literature – Page 11 – Ripple Effects

Books Into Movies at Upcoming Film Festivals

One consolation of seeing leaves turn yellow (yes, I’m seeing it already) is the kick-off of fall Film Festivals. This year at TIFF and NYFF, there are several movie adaptations of books and stage plays. The following are some titles announced so far. (Images below are book covers. For film images click on links.)

Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF Sept. 4 – 14)

Hector And the Search for Happiness by François Lelord

I don’t like to compare, but for this one, the film version may just be better than the book which I found disappointing considering the appealing title. With a globe-trotting storyline, what better way to experience it than to see the sights and hear the sounds on the big screen. But of course, how it’s adapted is crucial. Considering the cast, I hope the film can bring at least a couple hours of happiness: Simon Pegg, Rosamund Pike, Toni Collette, Stellan Skarsgård, Christopher Plummer.

The Humbling by Philip Roth

In this adaptation of Roth’s 30th book (published 2009), Al Pacino plays the older man attempting to experience a total rejuvenation via an affair with a much younger woman, played by Greta Gerwig. Directed by Barry Levinson (Oscar Best Director for Rain Man, 1988). I’d read several of Roth’s previous books and learned not to be shocked by what he described. However, would I be interested to explore what’s in store in The Humbling? TIFF has about 300 films screening, I think I’ll let the diehard Roth or Pacino fans rush in for this one, albeit I’m quite fond of Greta Gerwig. BTW, a film adaptation of his Pulitzer Prize (1998) winning American Pastoral had been announced.

Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet

If Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past can be turned into graphic novels, Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet can be visualized in an animated film. Animations are not my usual movie choice in recent years but this time at TIFF I’d like to catch this one. The adaptation is a collaboration of international animation artists, voiced by Beasts of the Southern Wild‘s child star Quvenzhané Wallis, with Liam Neeson voicing the poet. Directed by Roger Allers, who is the writer and/or director of some memorable Disney collection such as The Little Matchgirl (2006), The Lion King (1994), Aladdin (1992), Beauty and the Beast (1991).

Miss Julie (Play) by August Strindberg

Newest film version of the 1888 play by Swedish playwright August Strindberg. Adapted and directed by Liv Ullmann, the famous Ingmar Bergman actress; maybe relevant here is her role in Persona (1966). Apparently, or maybe not so, Strindberg was exploring the psychological make-up of ‘womanhood’ and the complex interplay of nature, nurture, and circumstance. I finished reading the play with an apprehensive sigh… will this be a good role for Jessica Chastain? This is not a sympathetic character, Miss Julie, a confused, flirtatious mistress seducing her valet. A film that would rest mainly on character and acting. So maybe Chastain is a good choice. The valet? Colin Farrell, not too sure about that one. Samantha Morton’s the cook, thus forms the triangle of power play.

My Old Lady (Play) by Israel Horowitz

American playwright Israel Horowitz adapted his own 1996 stage play onto screen and directed it, with three prominent actors performing. This one is on my must-see list at TIFF. An American inherited from his late father a Paris apartment which to his surprise, is occupied by an old lady who, according to the legal arrangement, has the right to live there till she dies. Her daughter forms the invincible alliance. This entangled threesome: Two-time Oscar winner Maggie Smith (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, California Suite), who will turn 80 later this year, her equally formidable daughter, Kristin Scott Thomas (Oscar nom for The English Patient), and the unlucky (or maybe not) American, Kevin Kline (Oscar winner for A Fish Called Wanda). Whether a stage play or film, these three would make a dream cast.

Still Alice by Lisa Genova

Julianne Moore plays an accomplished academic, Columbia (Harvard in book) University professor battling early onset Alzheimer’s disease, based on the novel by neuroscientist turned writer Lisa Genova. Genova first self-published her book, later Simon and Schuster picked it up and the rest is history. It’s now selling in 30 countries and translated into more than 20 languages. Genova, a Ph.D in neuroscience, gives much credibility to her book. How will the film pan out? Julianne Moore would be one who can deliver a nuanced performance. Cast includes Kristen Stewart and Alec Baldwin.

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

On the heels of his Oscar nominated Dallas Buyers Club last year, Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallée brings out a totally different kind of production. Wild is based on the NYT #1 Bestseller memoir by Cheryl Strayed. Screenplay by the reliable Nick Hornby (Oscar Best Adapted Screenplay nom for An Education, 2009). Following the death of her mother, Strayed, then 26, divorced, devastated, drugged, went on a long-distance hike, 1,100 miles on the Pacific Crest Trail through California and Oregon. ‘Wild’ has a double inference here: the nature trail and the character walking on it. The journey could well be redemptive and perilous at the same time. The books in Strayed’s backpack included Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor. Reese Witherspoon and Gaby Hoffmann star.

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NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL (NYFF Sept. 26 – Oct. 2)

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
To open NYFF is the premiere of this highly anticipated film adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s popular suspense novel. Two-time Oscar Best Director nominee David Fincher (The Social Network, 2010; The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, 2009) helms. Yes, the buzz is also due to Ben Affleck (Oscar winner, Argo, 2012) playing the husband who finds his wife missing one day and thus begins the extraordinary sequence of events down the rabbit hole. Rosamund Pike plays the mysteriously gone girl. Yes, I’ve read the book. And just because of that, knowing the twists and ending, will I still be interested in watching this ‘suspense thriller’?

Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon
Five-time Academy Award nominee, writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson’s works include The Master (2012) and There Will Be Blood (2007) for which Daniel Day-Lewis won one of his three Best Actor Oscars. But the film I like best is his Punch-Drunk Love (2002). Author Pynchon’s most famous book probably is Gravity’s Rainbow, which I’ve only heard of but not read. Actually, I haven’t read any of Pynchon’s noir detective novels. Pot seems to be the motif. Anderson directs Joaquin Phoenix again after The Master, cast includes Reese Witherspoon, Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Jena Malone.

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How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain De Botton

Here’s my second instalment for the blogging event Paris in July 2014.

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You must have heard of this book by a Swiss-born Brit writing about a French novelist called Proust. You probably have read it, and let me guess, were surprised when reading the first chapters? Well, I was. For before reading this book, my knowledge of Alain de Botton, the popular British writer and media personality, mainly came from an art critic’s thoughtful posts on her blog.

Is Botton joking? This book reads like a parody.

First we are introduced to Dr. Proust, Marcel’s father, who was a renowned physician and prolific writer. His thirty-four books had helped the French people from defences against the plague to the correct postures and exercises for the ladies. Botton being an image-driven person does not hesitate to include some of Dr. Proust’s instructional illustrations for his female readers such as how to jump off walls, or balance on one foot.

