I know I’ve been gone for a week but things have been busy – I’ve met up with friends, been out having strange and spontaneous experiences, gone to a writing workshop, watched the beginning and middle of movies and not the end (they’ve had to go back to the DVD rental shop), doing lots of journal writing and trying to tidy up my room (and sort of failing).
Anyway, it’s top ten tuesday again – I know I’m slow on the uptake again. This time its top ten book to movie adaptations – of which there are many! Some might be replicated over and over everywhere, but then maybe the point is that when book to movie adaptations work, everyone recognises that. There is always debate over what a director or screenwriter has left out, but you couldn’t conceivably put a whole book onto screen unless it was a rather short book. The other thing that needs to be done to transfer a book to screen is taking certain images or re-imagining scenes that would work on the screen and making them more visual. I guess it depends on that director’s vision and style too; nobody reads a book in the same way so why would we watch a movie or adapt a movie in the same way? Anyway, here are some of my top ten book to movie adaptations (and I know..some of them will be typical for me!):
1. Stardust – the book has more detail, the movie brings the characters to life. I read the book after watching the film, but love them both for different reasons.
2. Pride and Prejudice – I’m cheating here a little bit – I love both the BBC 90’s Drama (Colin Firth) and the movie with Keira Knightley. They both have different styles and a different vision but both work.
3. Bright Star – this is based on the collected letters between John Keats (one of my favourite poets) and Fanny Brawne. The movie is beautiful – full of gorgeous images and moments. It was one of those tragic and desperately sad love stories, and I felt depressed afterwards, but if you only watch it once, please do.
4. The LOTR Trilogy – loved the books, love the films (the books were difficult but worth it in the end). Inspired casting too! I love all the stories about the cast filmings in New Zealand and how they all got ring tattoos!
5. High Fidelity – although the location was changed to Chicago, it was still a great adaptation and John Cusack seems to fit into the role.
6. Memoirs of a Geisha – one of my favourite books and a stunning movie. It was beautifully done and filmed and definitely worth seeing.
7. Blade Runner – very different to the book by Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) but I’ve always loved the film – I watched it before I read the book.
8. Interview with the Vampire – loved both the book and the film, the film is fairly faithful to the book!
9. The Harry Potter films – my favourites so far are The Deathly Hallows part 1 and The Goblet of Fire. I know everybody has this on their list, but why would you exclude them? They’re all different but all have something brilliant about them.
10. Howl’s Moving Castle – I’m cheating as I haven’t read the book this is based on, but I love this film. Its wonderful and makes me happy everytime I watch it.
Cats and Chocolate 