Specsavers 2011 Spring/Summer Collection |
Rob Epstein and Jeffry Friedman's potrayal of the 1957 obscenity trial held over Allen Ginsberg's celebrated poem, "Howl", presents the audience with a combination of archive footage, animated illustrations of the poem and some reportedly sterling acting from James Franco.
Not released in the UK until February 2011 this is just one of many literary masterpieces that I am simultaneously anxious and terrified of seeing translated to film.
Ok, maybe "terrified" is a tad strong, but if you haven't already gathered from my slaughtering of Scorsese's "Shutter Island" I really HATE it when an adaptation goes wrong. You know that feeling of intense disappointment like when you realise a celebrity is actually a total prat in real life and it totally taints everything else they ever do (yeah Christian Bale I'm talkin to you): you just want to ask why, jump through a portal in time back to a better, simpler place where ignorance reigned and everything was rosy. This is how I feel when I see an excellent book poorly adapted to film, so needless to say my anxiety levels are gradually rising with the impending release of various literary classics on the silver screen.
Next case in point, arguably the best novel of American 20th Century literature, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.
Ahh, the X Factor has just started. |
Seems bizarre that a text so rich in imagery, full of characters absolutely dripping in pathos, in an era of extreme decadence could be anything other than a visual feast.
I refuse to be disheartened though, and I'll stand resilient in the hope that the upcoming film adaptation of the novel will do it some justice. With Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby and Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan, SURELY I won't be let down - famous last words...
"Dear diary, today I met a boy..." |
My face is the same when I forget my travel scrabble |
I must admit I don't have my hopes set high for this one, as I simply don't know how the spontaneous narrative structure of the novel will translate to film. I don't know if I want it to in fact. I am referring to the screen version of Jack Kerouac's defining novel On The Road. The largely biographical journey of Sal Paradise is now considered a crucial text of the Beat Generation, influencing generations of road-trippers on spiritual booze-fuelled journeys for years to come.
With Walter Salles (of "The Motorcycle Diaries" fame) at the directorial helm, Francis Ford Coppolla controlling production and a young and promising cast including Brit talent Sam Riley as Sal Paradise: in theory it should work.
I remain unconvinced.
Bob Dylan once said of the novel: "It changed my life like it changed everyone else's." Wonder what he'll make of the film...
(On The Road is due for release in 2011)
Novels that translated well to film:
- LA Confidential by James Ellroy
- American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
- The Godfather by Mario Puzo
- The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (awright Peter you like CGI, we get it! not always appropriate though eh?)
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (time and time again they've been more horrific than any monster)
- The Human Stain by Philip Roth (Anthony Hopkins as a black American...nuff said)
Im absolutely with you on the butchery that every Frankenstein movie made has done to the book. None of them have even remotely followed it at all.
ReplyDeleteThere is this fixation with Dr Frankenstein in his lab bringig the creature to life. And yet in the book it is merely implied and at no time is there any scenes of him doing so.
Book adaptations are a particular gripe of my mine. Some are good and follow the book but many have the title and that is about it.
lovely bones was a disappointment, but at the same time it was an ambitious book to try and make a movie from. Personally I don't believe Jackson was a good enough film maker to have attempted it.
I'm going to one of the live screenings of Boyle's Frankenstein as I wasn't fortunate enough to see it at the National, can't wait! Only heard good things.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm totally with you on the Lovely Bones - I was actually quite angry at his heavy-handed attempt at conveying such a powerful novel as something of a fantasy disaster. Decent cast as well, seems like a sad waste.