Simple Men/Trust

By Hal Hartley

'Simple Men' tells the story of two brothers, Bill and Dennis McCabe. Dennis is a quietly handsome, inexperienced, bookish student, while his older brother is a rough-hewn ladies' man who verges on... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0571167985
• ISBN13: 9780571167982
• Release Date: January 1992
• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Length: 184 Pages
• Weight: 0.77 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 0.8" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

Two of my favorite films + a smart interview

I never get tired of either reading or seeing either of these films. For the Hal Hartley fan, this is really an essential volume to own-- these screenplays are one of those rarest of rare things, screenplays that have their own life as written word-- worth reading just for their own sake. The interview Graham Fuller does with Hartley and Martin Donovan is worth the price of the book by itself. Also includes a filmography up to and including _Simple Men_.

No true fan should be without this book.

"Trust" was so different from anything I'd ever seen that it just knocked me out--the dialog, the meter, the slightly-affected hyper-reality of the performances. "Simple Men" showcased a refinement of writer/director Hal Hartley's style, and I found myself watching rapt, not wanting it to end, ever. Untouched, unblemished, unstained by Hollywood, Hal Hartley makes his own movies his own way. He takes life's "little problems," that big Hollywood movies only mention in passing as a cinematic trick to achieve emotional buy-in, and examines them in exquisite detail. "Simple Men and Trust" is a treat, not only because Hartley's words are there in black and white, standing alone and naked--but standing nonetheless--on the page, but because Graham Fuller's interview with Hartley (and actor Martin Donovan) offers us a look at the man, the mind, behind the words.

Opps! I've gone and read it again.

Harltey's genuis is here again, he takes simple people, in a simple situation and comes up with a tale that keeps you glued to the TV or the text. Everthing is underplayed, the sensbilites involved are almost English, with their reserve and distance. Again the outsiders take the mantle of the main roles, and the settings are what hal does best his homtown. The book imortalises the lines so wonderfully articulated by the actors, but this is a play as much as it is a screen play and deserves to be put in text.