Tristram Shandy-1

In the film Tristram Shandy, Winterbottom makes a fake documentary of Sterne’s novel.  Winterbottom has created a film setting in which there appears to be a real film crew.  He then weaves elements of the books to the movie set.  This is his attempt or mockery of translating the novel into a film.  The comedy is that the cast members are very pretentious and that in itself mimics what has been said about Sterne’s novel.  While the movie at first glance has no real agenda and leaves the view to wonder what the film is about, it actually is cleverly executed as a tongue-in-cheek film.  Winterbottom addresses many topics that are written in Sterne’s novel through character dialogue.  When Jenny and Steve are discussing the novel, she introduces the story of the Widow.  During a meeting of the minds, he introduces the black page and the film goes to a black screen.  Winterbottom’s agenda is to make the point that books and film are two seperate media formats.  A film can never truly translate the rich words written in a novel no matter how much effort is made to do so.