Welcome to bookchat where you can talk about anything...books, plays, essays, and books on tape. You don’t have to be reading a book to come in, sit down, and chat with us.
OK…so I don’t know what the title means, either. I just needed one. Flashy stuff? I am guessing my brain was thinking of what movies are...lush, romantic, dark, dreamy, and flashy.
Movies from books and books from movies are on my mind again because I just watched another film of War and Peace. This one was done by King Vidor with Audrey Hepburn as Natasha, Mel Ferrer as Prince Andre, and Henry Fonda as Pierre. It was in color. There are parts I liked better than the other film I watched, but basically, I liked the 2007 film better with Clemence Poesy, Alexander Beyer and Alessio Boni. The result of watching both films in the last few weeks is that I found my copy of War and Peace and put it on my TBR pile for a re-read. I think it will be my third time, but it has been quite a while since I read it last.
I read Regeneration by Barker a few weeks ago and I hunted up my copy of the film Behind the Lines that I watched some years ago that led me to read the book and its sequels. I will be re-watching that soon.
I also just finished watching The Irish RM series 1 with Peter Bowles based on the book by Somerville and Ross. I loved the book and the dvd is a riot. It brought the book to life.
I had only read one story, but there are three books available through the Gutenberg Project:
Some Experiences of an Irish R.M
http://www.gutenberg.org/...
... My landlord was there on horseback, and with him there was a man standing at the head of a stout grey animal. I recognised with despair that I was about to be compelled to buy a horse.
"Good afternoon, Major," said Mr. Knox in his slow, sing-song brogue; "it's rather soon to be paying you a visit, but I thought you might be in a hurry to see the horse I was telling you of."
I could have laughed. As if I were ever in a hurry to see a horse! I thanked him, and suggested that it was rather wet for horse-dealing.
"Oh, it's nothing when you're used to it," replied Mr. Knox. His gloveless hands were red and wet, the rain ran down his nose, and his covert coat was soaked to a sodden brown. I thought that I did not want to become used to it. My relations with horses have been of a purely military character, I have endured the Sandhurst riding-school, I have galloped for an impetuous general, I have been steward at regimental races, but none of these feats have altered my opinion that the horse, as a means of locomotion, is obsolete. Nevertheless, the man who accepts a resident magistracy in the south-west of Ireland voluntarily retires into the prehistoric age; to institute a stable became inevitable.
"You ought to throw a leg over him," said Mr. Knox, "and you're welcome to take him over a fence or two if you like. He's a nice flippant jumper."
Even to my unexacting eye the grey horse did not seem to promise flippancy, nor did I at all desire to find that quality in him. I explained that I wanted something to drive, and not to ride.
"Well, that's a fine raking horse in harness," said Mr. Knox, looking at me with his serious grey eyes, "and you'd drive him with a sop of hay in his mouth. Bring him up here, Michael."
Michael abandoned his efforts to kick the grey horse's forelegs into a becoming position, and led him up to me.
I regarded him from under my umbrella with a quite unreasonable disfavour. He had the dreadful beauty of a horse in a toy-shop, as chubby, as wooden, and as conscientiously dappled, but it was unreasonable to urge this as an objection, and I was incapable of finding any more technical drawback. Yielding to circumstance, I "threw my leg" over the brute, and after pacing gravely round the quadrangle that formed the yard, and jolting to my entrance gate and back, I decided that as he had neither fallen down nor kicked me off, it was worth paying twenty-five pounds for him, if only to get in out of the rain.
Further Experiences of an Irish R.M.
http://www.gutenberg.org/...
In Mr. Knox's Country
http://www.gutenberg.org/...
I have a lot of favorite books that I think the films did justice to, and several films that I saw before I read the books which I think helped me understand the books better.
Then there are books that I don’t believe can be filmed. Winter’s Tale is one of those. I will have to wait until it comes out on dvd to find out. There are several books where many films were made and I like some better than others as with War and Peace. I leave it to you to list movies that failed the books.
My lengthy list of loved films:
Favorite Films from Books That Were Done Well
War and Peace 2007 with Clemence Poesy, Alexander Beyer and Alessio Boni.
