Isn't it funny how often you can tell that the movie was adapted from a play? Something about the dialogue
If you want me to leave, you can put your hands on my hot, tight little body and make me.
Spike ,'Get It Done'
Buffista Movies 5: Development Hell
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.
DebetEsse - May 26, 2007 4:51:38 pm PDT #8744 of 10001
Woe to the fucking wicked.
Sean K - May 27, 2007 7:12:44 am PDT #8745 of 10001
You can't leave me to my own devices; my devices are Nap and Eat. -Zenkitty
We talk so much more in theater.
bon bon - May 27, 2007 7:15:18 am PDT #8746 of 10001
It's five thousand for kissing, ten thousand for snuggling... End of list.
Well, in a play you have to establish everything through dialogue, and it shows when you're ignoring half of the movie's medium-- no action sequences, no location-- nothing visual does any work when the play is adapted to the movie format.
§ ita § - May 27, 2007 7:57:11 am PDT #8747 of 10001
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
nothing visual does any work when the play is adapted to the movie format.
I would like to think nothing visual does any work when the play is poorly adapted to the movie format.
For some reason I can swear I can hear it in the delivery of the lines, which makes no sense, especially if it's not the stage actors reprising their roles. The most egregious I can think of was Jeffrey and the least-but-still-bothersome was Six Degrees of Separation. I know there's at least one where I was thoroughly impressed, but I can't remember which. Oh, and for sure others I never knew were adaptations in the first place, so I can't cite them for not bothering me.
Jessica - May 27, 2007 8:31:16 am PDT #8748 of 10001
And then Ortus came and said "It's Ortin' time" and they all Orted off into the sunset
I thought History Boys adapted to the screen very well. There were significant changes made to the script, but they also made sure to use locations as film locations and not shoot it as if they were still working with a proscenium.
Scrappy - May 27, 2007 8:41:56 am PDT #8749 of 10001
Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
Bug used location and imagery very cinematically, so mad props to Friedkin. Some of the words still felt a but stagy, but not enough to make me dislike it.
Matt the Bruins fan - May 27, 2007 9:09:11 am PDT #8750 of 10001
"I remember when they eventually introduced that drug kingpin who murdered people and smuggled drugs inside snakes and I was like 'Finally. A normal person.'” —RahvinDragand
Closer struck me as very well adapted to its new medium, though still relentlessly talky.
Kate P. - May 27, 2007 9:14:52 am PDT #8751 of 10001
That's the pain / That cuts a straight line down through the heart / We call it love
Did anyone see Tsotsi (about a gangster kid in one of the Johannesburg townships, maybe Soweto)? That movie felt very much like a play to me. It wasn't so much about the dialogue, but more the structure & arc of the story. Which sort of makes sense, given that it's adapted from a novel by the playwright Athol Fugard.
Polter-Cow - May 27, 2007 9:31:23 am PDT #8752 of 10001
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!
Closer struck me as very well adapted to its new medium, though still relentlessly talky.
That's one that really felt like a play to me, I think, because of all the talkiness. And the abrupt time changes that weren't explained to me by the playbill.
Invisible Green - May 27, 2007 10:41:38 am PDT #8753 of 10001
I liked Tsotsi. I haven't read the novel, but I have read Athol Fugard's teleplay for "The Occupation," and that was very stageplay-like in terms of the dialogue. I never thought of Tsotsi as playlike, but I see what you mean.