Word: ellisons
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...first film to show at the new Galeria cinema, is based on Harlan Ellison's Nebula award-winning novella of the same name. The L.Q. Jones film version fails from the start; it's bad science fiction as well as bad cinematography. Ellison's story does not lend itself to the camera as there are immediate and plaguing flaws in adaptation. A Boy And His Dog is set in 2024, in an America ravaged and torn by the nuclear warheads of the Third World War. The survivors, either alone (solos) or in marauding groups (roverpaks), eke out a savage existence...
...poorly on film, including "classics" like Frank Herbert's Dune and Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. (How would you portray "groking?" Who would accept a giant sandworm in a serious film?) Some of the finest science fiction on film was specifically written for that medium. Ironically, Ellison himself is responsible for some of the better television screenplays: "Soldier" on Rod Sterling's Twilight Zone, a chilling preview of a war-wracked future through the eyes of a genetically engineered warrior, fleeing his opponents through time travel; and an excellent script for Star Trek, "A City...
Blood, the dog, is no Rin Tin Tin. He curses like a trooper, puns, philosophizes, teaches, and even conjugates Latin verbs. In print, Ellison creates the character intelligently enough that the reader comes to believe, empathise and imagine him. But on the screen it doesn't work. The camera strips away that imaginative process and instead offers a voice-over for Blood's thoughts, making him sound like a disembodied canine version of Mr. Ed, spouting bits of arcane knowledge. If it sounds absurd, it is, and with the premise of A Boy And His Dog destroyed, the film slowly...
THERE ARE OTHER ELEMENTS contributing to this collapse. The novella, actually a padded short story, moves quickly because Ellison writes in a clean, brief, violent prose. In A Boy And His Dog, Jones slows down the action, lengthening scenes and drawing out the conclusion with wasted footage. Jones also films the blasted landscapes and ruins of the future listlessly where a Kubrick would exploit the opportunity to examine the new world with camera work...
Some of the strength behind Ellison's vision of the 21st century remains in the movie. It is a vision not too removed from the present, which adds to its power: rape poses a constant threat in the United States of 1975, food is becoming scarce in many areas of the world, the desire for a return to a Golden Age of order surfaces in the editorials of small town newspapers, and the possibility of nuclear war and its aftermath has been a reality since Hiroshima. Unfortunately, the other strength of Ellison's novella, his brilliant characterization of Blood, becomes...