Not your definition of parody? How about this chapter on ‘How to Suffer Successfully’. Proust is well known for his physical ailments, having had to lie in bed most of the time when he wrote the longest novel ever written, In Search of Lost Time. Botton exhaustively lists down the various trials Proust had to live with throughout his life:

The Problem of a Jewish Mother
Awkward Desires
Dating Problems
A Lack of Career in the Theatre
The Incomprehension of Friends
At 31, His Own Assessment
Asthma
Diet
Digestion
Underpants
Sensitive Skin
Mice
Cold
Coughing
Noise from Neighbours

… Should I go on? And oh, he does include Death.

I know, that’s what Botton does, bring the extraordinary into the ordinary realm of common readers, and by so doing, explaining Proust to us lowly creatures. And of course, it would help if you have at least read the first two volumes of In Search of Lost Time, for many of his examples are taken from there, so you would feel a resonance, or disagree with Botton’s interpretation, when he talks about Francoise, Swann, Albertine, Combray, or Balbec.

Do I get anything out of it? Plenty. I’ve lots of highlighted passages and my own handwritten notes on the margins. When Botton gets serious between the lines, he leaves me with some useful tips:

So if speaking in clichés is problematic, it is because the world itself contains a far broader range of rainfalls, moons, sunshines, and emotions than stock expressions either capture or teach us to expect. (p.106)

For one thing, express your own feelings and ideas instead of saying ‘nice’, or describing the setting sun as ‘a ball of fire’. I love this little passage Botton quotes from Proust about the novelist’s description of his ‘lunar experience’:

Sometimes in the afternoon sky a white moon would creep up like a little cloud, furtive, stout display, suggesting an actress who does not have to ‘come on’ for a while, and so goes ‘in front’ in her ordinary clothes to watch the rest of the company for a moment, but keeps in the background, not wishing to attract attention to herself. (p.98 of Botton’s, but no mention of where this is from Proust’s)

The key of course is not so much of trying to use a new language to describe a common scene or object, but to be able to look at them from a distinctively new perspective to begin with. How can we invent new lenses to see the world? Towards this end, Botton has failed to go further. So we’re told to avoid clichés, but not how. If you sense my ambivalence, you’re right.

In order to avoid clichés himself, Botton has resorted to hyperboles. The title of the book is a ready example. The 200 page book comprises of nine short chapters, each can be a book in itself. So you can expect the oversimplification of the ideas. Further, with no citing of sources for the Proust quotes, the critical reader could be left unsatisfied; it feels like Botton has jumped to generalizations and found expressions of his own thoughts from one or two excerpts of Proust’s. Makes one feel that Proust could just be a selling point.

However, this is an entertaining read, like a self-help manual with instructional tidbits and amusing images. The book is a mixed bag of common-sense wisdom, with a ‘moral’ at the end of each chapter. Throughout, it is obvious that Botton could well find it not as easy as he tells his readers to do… to be original and not say what others have said before. Here are some of his main points:

Live life today
Read books to form your own ideas
Suffering makes you strong
Find art and beauty in the ordinary
Avoid clichés like the plague
A time to pick up a book, a time to put it down
Win friends by your praises
but pour your honest criticisms of them into a work of fiction (now that’s a novel idea).

Is there anything new under the sun?

Speaking of the sun, take this to the beach. It would make one breezy read.

Lastly, following Botton’s (actually Proust’s) advice on reading:

We should read other people’s books in order to learn what we feel, it is our own thoughts we should be developing even if it is another writer’s thoughts which help us do so. (P. 195) Reading… is only an incitement…

So I’d say the moral is: read Proust yourself. Don’t let Botton tell you what Proust can do for you.

That’s just the prodding I need to press on to In Search of Lost Time, Vol. III.

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Paris in July 2014 on Ripple Effects:

Haute Cuisine Movie Review

CLICK HERE, HERE and HERE to see what others have posted.

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Related (Proust) Posts on Ripple Effects:

Proust Read-Along: Swann’s Way Part 1, Combray

The Swann and Gatsby Foil

Half Way Through a Budding Grove

Out of the Budding Grove

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Old Tales, New Takes

From the comments in my post What Maisie Knew (2012): From Book to Film, I see literature lovers, especially those who have read Henry James’s novel, are curious to watch the movie, wondering what a modern day film version could offer. Here is a good example of an adaptation exerting artistic and creative freedom to transpose while bringing out the spirit of the source material, ideas transferred as types onto the screen.

I can imagine too for literature purists, this is horror story. To them, movie adaptations are by definition a lower form of creation. They may be more acceptable if they follow exactly the same story lines and characterization. Any diversion spells disloyalty. How faithful and literal they are in the transposition is the sacred measure of their quality.

Having seen some retelling of literature effectively turned into cinematic form, I had long discarded the ‘loyalty’ criterion in my personal viewing. A ‘faithful adaptation’ doesn’t guarantee success, an example is the newest Romeo and Juliet (2013) which, using a modern day term, is pretty ‘lame’.

On the other hand, you might have enjoyed some movies without being aware of the literary source on which they are based, however loosely:

Apocalypse Now – Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

Bridget Jones’s Diary – Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice

The Claim – Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge

Clueless – Jane Austen’s Emma

Cruel Intentions – Choderlos de Laclos’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses

Easy A – Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter

The Hours – Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway

Jude – Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure

The Lion King – Shakespeare’s Hamlet

My Fair Lady – Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion

From Prada to Nada – A Latina version of Austen’s Sense and Sensibility

O Brother, Where Art Thou? – Homer’s Odyssey

Ran (Kurosawa’s, another evidence that literature is universal) – Shakespeare’s King Lear

West Side Story – Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet

Of course there are those that still use the same title without having to hide an alter ego, but have given the source material a contemporary spin. Because of their new angle to an old story, viewers can glean fresh insights and gain a deeper appreciation. Here are a few productions in recent years that are worth watching:

Coriolanus (2011)

Ralph Fiennes’ directorial debut. Shakespeare’s Coriolanus is placed in present day, fictional Rome. Modern politics, urban warfare, but same old human hunger for power, the treachery of pride and the ever complex entanglements of family ties. Ralph Fiennes is superb as Coriolanus rivalling and later aligning with his archenemy Aufidius (Gerald Butler). Vanessa Redgrave and Jessica Chastain play the two significant others in the life of Coriolanus the vengeful career warrior, his mother and wife. Alas, what’s a woman to do?

