Favorite Book to Film Adaptations

Hi Girls! So it's been forever, and I'm really sorry I've been behind on the reading. Unfortunately, many of the titles we picked just are not readily available over here in HK....I will have lots of reading to catch up on!

In reading some of the old posts about films and books- Never Let Me Go being turned into a movie, The Last Lecture going from video to book, etc. I was thinking about my favorite book-to-film adaptations. I'm usually in "the book is better than the movie" camp. But there are a few I think that do a great job in respects of 1) staying true to the story 2) enhancing visually the written descriptions and actions 3) being entertaining 4) I still love the book, and the movie.

What film adaptations do you girls like best? The least? Why?
Of the books we've read together, which one would you like to see turned into a film? What actors and actresses would you cast?

Jenn's Favorites:

1. The Hours: novel by Michael Cunningham. Yes, I read this for NYU Freshman Colloquium. But when I heard that they were making it into a movie, I was really skeptical they could pull it off. But they did, and somehow I think the film works as well as the book.

2. Babe: novel by Dick King-Smith OK, I know it's a children's book and film, but I read the book when I was young, and the movie is just delightful. They didn't ruin it, and that's a big thing for a little girl : )

3. The Color Purple: novel by Alice Walker I remember I read this book in one day, while I was sick in Vietnam with the Tisch scholars, who were out and about enjoying Halong Bay. It kept me company and took my mind off my stomach pains. I also really like the movie.

4. Persepolis: graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi I think the animation in the film is beautiful, and maybe because Marjane had a hand in both the book and the film, I think the movie stays true to the emotional content and touching humor in the graphic novel.

Of the books we've read, I'd like to see The Blind Assasin turned into a film. It would be a rather difficult piece to adapt, but I'd love to see what it would look like visually. Actresses: maybe Michelle Williams as Iris? As for Laura...hmmm

The Last Lecture

Hey Ladies!  Sorry I couldn't make it to the meeting, but I hope you all had a great time discussing the book.  Here are some of my thoughts...

I had seen the video of Randy Pausch's "Last Lecture" online last year and was completely blown away by it.  It was funny, insightful, enduring, thought-provoking, just all of the things that I'm sure he was hoping his audience would take from it.  So when it was decided that we would read the book, I thought it would just be a repeat of the recorded lecture.  I was pleasantly surprised when I began reading the book and found that it gave much more insight than even the video. There was reflection there that couldn't be captured in such a short presentation time.  

It's terrible to say, but I agree with him when he says that he was lucky to have gotten cancer. 

Not to say that he was lucky to be dying from a terrible disease, but he was able to live long enough to leave his kids with videos and letters and a true sense of how much he loved them. Had he been hit by a bus or something, they would have only been able to rely on what others said about him, not first hand information.  I think that's the most heart-breaking thing about the entire book.  Here he is giving advice to the masses, but really it's him giving advice to his kids.  He loved them so much that he wanted to give all that he could while he could.  I couldn't help but cry at the end when he reveals to his audience that he's doing all of this for his kids.  

Reading this book really makes you take a hard look at your own life and how you should be grateful for every moment you have.  Not only that, but you should always follow your dreams and not be discouraged if at first you don't succeed.  He talks about the fundamentals that everyone should know, but that we tend to forget or set aside for other things as we get older. 

What did everyone else take away from this book?  Was there a particular story or anecdote that hit a nerve with anyone?  Any other thoughts on the book?

The Lost Boys of Sudan

Last year, I read What is the What by Dave Eggers, which tells the story of the Lost Boys of Sudan. Eggers tells the amazing story of Valentino Achak Deng who traveled from Sudan to Ethiopia to Kenya and finally to the U.S. (Georgia) to escape the civil war in his homeland. The Eggers' version of the story is technically fiction, but it is based on fact and provides a pretty good picture of the struggles of Deng and the other Lost Boys. (To learn more about the Lost Boys who are known for walking thousands of miles to leave Sudan click here.)

Several months ago, I added a documentary about the Lost Boys to my netflix queue--inspired by Deng's story, and yesterday, I watched God Grew Tired of Us. Like What is the What, the film told the story of the Lost Boys through the experience of a few individuals. Like Deng, the subjects of the film fled Sudan for Ethiopia, then Kenya and finally the U.S. (Pittsburgh and Syracuse). The film brought to life the struggles and inspiration I had read about in What is the What. It is also fascinating to learn how John, Daniel and Panther, who are followed on their journey from Kenya to the U.S., adapt (rather quickly) to their new lives.

By the way, I also learned that there is another documentary out now about the Lost Boys--appropriately called Lost Boys of Sudan.

Book to Film Adaptation

I’m a fan of the novelist Salman Rushdie, who wrote the wonderfully mystical Midnight’s Children. Last month, he wrote an essay for the British newspaper, the Guardian, about the difficulty of adapting novels for the big screen.

Mr. Rushdie analyzes a few of this year’s Oscar nominated films, focusing particularly on Slumdog Millionaire. He disliked that movie and most of the others and argues why it is often so hard to make good films from books. I found the article interesting and thought I’d share. Think it’d be great to have a book-to -film round for our book club at some point. I envision it’d foster a lot of great discussion.

Here’s the beginning of the essay. Click the link below to read the rest.

