Laurence Olivier played Mr. Darcy in a 1940 version of Pride and Prejudice. Which won an Oscar for Art Direction. So even though I haven't seen it, I can't dismiss it out of hand.
Except for the skeevy grossness of Olivier. So I guess I can.
I would say that a formula for making a bad movie from a book is to slavishly copy the book. The best movies are those that a reimagined for the screen.
I read an interview with Tom Stoppard who was saying that he agreed to direct Rosencrantz after resisting the idea for years because the stage adaptations convinced him that people were too afraid to fuck with the source material. He was the only one he knew had the proper lack of respect for the playwright's delicate genius.
The Olivier P&P is weird. I think it would work best as a movie for people who hadn't read the book, because I spent too much of the movie confused by the changes to properly appreciate it.
The insane costuming and the bizarre impostor running around claiming to be Lady Catherine de Bourgh but so clearly not her at all made it completely impossible for me to enjoy it properly. I did kind of like the way Greer Garson and Olivier played off each other, and I kept wishing I could see them in something that more closely resembled the actual P&P.
I actually love the '40 P&P. It has a script by Aldous Huxley! Edmund Gwenn as Mr.Bennett! However, it is more an odd little riff on P&P than anyhjting like the actual novel, which is also how I think about the Knightly (Emo!Darcy) version. Although I enjoy both the Garson and Knightly riffs, the Firth/Ehle is the ONE TRUE P&P.
More booktalking help requested here. I read
Prince of Tides
a long time ago and will be book talking it tonight. I remember it being really well-written (some of it even poetic), about a messed up Southern family (sexual and physical abuse). Anything else I can add to the mix? These kids love messed up family stories (probably because many of them can relate, sadly), so that is the angle I'm looking for.
Maybe ask what they think about Savannah (the suicidal sister) writing about what happened to the family, both in her poetry, and her children's story?
It's been way too long since I read that book to help, sadly. I just remember Angst.
That's one of those books that different people remember differently. I am enthralled with the physical descriptions of South Carolina . ( My grandparents lived there - my parent are there now). My DH finds the relationship tom( ?) has with his psychiatrist compelling. My father really liked it, but at the same time found it overly dramatic.
I might read the very early line where it describes the smell of SC.1) very true 2) poetic 3) crude , pulls no punches. ( if I could find the book, I'd quote it- look for the word semen)
Well, one of the boys got raped after prisoners escaped from prison. And his older brother shot the escaped convict. And there's lots of therapy. And he has a fling with his therapist. And you'd never want to be a sibling or parent or other family member of Pat Conroy because in one novel he'll laud you as the most awesome person ever but in the next novel he'll portray as evil incarnate.
Conroy's actual sister is a well known poet.
Conroy has/had a niche as the Southern White Male trying to adjust to a post-segregation world with only partial success. His novels are written from a first person viewpoint, and the narrator is always the same person (even if the names change).
I went through a big Conroy phase until Beach Music, when I realized he'd run out of things to say.
The therapist in Prince of Tides was originally the sister's therapist. The narrator and the therapist end up in a weird half-therapy, half-fling relationship.