Much Ado About Nothing (2012)

If a movie adaptation had already been made by Kenneth Branagh with Emma Thompson and all the Brits in full period costumes and a colourful set, what is one supposed to do for a remake? Joss Whedon was ingenious enough to shoot it in a couple of weeks, like on a whim, right in his own Santa Monica, California home, in black and white. Every room, furniture, wine glass, and the swimming pool is Whedon’s, but every line is Shakespeare’s. Old story, modern humour. A most creative take.

Trishna (2011)

This is British director Michael Winterbottom’s third adaptation of a Thomas Hardy novel, after Jude (1996, Jude the Obscure) and The Claim (2000, The Mayor of Casterbridge set in 1860’s California). This time he transports us to India. From the mass of humanity, we zoom in to one innocent girl in a poor rural area, 19 year-old Trishna. The trajectory of her fate and encounters parallel Tess of the d’Urbervilles in Thomas Hardy’s novel, equally poignant and tragic. The transposition is convincing. Freida Pinto of Slumdog Millionaire fame is perfectly cast as Trishna. Winterbottom’s naturalistic style matches the mood of the novel. Not easy to watch at times as we follow a powerless female in a class-centred, male dominated world. A beautifully shot film.

Blue Jasmine (2013)

I’ve written a full post on this. I see Blue Jasmine as Woody Allen’s homage to Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire. A different time and place, altered names and backstories, but same kind of struggles, parallel character types. Vivien Leigh won an Oscar for her role as Blanche in the 1951 movie version as a displaced, worldly older sister coming to take shelter with her younger, less well-to-do sister. Cate Blanchett won hers playing Jasmine who faces similar predicaments. In typical Woody Allen style, a pathos and humour mashup. Blue Jasmine is an excellent new take on a piece of classic literature. Of course, in this case, we only see the overarching parallels, but it does speak to the subliminal power of old tales.

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Tess of the d’Urbervilles (2008 TV): The Lite Version Part 1, Part 2

Blue Jasmine: Homage and Re-imagining

Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

A Summer in Genoa (2008, Michael Winterbottom, Colin Firth)

Book Sale 2014: A Very Restrained Purchase

It’s that time of the year again… no, I don’t mean nesting habit of birds. I’m referring to The Crossroads Market Annual Book Sale. A diversion from my usual avian pics for Saturday Snapshot, here’s a photo of my very restrained purchase this year.

Readers familiar with my previous annual book loot will know how I’d hauled back home dozens of like-new or even unopened books at $2 each. All for the good cause of supporting Servants Anonymous Society.

Due to the boxes of still unread inventory from previous years, I’d decided to refrain from gratifying my hoarding instinct this time. The result is this minimal bagging of just four books, which I’d spent hours hand picking. Again, $2 each, all in mint condition:

The reasons for these selections? Three had sold film rights and two of them are already in development for a movie adaptation. The fourth one isn’t going to be a movie, but no less dramatic.

An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin

Other than being known as the Father of the Bride, Steven Martin is also a talented banjo player. I’ve heard his banjo playing, but as for his books, quite a few of them actually, I still haven’t had the pleasure to enjoy. So here it is, a Steve Marin novel with 22 full-colour art reproductions inside. Story is set in the demanding art world of Manhattan, about Sotheby’s up-and-coming and very ambitious Lacey Yeager who has set her mind on climbing high on the career ladder. Amy Adams had bought the film rights, aiming at producing and starring in it. Who is writing the screenplay? Ned Benson, who wrote and directed The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby Him and Her, which had me mesmerized at TIFF last year.

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry

The novel won the prestigious James Tait Black Memorial Prize in the UK and the Costa Awards in 2008, Irish Book Awards’ Novel of the Year, and short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. Roseanne McNulty has lived in a mental asylum for fifty plus years. Now at the ripe old age of one hundred, she decides to write her life story. Fascinating. So the book chapters transport the character and her readers between the present and the past. I look forward to the movie adaptation, just take a look at this perfect casting: the legendary Vanessa Redgrave as the older Roseanne McNulty and the talented Jessica Chastain as the younger. Producer is Noel Pearson, the Irish theatre and film producer who brought us the Oscar winning My Left Foot (1989, Daniel Day-Lewis). The Secret Scripture film adaptation has great potentials. Shooting is reported to be starting in June this year.

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt

Here in Canada, this is a multiple award winner: 2011 Governor General’s Literary Award, 2011 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize Finalist, 2011 Man Booker Prize Finalist, and selected as Amazon #1 Best Book of 2011. Film rights have been purchased by John C. Reilly’s production company… yes, the actor John C. Reilly, to turn this Western, yes, cowboy novel in the style of Elmore Leonard and True Grit into film. Should be an interesting read and movie. I don’t know about John C. Reilly, but, would he be willing to collaborate with the Coen brothers for the project?

The Film Club by David Gilmour

This is not the David Gilmour of Pink Floyd fame. Again, despite being an award-winning Canadian author, one time TV personality and CBC film critic, university lecturer, people outside of Canada upon hearing the name would likely think of someone more famous, at least Google does. Due to his recent incendiary remarks on his preferences re. writers and literature, this Canadian Gilmour just may have raised some awareness, adding notoriety to his name.

However, for me it’s not about him but about this audacious parenting experiment he conducted. At the time, his son was a 16 year-old who had an incurable avoidance of school. Watching him loiter at the edge of the cliff of boredom and aimlessness, what is a father to do? Well, Gilmour let his son drop out of school, but on two conditions: watch three movies with him every week, and, no drugs. Not a bad offer. A father and son film club instead of school… only in Canada, eh? Which titles were in his syllabus? As a film buff, I’m totally intrigued by his unorthodox parenting method, already half way through the book. Will definitely share with you eager parents when I’m done.

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You might want to see what others have posted for their Saturday Snapshot. CLICK HERE to Melinda of West Metro Mommy Reads.

What Maisie Knew (2012): From Book to Film

With all due respect to Henry James, I’d rather be watching this contemporary adaptation of his work than slashing through the thickets of his novel. A thicket of a book, the last time I used this description was with Proust. And, if I’m to decipher long and incomprehensible sentences I’d rather be reading Proust than James. Nevertheless, James’s novel is a dense and deep psychological analysis of a dysfunctional marriage and its fallout on the child, a relevant issue today. Nobody wins in cases like that.

