My wife and I have watched three "Jesse Stone" movies in as many days, and I'm finding myself "channeling" the character today, sounding sometimes, to my inner ear, like him talking (even subvocalizing things I'm writing). I've had similar experiences leaving a movie theater, finding myself physically imitating a character I've just seen on the big screen, like Rico Ratso from "Midnight Cowboy," for instance (Dustin Hoffman).
Jesse Stone is the chief of police of the small (fictional) town of Paradise, Massachusetts. He ends up there as his last stop (he says) after losing his job as a Los Angeles homicide detective, nostalgically divorced, a drinker (but never drunk on the job). The character was created by the popular "crime novelist"
Robert B. Parker (b. 1932). I read two of his Jesse Stone novels last week (home sick with a cold),
Sea Change (2005) and
Stranger in Paradise (2008). They're fairly simple, with few complications, just the sort of thing to read when you don't feel up to snuff.
The three movies, all directed by Robert Harmon, were made for television, their titles (in narrative sequence) "
Jesse Stone: Night Passage" (2006), "
Jesse Stone: Death in Paradise" (2006) and "
Stone Cold" (2005).
We watched the three movies on DVD from our local library, so there's no "big screen" effect, but I guess the three-day immersion is having its effect on me. Mostly, though, it's just the power of the character in my imagination. Jesse Stone is such a fair, calm, truth-telling man, always completely "there" in the moment, strong and ruthless when he needs to be, cordial and first-name even with assholes and murderers. And Tom Selleck, who contributes as a writer and producer, is absolutely perfect for the role.
I think it's mainly Jesse Stone's character that resonates with me. I've noticed myself sounding like him mostly as I've written professional email this morning, wanting to be especially fair, truthful, respectful, just like Jesse Stone. As my friend Ken says (much better than I could):
When it comes to masculinity, Jesse Stone is the Gold Standard. His attitudes toward justice, women, and dogs define manhood.
Right, Jesse Stone even has a dog!
I highly recommend all of the movies, even confidently the ones we haven't seen yet: "
Jesse Stone: Sea Change" (2007), "
Jesse Stone: No Remorse" (2009), and "
Jesse Stone: Thin Ice" (2009).
The latter was on TV just a couple of weeks ago, but its broadcast seems to have been delayed, as our DVR caught only the first half. But that was all it took to hook us.
We plan to watch "Jesse Stone: Sea Change" this evening. That's the last of our library's current holdings, alas.
Next day. Well, I was quite surprised last night, watching "Sea Change," it is so different from the book, most of whose plot has disappeared. For example, in the book, Stone's ex-wife is on the scene as a broadcast news correspondent, and a significant amount of stuff happens in Miami, where the movie never goes. And a larger subplot (about a 13-year-old cold case) has been added for the movie, whether from another Robert B. Parker novel or from Tom Selleck and the other screenwriters, I know not.
But I'm not going to read more Robert B. Parker novels to find out, at least not now. The library has already got a Rebecca Newberger Goldstein for me to pick up.
