Maverick director best known for his film of Ulysses – widely seen as a noble failure
There must be something quixotic about a director who sets out to make a film of James Joyce's Ulysses. A passionate Joycean, Joseph Strick, who has died aged 86, was undeterred by the challenge and the obstacles: "Even before I made it, people were saying it was unfilmable. I think the truth is, some people just find the book unreadable."
The iconoclastic Strick first envisaged an 18-hour version, faithful to every word, but unsurprisingly he could not get anyone to finance it. When the final two-hour version, shot in Dublin, was completed in 1967, it fell foul of censorship – just like the novel. The British Board of Film Censors requested 29 cuts to remove sexual references from Molly Bloom's final, expletive-laden soliloquy. Strick obliged by replacing all of the offending footage with a blank screen and a high-pitched shrieking sound.
There must be something quixotic about a director who sets out to make a film of James Joyce's Ulysses. A passionate Joycean, Joseph Strick, who has died aged 86, was undeterred by the challenge and the obstacles: "Even before I made it, people were saying it was unfilmable. I think the truth is, some people just find the book unreadable."
The iconoclastic Strick first envisaged an 18-hour version, faithful to every word, but unsurprisingly he could not get anyone to finance it. When the final two-hour version, shot in Dublin, was completed in 1967, it fell foul of censorship – just like the novel. The British Board of Film Censors requested 29 cuts to remove sexual references from Molly Bloom's final, expletive-laden soliloquy. Strick obliged by replacing all of the offending footage with a blank screen and a high-pitched shrieking sound.
- 6/17/2010
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
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