When published in 1897, it was probably one of the earliest fictional depictions of divorce and child-custody. Precocious Maisie knows much more than her parents could ever imagine. Like a volleyball, she is being tossed back and forth between her Mama and Papa, whichever side she lands on loses, for they both want their life to be free from child-rearing, free from ties and obligations. The notion of being ‘free’ recurs in the last chapters of the book, a key to how Maisie ends up choosing who to follow — her governess Mrs. Wix, someone who is not obsessed with being ‘free’, but who is committed to Maisie’s welfare.

Again, may I reiterate here as in previous posts about books to movies, the two are totally different art forms. Here, one is a 300 page literary work, internal, dense and deep. The other is a 93-minute production of visual storytelling, enhanced by dialogues and musical score. To achieve this end, screenwriters Nancy Doyne and Carroll Cartwright have to pick and choose the most relevant storyline and characters, and opt out of lengthy, internal exploration of psychological entanglements, something the literary form can describe readily. The screenwriters have done a good job in their choices, keeping the story simple and relevant for viewers a hundred years after the book was published. Despite the subject matter, the movie is enjoyable and highly watchable.

Set in modern day NYC, it smoothly tells a poignant story from the child’s point of view. Six-year-old Maisie (Onata Aprile) is eyewitness and victim of her parents’ constant quarrels and later divorce, a young child caught in the thorns and thistles of adult relationships. It is unfortunate that the most sensitive and observant child is often the most vulnerable. The naturalistic capture by the camera of Maisie’s quiet observations is most heart-wrenching. Maisie learns that the adult world is a busy place, her presence, an inconvenience. Thanks to the screenwriters’ gentler treatment, the movie spares us from some cruel, hateful fights in the book. We see Maisie ultimately get a taste of what it’s like to be cared for and to have some simple, childhood joy. The ending shot is beautiful.

Unlike Maisie in the novel, there is no moral dilemma for her in the movie. No doubt, the moral element is crucial in James’s novel. Divorce and adultery must have poked deep into the heart of James’s readers in his days. But our contemporary society has, alas, evolved into a ‘morally neutral’ state of numb resistance. The screenwriters may well know too that entertainment value comes before the didactic. We see no moral choices here with Maisie in the movie. After all, a young child will readily cling to whoever that loves her in deeds rather than mere words. Kudos to the filmmakers, they know the heart of a child.

Directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel capture the story from Maisie’s viewpoint, natural and realistic, camera lens often at a lower angle. Certain shots are particularly affective, from inside a taxi, the transport of choice in Manhattan, at different times the vehicle that takes away Mama, Papa, and caring Margo. We would see from inside the taxi out to Maisie standing on the roadside, abandoned and distraught.

The wonderful cast is what makes the movie so absorbing, and at times, even heartwarming, despite its subject matter. The then seven year-old Onata Aprile is a natural. Julian Moore’s solid performance as her mother Susanna is convincing. She is a touring rock-and-roll singer who has passed her prime. Jealous and temperamental, Susanna’s love for Maisie is possessive, and often displayed in empty words. British actor Steve Coogan, known to North American viewers by his recent starring role in Philomena, plays the career-minded art dealer father Beale. Like his ex-wife, he is too busy with his own life to care for a child. They both say they love Maisie, showering bursts of affection whenever they see their child.

What saves Maisie is the awkwardly positioned step-parents, her father’s new wife and Maisie’s former babysitter Margo (Joanna Vanderham, the parallel of Ms. Overmore in the book) and her mother’s new love interest, the tall and young bartender Lincoln (Alexander Skarsgård, a Sir Claude parallel). As predicted, they soon are abandoned themselves and the two quickly form a tie that includes Maisie in their life. Diverging from James’s story, the two are genuinely loving and caring, a soothing balm to Maisie and the viewers.

Overall, a fine, contemporary adaptation of the novel. To James purists, a loose reinvention; for viewers seeking meaningful entertainment, this should be on the list of films to watch.

~ ~ ~ Ripples

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The Budapest Hotel: A Grand Escape

“But it doesn’t mean anything.”
“So we put in words. One word for every note, like this…”

— ‘Do-Re-Mi’ from The Sound of Music

Does music need words to make it meaningful? Do we have to find a message in a work of art before we can appreciate it?

Here we are with a cinematic piece that can’t be ‘explained’. What genre? What theme? What purpose? I’m not going to bother. As with my experience of watching previous Wes Anderson movies, somehow, I feel I need to let my rational side relax and just enjoy the ride. Rushmore probably has more of a traditional storytelling mode and thematic content. But with The Royal Tenenbaums, I have to adjust the quirky frequency to high, it’s a totally different kind of viewing experience. Fantastic Mr. Fox, I was mesmerized by the stop-motion animation and humour, great voices add to the lively adaptation of Roald Dahl’s story. Moonrise Kingdom, I wasn’t fully gratified but by then, I was used to the Wes Anderson style of ‘magical realism’.

That ‘magical realism’ strikes again in The Grand Budapest Hotel. Not my favourite colour palette, red and pink, by I was totally captivated as soon as the film began. I was being led into a fairytale world of real life people. From the cinematic framing, it aptly demonstrates the idea of symmetry. In many frames, the subject is right in the centre, almost perfect symmetry on both sides of the screen. But does it mean anything? One might ask. If we have to be rational about it, shall we just say, for the effects of a neat and tidy piece of the old world. Framing nostalgia before the world becomes too distorted, too inhumane. This is, after all, 1930’s Europe. And we can see the parallels in signs and symbols especially towards the end of the movie when uniformed men take over the Hotel.

Wes Anderson credits Stefan Zweig in creating The Grand Budapest Hotel. The Austrian writer’s name is shown at the very beginning of the end credits. In numerous interviews, Anderson pays tribute to Zweig’s whole collection of works, a writer who is noted as once ‘the world’s most translated author’. Zweig is a relatively new discovery for Anderson but so deeply has the writer inspired the filmmaker that ‘it’s basically plagiarism’, Anderson joked at the news conference when the film premiered at the Berlin Film Festival.

As someone who is much intrigued by the creative process of adapting books into films, I did read some Zweig before watching Budapest. I must be reading the wrong works though, I’d thought. From the novella Chess Story, to a few of the stories I read in the new collection recently translated into English, all tell very gloomy tales. The writings almost exude a sense of despair, as the characters are mostly running away from persecutions and ethnic cleansing, or memories thereof, even driven to madness as the chess champion Czentovic in Chess Story, albeit some descriptions embed a subtle trace of humour.

