Adventures Of The Great Zamperini! (Alt. Title?)

Notice:

As my summer winds to an end, I am forced to the ugly necessity of scaling back the blog at least a tiny bit. Slogged down by schoolwork, among other commitments, as I will be, I plan to post “general” blog entries only twice a week instead of three times a week. “Saturday Songs” is set to run on schedule as before (hopefully not so many late-Saturday-night posts, though). Thanks to everyone who has been reading—I’ve had fun getting feedback from readers and I look forward to more interaction in the future; I know that some of my posts must have touched a nerve here and there, which is a good thing…so long as that nerve-pinching leads to some constructive discussions. Comments/emails are always welcome!

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Yesterday, I finished Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, an astounding work of nonfiction by the same author who penned Seabiscuit: An American Legend—the book that inspired the 2003 feature film, which snagged a slew of Oscar nods. I pointedly mention her previous book and the resulting film not just because it’s some nice background to have on Hillenbrand and her work, but also because I have a hard time not imagining that the same thing will happen to Unbroken.

This piece of nonfiction, which really reads like more of a novel, follows the life story of Louie Zamperini—Olympic runner, World War II bombardier, prisoner of war in Japan, PTSD’d veteran, and, finally, inspirational speaker. What’s so odd about the book is the way the flap largely neglects to inform the prospective reader about the entirety of the crazy life that Zamperini has led (the man, miraculously, is still alive)—making it sound, instead, as if the book were some sort of extended The Open Boat scenario. (Which, honestly, is a great piece of fiction, but would have dragged if it had been doubled in length. Scanning Hillenbrand’s book—which nudged in just under 400 pages—I was worried; that’s a lot of time to spend on a boat in the empty waters of the Pacific.) 

Although, yes, Zamperini, along with two other men, were stuck in a boat after crash landing into the Pacific and, against all odds, survived the ordeal, that is merely one episode in a far greater tale of spirit and steadfastness.

Perhaps my nonfiction-adventure reading habits have been too readily formed by Jon Krakauer’s smirking device of planting the climax of the story as a prologue and then working his way forwards (Into The Wild, Into Thin Air, etc.), but when the first pages of Hillenbrand’s book start on that boat in the middle of the Pacific, I’ll be honest—the spirit of Krakauer seemed humming along behind the text.

That assumption, of course, was all out of line.

After finishing the book and reflecting on that opening, I did feel a little cheated; the preface seemed to frame Zamperini’s life in a way that didn't agree with the whole of his story. The opening tries to set the tone for the rest of the book by zeroing (Ah! Not a pun! I swear!) in on a single important experience in this man’s life, but it fails to do.

The reason for that failure is simple; Zamperini’s life cannot be borne out in a single moment, but several. Those several stories, of course, can (and ought) to be framed into some fun Hollywood flicks. Allow me to have some fun and suggest some summer blockbusters.

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Taken as a whole, Zamperini's life would, of course, present a cinematic impossibility (or at least cinematic unlikelihood). Though it lacks the wide scope of, say, War And Peace, it nevertheless pulls too much into its orbit to create a single, sensible adaptation. The one constant is Zamperini—funny, hopeful, reckless, and sort of a pain in the ass—but he would not be much of a Forrest Gump figure.

Some film ideas below?

1. Zamperini the athlete

Before the war, Zamperini was a rising running star, having raced in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. He had been training for the 1940 Summer Olympics in Tokyo (and then Helsinki) before the Games were cancelled altogether and Zamperini ended up in the war. 

Eh…sounds like a film that someone's already made…

2. Zamperini the bombardier

Once in the Army, Zamperini ended up in the Army Air Corps as a bombardier. This would be a fun film—definitely better than that train wreck Pearl Harbor. (Zamperini, however, was in Hawaii at the time.) 

Oh! And there are lots of funny pranks—could all be done in a feel-good-boarding-school-atmosphere-even-though-war-lingers-on-the-horizon sort of way. Well, either boarding school or Old School, anyways...

3. Zamperini the castaway (plus POW!)

On a mission, their bomber crashes into the abyss of the Pacific—everyone drowns but Louie and two others. Highlights? Oh, you know…fending off sharks trying to jump into the boat, shriveling up into desiccated husks of their former bodies, avoiding sprays of bullets from a Japanese plane, catching birds and fish in more and more astounding ways…there is literally a treasure trove of experiences coming out of this part. Also this:

“Within a few days of the crash, Louie began peppering the other two with questions on every conceivable subject. Phil took up the challenge, and soon he and Louie turned the raft into a nonstop quiz show. They shared their histories, from first memories onward, recounted in minute detail.”

Sound like a flick to you? Sure does to me.

But later on, Louie and his buddy Phil end up washing ashore on an island…a Japanese island. They are tossed into the brutal POW system set up by the Japanese: little food, wretched conditions, and humiliating beat-downs on a daily basis. But the showstopper would have to be the prison guard, nicknamed “the Bird” by the POWs, who appears about halfway through the book. A sick, sadistic mess of a human being, the Bird beats mercilessly on Louie. Despite being nonfiction, Hillenbrand paints (rightfully so!) a sneering portrait of him; the man is a superb representation of perverted power—on the same level as Big Nurse in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest or Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs. The Bird has that same psychopathic magnetism.

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I could go on with the film ideas: Zamperini’s post-war, alcholic hell, his spiritual, evangelist rebirth, his visit to Japan to seek out The Bird (who never ended up going to jail for his war crimes). The main takeaway here should be that, regardless of how Hillenbrand decided to structure this story, there’s no way to mess up this material.

But seriously…that third idea? That needs to be made in a film, Ms. Hillenbrand.

But also seriously, you should go find this book and read it. When I said that I read it yesterday, that's exactly what I mean. YESTERDAY. I read the whole goddamn thing in one day. You will barely put this book down...unless it's to dream up a film script. Yep...did that one repeatedly.