'Generally' films dont live up to the books.

'Scores' my arse!!

Has anybody seen: "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World". I saw an Article in "Der Spiegel" online today. It isn't quite clear if they think the film is worth watching but suggest, that it is not about what the title suggest but a comedy about american foreign poslicy and humour instead?

I haven't seen it yet; it's the new Albert Brooks flick (who, for all intents and purposes, is the West Coast Woody Allen) and it's supposed to be quite funny. A quick glance at the coming attractions at AFM, and no, it's not showing on these shores anytime soon. Possibly end of April; if I had to hazard a guess.

Maymunn - apples and oranges. Two different mediums that offer two different sets of emotions in the first place. Still, with regards to film adaptations, the medium that is the most ripe is that of the novel. And the one that is least suitable for film adaptations? Wanna know? Wait for it. Almost there:

Theatre

There. I said it.

not read godfather so I have no idea... thesis on oversized vagina - erm, no thanks!!!

My point exactly. It's very hard for a film to live up to everybody's expectations, when everyone has read the book in the first place and ALL of them have a totally different take on the scenery/what the characters look like etc.

Not sure if im looking forward to the forthcoming 'Da Vinci Code' which should highlight the above point nicely!!

Personally, I think the movie of Da Vinci can only be an improvement; hated the book!

Me too.

I really don't see what the big fuss was all about.

I thought "The Da Vinci Code" sucked some serious ass (how many cliffhangers is too many cliffhangers? The answer can be found on the book's pages); I have a feeling the flick will too. Then again "The Client" is a pretty crap book too yet the film version, incredible as this may sound, is pretty good.



Films are story and screenplays are structure. What a novel does better than any other piece of literature (apart from maybe comic books) is to set that structure up perfectly for a film to adopt. Essentially, film reverts to the pre-verbal whereas, say, drama, ever since Thespis decided to upstage his fellow chorists and go off on one 3000 years ago, keeps the form of the human. In this respect, film as in the novel presents a view, a facet of life, rather than a human imitation thereof. Thus, a film adaptation is yet another form of the universe that the novel is trying to depict. And consequently, the merits of this universe's visualisation depends on the technical skills as well as the god-given imagination of the storyteller(s) of the film. Creating a certain emotion in the audience is not the essential purpose of film, its real purpose is to tell a story. To put it simply:

The book of the Godfather tells the story of Michael Corleone's reluctant metamorphosis to a Crime Don.
The film of the Godfather tells the story of Michael Corleone's reluctant metamorphosis to a Crime Don.
The film tells the story better.

The whole argument about certain sets of emotions is secondary.

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Edited because "porpoise" and "purpose" are two different words.

I believe iheard about it on the daily show with jon stewart a while back.
forgot about it, good that you reminded me.


btw: a couple of books that were also great or even better as a movie (imo)

requiem for a dream
The Shawshank redemption

I believe the book was such a succes because it shows alot of interesting "facts" about religion.
same reason why the matrix was such a hit. yes it was fun to watch and the effects were great, but the major point was that people saw a different belief -in a nice package-

I think it's all bs, the da vinci code will be fun to watch.
Audrey Tautou and Tom Hanks are great actors.

I agree with you Arikan, that a book sets up a structure for a film but.........

.... surely imagination is the strongest factor when you are reading a book?? Your mind fills in the blanks and you create your own universe.Then when you see it on film (well, for me personally) it becomes a disappointment when its not quite how you imagined it in the first place.

Put it this way, you can watch a film in 2 hours but the book may take you 3 or 4 days to read.There is absolutely no way a film can convey all this and flesh out all the plot and background as satisfactorily as you can in your own head . Completely different mediums.

Maymunn - I see your point about emotions but that is not what I am saying. The point I am trying to make is that a film adaptation of a book can tell the story better than the book itself. Story comes first and what you feel about it is supplemental, generated by the story in the first place.

I am King Ponce.

We can continue this tomorrow nite.....................

Anything you need in trade for 'Chasing Amy'??

I have 'Lock Stock', 'Snatch', 'Shaun Of The Dead', Scrubs, Coupling plus quite a few others???

Which gives me an idea for another thread

Good stuff - looking forward to it.

No need to bring anything mate; I am a nerd, I have all those (not "Coupling" but I've seen them all so I'm fine there).

"Shaun of the Dead" is the best British film since "Withnail and I". Discuss.

Bob, my stomach bug, and I had a lovely weekend. Apart from spending most of the time on my knees in the toilet (not like that, you perverts), I also managed to catch a few films, read a few books, see a few shows.