Case Histories with Jackson Brodie based on books by Kate Atkinson
Anne of Green Gables
To Kill a Mocking Bird with Gregory Peck
A Christmas Carol with Randolph Scott
Cannery Row with Nick Nolte
Prince of Tides with Nolte
Lord of the Rings
Harry Potter
The Outsiders with Patrick Swayze
Of Mice and Men
The Three Musketeers, 1973 with Raquel Welch and Michael York
Little Women
The Secret Garden with Maggie Smith
House of Spirits
Ivanhoe with Elizabeth Taylor and Robert Taylor
Emma with Paltrow
Pride and Prejudice with Garvie and Rintoul
Persuasion with Ciaran Hinds
Sense and Sensibility with Emma Thompson
All Creatures Great and Small series
No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency
The Irish RM
Films that I Saw First that Led Me to Understand the Books Better
A Passage to India
Joy Luck Club
Middlemarch
Return of the Native with Catherine Zeta-Jones
Far from the Madding Crowd
Cold Comfort Farm
Onegin with Liv Tyler and Ralph Fiennes
Favorite Films from Books I Have Not Read, Yet. (and may never read in some cases)
Lark Rise to Candleford seasons 1-4
Lovejoy (I have heard the series are not as dark as the books)
Star Wars
Yentl (a short story)
Favorite Films based on Legends
First Knight with with Sean Connery, Richard Gere, Julia Ormond, Ben Cross
Films based on Plays
A Man for All Seasons with Paul Scofield and Robert Shaw
Rhinoceros
The Ice Man Cometh with Lee Marvin
The Glass Menagerie
A Street Car Named Desire with Brando
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Elizabeth Taylor
Cyrano de Bergerac with Gérard Depardieu (He was also a real person)
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Cyrano de Bergerac is a play written in 1897 by Edmond Rostand. Although there was a real Cyrano de Bergerac, the play is a fictionalization of his life that follows the broad outlines of it.
The entire play is written in verse, in rhyming couplets of twelve syllables per line, very close to the Alexandrine format, but the verses sometimes lack a caesura. It is also meticulously researched, down to the names of the members of the Académie française and the dames précieuses glimpsed before the performance in the first scene.
Films Based on Real People or Things
The Killing Fields
Shadowlands (C S Lewis and Joy Davidson)
Brian’s Song
Ghosts of Mississippi
Becket
Gandhi
Behind the Lines about Dr. Rivers and Siegfried Sassoon
David and Lisa
Apollo 13 with Tom Hanks
Good Night and Good Luck with George Clooney
One Against the Wind with Judy Davis
Schindler's List
Parodies of Books or Films
Without a Clue (parody of Sherlock Holmes with Kingsley and Caine)
Galaxy Quest
The Man with One Red Shoe with Tom Hanks
Other Films that I Loved and Just Had to Mention
Children of a Lesser God
The Sting
The Red Violin
The Seventh Seal
Firefly series with Nathan Fillion
Second Hand Lions
The Man who Planted Trees, animation Frederick Back
The Black Widow
The Man in the Glass Booth
The Enemy Below
Tootsie
What about Bob
Back to the Future I
Cinema Paradiso
Casanova with Ledger
Ladyhawke with Pheiffer
Sweet Liberty with Alda
Educating Rita with Michael Caine
Shining Through with Michael Douglas
Hero with Dustin Hoffman and Geena Davis
American Graffiti
Films from Books that Were Not Too Bad, But…
The Martian Chronicles with Rock Hudson
Neverending Story
Musical Films
Cinderella with Brandy
West Side Story
Oklahoma with Hugh Jackman
Annie
Porgy and Bess
Fiddler on the Roof
Music Man
The Phantom of the Opera
Gypsy
The Magic Flute done by Bergman
La Boheme
What are your favorite films? Has a movie caused you to read the book?
Diaries of the Week:
Write On! Should you hire an editor?
by SensibleShoes
http://www.dailykos.com/...
A Culture of Dignity (Part 2)
by Robert Fuller
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Robert Fuller says:
Chapter 49 of The Rowan Tree has been posted:
http://www.rowantreenovel.com/....
The Kindle version of The Rowan Tree still free on Kindle:
http://www.amazon.com/...
My memoir Belonging still free via Smashwords:
https://www.smashwords.com/...
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NOTE:
plf515 has book talk on
Wednesday mornings early