Florida rant: I read "The Burnt Orange Heresy" in high school and laughed my ass off. It's in my personal comedy canon next to Evelyn Waugh's "The Loved Ones" and Martin Amis's "The Information" and Isherwood's "Prater Violet." Each novel addresses death, pretentious people, and art in hilarious ways. In literary comedy, the location plays a crucial role in filling out the world. So why is the film adapation of this hilarious HILARIOUS American novel set in...Italy? WTF is funny about Italy?
One of the funniest aspects of "The Burnt Orange Heresy" is that it's set in FLORIDA!! You know, Florida: that absurd state dangling at the end of the nation like a gag codpiece. Florida's surreal, gaudy, rap video blinged-out, Art Basel scene is what makes so much of the novel click. It's a world of hacks, artists, stunt queens, and geniuses swirling around a Machiavellian art writer who is so fucking petty, mean, tacky, and thirsty for acclaim that he practically screams SOUTH BEACH! Look at the original cover of the novel: an orange hue over palm trees and a model's arched back dipping into the water. The cover art is intentionally tacky and lurid. That's Florida. Even the novel's freaking title is "The Burnt Orange Heresy" which is pretentious and ridiculous...on purpose. The entire thing is a joke. Why is this in Lake Como, Italy. How is Lake Como funny?!? Why would you take one of the best location gags in literary history -which is Miami during Art Basel- and transfer it to Italy?!?
Okay, Florida rant over.
One of the funniest aspects of "The Burnt Orange Heresy" is that it's set in FLORIDA!! You know, Florida: that absurd state dangling at the end of the nation like a gag codpiece. Florida's surreal, gaudy, rap video blinged-out, Art Basel scene is what makes so much of the novel click. It's a world of hacks, artists, stunt queens, and geniuses swirling around a Machiavellian art writer who is so fucking petty, mean, tacky, and thirsty for acclaim that he practically screams SOUTH BEACH! Look at the original cover of the novel: an orange hue over palm trees and a model's arched back dipping into the water. The cover art is intentionally tacky and lurid. That's Florida. Even the novel's freaking title is "The Burnt Orange Heresy" which is pretentious and ridiculous...on purpose. The entire thing is a joke. Why is this in Lake Como, Italy. How is Lake Como funny?!? Why would you take one of the best location gags in literary history -which is Miami during Art Basel- and transfer it to Italy?!?
Okay, Florida rant over.
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