Maybe along the notion of ‘Wabi-sabi“, beauty and sadness, what Zweig has done subtly and now Anderson explicitly is to extract and fuse “humor and sadness”. Here in Budapest, writer/director Anderson has freely utilized the element of fantasy and fun to paint the passing of an old world, a realism too sad for millions in 1930’s Europe, Zweig being one of the subsequent victims. To escape the incendiaries of Nazism, Zweig and his second wife moved to England, then to the U.S., and finally to Brazil in 1940 where he ultimately committed suicide together with his wife in 1942, leaving a note of utter despair as he saw Nazism dominating Europe and his former homeland Austria.

In this fictitious Republic of Zubrowka, where The Grand Budapest Hotel is situated, Anderson offers us a great escape despite setting his story within the brewing tension of 1930’s Europe. The story begins with a closer to present day author (Tom Wilkinson) reminiscing upon an extraordinary experience which has inspired his book The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Years ago when he was still a young writer (Jude Law), in finding cures for writer’s block, he had retreated to a mountain hotel The Grand Budapest and in there met its owner, Mr. Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham). Known as Zero when he himself was just a lobby boy in an age long passed, the owner told the writer his story of how he came to inherit this grand piece of property, albeit in a run-down shape now. Someone volunteering an extraordinary life story to an author in an exotic locale, the beginning of Budapest reminds me of Life of Pi, another great tale of magical realism.

But the movie belongs to Ralph Fiennes as the hotel Concierge and go-to person for all sorts of favours, M. Gustave. The death of long time patroness of the Hotel Madame D. (Tilda Swinton) has dragged M. Gustave and his protégé, the new lobby boy Zero, down a rabbit hole of misadventures and fortunes. Fiennes has proven that he is a versatile actor that can be as evil as Amon Goeth in Schindler’s List, or as madly romantic as Count Almasy in The English Patient, or as charming and fun here in Budapest. His comic timing is first-rate, his expressions, spot-on. My long-range forecast, an Oscar nom awaits him next year for his role in Budapest.

The line-up of talents is long, not just in acting, where we find the usuals of Wes Anderson movies like Edward Norton, Tilda Swinton, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum. Saoirse Ronan (breakout role as young Briony in Atonement) as Agatha the pastry maker is adroit and whimsical. She’s well matched to the young lobby boy Zero, aptly played by Tony Revolori.

The movie is also marked by the delightful compositions of Alexandre Desplat, whose musical scores adorn many notable movies in recent years. A collaborator with Anderson since Rushmore but here, Desplat’s scores captivated me early on with the lively East European themes and in particular, the Russian folk melodies. Some instruments that we seldom hear in other films are distinctly alluring, such as balalaikas, zithers, dulcimers, and organ, with full orchestral rendering. Another long-range forecast, Oscar for original score.

And then there’s the make-up of Tilda Swinton, the art work and production design of the whole Budapest experience (even the parody painting “Boy with an Apple” is an original art work by English painter Michael Taylor from a real life model), the flowing editing, the original screenplay and directing, the cinematography, Budapest Hotel is going to be one grand entry in the next Academy Awards.

~ ~ ~ 1/2 Ripples

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Awards Update:

Feb. 22, 2015: Oscars for Best Costume Design, Make-up, Production Design, Original Score.

Feb. 14, 2015: Wins Best Original Screenplay from WGA.

Feb. 8, 2015: 5 BAFTA wins, Original Screenplay, Original Music, Production Design, Make-up and Hair, Costume Design.

Jan. 15, 2015: 9 Oscar noms, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing, Production Design, Make Up and Hair-Styling, Costume Design, Original Score.

Jan. 11, 2015: Golden Globe win for Best Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical

Dec. 11: 4 Golden Globe noms for Best Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical, Wes Anderson for Best Director and Best Screenplay, Ralph Fiennes for Best Actor – Comedy or Musical

Dec. 10: SAG nom for Best Cast in a Motion Picture

Dec. 7: The Grand Budapest Hotel wins Best Screenplay and Best Production Design at the L.A. Film Critics Awards

Dec. 1: The Grand Budapest Hotel just wins Best Screenplay from the New York Film Critics Circle

From NPR: The Rise and Fall of Stefan Zweig

The Music Behind the Screen

The Untold Story Behind ‘Boy With Apple’

Homage to Flannery O’Connor: Looking for ‘Intrusions of Grace’ in Films

Today is the birthday of Flannery O’Connor. As a tribute, I’m re-posting a piece I wrote a few years ago entitled “Looking for ‘Intrusions of Grace’ in Films: Pickpocket and Drive”

Our age not only does not have a very sharp eye for the almost imperceptible intrusions of grace, it no longer has much feeling for the nature of the violence which precede and follow them.” — Flannery O’Connor (quoted in my post A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories)

Flannery O’Connor made this remark back in 1963. It was not only a sharp social commentary and prophetic, but to me, it also stands as one of the signs of a good film. Amidst the violence and ugliness a film may depict, the presence of grace, however small, or a mere spot of purity, could bring out a powerful contrast. Usually that is what’s needed to emit a redemptive spark, a glimpse of light pointing to the transcendent.

With this frame of grace among violence, I go back to the films I’ve watched and try to find some good examples. My task proves to be more difficult than I first thought. But after some deep searching through my mental archive, several films came to mind. I’ll just mention two for this post.

Pickpocket (1959)

Robert Bresson’s modern version of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Caught in his own desensitized internal world, our protagonist Michel commits acts of theft as a desperate measure to fill the void in his existence. He goes through his days in a haunting vacuum devoid of meaning and emotions. He is unfeeling even towards his own dying mother, reminds me of Meursault in Camus’s The Stranger. Although not an axe murderer like Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment, Michel theorizes that those with superior talents and intelligence, the supermen in society, should be free to disobey laws in certain cases. He is numbed by his own hubris, and stifled by his cold and absurd worldview. Outright violence is not visible here, but we see the battle of wits he engages with the police inspector behind his trails, and we see him struggle in an amoral and meaningless existence.

Grace comes as Jeanne, a neighbor and carer of Michel’s ailing mother. Jeanne lives on her own looking after her younger brother. Her father is a drunk and her mother has deserted them. But she continues to live and care. She accepts her circumstances calmly, and extends kindness to those unrelated to her, caring for Michel’s mother, a neighbor on another floor. She stands as a stark contrast to Michel’s aloofness. At the end of the film, Jeanne came to visit Michel in prison after he was arrested, the two separated by the cold iron bars. For the first time, Michel feels love and wants to reciprocate it. And thus the cathartic ending as he totally melts in the presence of pure love and grace, wrapping up the film with this last line:

“Oh, Jeanne, to reach you at last, what a strange path I had to take.”

