Thursday, July 03, 2008

Making a Literary Life Friday: Movies

Friends of our blog have recently optioned their books for adaptation to television and film. Congrats, Allison Winn Scotch and Carleen Brice. Oh, to be so fortunate!

On this July 4th, we weigh in on our favorite books made into movies as well as those we'd like to see on the silver screen. What book to film adaptation would you send up fireworks for?

Lisa Marnell
Pride and Prejudice, because it worked for me and I loved that book (each time I read it).

Amy MacKinnon
My favorite books to movies starts with Cold Mountain, The Others, Last of the Mohicans (though, in my humble opinion, James Fenimore Cooper's novel didn't stand up to the movie), Atonement, Stand By Me (from Stephen King's short story, The Body), Gone, Baby, Gone, Mystic River...Enough?

And the novel that I would most like to see adapted to the big screen, though I can't imagine it could be done justice, is The Stand by Stephen King. The nuances would be lost in a movie,though. How about an HBO limited series? Jenna Blum's Those Who Save Us would also be a powerful movie.

Happy birthday, America!!!

Hannah Roveto
I love John Irving's Cider House Rules, as well as his book about the experience of having books made into movies, My Movie Business. While it does not remain true to the book, the recent And Then She Found Me, taken from Elinor Lipman's story of the same name, was fun, in part for the great cast (Colin Firth, Bette Midler, Salman Rushdie and director/actress Helen Hunt, among others) and in part to analyze what stayed the same and differed in translation to the big screen.

Lynne Griffin
My favorite book to film adaptations include Rebecca, by Dauphne du Maurier and Atonement, by Ian McEwan. Brava--these movies remained true to their respective stories and characters. What book(s) would I like to see made into a movie, aside from my own?

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, by Maggie O'Farrell and The History of Love, by Nicole Kraus.

4 comments:

Lora said...

The History of Love is being directed by Alfonso Cuaron, set for release in 2009. I was glad to see his name attached to it!

Creative A said...

I love a good book adaption. It makes me cry when I book I enjoy is turned into a terrible movie.

Nice nominations.

Carleen Brice said...

Thanks for the shout out, writers! Put me down for "The World According to Garp" and "Gone With the Wind." I too would love to see "The Stand" on screen. And also "The Red Tent"!

Lisa said...

Hmm there are so many. I liked the film adaptations of: "Little Children", "Fight Club", "Atonement", "Running With Scissors", "Stand by Me" and "The Shawshank Redemption" to name a few.

I didn't like either adaptation of "The Shining". I thought too much internal dialogue was lost.