Adaptation, the process by which one thing develops into another thing, by which one shape or form changes into a different form, is a commonplace artistic activity. Books are turned into plays and films all the time, plays are turned into movies and also sometimes into musicals, movies are turned into Broadway shows and even, by the ugly method known as "novelisation", into books as well. We live in a world of such transformations and metamorphoses. Good movies - Lolita, The Pink Panther - are remade as bad movies; bad movies - The Incredible Hulk, Deep Throat - are remade as even worse movies; British TV comedy series are turned into American TV comedy series, so that The Office becomes a different The Office, and Ricky Gervais turns into Steve Carell, just as, long ago, the British working-class racist Alf Garnett in Till Death Us Do Part turned into the American blue-collar bigot Archie Bunker in All In the Family. British reality programmes are adapted to suit American audiences as well; Pop Idol becomes American Idol when it crosses the Atlantic, Strictly Come Dancing becomes Dancing With the Stars - a programme which, it may interest you to know, invited me to appear on it last season, an invitation I declined.

Songs by great artists are covered by lesser artists; on inauguration day this year, Beyoncé performed her version of Etta James's classic "At Last" to the considerable irritation of Etta James herself (but then, James seemed even more irritated by the election of Barack Obama, so perhaps she was just in a bad mood). All of these are examples of the myriad variations of adaptation, an insatiable process which can sometimes seem voracious, world-swallowing, as if we now live in a culture that endlessly cannibalises itself, so that, eventually, it will have eaten itself up completely. Anyone can make a list of the many catastrophic adaptations they have seen - my personal favourites being David Lean's ridiculous film of A Passage to India, in which Alec Guinness as a Hindu wise man dangles his feet blasphemously in the waters of a sacred water tank; and the Merchant Ivory emasculation of Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day, in which Ishiguro's guilty-as-hell British Nazi aristocrat is portrayed as a lovable, misguided, deceived old bugger more deserving of our sympathy than our scorn.

But adaptation can be a creative as well as a destructive force. Rod Stewart singing "Downtown Train" is almost the equal of Tom Waits, and Joe Cocker singing "With a Little Help from My Friends" achieves the rare feat of singing a Beatles song better than the Beatles did, which is less impressive when you remember that the original singer was Ringo Starr. I'm currently teaching a course that highlights some of the instances in which fine books have been adapted into fine films - Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence mutated into Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence; Giuseppe di Lampedusa's portrait of Sicily in 1860, The Leopard, turned into Luchino Visconti's greatest film; Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood became a wonderful John Huston movie; and, in his film of Great Expectations, Lean produced a classic that can stand alongside the Dickens novel without any sense of inferiority, a film that allows this film-goer, at least, to forgive him for the later blunders of A Passage to India. Read the rest.

The Film Club

At our last meeting, we discussed "The Film Club," a memoir by David Gilmour.  One the surface, the book can be seen as just a story about a father's unusual tactics to get his son to go back to school.  But there is so much more going on here.  The book is as much about the son as it is about the father.  Gilmour's struggle to steer his son in a more positive direction forces him to recognize his own short-comings and ultimately, I think he grows and learns as much as, if not more than, his son.  

One of the things that we discussed and all thought was a unique and admirable thing was Gilmour's relationship with his wife and ex-wife.  He's able to do what most people only wish they could which is to put aside any grievances they may have after a relationship is over and work to build a new kind of relationship.  This is especially crucial when dealing with relationships that involve children.  Even Gilmour's new wife is able to join in the fold and not feel intimidated by the obvious strong bond that Gilmour continues to have with his ex-wife.

Another topic that came up was whether or not we believed that Gilmour  allowing his son to quit high school was a good thing.  There were view points on both sides of the spectrum.  

For the purposes of the blog, here are a few questions:

How did Gilmour's plan to get his son to go back to school ultimately work?  

How did Gilmour's plan affect his relationship with his son?

Knightley Cloned For New Movie

Here's a post I read on JoBlo.com this morning:

Just other day I was talking with a friend and lamenting the loss of Mark Romanek on THE WOLFMAN. I'm sure the movie will be great and all but I know Romanek would've brought something special to the material. Hopefully it won't be too long in before we get to see Romanek's first feature since 2002 as he's signed on to direct the sci-fi thriller NEVER LET ME GO for Fox Searchlight. Keira Knightley has signed on to star in the film that follows three English students who realize their boarding school is actually a farm for clones waiting to have their organs harvested. The movie is based on the novel of the same name by Kazuo Ishiguro and while it sounds like THE ISLAND, isn't quite the same as that Michae Bay action flick. The script was written by Alex Garland (28 DAYS LATER) and made the list of the 10 Best Unproduced Scripts for 2008. Production on the film is set to begin this April in London.

Extra Tidbit: Time Magazine named "Never Let Me Go" the best fiction novel of 2005.

Warlord: No Greater Friend, No Worse Enemy

Since this dialogue hasn't been started yet, I thought I'd go ahead and get us going so that those who couldn't make it to the meeting can chime in.

My first thoughts as I finished the book were that I didn't like it and that I didn't like Ilario.  The man that I was supposed to have sympathy for came off as arrogant and self-righteous.  Believing that he wasn't responsible for the charges that were brought against him was hard because I didn't "like" him.  But that's not enough to convict someone of a crime.

To do what they have to do in the armed forces, a certain amount of arrogance and bravado is necessary.  You have to be confident at all times that you have what it takes to succeed in your missions and without it, everyone and everything is lost.  

But it was because of this arrogance that I felt like I never really got a look beyond the facade he portrayed.  There was only one or two moments where I felt he was letting his guard down just a little, but then he would bring it all the way back up moments later.

I think that was my biggest issue with his story even though I know that it shouldn't be the deciding factor in his conviction.

What were everyone else's thoughts?