His books have been translated into twenty languages.
Blauner's new novel, Picture in the Sand, is the culmination of two decades of writing and research that took him from Brooklyn to Cairo a half-dozen times.
Here the author dreamcasts an adaptation of Picture in the Sand:
Picture in the Sand is a book about a movie within a book about relationship about a grandfather and his grandson. Don't worry - it's not that confusing when you read it. The premise is that a young man shocks his parents by abandoning their plans to see him off to an Ivy League college and instead goes overseas to fight in a "holy war." The only one who can reach him is his aged grandfather, Ali, who reveals a secret past. When he was a young man, in 1954, he went on a similar journey. After getting a job working for the legendary Hollywood director Cecil B. DeMille, he was drawn into a world of dangerous radicalism and paid a steep price. And so the book within the book is Ali sharing this cautionary tale to try to save his grandson's life - and soul.Visit Peter Blauner's website.
Movies are very much part of the DNA of this story. So I have thought about casting from time to time. Unlike the era of the DeMille film, we actually live at a time when there are well-known, even bankable Egyptian-American stars for the international market. Rami Malek is a wonderful actor and could easily play Ali as a young man. I'm also a big fan of Ramy Youssef, the prodigiously talented comedian and writer, who created the most excellent television show Ramy. In fact, that show by itself could provide actors for a number of the key roles in the book's scenario.
The Westernized characters are big ones as well. Maybe the most interesting to cast would be Cecil B. DeMille. He had a larger-than-life persona that belongs to another era. For some reason, I think more of British actors like Anthony Hopkins or Patrick Stewart who can summon that grandiosity without losing the audience. But Bryan Cranston has done pretty damn well playing characters with big proportions, so I could see him killing it. Then there's Raymond, the rakish and somewhat enigmatic documentary filmmaker, who trails DeMille around, commenting on his pomposity with wry skepticism while tormenting Ali as a romantic rival for the woman they both long for. In another era, he might have been played by Humphrey Bogart or Jean Gabin. In our time, Adam Driver could fill those shoes. Or, if the producers wanted to live dangerously, they might consider Sasha Baron Cohen, who did very well playing a dramatic role with some striking parallels in a little-seen Israeli-American show called The Spy.
And finally, there is Mona, the French-Egyptian woman, who turns out to be much more than an object of desire. When I thought of her, I pictured a combination of the Italian-Egyptian actress Anna Magnani and a beloved Egyptian singer of that era who was known as Dalida (who was actually of European extraction). Anyway, it would be great to find a young actress of a similar background who could convey that combination of earthiness and mystery. So I'm all ears for suggestions.
As far as directors go, Steven Spielberg is the obvious inheritor of the DeMille legacy. But the second half of the novel has a definite Martin Scorsese vibe as well. So if this was a limited TV series, I'd love to see both these guys do an episode and have the Egyptian-American director Jehane Noujaim do one as well. As they said in that other old movie (The Maltese Falcon), that's the stuff dreams are made of.
Writers Read: Peter Blauner.
The Page 69 Test: Picture in the Sand.
--Marshal Zeringue
Posts
