John Crowley's LJ (RSS Feed)
05-02-2008, 02:24 AM
Many interesting responses to the good book-mediocre movie and vice versa question. I think a difficulty arises as to what counts as a Good or even a Great book. A couple of people mentioned The Maltese Falcon, which is a "classic" but is it Great? If this query makes no sense to you, you are probably one of the cultural wayfarers who has gone beyond the now-arid wasteland of Greatness and into the variegated fields and forests of Whateverland, What works works. The Maltese Falcon, like Superman or Elvis Presley, doesn't have to be Great to be great. This map is by now common. There were no doubt many who didn't even respond, as the question is so vitiated by cultural prejudices, and who maybe prefer "Joe Macbeth" (the movie) to "Macbeth" (the play). I now take a dose of Manny Farber to clear my mind.
Another interesting question arises about "Great" books that are actually in that Nobel Prize-winning, life-affirming, humanity-embracing, rock-solid mode that generates films that are just like themselves: To Kill a Mockingbird, Grapes of Wrath, and half the films of Stanley Kramer (On the Beach, Ship of Fools, Not as a Stranger). Here the two media are in fine agreement. What Preston Sturges called "deep dish movies" attract similar audiences and responses as the books they were based on. I remember a time when such films were regarded as the only "serious" movies and they all had to be treated respectfully.
Kubrick's Lolita -- a fine film that has no Lolita and in which Humbert is not a lover of nymphets but only a lover of a cute young girl. The line at the time was "How could they make a movie of Lolita?" and the answer was "Not this way" or maybe "They couldn't." I'd say it was a test case of that error filmmakers make, of thinking that they can sort of download the pictures that the novel makes in their heads and put it on the screen. (After I read the book ca. 1959 my casting was Charles Boyer and Faye Emerson as the mom.)
But Clockwork Orange worked better, as many have noted, and Barry Lyndon (run-of-the-mill novel) is one of my top-ten despite its horrendous flaws -- Ryan O'Neill saying "Have a nice day" to his wife, the slow-mo come-together kiss Kubrick has always thought is sexy and isn't. It's the mirror reverse of 2001.
I've never seen Slaughterhouse Five and now I will.
(Original Post) (http://crowleycrow.livejournal.com/86205.html)
Another interesting question arises about "Great" books that are actually in that Nobel Prize-winning, life-affirming, humanity-embracing, rock-solid mode that generates films that are just like themselves: To Kill a Mockingbird, Grapes of Wrath, and half the films of Stanley Kramer (On the Beach, Ship of Fools, Not as a Stranger). Here the two media are in fine agreement. What Preston Sturges called "deep dish movies" attract similar audiences and responses as the books they were based on. I remember a time when such films were regarded as the only "serious" movies and they all had to be treated respectfully.
Kubrick's Lolita -- a fine film that has no Lolita and in which Humbert is not a lover of nymphets but only a lover of a cute young girl. The line at the time was "How could they make a movie of Lolita?" and the answer was "Not this way" or maybe "They couldn't." I'd say it was a test case of that error filmmakers make, of thinking that they can sort of download the pictures that the novel makes in their heads and put it on the screen. (After I read the book ca. 1959 my casting was Charles Boyer and Faye Emerson as the mom.)
But Clockwork Orange worked better, as many have noted, and Barry Lyndon (run-of-the-mill novel) is one of my top-ten despite its horrendous flaws -- Ryan O'Neill saying "Have a nice day" to his wife, the slow-mo come-together kiss Kubrick has always thought is sexy and isn't. It's the mirror reverse of 2001.
I've never seen Slaughterhouse Five and now I will.
(Original Post) (http://crowleycrow.livejournal.com/86205.html)