![]() ![]() Green also leads his young troopers in numerous charitable projects that have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now with a following of over two million, the VlogBrothers' community call themselves "Nerdfighters" – youngsters who want to read, debate and heal the world. Green has been talking to young brilliant people, via his video blogs with his brother Hank, Vlogbrothers, for a number of years, and also through his other four novels. "John is aware of how smart teenagers are, how literate, that they don't want to be spoken down to," Strauss-Gabel explains. The "heavy lifting" is dialogue that is dizzying in its intellectualising, frankness and wit. She had seen a lot in a short amount of time. "John knew, intimately and deeply, what Esther had gone through. Suddenly the narrator, Hazel Lancaster, came into being – though not an embodiment of Esther – and there was a story to write. When she died at the age of 16, Green was so angry and frustrated that he poured his feelings into the book. The Fault in Our Stars is dedicated to her. The point at which the approach to the story finally solidified was a friendship that Green shared with a young girl called Esther Earl, who was had thyroid cancer. "The drive to talk about these young people's issues, what that experience was for them, had been with him from the moment we started working together," explains Strauss-Gable. Green found the work too difficult, but it began a 12 year-long path to find a way to tell a story about these teenagers who live, love and laugh just like any other teenagers. The other experience that triggered the book was working as a student chaplain in a hospital, with terminally ill children and teenagers. Strauss-Gabel credits this for the reason he writes about unconditional love in the way that he does. While he was writing The Fault in Our Stars, John Green became a father for the first time. ![]() They're very aware of how much time they have left, in a much more tangible way than other people are." The difference between Hazel and Gus, and everyone else, is that they are very much aware that they're going to die and we're not. "We never really thought of it as a book about illness. Screenwriter Scott Neustadter says that it is this that he and his writing partner, Michael H Weber, focused on. And thus begins a love story that is dazzling in its innocence and authenticity the perfect capturing of first love. At this support group, Hazel lays eyes on a boy with foppish hair and movie-star looks - Augustus Waters (Ansel Elgort) – who is in remission from bone cancer. The person whose eyes we are seeing this through is 16-year-old Hazel Grace Lancaster (played by Shailene Woodley), our heroine, who has stage 4 thyroid cancer, and is only alive because of a new drug that should have stopped working on her by now. The story starts in a cancer support group for children, each person getting up to introduce themselves and their illness, and stage of illness. Not glossing over things is an understatement. The connection between Hazel and Augustus is forged most deeply in this time abroad, in a way that reminded me a bit of Lost in Translation. In this case the pressure of now is even greater, however, as death could come swiftly for either one of them.Īt one point, the pair goes to Amsterdam for a Make-a-Wish-Foundation trip to visit the reclusive author (Willem Dafoe) of Hazel's favorite novel, An Imperial Affliction (an Infinite Jest-esque work). Much like last year's The Spectacular Now, which also starred Woodley, Stars captures beautifully the innocence and frailty of adolescent love, haunted as it is by the specter of impermanence. The film, directed by Josh Boone, is first and foremost a love story between Hazel Grace (Shailene Woodley) and Augustus (Ansel Elgort), teenagers with terminal cancer who meet in a support group. It's existentially burdened but also cheerfully in the moment, concerned with the biggest of questions but also (perhaps mostly) with the here and now. As a star-crossed teenage love story, it's neither too cynical nor too sappy. It's a tone that defines the movie generally. The scene is a tearjerker but also breezy and funny, carrying both the horror of "oblivion" (as one character refers to it) and the ecstasy of life in one full heart. Life is not as they wished it would be-but it is what it is. One is blind, one's in a wheelchair, and one has an oxygen tank.Įach is keenly aware of their finitude and the reality of death. Near the end of The Fault in Our Stars there's a scene in a church where three teenage "cancer kids" gather to perform a fake funeral, delivering eulogies for one another. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |