bobdobbs888 Review of Adam Resurrected

Adam Resurrected (2008)

The novel's original title: "Adam, Son of Dog"

[6/10 · 24 August 2012]

Paul Schrader graduates into the "you can mix anything with anything" school of film making and does it with a national treasure in Israel. An Israeli/German/American production, Jeff Goldblum gives his best performance as a Geman-Jew performer/magician who goes through the 3rd Reich syndrome of modern imagined hells in order to describe a loving relationship between two humans lost in the performance/performer confusion. Schrader's strict Calvinist upbringing has always had him swimming deep into deepness and here he's once again in his element. He goes into detail on the commentary about his new thing in directing going from Hollywood classicism to the "anything goes" of today's transcendence into free-style mixing coming out of the electronic music revolution of the '90s. He talks about this at the following times on the commentary: 37:16—43:15, 45:50—48:52, 49:49—59:02, and 1:21:18— 1:24:09. Adapted from Yoram Kaniuk's '70s novel, Schrader needed to 'get hip' to have a chance with this creative masterwork. So did Goldblum who is working against his own past gestalt of clowning and goofing. Here he ironically can utilise a lot of this schtick; and he outdoes himself actually acting as good as he 'teaches' in LA (to get lots of legendary ass). Not a masterpiece, but ably offers a real adaptation of a very complex novel, a very rare accomplishment as Schrader talks about in the commentary and panel discussion. Fossilized Hollywood gets real stupid regarding 'translating' since they think they will miss the original product and lose the magical 'free' $. Art is actually required. Schrader is an honorary Jew and very similar in personality. Looking forward to the second half of his amazing career.