Thirty years on, why was Brian De Palma’s star-studded adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s novel such a flop?
In the opening minutes of the film adaptation of The Bonfire of the Vanities, Bruce Willis’s journalist Peter Fallow arrives in an inebriated state to the launch of his new book. Through a glorious, unbroken tracking shot, Fallow indulges in the excesses of celebrity while being fawned over by the New York socialite and intellectual scene. His writing is said to be as vital to literature as Anna Karenina. Once a washed-up has-been, Fallow is now admired by those who detested him. If only the same could be said for Brian De Palma’s film.
Tom Wolfe published the novel The Bonfire of the Vanities in 1987. In it, smarmy Wall Street bond trader Sherman McCoy becomes lost in the Bronx during a rendezvous with his mistress, Maria Ruskin, and runs over a young African American called Henry Lamb. Lamb falls into a coma and his misfortune is taken advantage of by Fallow and Reverend Bacon, a black religious and political figure, who use the Lamb case for their own gain. As a result, McCoy is engulfedin a legal battle that threatens to destroy his livelihood.