Drive (2011)

A current release that comes with high acclaims. The film was nominated for the Palme d’Or and Nicolas Winding Refn won Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival this year (2011). With slick and dashing camera work, the violence in “Drive” is visceral and graphic, a big contrast to the black and white, internal “Pickpocket”. However, I see some parallels between these two films made 50 years apart.

Ryan Gosling is “the Driver”. He does not even have a name. He is an expert stunt driver for movies and works at an autobody shop by day, drives a get-away car in the underworld of crimes by night. Like Michel in “Pickpocket”, he drifts in existence, numb and desensitized to the world around him. That is, until he meets Irene (Carey Mulligan), his neighbor.

Mulligan’s almost angelic presence in the film is most effective as a stark contrast to those around her. She lives alone looking after a child and works as a waitress in a diner. She appeals to the Driver by being herself, innocent, taking life as it is, responsible, caring for a child alone while his father is locked up in prison. Irene is a spot of purity in a rough environment. Her mere presence has transformed the Driver. From being aloof the Driver has become engaged emotionally, friendly and protective of both mother and son.

The plot thickens as Irene’s husband is released from prison and rejoins his family. The Driver is caught in an awkward situation. But he soon realizes that the husband’s resolve for a new start is genuine. The power of transformation is so thorough that the Driver is willing to go out on a limb to help the husband with one last heist in order to break the hold a gang has on the man, his wife and kid. While things go awry terribly and the ending is not as clean-cut as “Pickpocket”, we learn that the Driver remains a changed man from the ephemeral friendship he once had with Irene and her child.

Some might say Mulligan is a miscast, that she’s not “damaged enough”, and would prefer a ‘stronger’ character. I disagree. I feel that Mulligan has portrayed Irene’s innocent persona aptly, and yes, those ethereal dimples can just melt any heart. Hers is the perfect role for exactly the right reason. In the dark underworld of gangs, violence and crimes, she stands out as a tiny source of purity, a spark of grace. It all shows that what may look weak and vulnerable can have transformative power over the strong. A thought that may well be unpopular today.

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Other related posts from Ripple Effects:

A Good Man Is Hard To Find and Other Stories by Flannery O’Connor

Bernini’s Corpus and Modern Movies

Notes on the Synthesis of Film, Art… Life?

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Listening for Lent

In the old days, say, six years ago, reading for me was, simply, reading. Holding a book in my hands, read through the printed words, turned the pages manually, feeling the paper at my fingertips. But today, I have several ways to ‘experience’ a book. I can still read in the old traditional way, or download the eBook to my iPad using the app ‘OverDrive’, or, listen to an audiobook, on CD’s or MP3.

As a slow reader, I find listening to audiobooks a time-saving way, albeit I still prefer to hold a book in my hands and see prints on paper. But in this day of multi-tasking, I sometimes listen to audiobooks while driving as I can fit in my reading time. I confess, I could be distracted by the story, or the traffic. But overall, listening to audiobooks while driving is a perfect alternative for me, in lieu of time and space for ‘actual’ reading.

Recently I read an article by T. M. Luhrmann in the New York Times entitled Audiobooks and the Return of Storytelling. This insightful piece introduced me to a different reason for listening to audiobooks.

First off, Luhrmann takes down the generally accepted view that reading with our eyes as ‘more serious, more highbrow’ than listening to a story being told orally. She points to the early childhood experience when way before we could read, we were introduced to stories through listening to them. So maybe such a notion extends to our adult life making us feel that listening to stories is a childlike activity than reading the text on our own.

Many great books were actually oral legends, Luhrmann points out, “… for most of human history literature has been spoken out loud. The Iliad and the Odyssey were sung.” Noted. Can’t say listening to audiobooks is child’s play.

Luhrmann then comes to the crux of her idea. While we listen to an audiobook, we can do something else with our eyes and hands. That’s just obvious, isn’t it? Exactly what I said at the beginning of this post, the benefit of multitasking. But I was too rash to have thought I knew it so. What I read after this was nothing short of an epiphany for me.

No, not while driving, but when Luhrmann is gardening, she listens. Often, she would listen to the Bible. I love what she has to say next (emphasis mine):

Listening to a book is a different sensory experience than reading it. The inner imagining of the story becomes commingled with the outer senses — my hands on the trowel, the scent of tansy in the breeze. The creation of this sensory richness was in fact an explicit goal of the oral reading of the Bible in the medieval European cloister, so that daily tasks would be infused with Scripture, and Scripture would be remembered through ordinary tasks.

Whenever she looks at the “50 polypodium californicas and 50 festuca idahoensis in the dappled light beneath [her] oaks” she would think of “Gatsby’s extraordinary gift for hope.” Why, Luhrmann was listening to Fitzgerald’s novel while planting those the year before. Now looking at the plants would flash upon that inward eye what she had heard.

Of course, that sounds so simple and natural, a kind of classical conditioning, if you will. We fuse our senses and experience. All the more that we should listen to good books or we’ll have bad memories looking at the tasks we’d performed.

And what a wonderful idea Luhrmann had left me with: Scripture-infused daily tasks. That can’t be more apt for Lent.

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Tanya Marie Luhrmann teaches Anthropology at Stanford.

Related Posts on Ripple Effects:

No Texting for Lent and the End of Solitude

The Dinner by Herman Koch: A Timely Read, for Lent?

Dances With Words

What Makes a Good Audiobook Narrator?

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More Downton Ripples

Two years ago, some time after Downton Abbey Season 2 had finished airing on PBS, I wrote my first “Downton Ripples” post. I subtitled it “How I Overcome Downton Abbey Withdrawal Syndrome”. In that post, I’d listed some books and movies/TV productions that relate to the setting similar to Downton Abbey, for I was fascinated by the Great War period after watching Downton.

Some of the authors I read included Robert Graves, Hemingway, Evelyn Waugh, and watched Brideshead Revisited, A Handful of Dust, Easy Virtue and discovered Lost Empires, the TV series with a young Colin Firth together with Laurence Olivier, amazing.

This time, after Season 4, the withdrawal syndrome seems to have numbed a bit, but the ripples continue to spread. Again, Downton has prodded me to seek out the literature around the time between WW1 and WW2 Europe. While there are many present day authors writing about that era, I’d like to hear more authentic voices. I went looking for writers actually living in that period of history to hear their stories.

