The Sound and the Fury

Prior to the current trend of adapting graphic novels, self-help books and board games into major motion pictures, literary masterpieces used to be Hollywood’s bread-and-butter. One might choose to interpret that as a condemnation of today’s movie-going society as unsophisticated, bottom-feeders. But in all honesty, it’s tough to “do-right” by the classics. And one would be hard-pressed to find a producer today who would take on the challenge of adapting William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, a multi-layered, multiple narrative monstrosity that had to be practically rewritten from the ground up to make it to the screen – even in 1959.

The focus here is on Quentin Compson (Joanne Woodward), the illegitimate daughter of a once-proud Southern family. Although only a small part of the novel’s structure (as liner notes by Julie Kirgo point out), the filmmakers chose a more direct coming of age route as Quentin rebels against small-town life and her controlling step-uncle, Jason, played by Yul Brynner…with thick luscious hair, I might add.

The Sound and the Fury is a steamy paperback with an elegant hardcover binding. Removing the alternating POVs from the narrative, one is left with some soap opera histrionics, solid acting all-around, and a keeper of a score by Alex North (available as an isolated score track). As complicated as original novel is, director Martin Ritt does an excellent job making his film stand on its own, allowing Quentin’s sexual awakening to shake up the family’s long-established patterns of self-destruction and decay…and provide a kinky kick in the form of her attraction to her tough-talking step-uncle.

Twilight Time’s limited edition Blu-ray (only 3000 copies are available via ) comes across very well in high-definition and includes the aforementioned isolated score track as an extra.