Jack Taylor trailers
The TV3 production based on Ken Bruen's novel The Guards starts in thirty-one minutes. If you're not in Ireland, watch some trailers here. (Hat tip to Noir Con.)
© Peter Rozovsky 2010
© Peter Rozovsky 2010
Labels: Ireland, Jack Taylor, Ken Bruen, television
posted by Peter Rozovsky at 3:29 PM
19 Comments:
Impossible to get TV3 in some parts of the Black North here. Anyone know if it's on digital (downloadable) anywhere?
Garbhan, I'm checking TV3's Web site now, and if tech support ever upgrades this computer to 1985 standards, I might be able to check faster for information on when the show might be available for viewing online. I expect they'll want to hold onto their intellectual proerty for at least a few hours.
Early returns are in from The Celtic Kagemusha:
Doesn't look too bad, so far, to be fair
Iain Glen suitably weather, and life, beaten looking, as Jack
And looks like the Galway I know, albeit a 10 year old one, and one thats filmed in all the recognisable locations
I like the trailers. Iain Glen even looks suitably weatherbeaten in some shots, close-ups especially.
For a TV3 exclusive it was admirably high-quality
(their news-based documentaries are usually quite shoddy)
I thought it captured the look and feel of Ken Bruen's Galway, - at least based on my reading of only 'The Guards', and my knowledge of Galway, - and the dark tone of the novel, quite well.
And the characterisations, for the most part, also.
Iain Glen was quite good, as was the actor playing his sometime-associate, but I thought the best performance was given by the actor played by his former colleague, the newly promoted Superintendent, Clancy
I wonder was it deliberate to have him sporting a mustache not unlike that type championed by former Justice Minister, Willie O'Dea?.
Given that so much of the novel was Jack's internal monologues, I suppose it was never going to be properly faithful without becoming boring television viewing, although, against that, the script changes meant it risked becoming indistinguishable from so many other 'gritty' crime dramas.
Overall, because I thought it captured the darkness very well, I'll give it a cautious 'thumbs up', and look forward to more in the series
The trailer had Clancy looking like a fat, smug prick, just the way he is in the novel. Like you, I wonder what television would do for a book so dependent on its main character's bleak outlook on the world. The trailer seems to capture the tone fairly well. I wonder, too, what the series does with Bruen's occasional flashes of grim humor.
It would seem to me this would be very hard to pull off given so much depends on interior monologues and the casting of Jack. He could come off looking too soft or too hard so easily. And I hate all his cultural references to be lost.
There was little, if any, of the humour that I remembered.
And it didn't have that marvellous ending, although that wasn't really possible with the script changes.
I suspect it had to compromise somewhat in order to secure an audience.
Perhaps it will be able to experiment a bit with more faithfulness if it does prove successful.
btw, I did watch a (Swedish) 'Wallander' subsequent to watching 'Jack Taylor'; excellent stuff, even if the story was somewhat far-fetched, - an investigation into why a former mental patient had blown himself up shortly after attempting to hold up a bank
Patti, Iain Glen looks suitably ravaged in some of the scenes in the trailer. Perhaps cinematography and soundtrack can compensate for lost cultural references.
TCK, I've read four of the Jack Taylor novels, though not "The Guards." The type of humor in some of them could easily be incorporated in a television or movie version.
In one exchange from "The Killing of the Tinkers," Taylor is asked about a beating he has just endured:
"They surprise you?"
"They bloody amazed me."
Jack Taylor always come up with new ideas.. so do any Detective or Private Investigator.
Peter I just didn't get much humour in it; it was concentrating almost completely on the darkside.
There was no spell in the mental hospital, although this would perhaps both have slowed the action and compromised the plot.
There were enough of Jack's 'asides', and barbs from colleagues and former colleagues, to give a sense of what Jack was about, but not enough of the humour
TCK, I'll occasionally find myself impressed with a filmmaker's judicious decision to omit a given part of a book. The mental-hospital stay may have been such a wise decision, though it would help if the production compensated in other ways -- amply portrayed Taylor ss having the sorts of problems that could have landed him in a mental hospital, in other words.
Peter, if I forensically scrutinised the episode, and then compared and contrasted with the book, - scanning over it to refresh my memory, - I might be very picky, but I think it was a decent enough stab, given the commercial considerations involved, and the need to balance satisfying fans of the books with making a watchable crime series
Nothing I saw in the trailers contradicts anything you say. I will look for ways to view the full episode.
Peter if the worst comes to the worst and you can't otherwise see it let me know and I'll convert it from my vhs recording into a DVD-R for you.
(can be a risky thing, quality wise, but 5 times out of 10 you get a decent enough conversion)
Nah, worst comes to worst, I'll visit Ireland again and watch it there.
If Bruen comes back to Philadelphia for NoirCon 2010, maybe he'll schlep some discs with him.
Thats fine, Peter, but you should check with the production company and/or tv3.ie to find out when the next episodes are scheduled to be screened, so you can optimise your next Irish visit, and/or suggest/cajole to Ken Bruen his optimal Philly-visit
I think my best will be that the episodes make their way onto DVD or become available through TV3.
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