> Gone with the Wind- I read it as a kid then saw the movie & felt it was > every bit as good as the book...
This one came to my mind as well, Kate. It was an amazing feat of story-telling that they managed to take a 1000 plus page novel and get so much of it into a 4 hour movie. But they still cut things out. Scarlett had children by all three of her husbands in the book but she only had Bonnie in the movie. But all of the important elements & characters and scenes from that book are in that film and it never lags or bores. It holds your interest. By the way, Mack, I don't know what you see in Leslie Howard. I hated him as Ashley Wilkes. Thought he was the one actor who was miserably miscast and it's taken me years to get past it. Practically used to ruin the whole movie for me. Oh well. No accounting for taste! Other people have pointed it out & I completely agree that film & written literature are two different animals and adapting a book or short story to the screen is a thorny proposition. Unless you're doing a 6 part A&E miniseries like the excellent 'Pride and Prejudice', it really is nigh to impossible to put everything in a long, complex novel into a theatrical film. I haven't seen LOtR yet but I've read about the omission of the Tom Bombadil episode. It is a wonderful part of 'The Fellowship of the Ring' but ultimately it really doesn't do anything to further the story or contribute to the subsequent plotline. That's something that a film maker has to consider. He or she only has a certain amount of time in which to tell a story if a film is to be considered a viable vehicle for release. So what is not absolutely essential to telling that story or developing the characters often has to be sacrificed. Otherwise the movie can become overly long or unevenly paced. A film whose main objective is to tell a story (and that's not saying that the main objective of all film is to tell a story) has to be constructed with pacing and continuity in mind. Too much information can confuse or bore an audience. Dulson, I almost agree with you about 'Dr. Zhivago'. That is a masterfully written script in that it captures the essence of a pretty sprawling literary work. Ultimately the film stands on its own as almost a separate work. The book, however, is beautifully written and re-reading it about 15 or so years ago, I found I appreciated it a lot more than the first time. It's very much in the tradition of Tolstoy in a lot of ways. A lot of characters caught up in large historical events whose paths cross. Russian novels can be a bear to keep all the characters straight. The Merchant/Ivory adaptations of E. M. Forster are for the most part extremely faithful to the novels. We just watched 'A Room With a View' on dvd recently, however, & I think I finally figured out why I think 'Howard's End' is the better film. 'A Room With a View' does not capture the depth of the book for me. There's a lightness about it that makes it more fun but does not do the novel justice. 'Howard's End' on the other hand is a much fuller realization of Forster's book and definitely has a dark side to it. There have also been two excellent film adaptations of Thomas Hardy novels. 'Far From the Madding Crowd' with Julie Chrisy, Terrence Stamp, Alan Bates & Peter Finch was quite faithful to the book if I remember right and Roman Polanski's beautiful 'Tess' is another one that follows the novel very closely. I'm still excited about seeing 'Lord of the Rings'. I'm actually a little amazed that Jackson was allowed to make three separate movies and, considering that the first one is nearly 3 hours long, I can't help but believe that there's some substance to it. I can't imagine a 3 hour Star Wars movie. Mark E.
