pinkie brown

Listening to Joy Division and chatting about Sam Riley, the brilliant actor who played Ian Curtis in the 2007 movie “Control” and more recently, Pinkie Brown, in the film adaptation of Graham Greene’s novel Brighton Rock. (Also, Sal Paradise in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road.)

If I’ve never gushed over Brighton Rock it’s only because I don’t know how. I feel the same about Greene as I do about Faulkner, neither knew how to mislay a word. Much as I rate Sam Riley, I can’t imagine he’ll do justice to the character created by Greene. (Though I’d happily be proved wrong.) But when it comes to Brighton itself, John Mathieson, the film’s cinematographer, has done more to turn the place into a living, breathing being than Greene ever did…at least for me.

Christmas Wish List: Brighton Rock (2010)