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Book to Movie: What Have We Learned
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Like many of you, I read a LOT of "grown-up" books when I was a kid. In junior high, the principle [EDIT: lol, I said principle! Obviously, I meant "principal.") of my (Catholic) school called my mom at home to find out why I was reading Jacqueline Suzanne's "The Love Machine." My mom told him to mind his own damn business.
I read a lot of Stephen King, and VC Andrews was huge back then, so I read a ton of that too. Full of sex (incest even), violence, and people in terrible peril. So I knew from an early age that the book The Shining, and the movie of the same name were drastically different. Ditto Carrie, Salem's Lot, basically every Stephen King movie until Pet Sematary and Misery got it almost totally right without losing anything crucial. So, from an early age, I knew that movies were not accurate translations of books--and that both mediums have their place. As you know, I'm a great lover of movies.
So you'd think with all that experience and knowledge in re: movies and books, that I wouldn't have been so upset about the scads and oodles of things they left out of Harry Potter. Starting with say, Prisoner of Azkaban, I was totally bummed at how much they left out. The Marauders in particular. Since then they've left out Harry's close friendships with the Weasley twins, Dobby, the whole deal with Cho Chang, and deleted Colin Creevy altogether. I don't mind telling you that after Dobby, Colin Creevy was the saddest and most awful death of the final book IMO. I'm bummed at how many people are ONLY watching the movies, and subsequently not seeing "what the big deal is" about Harry Potter. Well yes, if you haven't read the books, you'll have no idea why they are so great. Duh.
On the other end of the spectrum, I loved the book American Psycho. Loved it. It came out about the same time I was discovering feminism. Feminists hated that book, and read from it at a "Take Back the Night" rally I went to in the early 90's. I had to figure out where I stood on such things pretty quickly, and came down firmly on the side of writers being allowed to write whatever the hell they wanted without fear of censure. I also assumed that such a book could never successfully be made into a film. But 10 years later, Mary Harron proved me wrong by directing a FANTASTIC version of this book--omitting the habitrail scene entirely. Thank god.
In other news, me and my recast narrator are cutting tracks on Saturday. The me-writing-for-my-day-job project is moving ahead slowly. So I'll be working on that this weekend as well. I'm planning to watch the new The Collector either tonight or tomorrow night. And Sunday, my new sound system is getting hooked up so when I watch The 10 Commandments next week, my neighbors think the Exodus is happening right under them. Ha! Take THAT, Guernica!
Like many of you, I read a LOT of "grown-up" books when I was a kid. In junior high, the principle [EDIT: lol, I said principle! Obviously, I meant "principal.") of my (Catholic) school called my mom at home to find out why I was reading Jacqueline Suzanne's "The Love Machine." My mom told him to mind his own damn business.
I read a lot of Stephen King, and VC Andrews was huge back then, so I read a ton of that too. Full of sex (incest even), violence, and people in terrible peril. So I knew from an early age that the book The Shining, and the movie of the same name were drastically different. Ditto Carrie, Salem's Lot, basically every Stephen King movie until Pet Sematary and Misery got it almost totally right without losing anything crucial. So, from an early age, I knew that movies were not accurate translations of books--and that both mediums have their place. As you know, I'm a great lover of movies.
So you'd think with all that experience and knowledge in re: movies and books, that I wouldn't have been so upset about the scads and oodles of things they left out of Harry Potter. Starting with say, Prisoner of Azkaban, I was totally bummed at how much they left out. The Marauders in particular. Since then they've left out Harry's close friendships with the Weasley twins, Dobby, the whole deal with Cho Chang, and deleted Colin Creevy altogether. I don't mind telling you that after Dobby, Colin Creevy was the saddest and most awful death of the final book IMO. I'm bummed at how many people are ONLY watching the movies, and subsequently not seeing "what the big deal is" about Harry Potter. Well yes, if you haven't read the books, you'll have no idea why they are so great. Duh.
On the other end of the spectrum, I loved the book American Psycho. Loved it. It came out about the same time I was discovering feminism. Feminists hated that book, and read from it at a "Take Back the Night" rally I went to in the early 90's. I had to figure out where I stood on such things pretty quickly, and came down firmly on the side of writers being allowed to write whatever the hell they wanted without fear of censure. I also assumed that such a book could never successfully be made into a film. But 10 years later, Mary Harron proved me wrong by directing a FANTASTIC version of this book--omitting the habitrail scene entirely. Thank god.
In other news, me and my recast narrator are cutting tracks on Saturday. The me-writing-for-my-day-job project is moving ahead slowly. So I'll be working on that this weekend as well. I'm planning to watch the new The Collector either tonight or tomorrow night. And Sunday, my new sound system is getting hooked up so when I watch The 10 Commandments next week, my neighbors think the Exodus is happening right under them. Ha! Take THAT, Guernica!