I don't "do" audio books too often. Too hard to stop a DVD in its tracks. And they seem longer on tape than on the page.But if I'm cleaning my entire house or taking a long trip, I find one to listen to.
If there's one story or movie that takes me back to my youth, it's this one.
The movie came out when I was twenty and encapsulates my youth.
I wasn't Jewish or rich (like Brenda Potemkin) but I was the same age, from the same geographic area, and part of the same time. And although Ali McGraw and Richard Benjamin were not great actors, they did nail these roles.
Now here was a movie that did credit to the book. You can actually read or listen to it and remember scenes from the movie that played out exactly like the book.
What film most perfectly encapsulates your youth? And please don't say The Wedding Crashers. Pretend you're older than that. Also what films are most faithful to the book?
I am so hoping the forthcoming Revolutionary Road will be one of them. We Don't Live Here Anymore did Andre Dubus proud last year and Little Children was another. But it's rare.
11 comments:
Well, the Wedding Crashers weren't actually youths, either...part of that film's point...
Stanley Kubrick comes to mind as a guy who made films that actually improved on their literary sources, at least a few times, and uaually wouldn't begin to shame them. THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE likewise was an improvement on the novel. I still have to read William McGivern's ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW, since I love the film, and like (or better) what I've read of McGivern, Philly's own.
Though it's no great shakes as a series or a cultural document, certainly THAT '70S SHOW got one thing right in its first season or so, from the experience of my New England youth (though it's set in Wisconsin)...it sure was a lot easier and less noteworthy to get pot than to get laid. At least for those of us who entered puberty in the latter half of the decade. FREAKS AND GEEKS had it more right in most ways. And certainly RELATIVITY felt right, even if the twentysomethings in that series were a lot cuter than I was when watching it, and the even better next series from the producers, ONCE AND AGAIN.
I'd forgotten Once and Again. A very good show with great acting from its teens. I was away for the Freaks and Geeks year--and the Felicity year. That amount of time spent in the basement in That Seventies Show was certainly realistic if claustrophobic to watch.
Although I identified with Goodbye Columbus, I think it was more a literary identification than a life one. Or it was more about getting the feel of the times right. Or that it spoke to me. I feel similar kinship with The Heartbreak Kid and The Graduate.
Actually, for me the adults in ONCE AND AGAIN were the ones I could identify with most immediately, though the kids were well-drawn as well.
You didn't miss much with FELICITY.
Well, for my generation the one movie that dominates our youth is STAR WARS. It was the first movie I remember seeing. I was 3 and my grandparents took me. But it wasn't just the movie or the myth, but the toys. Everyone had the toys and that's what we mainly played with. We bounded our adoleccent friendships over action figures and talking about the movies.
But beyond STAR WARS, I think the movies that resonated were films like STAND BY ME and THE BREAKFAST CLUB. As for my late teens and early twenties it would have to be SINGLES and DAZED AND CONFUSED.
As for great adaptations, definitely LITTLE CHILDREN - what a powerful film; BLADE RUNNER, BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY (a hundred times better than the book); THE SECRET GARDEN (1994?); AMERICAN PSYCHO; SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION; HOWARD'S END; 300; V FOR VENDETTA. There are plenty of good adaptations, but there are many many many more poor ones.
Steve-Those are the movies my children would name. Especially Star Wars. Megan wrote new illustrated scripts for the characters on a daily basis. I have some of them still along with some of the plastic cups.
I've never believed that a movie had to, or should, be faithful to a book. For me they are two different art forms.
If you like a book you want the movie to be as good. And it can be, even if it's not exactly the same. The only crime is if I love a book and the movie is awful...not that it's not the same.
You almost don't want to see Hollywood approach good novels because it seem to have so little respect for the original work. Yet many of the best movies were books first. The Raymond Carver stories done by Altman a few years ago was at least faithful to his vision. What the heck was that title? If I wasn't tired, I'd google it.
SHORT CUTS. I think Altman engaged in a little more nastiness, though, than Carver did. (Not to a Peckinpah traducing Jim Thompson level, though...perhaps along the lines of the film version of THE LOVED ONE.)
But among the sterling examples of what faithfulness can achieve, look to the Huston-adapted and -directed THE MALTESE FALCON. The reasonably faithful (if cut down even from their short-novel sources) original PSYCHO and THE HAUNTING also come to mind...and the Leigh Brackett THE BIG SLEEP (while Faulkner was sleeping it off in the next office).
The Loved One. I haven't seen that since it came out. It was so clever then. The Haunting. The Haunting of Hill House-amazingly measured both. I'm gonna think of some to throw back.
THE LOVED ONE the novella was a fair sight more clever than THE LOVED ONE the film (hard to beat Waugh at his own game), but I liked the film...which I haven't seen since the latter 1970s...
I've been meaning to getting around to reading the graphic novel, A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, since I like the film so much...but haven't, yet. I'll have to disagree with Steve Allan about the quality of the V FOR VENDETTA adaptation, even if it wasn't as bad a mash of Alan Moore's comics as THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN was...
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