{"id":3563,"date":"2008-02-05T09:18:21","date_gmt":"2008-02-05T16:18:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/?p=3563"},"modified":"2008-02-05T09:18:21","modified_gmt":"2008-02-05T16:18:21","slug":"afi-100-sophies-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/2008\/02\/05\/afi-100-sophies-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"AFI 100: Sophie’s Choice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was Superbowl Sunday, so Pa Baldwin<\/a> and I spent the afternoon as so many fathers and sons do around the nation: gathered in front of the big screen TV, drinking beer, and thrilling to the emotional rollercoaster that is Sophie’s Choice<\/em>.<\/p>\n

All I really knew about the motion picture ahead of time was The Scene; from that I extrapolated that the whole film was set during the Holocaust. I was therefore confused when the film opened in 1947, with the eponymous Sophie safe and childless. Okay, thought I, it’s a framing device: we’ll get 10 minutes of this, an hour and a half of the main narrative, and then a brief epilogue. Wrong again, chief. The bulk of the film is a John Irvingesque relationship drama with genuinely funny moments, thanks to the comic styling of Kevin Kline (in his first movie!) and an extended sequence involving a reformed prude that can only be described as hilarious (an adjective I was pretty sure would not appear in this review). All this was good but not great. Without The Scene, I’m confident that Sophie’s Choice<\/em> would have long since been forgotten.<\/p>\n

And, I must admit, the punch-in-the-gut impact of The Scene was somewhat muted by my (a) foreknowledge of the event it depicts, (b) familiarity with Streep’s acting prowess, and (c) having previously endured Schindler’s List<\/em>, The Pianist<\/em><\/a>, Into the Arms of Strangers<\/em>, and probably a few more, the memories of which I have suppressed. Not enough to keep me from tearing up, but I didn’t end the evening rocking in the corner, either. Definitely a haunter, though: The Scene has popped into my head half a dozen times since last night, and I keep watching the clip on Youtube<\/a>*<\/sup>, seemingly against my will.<\/p>\n

I’m finding it hard to assign a rating to Sophie’s Choice<\/em>, mostly because it was so unlike what I had expected. I think I’d need to watch it again to really form an opinion–maybe Pa Baldwin and I will do that on Father’s Day. For now, 7.5\/10.<\/p>\n

Next up in the AFI 100 Project<\/a>: Yankee Doodle Dandy and The Bridge on the River Kwai.<\/em><\/p>\n

* A warning to those who have never seen <\/em>Sophie’s Choise<\/em>: watching this will not “ruin” the move, but, as I have said, will undoubtedly lessens its impact to some degree. If you ever expect to watch the film in its entirely, I’d strongly recommend foregoing the clip.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was Superbowl Sunday, so Pa Baldwin and I spent the afternoon as so many fathers and sons do around the nation: gathered in front of the big screen TV, drinking beer, and thrilling to the emotional rollercoaster that is Sophie’s Choice. All I really knew about the motion picture ahead of time was The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afi-100"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3563\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/defectiveyeti.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}