The following is a list of titles I’ve gone through this time, some I have finished, some still on my ‘To be’ agenda:

Parade’s End (2012, BBC/HBO co-production)

This series complements Downton Abbey perfectly. While Downton is light and heart-warming, soapy in its feel, Parade’s End is cerebral and literary, its social commentary of the time harsher and more incisive. I think the difference is, Julian Fellowes creates as a contemporary screenwriter, and knowing what modern day viewers want, he caters to their desire. Yes, he has offered us charming entertainment, and for the stars and the show, opportunities for Emmy and Golden Globe noms and wins.

Parade’s End is another story. Playwright Tom Stoppard (Emmy and BAFTA nom for this) adapts from Ford Madox Ford, a writer during WWI period, contemporary of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, the Lost Generation after The Great War, and witness to the destruction of the old world order and individual lives. Sure social barriers were dismantled, but together with such collapse came the shattering of long-held values and beliefs. Through the protagonist Christopher Tietjens, we can feel the intense struggles and poignancy of a man caught in such desolation.

I first saw Parade’s End on HBO when there was a window of free viewing. After watching one episode, I knew I must subscribe to continue with the rest of the series, and so I did. Effective advertising indeed. That was last year, and I recently just finished re-watching Parade’s End on Blu-Ray.

Parade’s End is the first time I watch Benedict Cumberbatch in a leading role (Emmy nom), an impressive performance as Christopher Tietjens, one of the last remaining honourable men struggling to stay afloat in the drowning waves of social change and ideals. Rebecca Hall (BAFTA nom) is effective as the scheming and seductive wife Sylvia. The young, almost ethereal Adelaide Clemens as suffragette Valentine Wannop is perfect. She makes me think of Carey Mulligan. And what a wonderful connection — Mulligan will be the star of the new film Suffragette, which I highly anticipate.

Parade’s End by Ford Madox Ford

This will be my major challenge in TBR books this year. Image here is the BBC Book edition I bought in a book sale a few years back. It has 906 pages, and is made up of four novels — Some Do Not, No More Parades, A Man Could Stand Up, and The Last Post. A more recent edition is the reissue of Penguin Modern Classic, with a new introduction written by Booker Prize winner Julian Barnes (The Sense of an Ending). You can read the intro here.

Parade’s End by Tom Stoppard

I enjoy reading the scripts of productions I like. It’s a kind of deconstruction, if you will, demythisizing of sort. I’m fascinated by the skills of a screenwriter who uses words to elicit images for the director to execute, translating the literary into the visual using words. To write for the screen almost sounds like an oxymoron. I’ve read Julian Fellowe’s Downton Abbey scripts and found it most interesting. I’d like to explore Tom Stoppard’s journey of adaptation. But first, I need to tackle Ford Madox Ford’s original texts.

T. S. Eliot — After Downton and Parade’s End, I’m all geared up to explore deeper into the the psyche and spirituality of the time. Why, after all, what had lost in a generation was not just the physical bodies or social structures, but the internal, the destruction of a value and belief system. I’d like to read and reread Eliot’s works, delve into a time that prompted the poet to see hollow men, and women come and go, talking of Michelangelo. What’s underneath the façade of human progress?

The Europeans by Henry James — A voice from the dawn of the 20th Century. I have finished listening to the amusing auidiobook of The Europeans. Yes, unlike many readers’ impression of James’ works, The Europeans is a delightful read (listen). It is like a medley of E. M. Forster and Jane Austen. Humorous depiction of the different POV’s between a pair of European sister/brother coming to visit their American cousins residing in the outskirt of Boston. With some LOL moments. My next James read is The Ambassadors.

Stefan Zweig — While Lady Edith’s love Michael Gregson headed to Germany and mysteriously gone missing, the then famous (real life) writer Stefan Zweig in Austria was lamenting the spread of anti-semitism in the continent. It’s interesting that Downton has led me to connect, at least in historical timeline, with an author I’ve just recently discovered, thanks to Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, to which he has credited the works of Stefan Zweig. I’ve recently read Zweig’s Chess Story, and now delving into his short stories.

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The Dinner by Herman Koch: A Timely Read, for Lent?

Why is this book compared to Gone Girl? It’s nothing like it. The Dinner belongs to a totally different calibre. If I have to compare it to something, then I’d say, reading it conjures up Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Are there really some in our society who think themselves so superior that they ought to be above the law? The law, after all, is a human construct. Can we not bend it to serve our own interest, when the interest is out of love for our son, or wife, or husband?

The Dinner is Dutch writer Herman Koch’s sixth novel. It has sold over a million copies and translated into twenty-one languages. The book deals with subjects that are soul-searching: The dichotomy between nature and nurture; how much of our being and psyche is hereditary? What portions of our actions are a result of our own waywardness as lost souls? As I was reading, the movie “We Need to Talk About Kevin” (2011) came to mind. However, what is not present at least in the Kevin movie is the accessory after the fact component.

The Dinner starts off with quite an original concept. The author parallels the story development with a gourmet dinner two couples are having in an upscale restaurant. The Apéritif and the Appetizer are the foretaste of what we will get for the Main Course. What appears to be petty, disgruntled complaints and personal biases of the narrator’s in the early chapters turn out to be only a light appetizer, for the main course is when a horrific crime is revealed. The ‘horror’, though, isn’t limited to the crime per se, for it is chilling to read how everyone involved deals with the aftermath.

The main course is a gripping thriller based on a real-life crime. After reading the novel, I googled and did find the report on it. Koch tells the story effectively with his straight-forward descriptions written with journalistic detachment, and incisive observation as the notes of a perceptive psychoanalyst. Further, he informs us with the detailed thought process of his narrator. Here is a disturbing look at someone who is capable to love his wife and son deeply but hates everyone else that crosses his path. This is more than a thriller though, for the moral dilemma or rather, its characters’ lack of sensitivity to it, is what makes the book provocative.

I don’t think we are expected to ‘like’ or even ‘identify’ with any of the characters. The book is effective in that we are left as observers. And with that, hopefully, we just might think a little deeper into issues concerning our humanity, and in the next generation of humans we bring up. How much are our children a result of our parenting and examples, how much are they a result of their own choosing and decisions? Can nature or nurture excuse us from our errors? If Freud were around today, The Dinner just might be on his reading list. But, would he be able to offer a remedy to save us from ourselves?

The ending shares a similar thought with the Woody Allen movie Crimes and Misdemeanours (1989). Now, as soon as I said this, some of you familiar with the movie might think I’ve dropped a spoiler in here. So, that’s the farthest I’ll go in describing the plot and details of The Dinner. The aftertaste may be haunting, but it is something that we should face as a human society.

