As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of the Princess Bride, by Cary Elwes with Joe Layden

This week I finally getting around to reading the book that I'm sure everyone else has already read at this point: As You Wish. For those of you not already in the know, As You Wish is an autobiography by Cary Elwes talking about his experiences in filming The Princess Bride and his role as Westley. This gives book gives a lot of really cool behind-the-scenes looks at the movie, and includes little snippets from every other cast member in the movie as well as the writer, William Goldman, the director, Rob Reiner, and Andrew Scheinman, one of the producers. The result, although largely (and understandably) slanted to Elwes's view on the making of The Princess Bride, still provides a ton of background detail for any fan of this movie.

As my readers are probably already aware, I'm a huge fan of The Princess Bride, both the movie and the original book. (Although truth be told I was never a solid fan. When I was a young and kid I always thought of it as that weird movie that mom always liked. Fortunately the movie grew on me as I got older.) So it took very little convincing to get me to pick this particular book up. As I said it follows Elwes's own experiences with the movie, starting from the fortunate opportunity he had that Rob Reiner and Andrew Scheinman were willing to talk to him about taking the role of Westley. (And much to Elwes's surprise they gave it to him.) To the weeks of filming in England and extensive fencing practice which led up to the fantastic duel between Westley and Inigo, filmed last to give Elwes and Mandy Patinkin enough time to become competent fencers. As a former casual fencer myself, I was very impressed to learn about how Elwes and Patinkin practiced for forty hours a week before filming began just to get the basics down and practiced at almost every opportunity to achieve a degree of competence by the time they had to shoot the duel scene. That fantastic duel scene atop the Cliffs of Insanity in The Princess Bride? Aside from a couple of shots that's all Elwes and Patinkin, and they had to improvise a good part of it because they got so good at the choreographed fight it lasted for about a minute. It's the result of an insane amount of practice on the part of the two actors, with the help of two of the greatest fencers in Hollywood, and the result is pretty awesome.

Which isn't to say there isn't good and interesting stuff about the other parts of the movie either. Like how Elwes had to go stand in another room so his laughter wouldn't ruin the take while Billy Crystal was improvising his dialogue as Miracle Max. Or the fact that Wallace Shaw, who I personally can never see as anything other than Vizzini the Sicilian, was constantly terrified that they'd replace him with someone else. There's also quite a few passages which talk about André the Giant in loving detail, who everyone involved with the project describes as a kind, generous, and gentle soul who sought to give his absolute best to the world despite a life riddled with health issues and constant pain. In a way I found them to be a very touching and fitting tribute to someone who clearly touched the lives of so many people in a positive way.

The book finally ends with a little bit of information about what happened to The Princess Bride after filming was finished. Despite receiving excellent reviews and thunderous applause at its initial screenings, Fox was uncertain how to market this film which certainly straddles genre, making it hard to categorize. At its release it was a very modest box office success, but certainly no blockbuster. However, time has been very kind to The Princess Bride and it's now a film that straddles generations as well as genres and is a well-beloved classic by many people. (Including, according to Elwes, the late Pope John Paul II.) And I think it really has been such a success because it was a labor of love for everyone involved in the process, as this book reveals. The actors aren't just trying to be funny, they're also trying to be earnest, and somehow it all comes together and makes a timeless classic.

A definite must-read for any Princess Bride fans out there.

- Kalpar

The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure, by William Goldman

This week I've decided to look at one of my favorite works, The Princess Bride. Like probably most of my readers, I was introduced to The Princess Bride through the film adaptation (which remains my all-time favorite movie), but there is of course a novel which the book was based off of. I definitely think both the movie and the book do a very good job with the story and are very funny, but the book has a far more satiric tone than the movie which is much more light-hearted. Still, I wouldn't change anything in either the book or movie because they have their own merits.

Now, I'm sure you're asking yourself, "But Kalpar, if I've seen the movie," (Which you undoubtedly have. If you haven't then go, find a copy, and watch it. I'll wait, this review isn't going anywhere.)

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(There, see? Wasn't that a good movie? I liked Inigo the best, but Fezzik's pretty cool too. Aren't you glad you watched it? Oh, right, back to the review.)
"If I've already seen the movie, why should I read the book? This isn't like Lord of the Rings where a lot of stuff got cut to make the movies only three hours long or like the Hobbit where a lot of stuff was added to make the movies three hours long, is it?"

Well, dear and gentle reader, the answer is of course more than a little complicated. Yes, things get cut from the movie but they're the extra bits that would have had to be cut to make a movie out of a book anyway, as book version inevitably have far more detail than movies. However, the bits within the book that are not in the movie are so very good that I think it's worth the extra effort of going to read the book. Perhaps most important is that you get more backstory for my two favorite characters: Inigo and Fezzik.

In the movie, Fezzik specifically doesn't get terribly much characterization. He's just the big giant who's really strong and yet nice as well. In the book you learn more about Fezzik as a character and the challenges he faced when he was growing up as the biggest and strongest. It took a character that was just sort of there for me in the movie and gave him more depth and motivation as a person. Inigo, of course, is perhaps more memorable as a character than our ostensible protagonists Westley and Buttercup, and a lot of his character comes across on the screen. What I really liked, however, was we got to see more of Inigo's history and see his motivation to hunt down Count Ruegen from the very beginning. Plus, Inigo is just really freaking cool.

What I really liked the most about the book version of The Princess Bride is there's more about Buttercup which makes you understand her more as a character. In the movie Buttercup even I have to admit that Buttercup doesn't do a whole heck of a lot and constantly needs rescuing. It certainly fits in with the story, but makes for an uninteresting character. In the book it's more explicitly satire because you can see that Buttercup's not exactly the brightest person around and you get the feeling Westley's only attracted to her looks. Now, obviously you can interpret it any way you want, but I feel like it's that little twist on the end of a typical fairy tale that makes you think about all the things in those stories.

The other really big thing about the book is the interjections from the author. You sort of get that in the movie with the interruptions with the grandpa and the kid, but there are far more interruptions in the novel and probably the most important message you get from that is life isn't fair. We know this to be true, of course, but we also desperately pretend it isn't most of the time as well. The book and movie have their own leanings on that issue, especially with the ending, but ultimately you have to decide what to think about it. Personally I agree that life isn't fair, which is why we should work to make it that way, but that's just me.

Ultimately the movie is more of a lighthearted romp while the book has a far darker, more satiric edge to it. Both of them are good, but in different ways and I highly recommend them to you both.

- Kalpar