The UK Evening Times
reports that a film deal on a movie about the life of Scottish poet Robert Burns has gone down in Cannes this week.
A New film on the life of Robert Burns has been given the green light after years of planning. The movie will star Glasgow-born actor and heartthrob Gerard Butler who starred in Dracula 2000 and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life.... It had been suggested that Johnny Depp, Robert Downey Jnr, Bobby Carlyle or Ewan McGregor would play Burns, but the producers have decided on Butler.
The film focuses on the early period of Burns' life when he went from ploughboy to playboy to become the toast of the Edinburgh establishment. Along the way he fell in love with Jean Armour, Highland Mary and Agnes McLehose. The film has been scripted by Scots writer Alan Sharp who wrote Rob Roy. The original title, Clarinda, has been changed to Burns.
They will need to
tone this down a bit in order to get it past the censors.
Or as Nat Edwards, general manager of the Burns National Heritage Park puts it, "It would make Eminem blush." The rap artist has attracted controversy for lyrics of the sort which your mother definitely wouldn't like. Recent recordings of Burns's lesser known works, however, have also been deemed worthy of a "parental guidance advised" sticker on the front.
Burns was not shy of using "industrial language" in his work, notably the "Merry Muses of Caledonia." The sexual appetites and bodily functions of both men and the women with whom Burns consorted with are plain to see in poems like "Nine Inches Will Please a Lady", "Hoo Can I Keep My Maidenheid" and "My Girl She's Airy".
And tinseltown
won't do.
What though on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin grey, an a' that?
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine -
A man's a man for a' that.
For a' that, an a' that.
Their tinsel show, an a' that,
The honest man, tho e'er sae poor,
Is king o men for a' that.
At least they didn't choose Brad Pitt. For auld lang syne!
No comments:
Post a Comment