Today is the beginning of Lent. I always feel such is an opportune time not so much about refraining from pleasure like abstaining from going to fancy restaurants for gourmet dinners, but in dwelling on the meaning of Easter. The Dinner may just have, inadvertently, reinforced the notion that we as individuals in a human society do need some form of saving grace after all.

~ ~ ~ ~ Ripples

The Dinner by Herman Koch, translated by Sam Garrett, published by Hogarth, 2012, 320 pages.

Books to Movie Adaptations Updates

Here are some updates that look promising, books that are in various stages of development into movies. For yourself or your book group, should make a good reading list:

East of Eden — This just came out two days ago, Hunger Games director Gary Ross will write the screenplay of this new adaptation of John Steinbeck’s classic, with Jennifer Lawrence to star. For J. Law fans, this is good news. But for devotees of the original 1955 movie adaptation directed by the legendary Elia Kazan with the debut breakout role for James Dean, this modern version definitely is uncalled for, a rebel without a cause.

An Object of Beauty — The movie version of Steve Martin’s novel about the NYC art gallery scene is now a project of Amy Adams’, with Ned Benson writing the screenplay. I have high expectation of this one, having seen Benson’s wonderful works The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him and Her last year at TIFF. The cast has not been announced but Amy Adams will be the producer and actor in her new project.

A Walk In The Woods — from the vast open sea in All Is Lost to the Appalachian Trail, Robert Redford will appear in this adaptation of the 1998 personal memoir by Bill Bryson, a walk on the Appalachian Trail to ‘rediscover America.’ Nick Nolte is also reported to be in the cast. Screenplay by Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine, Toy Story 3, The Hunger Games), directed by Ken Kwapis (The Office). The movie is scheduled to come out in 2015. Enough time to read or reread, or even walk the Trail yourself. Who knows, you might see the film crew while there.

Beautiful Ruins — Author Jess Walter of this popular novel will co-write the screenplay with writer/director Todd Field. I’ve seen Field’s Oscar nominated adaptation of Little Children (2006 with Kate Winslet nom. for Best Actress), a haunting film. I trust his talents with Beautiful Ruins. Considering the Italian coastal setting of the book, the movie would likely offer some beautiful cinematography. Imogen Poots is on board, so far.

The Dinner — Dutch author Herman Koch’s novel is like a dynamite. I’m half way through the lighted fuse as I type this post, so it’s not full-blown yet, but I’m totally engrossed in this book based on a real-life crime. The dinner menu in an elegant restaurant ingeniously parallels the plot development. I missed it at TIFF last year. And since, I’m not aware that it has made its presence on the big screens here in North America. But hopefully this year we will have the chance to see it. Even if it doesn’t show in your city, read the book still. (Update: to read my book review on Goodreads CLICK HERE.)

The Hundred-foot Journey — Another culinary movie. This one is much lighter than the above, based on Richard C. Morais’s novel. Story is about a family from India moves to France, opening an Indian restaurant across from a Michelin-starred fine French restaurant. Cultural clashes, the reverse of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. The book is quite entertaining, the movie comes with some big names. Producers Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey, Helen Mirren to star, and directed by the prolific Lasse Hallström (Chocolat, 2000; The Shipping News, 2001; Salmon Fishing In the Yemen, 2011)

The Giver – The highly popular young adult book by Lois Lowry finally gets a movie appearance, over twenty years after its publication in 1993. Utopia turned bad, ideals and reality. With so many movies on a dystopia, will this still look fresh? Cast include Jeff Bridges as The Giver, and look here, Meryle Streep, Taylor Swift, Alexander Skarsgard, Philip Noyce directs. One of Noyce’s previous works is the adaptation of Graham Greene’s novel The Quiet American (2002). Many may have read this title in school. Time to reread.

The Little Prince — Lots of talents are behind this newest animation based on the beloved story by French author and pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Those lending a voice include: Rachel McAdams, James Franco, Marion Cotillard, Jeff Bridges, Paul Giamatti. While I love the earlier musical version (1974, with Gene Wilder as The Fox), I welcome a new adaptation, for I know this will bring the book to the limelight for a new generation. Making a movie nowadays looks to be the most effective way to introduce literature to a younger generation (or whatever generations).

The Secret Scripture — By the Booker Prize short-listed Irish author Sebastian Barry. The novel is an internal dialogue of a close to 100 years-old patient in a mental hospital, Roseanne McNulty, reminiscing her younger days. The older character will be played by the brilliant Vanessa Redgrave, her younger self by the talented Jessica Chastain. I last see them together in a film was in Ralph Fiennes’s directorial debut, the modern version of Shakespear’s Coriolanus. Don’t think these two ladies will appear in the same scene in The Secret Scripture since they are of different time periods, but good to know that the roles are being played by two wonderful actors.

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Previous Books to Movies Lists:

2014 Book To Movie Adaptations

Upcoming Book to Movie Adaptations

Great Movies Expectations

Book Review of The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard C. Morais

Do We Need Another Rebecca Remake? Another Grapes of Wrath?

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Saturday Snapshot February 22: Austen Doors and Windows

Continuing with the theme of doors and windows, let’s hop over to the UNESCO city of Bath. I was there twice. These are a few photos I took on those trips.

The beloved author Jane Austen lived there from 1801 – 1806 after her family moved from her birthplace Steventon when she was 26. Their first address was 4 Sydney Place:

In their last year in Bath the family moved to 25 Gay Street:

Down the road to No. 40 is the Jane Austen Centre:

The Great Pump Room was a social hub in Austen’s day. Her observations there must have inspired her satirical descriptions of high society in Northanger Abbey. Now an elegant restaurant:

Austen used Bath as the setting for her novel Persuasion. Milsom Street was a vibrant commercial area of shops and businesses in those days as in now. The first time Anne Eliot saw Captain Wentworth again was when he passed by a shop on Milsom Street.

Here’s a modern day shop window, Milsom & Son, a music store:

No, Jane would not have stepped in there to shop for CD’s or DVD’s. But she would likely have gone into this place, Sally Lunn Bun, the oldest building in Bath dating back to 1482 and a business that was present in Jane’s time. There’s a Kitchen Museum in the basement of the restaurant:

How can I resist showing you what’s inside the door and window:

You might like to explore more of Bath in my other posts Jane Austen’s Bath and Bath’s Persuasion in which I recorded my walking tour using the novel Persuasion as a guidebook.

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Melinda of West Metro Mommy Reads. Click Here to see what others have posted.

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