BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS (1999) *** The brilliant literary works of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. defy cinematic treatment for a lot of reasons, not least their intricate balance of slapstick and the profound. Alan Rudolph's treatment is intelligent and sensitive, but he still can't pull in much more than some of the quirky humor and a science fiction writer's divine sense of randomness. Well, that's pretty good, though. I might have almost thought it might be best to make a film about the novel by reproducing an entirely different plot, or none at all, or a mock documentary starring Kilgore Trout as Solomon, or something, which is kind of what you have to do if you don't do what they did. I hope they don't, literary historians in the short term don't, pigeon-hole Vonnegut as a phenomenon of his time. He was, of course, in his literary life and everyone is in their temporal one, but part of his magic was linking his own era to eternity in some ways that everyone could care about for awhile. By bringing things forward, as he has, Rudolph necessitates some element of that while assisting others to be devoured by the wayside. Maybe the best part is Nick Nolte's face, the incredible expressiveness of a man without a great deal in the way of sensibilities, or maybe it's the childish grace of Barbara Hershey when something on television profiles her own existence in a way she hopes to have understood. Maybe it's the innocence and trust of Omar Epps...conservatives have always been wrong: this was not a novel trashing America, but a novel celebrating America by gently mocking the tawdry aspects of synthetic culture that have crept in, like toxic sludge, from the insecure areas of the parameter. Rudolph gets that, and communicates it with amplification, which gets the point across except for the portions that reverb calibrates into clouds that scatter like dreams when you think you're waking up. Maybe it's Albert Finney waiting for someone to appreciate his work without mutating its amorphous message or malevolence, or maybe it's you because something made you smile. I mean, after all, if you look like a winner...well, what could be better than that?
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