Late Stage Poetry

In his tender, deeply New York sophomore feature Late Fame, former NYFF director and critic Kent Jones adapts Arthur Schnitzler's 1895 novella (from a ruthlessly funny script by May December's Samy Burch) about a forgotten poet given a second act by a group of young admirers. Longtime postal worker Ed Saxberger (Willem Dafoe) published a slim volume of poetry in the '70s before retreating into comfortable anonymity. Tracked down by the foppish leader (Edmund Donovan) of a band of trust-funded Whit Stillman rejects, Ed is reluctantly drawn into their world of literary salons, performance spaces, and one manic pixie cabaret singer (Greta Lee). The seduction of recognition and the persistence of artistic hope are reminders in this urbane tale that some ghosts are worth honoring.

But what about the daily indignities of a life spent waiting for fame? The titular lead of Colombian auteur Simón Mesa Soto's cringe comedy A Poet (first-time actor Ubeimar Rios, a real-life teacher who took the role for extra cash) peaked before anyone noticed and has since lapsed into self-pitying obscurity and alcoholism. Divorced and living with his mom, this walking problem takes a job teaching poetry to teens, but his efforts to mentor a soft-spoken discovery (Rebeca Andrade) collide with a literary establishment he despises. An absurdist takedown of the art world anchored by Rios' farcical, goblin-like performance, this 16mm-shot South American answer to American Fiction frames self-destruction as a form of righteous rebellion against the damn gatekeepers.

John Carpenter has spent a lifetime building nightmares, on film as well as in the synth-chugging soundscapes that score them (I mean, is his Halloween theme any less iconic than Michael Myers' mask?). Working with longtime musical collaborators Daniel Davies and son Cody Carpenter, "Cathedral" is the horror godfather's first "classic metal" album to date, and doubles as the soundtrack to his first original graphic novel (LAPD detectives vs. ancient demons!), all inspired by a vivid dream. Evoking a never-realized Prince of Darkness sequel, this creepy companion piece is thrilling as a standalone listening experience in all its crushing guitar riffs, anthemic melodies and thunderous energy.

Adaptations Are About Translation, Not Replication. Thinking about Kent Jones' update of a 19th-century novella, or Carpenter turning a dream into a graphic novel and an album, it's funny that we still judge adaptations by fidelity. The enduring ones know they're moving between unlike mediums. An internal monologue that sings on the page can kill a scene on-screen. Patrick Süskind's novel "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer" conjured scent in my brain; two decades later, Tom Tykwer's film version couldn't make you smell a thing, no matter how tightly he zooms in. That's why Naked Lunch and A Clockwork Orange look nothing like their "unfilmable" source texts. Cronenberg and Kubrick understood that slavish exactitude would have resulted in unwatchable messes. They took the essence (mood, ideas, central fears) and made the most of their audiovisual constraints. If you want faithfulness to the book, read the book. If you crave cinema, let the filmmaker interpret and remix with abandon.