Tara ,'Storyteller'
A place to talk about movies--Old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
Have we ever not been?
Probably not. But ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER.
I've seen a number of period costume dramas that are quite good movies. Many of them largely unfaithful to their source books, but good movies. The Wings of the Dove, Sense and Sensibility (that one was mostly faithful), like that.
A book has too much in it.
Plus, there's the challenge of taking things like internal monologues (for example) that are important to the plot and character, and finding a way to get that element across on screen. There are things one can do in a book that are impossible to do on film and vice-versa.
Oh, another one -- Master and Commander!
Granted, it's an adaptation of a series, rather than a single book, but still. Great books, great movie.
Plus, there's the challenge of taking things like internal monologues (for example) that are important to the plot and character, and finding a way to get that element across on screen.
Like they did in Dune? (Just kidding.) God, that was annoying.
A Room with a View and Howard's End were pretty good movies of pretty good books.
And what about Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet?
And The World According to Garp.
Jane Austen has a pretty good track record. Most of her books are probably pretty easy to adapt, relatively speaking. I'd say the Ang Lee Sense and Sensibility, the 6-hour Pride and Predjudice, and the Persuasion with Ciaran Hinds are all great, and I'm pretty fond of the Gwyneth Paltrow Emma.
I mean, Broadway has got an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical based on The Woman in White. We are truly a culture of pathetic recycling.
Could be worse - he could be doing THE PRINCESS BRIDE instead.
And The World According to Garp.
I love the book so much that I never wanted to see the movie -- was it actually a good adaptation?
The Princess Bride. LotR.
The professor said this before either of these were released. But To Kill a Mockingbird is a great example of where he was wrong to generalize. I think he made the statement just to provoke discussion. Or just to be provoking. I always thought it was kind of b.s.
There was a snippet of Room with a View in last night's Gilmore Girls. Oh how I loved that movie.