after all despite Jewel's need to be by her side. Their wagon gets stuck while she dies. Her wish is to be buried in home town of Jefferson. The whole family struggles to bring her body to her final resting place. There are great actors in this movie. Tim Blake Nelson and Logan are terrific. Beth Grant is also great. In general, everybody is doing good work. The question is how did James Franco do as a director. I am not impressed. The most obvious technique is the split screen. The best thing I can ascribed to the technique is that it hides his amateurish directing style. When Beth Grant screams, the other half is trained on Jim Parrack. That's the only split-screen scene that really works. The movie struggles to gain authenticity and the split screen doesn't help at all. It looks like a modern film school technique in direct conflict with the rural backwoods feel of the family. Franco should be striving for authentic poverty. He fails as he throws various things on the wall. None of it really sticks. The actors are able to keep the audience's interest but they do it despite Franco. The river crossing shows some promise that Franco is functional as a director. Maybe he's over thinking this and tries too hard with the split screen and the actors talking at the camera. Thankfully the last 15 minutes don't have the split screen. It's some of the most compelling scenes in the movie.

I have not read the novel that was originally written by William Faulkner but I feel like the film is done in story telling as a novel more than as a typical movie because of its realistic creation. On the same time its done in a experimental way, its like poetry. It also feels very intimate which is what makes the movie original in how it gives me the viewer a particular feeling. I prefer how the movie is done in its artistically way rather more than how I enjoy it as a movie in its wholeness. This is because I found it hard to sometimes follow the story as I was interrupted by the cinema photography and the very dramatic music/sound. Possibly this is because it's done to show the details in a story rather than as a simple summary of the novel. I therefore perceive that it is done in honorary way to the novel. What for me destroys it is the most is how the characters are too intimate, this make it for me to not strike it as completely genuine… Or maybe it is because it is to real for me the viewer to handle.

I really did not enjoy one minute of this film. I am sorry, I know it is supposed to be this masterpiece, but piece of eh? The cutaways, and the way peoples mouths aren't always moving when they are clearly talking, in fact having actual conversations, but you suddenly change perspective, and the person talking's lips are not moving, and the other person's might be, or they may just both be sitting in chairs, or walking around poking things with sticks. I did Not think Franco's choices of the cast were all that original, it was all boilerplate, and he used the same actors you would have seen play the same types of rolls only with better material, and probably less exaggerated direction. I would not recommend this movie to anyone really. If you have to read the book for school, just read the book, or get the Cole's (or whatever they call them in your country) notes, but this movie will not help you better understand the story, this movie may just crack your logic chip.

Addie Bundren lay dying in rural Mississippi circa 1930. Darl and Jewel go on an errand, and promise to be back before sundown. Their cart gets stuck in a rut in the pouring rain, and they do not keep that promise. Cash keeps working on Addie's coffin within sight of Addie's sick bed. Cash continues to work on it after she is gone, in the rain, no less. Cash finishes the coffin, Darl and Jewel get the cart unstuck. Addie has made Anse promise that she will be buried in the town of Jefferson. This proves to be more than a bit complicated. There is a lot of talking and angst and back-biting as Darl, Jewel, Cash, Dewey Dell, Vardaman and Anse head to Jefferson to fulfill the promise. They encounter a number of challenges, such as weakened bridges across streams, dodgy fords, broken carts, lost animals, lost tools, lost coffin. Aside from that, Cash gets a compound fracture, which the local vet sets. To get a new team, Anse trades away just about everything the family had, including Jewel's beloved horse. The corpse continues to rot, and the smell increases. Whenever they are near or in a town, they are not welcome. Cash's leg does not get better, and they set it with cement. Jewel gives up his horse. The journey does not get any easier. Will the family accomplish its mission? -------Scores-------- Cinematography: 9/10 Mostly excellent, but has a bit of camera shake to it. Sound: 9/10 Again, mostly excellent. However, I would have been lost without the subtitles on Netflix. The century-old Southern accents were thick to say the least. Acting: 8/10 Fine, by and large. Screenplay: 8/10 Difficult story, well told.

This film tells the story of a family who travels to get their mother buried. Honestly, I don't even know how to begin to tell the world how terrible this film is. I watched it for almost an hour before I begin to know the film is about their journey to bury their mother. The story telling is appalling, and made worse by the pretentious use of split screen that sites incongruous messages. For example, in a scene where a man's taking, the left side of the screen sites his face motionless while the right side of the screen sites him talking.It's as if there is an alternate universe within the film. The plot is ultra boring as well. just do but watch this mess.

