To make a film of Joseph heller’s ”catch-22” is doomed to fail. A novel about a state of war, which may, in fact, is an existential condition, where each character is presented in a subordinate clause as long as an essay, which, in turn, branches out to the new clause before it may be back on the track of the main character, Yossarian, or Yo-Yo, a dödsångestriden american bombardier during the tail end of the second world war, stationed on an island off the coast of Italy. The novel was both a monstrous best-seller and rated as a literary masterpiece when it came in 1962.
The famous ”catch-22” (a clause that makes it impossible to get away bombflygningarna by declaring himself insane, because who does not want to perform such a dangerous mission must be mentally healthy) is not the only cirkelresonemanget that run through the novel. It consists of short-circuited dialogues that all of the shows on the war – or life – absurdity. It is a satire but, in spite of uppdrivet tempo and psychotic energy, a cool satire that captures a state of absolute dejection on the border of transcendence. It failed Mike Nichols miserably to capture when he made the period grovsatirisk, sweaty, flustered antikrigsfilm of the novel in 1970.
Though it was difficult in the seventies, it is still nothing compared to how it is now. Who wants to see an endless jumble of men in kakifärgade clothes to wander around in a sandgult landscape and keep the irony of the monologues, now and then interrupted by the pesky bombräder that were intentionally not competitive but to distill the catatonic agony? The extent of the hits the women are the prostitutes in a sönderbombat Rome, an officers platinablonderade wife, a Yo-Yo is a with, or a strict nurse who see through his attempts to get away the oldest.
Yossarian (Christopher Abbott) in ”Catch-22”. Photo: Philippe Antonello
it is perhaps the most otidstypiska of all: That the main character does not have any tendencies towards heroism, but to perceive him as a coward. Yo-Yo believe that the enemy is all who want to kill him, and that includes the officers that gives them life-threatening mission. It’s like coming back to an analysis of reality that was obvious between 1945 and 1990: the war is bizarre and boring, something that no sane man can voluntarily interest and which at all costs should avoid. A modern approach that now seems a total antikverat.
After having overdosed on burning human flesh, expressed in terms of the eyes, decapitated children, bombastic krigstal, hederssvador, megalomania, siarmystik and iszombies in the ”Game of Thrones” it is extremely pleasing to enter into the balsalätta world of lucidity as the mini-series ”Catch 22” opens.
But! After having overdosed on burning human flesh, expressed in terms of the eyes, decapitated children, bombastic krigstal, hederssvador, megalomania, siarmystik and iszombies in the ”Game of Thrones” slutsäsong it is extremely pleasant to enter into the balsalätta world of lucidity as the mini-series ”Catch 22” opens. For Clooney and the other the creators of the series have actually managed to capture the uppgivenhetens poetry. A homeopathic dose of Terrence Malick has inspired the idiom and given to the young people, significantly the often naked men a melancholy dödsgloria. A larger dose from the brothers Coen keep the momentum going. Adorable fyrtiotalsschlagers ackompagnerar the shaky bombflygningarna, the dialogue is rhythmic, and acting skillfully.
It could also be that we have gone full circle, that there is a craving for that particular heller’s cool absurdism in our overheated times.
in Addition to the big names, like Clooney himself, Hugh Laurie, Giancarlo Giannini, and Kyle Chandler, so there are several young, untested lights. In particular, Daniel David Stewart in the role of the eloquent mässkocken Milo and Christopher Abbot, perfect in the lead role as Yo-Yo. Get actor has a unique passive, and yet is strangely superior charisma as Abbot. Lena Dunham used it cleverly and comically in ”Girls”, where he played kontrollfreaken Marnies boyfriend Charlie. First, just sweet, then sweet and rich, then sweet and a heroin addict, all without the expression in the dark eyes changed. Yo-yos monologues drives one to insanity, pushing with all nationalistic or honorary rhetoric. His way of thinking is like a silent undervattensbomb that shatters all attempts to form the soldiers ‘ thoughts and bodies. Nothing is so given to not Yo-Yos, the brain can resolve it into its component parts.
”Catch-22” is a dry, brungrön, monotone, a little old-fashioned creation, which – and this is based only on two of the six episodes – according to all the calculations should not be able to meet any larger audience. An Italian-american, humanist heart-project for the Italian-american humanist Clooney. But it could also be that we have gone full circle, that there is a craving for that particular heller’s cool absurdism in our overheated times. In that case, Clooney and Hulu in all cases, packaged and delivered it as faithfully and respectfully.
