My Beautiful Laundrette and Other Writings, Hanif Kureishi (365 Books, Day 48)

A present from sovay. This contains the final-draft shooting script for the 1985 movie My Beautiful Laundrette, written by Kureishi and directed by Stephen Frears; note that I did not say it contains the actual script of My Beautiful Laundrette, as it was one of those films where the writer dashed frantically around the set scribbling new dialogue "before," as he says, "the cast could make it up themselves". At any rate, it's an interesting script, though I would want to have the book open and the film playing in front of me before actually comparing the two too thoroughly, as otherwise I would be bound to misquote something somewhere. The film this script would have produced is I think a good one, a resolutely non-commercial look at the tangles of class and race and money and identity among a large family mostly from Pakistan and mostly living in an English city; it's also (the reason I first heard of it) one of the first movies I can think of containing a gay romance that does not also contain massively depressing amounts of internalized homophobia leading to externalized ranting, suicide, etc. on the part of the people involved. (This couple's depressing circumstances tend to center around one of them being Pakistani and the other ex-National Front, which is a giant social problem for them in all conceivable directions, including internally.) In these elements I consider the script to match the actual film. Closer comparison I will not attempt.

( The book also has several of Kureishi's essays. )

My Beautiful Laundrette and Other Writings, Hanif Kureishi (365 Books, Day 48)

A present from sovay. This contains the final-draft shooting script for the 1985 movie My Beautiful Laundrette, written by Kureishi and directed by Stephen Frears; note that I did not say it contains the actual script of My Beautiful Laundrette, as it was one of those films where the writer dashed frantically around the set scribbling new dialogue "before," as he says, "the cast could make it up themselves". At any rate, it's an interesting script, though I would want to have the book open and the film playing in front of me before actually comparing the two too thoroughly, as otherwise I would be bound to misquote something somewhere. The film this script would have produced is I think a good one, a resolutely non-commercial look at the tangles of class and race and money and identity among a large family mostly from Pakistan and mostly living in an English city; it's also (the reason I first heard of it) one of the first movies I can think of containing a gay romance that does not also contain massively depressing amounts of internalized homophobia leading to externalized ranting, suicide, etc. on the part of the people involved. (This couple's depressing circumstances tend to center around one of them being Pakistani and the other ex-National Front, which is a giant social problem for them in all conceivable directions, including internally.) In these elements I consider the script to match the actual film. Closer comparison I will not attempt.

( The book also has several of Kureishi's essays. )

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