Customer Reviews

Lulu on the Bridge

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I could not put the book down. The soulmate connection between Izzy and Celia was neat and the question and answer sessions between Dr. VanHorn and Izzy was like, Izzy being questioned at the gates of heaven. And the scene of Izzy in the ambulance was like he gave his life so that Celia could have life. A third of the way through book felt like the part of Izzy was made for Harvey Keitel. The main characters, Izzy and Celia made a real connection with me. I'm looking forward to see the movie when it comes out. If it gets here in the US. Great Story Mr. Auster.

Once started to read,couldn't stop. I just finished reading and i think i couldn't find the right words for this "experience".I'm shooting a movie in new york since two years.The past month i had the feeling to loose my way, loose my confidence. This story is giving me the power and inspiration to go on and finish my work. Thank you Mr. Auster.

I loved the story, the characters and the symbolism but hated the ending. Not the ending itself but how the ending was presented and developed. Blunt and unnatural.

No, I've only read this script/commentary, not seen the movie. Mr. Auster's otherworldly script may not be completely original, but still has its stunning and bizarre moments, two of his trademarks. Perhaps most interesting are the interviews at the end of the book, where making and producing this movie are described. The whole effort seems to be one of great cooperation among just about all participants. If you're a striving screenwriter or movie director, you can do a lot worse than reading this book a few times!

I love the film. Now I can "take" the film with me
anywhere I want with this screenplay. I cherish
every word. I also love the fact that some of the
edited scenes are in the dialogue too. I just wish
the pictures could be in color. Other than that,
a must for any FAN of the film! "You can't live if
you don't eat, right?" "Right."

I have not been able yo watch Lulu on the Bridge at the cinema because of an unlucky timing, but being an 'Austerian', I did not hesitate buying the screenplay out of curiosity and perhaps fanaticism. However, I still kept some distance in order to analyze properly the story itself. Despite all that, I have fallen another time under the charm of the story and the characters. As usual, the reader (and probaly the spectator)is sent in a world in which he (she) thinks he (she) has got the key of the mystery and finally has not. Things are never as simple as they seem to be. Paul Auster plays sometimes some tricks which he explains from time to time in order to dumbfound the reader(cf the French pun on 'Celia') but he mainly performs a magic show in which Izzy the ex-musician and Celia the actress/waitress are two engaging characters. The story is beautiful, clever, full of humanism and other symbols recurring in Auster's works (the dark room, the stone,the wall, the double,...)that one does not need to know to appreciate the story. Then, open your book, listen to the music, let the story unfold under your eyes and perhaps you will feel 'More...connected.'

Paul Auster is an exceptional writer and capable of great work-- for example, all of LEVIATHAN, MOON PALACE, and THE MUSIC OF CHANCEare excellent novels. TIMBUKTU, his latest, has plenty to recommend it as well.

But he's also capable of producing dreck (for instance, his close-to-unreadable novel MR. VERTIGO), and this script is in the dreck category.

Has the man never read "An Incident At Owl Creek Bridge"? Well, Ambrose Bierce used the gag at the core of this film many, many years before Auster did. Borges used it, too. That by itself is fine -- the fact that Homer wrote about war doesn't mean no one else should ever again -- but seems to think his gag is clever, orginal, and not telegraphed, when nothing could be further from the truth. (Frankly, the only reason I was in suspense until the end was that I couldn't believe that Auster would [re-]use such an obvious gag.)

LULU ON THE BRIDGE is crap. Pretentious writing, familiar ideas. Don't be suckered.

In a word, it truly stinks. The "twist" ending would be just passable in a student film; here, from the author of The New York Trilogy, it's a colossal embarassment. When Willem Defoe went into "Singin' in the Rain," I almost hid under the sofa. Ouch.