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"Form" is at most a sign, a visible manifestation, of style, which is absolutely inseparable from the narrative content, of which it is, in a manner of speaking and according to Sartre's use of the word, the metaphysics. Under these circumstances, faithfulness to a form, literary or otherwise, is illusory: what matters is the equivalence in meaning of the forms.

- Andre Bazin, "Adaptation, or the Cinema as Digest"

Essentially, what Andre Bazin is saying is that adaptation, because of the inherent differences of the forms of the novel and the film, necessitates change, but that these changes are irrelevant as long as the adaptor has the skill to create a meaning that is equivalent to that of the source material. What this mode of thinking suggests for the category called "Tristram Shandy" is that one should not judge the new film Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story by the degree to which it replicates, say, the sentence structure of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - the filmic form cannot reproduce the prose composition of the novel form anyway. Instead, what is vital is the way that Michael Winterbottom's film (2006) and Laurence Sterne's novel (1767) work together to produce the overall cultural conception of "Tristram Shandy."

However, an adaptation of Sterne's most famous work produces a unique set of problems. If one accepts Bazin's notion that a work's meaning is inseparable from its narrative content, this means that the spirit of Sterne's novel - which explicitly challenges conventional narrative construction by promising an account of the titular narrator's life and mostly delivering a series of his opinions - is inextricably linked to its innovations. The novel is defined not by its pointedly meager narrative, but by its pronounced postmodernist structure. As Steve Coogan points out in the film, the novel was "a postmodern classic written way before there was any modernism to be 'post' about." Given that the novel's meaning is produced by a structure that it virtually invented - and considering that postmodernism has permeated all levels of culture in the 239 years since the book was published - a film with equivalent meaning would have to be equally innovative and influential.

To their credit, the creators of Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story are clearly aware that a "successful" adaptation of the novel is impossible. The filmmakers do attempt to create an equivalent meaning to that of the novel - the film is about the difficulty of making a movie in the same sense that the novel is about the difficulty of writing a novel - but they also put their source material up on a pedestal in a way that downplays the novel's implicit message that condensing all of one's life to a "story" is impossible. The film's message has considerably less scope and less universal meaning - the idea is not about the impossibility of faithfully representing reality so much as it is about the impossibility of reproducing Sterne's novel.

The film opens with a brief section that is a condensed but evidently faithful adaptation of events that occur in the novel. (I say "evidently" because the novel's Old English prose defeated me after the first of its nine volumes. Thus, the knowledge that I have of almost the entire novel is admittedly second-hand, which obviously and unfortunately limits my ability to comment on filmic changes to the source material.) Suddenly, the rug is pulled out from underneath us, as crew members in modern dress rearrange the set and interact with the period-costumed actors.

The film proceeds by giving a fictionalized account of the making of the film itself. Different characters (some of whom are actors playing themselves) represent different approaches to adapting the novel. The film's accountants want Mel Gibson-style battle sequences. Jennie (Naomie Harris), a "runner," thinks that the film should emphasize the novel's existential underpinnings. Coogan, the star of both the film and the film-within-a-film, wants to make sure that Tristram's love story with Widow Wadman is included in the script. (When Gillian Anderson is eventually cast in the part, Coogan is disappointed to find out that the widow character is not in love with Tristram but with his uncle Toby - a move that upsets Coogan because Toby is being played by Rob Brydon, who has been fighting him for screen time.)

Many other theoretical approaches to adapting the story are presented, none receiving a full treatment. (At the film's fictionalized wrap party, it is pointedly and humorously suggested that no one involved in the production is satisfied with the finished product.) While the film's forthrightness about the impossibility of living up to its source material is admirable, it begs the question of why they bothered to make the movie in the first place. While the film's light tone makes room for a great deal of formal play - including a reproduction of a black page that signifies mourning in the novel; a model battleground that is suddenly brought to life by special effects; and even a voice-over that advertises the film's upcoming DVD - the film's rootless style often leads to the cinematic equivalent of jam band noodling. The fact that many of the scenes go nowhere is thematically justified, but one wishes that the film was more consistently funny - and that the cliched love triangle between Coogan, Jennie, and Coogan's girlfriend had been excised.

The film's biggest pleasures come from its stylistic novelty. The film's biggest problems come from the fact that its unique formal elements are not used for a unique purpose. This is why the meanings of Sterne and Winterbottom are not equivalent - where the book was innovative, the film is merely novel.

Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story is initially entertaining because of its mischievous style, but it is eventually weighed down by the overfamiliarity of its themes. Judging by the ubiquity of bland biopics like Walk the Line, the film's point about life being too big to fit into a narrative may be a revelation to some viewers; but anyone who is interested enough in cinema that they are reading this review will already have seen this theme more successfully handled in Citizen Kane. Steve Coogan has already parodied his persona in Coffee and Cigarettes. And the film's commentary on the ways that films are produced and viewed is simply a variation on ideas that have already been presented (with varying degrees of intent, subtlety, and achievement) in such diverse motion pictures as 8 1/2, Beware of the Holy Whore, Close Up, Adaptation, Singin' in the Rain, Seed of Chucky, Rear Window, Eyes Wide Shut, Irma Vep, 200 Motels, and any number of Godard movies - to mention only the examples that come to mind, and not to mention the omnipresence of making-of documentaries. The film fails to the extent that it is trying to shatter a fourth wall that has been almost completely obliterated since the publication of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman.

2.5 of 5

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