THE LIFE AND DEATH OF SOPHIE STARK may be the best film you read this year.
Sophie Stark is the stage name of a film director whose trajectory is observed by a number of intimates; Alison, an actress, Robbie her brother, Jacob, her ex husband, Daniel, subject of her first film, George, a film producer and Ben Martin, a film critic.
Jacob, a musician whose music was enhanced and marketed by a video made by Sophie explains, “when people ask me why I married her that September, even though I’d only known her for three months and I knew it wouldn’t last, I tell them that life is a heavy burden and imagine if someone just carried it for you for a while, just picked it up and carried it.”It is an informative and illustrative observation, because Sophie Stark is a lifter, carrying the weight of her own genius, is not averse to being the barrow bearer of others should it advance her own journey.
Writer Anna North’s journalism comes to the fore in the faux film articles attributed to Ben Martin. These are peerless pearls of a commentator’s evolution from bratty arrogance, albeit eloquent, assiduously self deprecating bratty arrogance, with lines like “and then you remember that making something like this is its own reward and that isn’t enough but also it is”. He’s talking about Sophie’s first film, but it could be echoed by readers of the book.
And “It is one of the perks of genius that you can be difficult or even impossible and not only escape censure but enjoy praise and the careful ministrations of others. This is the source of especial jealousy for those of us who are merely difficult without the benefit of genius”, again, talking about the book’s protagonist but equally about the book itself.
Sophie of course remains enigmatic throughout the book, while the numerous “narrators” of the story are more normative.
George, the epitome of the ageing indie producer declares “ten years ago, when I walked into a party it would be full of my friends, but now I was in my fifties and half the time I was the weird old guy by the vegetable platter, pretending to text people.”
When asked who would play Sophie in the ideal movie version of the book, author Anna North responded by naming Maria Pankratz, an obscure German actress who appeared in an obscure Mexican movie, a decade ago. But going more mainstream, she nominated Kristen Stewart, because “she has that kind of brooding affect that I think would be a good fit.”
Sophie is careless and caddish, brilliant and gifted, attractive and repellent, poly-sexual and non conformist, an all round unforgettable character.
A non linear story of a person’s life, a collection of documents that constitute her legacy, a film within a book, an investigation of the mystery of genius, THE LIFE & DEATH OF SOPHIE STARK by Anna North is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson.