Michael Chabon’s The Mysteries of Pittsburgh Trailer

Posted by on February 12th, 2009   Filed under: Books/Comics, Comedy, Drama, Indie, Trailers
Source: Row Three


I have yet to read a book by Michael Chabon, but I know that he’s a pretty highly respected writer that a lot of people really dig. Which is why I find it odd that we’ve heard next to nothing about the movie adaptation of his book The Mysteries of Pittsburgh. It played at Sundance last year, apparently to mixed reviews, and now our friends over at Row Three have pointed us toward a trailer for the film. The cast is pretty decent, including the likes of Sienna Miller, Peter Sarsgaard, Mena Suvari, and Nick Nolte, with the lead role being played by Jon Foster (aka the younger brother of Ben Foster). That said, the trailer is a little bit underwhelming. Not that it looks horrible or anything, but at the same time, there’s nothing that really grabbed me about it.

Believe it or not, director Rawson Marshall Thurber is the same guy who did Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, and is apparently doing an ElfQuest movie, but I don’t want to hold that against him. The only other Chabon book that has appeared on the big screen so far is Wonder Boys (which I enjoyed), but his books The Yiddish Policemen’s Union and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay have been picked up by both Stephen Daldry and The Coen Brothers respectively. Anyone out there read The Mysteries of Pittsburgh? Does this seem like a decent adaptation?


The Mysteries Of Pittsburgh – MyVideo



  • A Friend

    Hey, you got your respectivelies wrong. Coens are doing Yiddish, and Daldry’s doing Kavalier.

  • Oops, thanks for the correction.

  • To answer your question: I’ve read MOP more times than I can count, and I’ve also read the screenplay adaptation written by director Rawson Marshall Thurber. As the moderator of the Official MOP Film Boycott, I can attest whole-heartedly that is it NOT “decent.”

    Well, if it wasn’t called “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh” it might make for a good film. But it is nothing like the Chabon novel, other than having the same title and some of the same characters.

    Out of the 124 pages of the script, only 15 (yes, I counted!) resemble the book. Mr. Thurber has taken it upon himself to not only change the plot, but he CUT one of the major characters (Arthur, who is gay), and reduced another (Phlox) to the status of day-player.

    In favor, he turned Sienna Miller (Jane) into the film’s leading lady, when this character appears in only about 30% of the book. And the character played by Peter Sarsgaard (Cleveland), who is the only 100% heterosexual male in Chabon’s novel, is now bi-sexual.

    Before you defend Mr. Thurber by explaining “a film is a film and a book is a book,” this I already understand. I have a MFA in Dramatic Writing from Carnegie Mellon, in Pittsburgh of all places.

    Mr. Thurber tried to justify his butchering of Michael Chabon’s story by saying that a love-triangle works better on screen. But the book’s story ALREADY has one in the relationships between Art/Arthur/Phlox.
    He also claimed that, in the book, Art Bechstein is attracted to Cleveland. This might be true in that Art wants to BE LIKE Cleveland, but in no way is he sexually attracted to the biker.

    Mr. Chabon goes so far as to have his protagonist state of his relationship with Cleveland: “there was no shadow of sex to mar or deepen it… We were friends.”

    To be honest, if you haven’t read the novel, you probably won’t care that the story has been changed. But I recommend that you do, and then read the screenplay which I will happily send. Email me: bechstein[at]yahoo[dot]com for a copy.

    Thanks!

  • Jill

    I wasn’t aware there was an official MOP film boycott, but I can say I will be joining it. I too have read the book innumerable times and this trailer filled me with rage (I know, I should probably get a life). Why bother adapting a book for the screen if you clearly have so little respect for the original work?

  • GREG

    Yea wtf where is the other ART.

  • Bret Stewart

    Having recently viewed the film version of “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh” I can authoratively report that the film is relentlessly mediocre and the adaptation from the admirable novel is dreadful. The story in the film hardly resembles the story in the novel. Key character relationships have been changed. The casting is clumsy. The film is so distorted from the novel that one wonders why the Mr. Thurber wanted to make the film version. The result borders on the insulting.

    Which makes me wonder why Chabon allowed a hack like Thurber adapt his novel? Did he think he’d get lucky and have it treated respectfully and artfully like “The Wonder Boys.” What a dreadful surprise.

    If a work of art is like a child to the creator, then Thurber has taken Chabon’s charming child and turned it into a Frankenstein’s Monster, substituting grotesque and clumsy features for attractive attributes.