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Arts & Life
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- Written by: Tim Riley
THE FAULT IN OUR STARS (Rated PG-13)
John Green’s best-selling YA novel “The Fault in Our Stars” has been adapted into a major motion picture of the same title.
For those, like me, too far removed from the demographic, the acronym “YA” stands for “young adult,” which has spawned a literary genre increasingly making its presence felt big time in popular films.
Fittingly, “The Fault in Our Stars,” directed by Josh Boone, stars Shailene Woodley, one of the very best young actresses on the scene today and still capable of pulling off the role of a teenage girl enduring serious challenges.
The story is about teenagers with cancer, focusing on two central characters developing a bond of friendship in a support group which leads to a touching romance that results in a celebration of life even though longevity is fated to be short-lived.
“The Fault in Our Stars” is a love story about two kids with cancer, but it’s not about cancer. The disease may hang like a dark cloud over the young people, but the two main characters, once they bond and fall for each other, rejoice in life’s possibilities.
The story does not begin so wonderfully for Woodley’s Hazel Grace Lancaster, whose childhood cancer affects her lungs to the extent that her life depends on being hooked up to breathing tubes connected to an oxygen tank that she must wheel around as a constant companion.
Looked after by loving, doting parents (Laura Dern and Sam Trammell), Hazel leads a mostly lonely existence without any real friends, an unfortunate situation that worries her counselor.
Mostly, Hazel, a survivor but nonetheless withdrawn, spends time re-reading her favorite cancer-related novel “An Imperial Affliction.”
Encouraged to join a support group for kids with cancer, Hazel is reluctant to attend. But this is where she meets Augustus “Gus” Waters (Ansel Elgort), a charming, witty, charismatic young man who was once a star athlete until she lost his leg to cancer.
Gregarious and personable by nature, Gus is soon smitten with Hazel, who often prefers to call her Hazel Grace, seemingly making a personal connection to this lovely young girl and setting himself apart from all others who would otherwise overlook Hazel’s middle name.
An unlikely member of a support group, Gus is there mainly to help his best friend Isaac (Nat Wolff), a natural jokester whose unfortunate medical condition will soon result in total blindness.
Though a charm offensive has to be launched through witty texts and sarcastic banter, Gus wows the shy Hazel into a tentative relationship that he almost blows when he pulls out a cigarette and places it nonchalantly between his lips.
Aghast at his insensitive display, Hazel is nearly repulsed until Gus explains that the cigarette is a metaphor. He never lights the cigarette because he wants to demonstrate that it has no power over him.
The film has plenty of metaphors. Even a visit to the house of Anne Frank in Amsterdam is a metaphor. The interest in the author Peter Van Houten (Willem Dafoe), who resides in Holland and wrote Hazel’s favorite novel, may also be a metaphor.
Obsessed with the novel “An Imperial Affliction,” a touchstone for those fighting cancer, Hazel tries desperately to connect with the reclusive author in search of questions left unanswered by the book.
Gus manages to reach Van Houten through the author’s assistant, and it results astonishingly in an invitation to meet the writer in Amsterdam. Of course, there are financial and medical hurdles to clear before taking a European vacation.
As fate would have it, good things fall into place and the two teenagers, accompanied by Hazel’s mother, head over to Holland for an unexpected adventure, including a nice dinner at a fancy restaurant apparently arranged by the author.
Meeting Van Houten, though, is an entirely different story. The enigmatic author is like the Wizard of Oz. The teens expect to meet someone to give them answers, but instead discover a person who is scary, intimidating and not at all friendly or welcoming.
Whether “The Fault in Our Stars” is faithful to the source material of the book is an unanswered question that I leave to others familiar with the work of John Green to decide. Yet, the film succeeds to deliver a touching story that is lifted by a healthy dose of wit and humor.
What the film argues persuasively is that the answers Hazel craves don’t from a book or its cranky author. They come from living a great adventure that Hazel shares with someone she is not afraid to love, who has given them both what she calls “a little infinity – a forever within the numbered days.”
Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort have great chemistry as the romantic couple facing an uncertain future. They share great moments, alternately tender and funny, and always touching.
The audience will be touched as well, and as a result, tears and misty eyes are practically inevitable.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lake County Arts Council's Main Street Gallery is putting out the call to all Lake County artists regarding its June theme show.
The June theme is “Lake County Summer-time.”
The painting can be of any subject that pertains to summer: activities, water sports, agriculture, festivals, landscapes or whatever depicts summer happenings in Lake County.
Bring entries for the show to the Main Street Gallery anytime before 1 p.m. Sunday, June 29.
The cost is $5 per painting.
The works should not be bigger than 16 by 20 inches. Any painting media is accepted.
A peoples' choice winner will receive a choice of prizes including for nonmembers a years' membership in the Lake County Arts Council, a $25 value, and current members will be given a month's wall space in the Main Gallery, a $35 value.
The Main Street Gallery is located at 325 N. Main St. in Lakeport, telephone 707-263-6658.
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- Written by: Editor
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Konocti Fiddle Club will be playing lively music at the Home Wine and Beer Makers Festival on Saturday in Lakeport.
The festival will be at Lakeport's Library Park from 1 to 5 p.m.
There will be music by David Neft and the Konocti Fiddle Club, art and craft vendors, food, tasting of amateur wine and brew, raffles and an auction.
The Fiddle Club is a family-oriented group of musicians of all ages, from pre-school to grandparents.
They will have a jam session in their booth or stroll around the park starting at about 1:30 p.m. and then will play a set at 3 p.m.
The festival is a benefit for the music programs of the Lake County Symphony Association. Many in the Fiddle Club are also members of the Youth Orchestra and the Symphony.
Come on down to the park and join the party.
Bring your lawn chair, and listen to some toe-tapping fiddle music, and feel free to ask us about the Lake County Symphony Association youth music programs.
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- Written by: Ted Kooser
Diane Gilliam Fisher, who lives in Ohio, has published a book called Kettle Bottom that portrays the hard life of the West Virginia coal camps. Here is just one of her evocative poems.
Violet's Wash
You can’t have nothing clean.
I scrubbed like a crazy woman
at Isom’s clothes that first week
and here they come off the line, little black
stripes wherever I’d pinned them up
or hung them over—coal dust settles
on the clothesline, piles up
like a line of snow on a tree branch.
After that, I wiped down the clothesline
every time, but no matter, you can’t
get it all off. His coveralls is stripy
with black and gray lines,
ankles of his pants is ringed around,
like marks left by shackles.
I thought I’d die that first week
when I seen him walk off to the mine,
black, burnt-looking marks
on his shirt over his shoulders, right
where wings would of folded.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation ( www.poetryfoundation.org ), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright 2004 by Diane Gilliam Fisher from her most recent book of poems, Kettle Bottom, Perugia Press, 2004. Poem reprinted by permission of Diane Gilliam Fisher and the publisher. Introduction copyright 2014 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. They do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.