To each (their own) obsession
With a century of readers, Anne Of Green Gables has taken on a life of its own. Each reader constructs a personal vision of the scenes and characters. And then there’s the vision of Kevin Sullivan, or what some might call his obsession. After all, without the visual world he constructed, my children wouldn’t know the story. Boys are like that. And when the original material doesn’t provide the hooks needed, then what else to do but create new ones.
“You don’t know how hard it is to draw a line betwen the past and the present”. That’s the line that best explains my last three hours in front of the television, as I sat back and watched the premiere of Anne Of Green Gables: A New Beginning from the Sullivan vision factory. Not what I expected.
The story stands on its own, in a world that has little to do with the Island (excepting some cameo footage from Dalvay By The Sea). Rather, a world set in misty pine woods and rambling mansions, with a group of people that seem hell bent on tripping their companions. Some good rail footage, in passing. We’re led to believe that Anne has a story from before Avonlea, and that the best way of handling the orphan myth is to break it into shards. Anne was never alone, just outcast.
I’ll watch this movie again, if only for the work of Shirley Maclaine. I miss Miss Follows, more and more. This is her story, and tonight we had to use a willing suspension of disbelief (polite psychological phrase meaning hypnotic trance) to try and believe that this is a part of the legend.