James Franco has seemingly set out to be the busiest man in Hollywood. Franco unfulfilled by just acting in recent times has taken on art, writing and adapting so called un-filmable novels with the forthcoming McCarthy adaptation Child of God premiering recently and this faithful and very intriguing adaptation of William Faulkner's revered 1930 book As I Lay Dying which had its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. It's clear that Franco filmed this atmospheric tale on a limited budget yet was able to recruit some serious acting talent to join him on screen as the Bundren family. Stand outs in the acting stakes are Tim Blake Nelson as toothless family head Anse and Marshall-Green as half cast and grizzled Jewel. All cast members acquit themselves well to difficult material, even Franco's real life buddy and funny man Danny McBride does well in a small cameo like roll. Franco's fine direction of fellow actors is commendable but his artistic decision not so much. A strange choice by Franco is to put screen juxtaposition in a two frame format for roughly half of the films running time. This two pane structure comes off as merely annoying and takes away from the full screen beauty of much of the films images and natural landscape which are wonderfully captured by cinematographer Christina Voros. This technique was employed from an outsiders knowledge to portray the novels various voices and themes yet really is in no way integral to the films telling and as a finished product seems a tad on the pretentious side of things. If you can overcome As I Lay Dying's almost tortuous opening 30 minutes where I found myself more than tempted to stop the film in its tracks there is much to admire in the film and by the last 20 minutes you will find yourself enthralled in this strange and depressing tale of a family lost in more ways than one. As I Lay Dying gives one hope that Franco will do justice to Child of God and perhaps one day his dream project of Blood Meridian. 3 concrete casts out of 5 For more movie reviews and opinions check out - www.jordanandeddie.wordpress.com

Because of the low rating of 5.5 I nearly decided not to watch this movie. I would have missed a good movie had I paid too much attention to ratings and not given this movie a chance. It reminded me of the part in Lonesome Dove where one of the characters in that movie honors his promise to carry and deliver Gus's body in a wooden coffin a thousand miles to be buried back in his home in Texas. In this movie, we have a wife and mother who lived out her life to die naturally and the ordeal that a poor Mississippi family endures in getting her body back to where it is supposed to be buried. I found the actors to be well cast in their roles and I highly recommend this movie.

I always wondered why James Franco was never vastly recognised as a film director than an actor. If you ask me, I say he was always at his best who mostly pick biographies and dramas. This movie is one of the year's widely undernoticed and under-appreciated. As always, that leads me to hate critics who divert the movie fans from this movie a watch. This was one of the best dramas I had seen that set in the rural of the early 1900s. About the family of brothers and sister who lost their mother. As being in a remote village they struggle to travel nearby burial ground that is days away to reach. So theirs quest starts to take twists and turns among siblings and the mother nature. Each of them has individual hidden secrets that not related to their mother's death, but as a character. One after another letting us know theirs another face till the adventures ends in peace. I really liked this movie. The tone of the setting of that era was so perfect. Feels like they all went for a century back to the original time to make the movie so accurately. It was based on the novel by the same name. Might be a fictional work, though, depicts the true lifestyle and transporting system of those times. No fights, no guns, a purely family based drama which might be a little brutal in parts, but kind of realistic according to that era. Don't miss this movie, a movie based on the old era is not frequent nowadays. Movies like this now and then really give a good opportunity to the modern people to know the forgotten culture. Hope you all realise what I am saying about the movie and its material.

This film is flawed from the very first shot. It's so ironical as Franco the director, puts his choices above that of the actors. In a piece like this, character should come first. He places his horrendous split screen first. I'm curious to know whether this was the intended manner or whether the original edit was so lackluster he tried to beef it up with split screen. I'm not against that method per se, but in a period piece like this, especially given the story, you have to be able to relate to one character at least. He jumps in without bothering to connect us emotionally to anyone. It feels, and is amateurish. Its surprising, given his depth of performances over a long period in all types of films, yet here he makes mistakes from the most inexperienced of first time directors. With his record, it's hard to imagine how he could have stuffed it up so badly. Perhaps he wasn't taking enough notice on set. It's actually boring and that is the worst sin a director can commit. His choice of subject matter is commendable, but it belongs in the hands of a much more experienced director, something he will come to regret if he hasn't done so already. There are a few decent shots but the editing wounds it. (Much to the horror of the cinematographer). The split screen comes in for the final kill. Alternatively, the same intrusive method also takes your attention away from what is poorly executed scenes, complete with bad acting. Unfortunate for the other actors who try. Franco has to take the fall for all of it. It really is poorly directed. However, he is famous enough to survive it. For now. Other actors have tried directing and failed and continued on with successful acting careers. It's like they need to try it on for once, to appease their egos. Directing is not something someone can simply adopt. It's a very specific skill set. If James is to be a director then he really needs to go back to the beginning and start learning the craft, like for example, Ben Affleck. Ben was never a great actor, but at least he took his time coming to directing and chose the right subject matter. You start simply and work your way up. Tarantino didn't start with Kill Bill or Inglorious Bastards. He began simply. Franco has expressed an interest in tackling Bukowski's Ham on Rye. The man clearly appreciates good literature (and writes also) but if he's going to make films out of such important work then he better be able to do a much better job than he's done here. I like the man, but Francly (intentional), I was embarrassed for him.