I had a dream that I was attending a special advance-preview screening of a new version (or “special edition”) of
_Sophie’s Choice_. Richard Dreyfuss was on hand to introduce the film and make a few comments, which was
wholly appropriate, given that he had written, directed, produced, and starred in it. It was freakishly long, like five or six hours,
and seemed to focus almost exclusively on Dreyfuss himself, with hardly any spoken dialogue or scenes in which he
was not the direct focal point. It was only after the closing credits began to roll that I noticed that nothing from the
original – characters, plotline, even basic premise – were in any way represented or even intimated in Dreyfuss’s version.
In short, Dreyfuss’s “version,” if it could even be called that, had essentially no commonality or point of contact with
the 1982 effort or Styron’s novel. It was a completely freestanding work that shared nothing with the earlier movie and book
except the title. What is more, it was the most blatant vanity project imaginable: Dreyfuss had simply paid someone to take
footage with a handheld camera, as he sat in his living room and rambled endlessly about mundane topics from his personal life
in which nobody but Dreyfuss himself could possibly have been interested. Yet the work was being treated as high art,
as a watershed moment in the history of cinematic form.
as per request
Posted by lefalcon on February 4, 2009
https://losthunderlads.com/2009/02/04/as-per-request/
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14 Comments
Who writes this?
acilius
believer1
lefalcon
losthunderlads
vthunderlad
Panther Red 
acilius
/ February 5, 2009That’s hilarious, I love that. Dreyfuss’ version of “Sophie’s Choice” sounds like many blogs I’ve seen. Thanks for the post!
lefalcon
/ February 5, 2009Yes once again, Dreyfuss proves himself an inveterate rascal.
cymast
/ February 6, 2009This sounds like a “means something” dream. Perhaps you could ask yourself what a “special advance-preview screening” personally means to you, what “Sophie’s Choice” means to you, same with Richard Dreyfuss, et cetera, and how they relate to each other . .
acilius
/ February 6, 2009I want to stick with the blog theory. My idea is that you at some point saw a rambling blog by someone named Sophie and that it reminded you of some movie where Richard Dreyfuss played a self-absorbed character.
lefalcon
/ February 6, 2009Well only God’s privileged Elect would be allowed to see a film in advance … so I either sub-consciously believe myself to have been specially selected by my Lord, or I yearn deeply for that to be the case.
_Sophie’s Choice_ is a quality picture. Not laugh-out-loud funny; but possesses clear merits. So clearly I have a deep personal need to get on national TV and urge the public to rent _Sophie’s Choice_ on DVD. Nothing less will placate me. If the Lord truly favours me, this shall come to pass.
But it would be morally wrong to encourage people to view _Sophie’s Choice_ unless it could be re-issued with random footage spliced in of Richard Dreyfuss dressed up as Dick Cheney. This would constitute a “special edition.”
What could all this possibly add up to? The elements are clear: divine privilege, national proclamations, prominent actors dressed in vinyl bald-caps. I’m leading the vanguard of a new French Revolution … and my followers are legions of hounds undergoing psychological treatment for having been abused at the hands of perverts! Everything has clarified, except, except … “To be continued”
acilius
/ February 6, 2009“_Sophie’s Choice_ is a quality picture. Not laugh-out-loud funny; but possesses clear merits.” Not laugh-out-loud funny- isn’t it about the Holocaust? Then again, your comment may also be about the Holocaust, but I’m laughing out loud right now at the part about the vinyl bald-caps.
cymast
/ February 6, 2009Er . . Dick Cheney?
acilius
/ February 6, 2009Dreyfuss played Cheney in some movie.
cymast
/ February 6, 2009Yikes.
lefalcon
/ February 17, 2009Yeah: the movie “W.” It must’ve been a tough personal experience: to transform oneself into one of history’s worst villains, like Cheney or Hitler … how could you come away from that without feeling somehow soiled or degraded? Onward, bald-capped hounds!
acilius
/ February 17, 2009After subjecting himself to such a trauma, it’s small wonder that Dreyfuss would want to unwind by having himself filmed sitting on his couch rambling about his personal life.
I keep getting this image of THE APPRENTICESHIP OF DUDDY KRAVITZ, where the 20-ish Richard Dreyfuss spent a lot of time moping in his bedroom, updated to feature the 70-ish Richard Dreyfuss doing absolutely nothing but moping in his living room. Perhaps listing objects that are stored in drawers and on shelves in his living room. And he’s implicitly equating that experience with the Holocaust, that part’s important too.
lefalcon
/ February 17, 2009I like the part where he toasts champagne whilst balanced atop a hammock in his back yard … fantasizing it to be the Brooklyn Bridge. That part’s classic … and it is to be admitted: indicative of his genius.
acilius
/ February 18, 2009See, I first noticed this comment in the “Recent Comments” queue on the dashboard. So I thought it was about L’ETRANGER. I was puzzled. Surely I would have remembered if that had been in the book… But in the Richard Dreyfuss version of SOPHIE’S CHOICE, absolutely, I can see that.
lefalcon
/ February 18, 2009True enough: a scene like that would out-of-place in Camus’s THE STRANGER. But such manner of exorbitant self-indulgence is Dreyfuss’s stock-in-trade.