“... nine seconds and one frame. As Penn’s film opens, an old man, wonderfully characterised by Ernest Borgnine, is seen getting up in the morning, complaining about the darkness of the apartment he apparently shares with his wife (whom we do not see) and then, while he shaves and gets dressed, chatting more generally about the past and about the business ...”

“... intellect of man is forced to choose/Perfection of the life, or of the work’) Kermode says of Hemingway that ‘he wanted perfection of the life as well as of the work but accepted the Romantic myth that you can’t have both (the truth being that you can’t have either).’ Poor old Ernest: wrong twice. Kermode’s ...”