I saw "Crash" again. I can't deny that it is a well made ensemble drama but, on second viewing, it does, admittedly, go off the rails half way through the second act. Until then, it seems as if what we are witnessing is a slice of Americana when, all of a sudden, we are shoved into that most noisame of nuissances: contrivance. The documentary style makes it very difficult for the audience to suspend their disbelief when serendipitous intersections and, what seems to be, divine interventions start taking place left, right and centre. Magnolia got away with a fcuking biblical plague because the style was always kept ethereal; the characters only this side of being pastiches (which is a good thing when you're telling an allegorical story). "Crash" tries - unsuccessfully - to avoid caricatures or stereotypes, and in its attempt to grab a slice of reality yet still come through as a morality tale, it achieves neither. At the end of the film, Haggis' pious, prosaic platitudes leave you cold: "All this", you think to yourself, "and the best message he could come up with was "Can't we all just get along?'" If you want to watch an LA-based drama about racism, watch "Grand Canyon" instead.

Last night, I went to see "Good Night, and Good Luck" and "Match Point". David Strathairn is awesome to behold in the former flick. It is one of the finest performances I have ever seen; definitely the best of this past decade. He achieves with just a glance an Olivier-in-his-prime like brilliance. People think drunks and retards are difficult to play: they are dead wrong. Actors, especially stars kill for those parts. An opportunity to chew scenery? Bliss. It is the portrayal of the ordinary that is most difficult. Let's take a look at some Oscar winnners of yesteryear:

Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump. All he did was talk funny and be cute: great, here's your Oscar. To differentiate between a good performace and a shameless, look-at-me, grab-the-Oscar-by-the-balls one is to look at Hanks in Philadelphia and to contrast it with his turn in Gump.

Jack Nicholson in "As Good as it Gets": because everyone adores that flick, we have all forgiven Nicholson for his ham, served with a side order of pork. His was an easy task: he played the obsessive-compulsive (which, incidentally, has never been truly portrayed on film), Kinnear played the tormented queer. But Helen Hunt, who deservedly won an Oscar for her role, played a hopeless mother who, nonetheless, decided to stick with life if only for the sake of her sick child.

I can go on, and I am sure, one day soon, I will. But I want to come back to "Good Night": it's actually a wonderfully American film, that celebrates the nation's core values as well as its arguably most influential industry. But this ode to habeas corpus would have only been a solid piece of movie making that was forgotten about in ten years time had it not been for Strathairn. He delivers an introspective, simple performance. In the arts, people equate simplicity with "not good": they are dead wrong (and, most of the time, pretentious arsehats). Simplicity is beautiful, simplicity is meaningful. Simplicity is finding the fantastic in the mundane. Strathairn's is a performance for the ages.

Which brings me, finally, to "Match Point". And, again, it is absolutely mystifying to me that Woody Allen was not nominated for a Best Director Oscar. I mean, he only made a wonderfully complicated film that is completely devoid of all his usual idiosyncracies and safety nets; a film that stars none of his usual gang of idiots (I am using the term very sympathetically), that takes place in a different locale and that is a sure-fitting testimony to "Crime and Punishment". Why bother nominating him for showing range? Fuckwits.

I can't find enough superlatives to praise this film; it is in a world of its own. Allen's mastery of the language of cinema has never been so obvious. Now this is a morality tale; it's positively Dresiseresque and you must have all heard about the repulsive "crime" and the repugnant conclusion thereto. It's not important; the film works as a film noir, it works as a character study, it works as a comedy (Steve "Herr Lipp" Pemberton has an inpired cameo). But more importantly it works as one man's journey into the inevitable. In that respect, it reminded me of "The Heart of Darkness:" London and the British upper class substituting for the African jungles and the hero's own abominable dark side subbing for Kurtz. He looks into the abyss and all he sees is the back of his own head. This is the best film of the year.

I also caught the first half of "Smallville" where they were using Clark's burgeouning heat vision as a tired metaphor for ejaculation. I can't tell you how much I love "Superman": he is in the pantheon of American literature's greatest creations along with, say, Captain Ahab and Holden Caulfield, but I have always been more interested in the emotionally vulnerable, dare I say, human side of the character; the side John Byrne delved deep into during his seminal masterpiece "The Man of Steel". I don't like the recent emphasis on the character's alien nature both in comics and in film/television. Oh well. They will come round, the powers that be. Until then, I will always have "Kingdom Come" and the Alan Moore stories.

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Edited to Add:

You can see and feel Don Hollenbeck breaking down in front of our very eyes in "Good Night": it's another truly magnificent performance from the underrated Ray Wise, and I am incredulous at the fact that he was not even nominated for an Oscar. He actually deserves the award itself.