The Sheltering Sky (1990) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski) and Tuna

Each one of us has been formed from DNA broth, but the final soup has been spiced so heavily by cultural influences that the original broth is barely recognizeable, Many intellectuals, particularly idle American ones, have wondered hypothetically what it would be like if they could free themselves from their cultural assumptions, hoping to isolate the intrinsic person beneath.

As Paul Bowles said when discussing his novel in a 1981 Paris Review interview: "Everyone is isolated from everyone else. The concept of society is like a cushion to protect us from the knowledge of that isolation .. a fiction that serves as an anaesthetic." This story is about removing this anesthetic, removing the societal and cultural anchors of our existence. Kit and Port hoped that removing those moorings could leave their spiritual essences. On the other hand, perhaps a person without any moorings, adrift, is simply insane.

When Port died, Kit went completely native and took up with a local Bedouin. At that point in the story, the audience is not supposed to know whether she had found her mind, or lost it. Neither, for that matter, did she. Her fascination with an exotic culture eventually turned into a nightmarish, transformative experience. Trapped with the nomads, she couldn't even communicate, and thus achieved her original desire, although perhaps not in the way she originally conceived. The only thing left of her in the desert, without America, without money, without language, without friends, was her essence, whatever that is.

Malkovich was an unusual casting choice as the doomed Port. Port is supposed to be a beautiful, spoiled, but sincere rich liberal kid who can't really relate to other people very well because he's too self-absorbed. You might easily picture Robert Redford in the role. Malkovich brings a creepy air of superiority to the part, and adds a mocking tone from the start. He was so condescending in his precious pseudo-intellectual babble about the distinction between an traveler and a tourist, for example, that when he became terminally ill, my reaction was, "what did you think would happen when you drank the local water, ate street food, and had casual sex with the local people? Weren't you committing suicide in the first place? You shouldn't be too surprised at your success." Malkovich can do a lot of things well, but innocence and sincerity are not among them. It seems to me that Malkovich and Winger, in general, were too world-weary and condescending for roles that would have played out better if portrayed as fragile innocents unable to understand the situation they were entering.

Bernardo Bertolucci made this film from an eponymous novel by Paul Bowles. Bowles himself does some narration on camera. Bowles actually wrote the book while living in North Africa in 1947, and Bertolucci actually filmed in North Africa. The details of place and time are not only accurate, but rendered spectacularly. Whatever else you may think of the movie, I promise that you will be impressed by the sights and sounds. It is a tremendous travelogue.

But maybe some books were never meant to be movies. Bertolucci could translate the visual experience to film, but their interior processes were not easy to convert to a watchable story.

Bertolucci was coming off The Last Emperor, which was nominated for nine Oscars and won every single one of them, eventually taking in $44 million at the box office as well. The Sheltering Sky was anticipated eagerly by his fans, only to disappear almost immediately amid half-hearted reviews and poor word of mouth. It grossed only $2 million dollars, and must have lost a fortune for everyone involved.