BIG SCREEN ADAPTATIONS - Yea or Nay?

 I do love a cinema trip. Recent events have shown me I'm much more easily pleased by films than I am books. Take my most recent book, Our Story, by the Kray twins and Fred Dineage. Pretty atrociously written, rather transparent in its motivations and intentions, and extremely repetitive. Throw Tom Hardy (x2) into the mix, a great soundtrack, and a tragic love story, and I was professing it as one of my favourite films of 2015. So much so, I raced home to order two books about the Krays in order to feed my newfound obsession. A word of advice: leave it at the film. But perhaps if the book had been brilliant, I would be quicker to attack the film, which got me thinking about the relationship between page and screen - does it matter which one we see/read first, and how does the opinion of one effect the other?

The visual nature of films certainly brings writing to life, as the cliche goes, but I often feel a simultaneous lacking in that films can never fully translate the language used on the page. Watching a film, we may physically hear and see more, but they often don't say nearly as much as their wordy inspiration. Moreover, the visual nature of films that can so give life to your favourite book, can also destroy all your own imaginings and creative ideas taken from that book in the first place - can you relate to the story so well when it's quite clearly Keira Knightley in the role of Elizabeth Bennett, and not yourself as so often imagined? The crucial relatability of books can often be snatched away, and even more often, totally ruined, by some Hollywood director's decisions.

When pondering this, I thought back to some of my favourite screen adaptations, and how much the film matched up to the book...

The Great Gatsby

CONFESSION TIME. I didn't love the book that's been heralded as the epitome of the roaring 20s and Fitzgerald's masterpiece. I don't know what it was - rushed reading, bad timing, something just didn't do it for me and I wasn't wowed. All the more surprising as I usually love books from that era (Edith Wharton is a particular favourite).

Thus, I wasn't as ecstatically excited as most about the film coming out in 2013. One thing I was looking forward to, however, was Baz Lurhman putting his touch on it. I count Romeo and Juliet and Moulin Rouge among my favourite films and couldn't wait to see the cinematic artistry and hear the unpredictable soundtrack that he would inevitably inflict on the story. I won't bore you with the details, I have no doubt most people have seen this, but safe to say I absolutely love this film and can still watch it over and over. The costumes are dazzling, the filming is innovative, and the soundtrack matching Lana Del Rae with Beyonce and Andre 3000 is still one of my favourite playlists. For me, it seems, this book most definitely did need to be brought to life, and Lurhman did it perfectly (Leonardo Di Caprio didn't hurt either).

Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging

I made no promises about the calibre of films/books being mentioned here, so refuse to be ashamed of this choice, or the fact I watched it weekly between the ages of 14 and 20. This film is absolutely priceless, even if you're not a teenage girl on the hunt for her first pull (PULL!) and trying to fill out an angel bra (eg. my 19 year old male flatmate at uni loved it). 

Diary books are always a popular genre for this age, from Adrian Mole to Anne Frank, the diary genre is so relatable and captivating at such an impressionable age. My teenage diaries certainly go through phases of resembling the style of each of my favourite fictional diary-writer and I think they're great for inspiring youngsters to get the pen and paper out.

The worst thing about this film is that they never did a sequel. If you're familiar with Louise Rennison's series, you'll know there's just about 100 books in it so there was so much scope to keep these films going. Alas, the beauty of it seems to be its singularity, I guess overkill can ruin things. I feel the same way about this film as I do my own diaries: deliciously *cringey* (a direct quote from the film right there) but completely addictive and always ensuing hilarity when rediscovered.

Life of Pi

I won't spend too long on this one as I previously wrote about this wonder of a novel, mentioning the film briefly.

I'm not surprised it took a decade for this adaptation to follow Yann Martel's book. Rarely has a book captured my imagination in such a way, creating a film of its own within my mind and remaining so utterly readable through such saturation of imagery over dialogue. The film was a huge cinematic production, and you didn't need your 3D glasses on to see that. Wild animals, raging seas, and colours you couldn't dream up - I was on the edge of my seat the whole time, just as with the book.

Titus Andronicus

Shakespeare adaptations are one of the most popular inspirations for films these days, and I count many among my favourite. When I say my favourites I'm talking about the chick flick style Julia Stiles Amanda Bynes starring ones, obviously. Occasionally, I delve into more serious adaptations. Titus Andronicus, starring Antony Hopkins, is definitely an interesting place to start.

Shakespeare scholars are certainly split on this one, but I think it's such a brilliant introduction to the play, one that loses none of the trauma, linguistic art, or character creation, but that is accessible to the novice playreader/watcher. I have revisited and written about Titus Andronicus countless times, and the images conjured up by this production often help me visualise such violence and horror that the play encapsulates. 

****

As I said at the beginning of this post, I'm much more easily pleased by films, and this is clear through my love of these four very different adaptations. It's worth pointing out, however, that none of these is a book I would call my absolute favourite. With those I'm much more wary. An adaptation of The Golden Notebook, The God of Small Things or even Lolita I would (and have) shied away from. Film adaptations definitely have their place, they can give colour and new light to a story and can also promote and inspire audiences to pick up the original book. But nothing can ever replace the art of language and personal narration that the novel evokes.

Summer Catch-up #2

The Quickening Maze - Adam Foulds

The Golden Notebook remains perhaps my all time favourite book for many reasons, and I've spoken to many people over the past year about mental health issues and how these are finally coming to the fore in news, politics and medical treatment. During one of these discussions, and having mentioned how much I love literature that explores these issues, a friend recommended The Quickening Maze. 

I devoured this in about 4 days on holiday. It's an easy and quick read, but no less hard hitting than it should be. Based in a  19th century asylum, the book explores the relationship between control, power, and treatment that dictated attitudes and responses to mental health. Greed and monetary ambition drives the owners of the asylum, resulting in horrific abuse and disrespect of the patients. The variation of voices and seamless flowing between people's experiences and the natural surroundings of the forest allow the decline of the patients' mental health to come through effectively and movingly. It's hard to know, by the end of the book, what's truth and what's in the characters' imagination, and the reader is left feeling the importance of understanding mental health in order to help people.

Essentially a historical book, Foulds still manages to enlighten opinions of mental health in today's society, conveying the ahistorical personality and behaviour behind the stereotypes of the Victorian asylum

My Brilliant Friend - Elena Ferrante

Two things have become obvious to me about my reading tastes since starting this blog: 1) I can't resist a good bildungsroman (coming of age novel) or biography, and 2) I love any kind of story set in a culture other than my own. My Brilliant Friend promised to be both these things, and was raved about here and across the pond - we've all seen the New Yorker review. Obviously, I eagerly put it on my birthday list. Just before I started it, I read a somewhat scathing review on The Guardian, but if the New York Review had called Ferrante 'one of the great novelists of our time' it must be worth reading, right?

I was firstly disappointed by the descriptive element, or lack thereof. Ferrante heavily emphasises the setting of Naples wherever she can, with its violence and poverty, but it comes across as rather...superficial. I didn't come away with a sense, or even an image, of the place in which the book is set - one of the main promises that drew me in. The central relationship between Lila and Elena is at times affecting and moving - we can all empathise and relate to complex friendships at any age, and their growth through adolescence, together and singly, was the highlight of the book. 

Being a trilogy, I was expecting to want to pick up the next instalment almost immediately. And I did...for about five minutes. Since finishing the book, I can barely remember the characters' names, and look back on it as rather 1 dimensional - a shame as with some more in-depth development I could have really loved this book.

***

Other summer reading highlights include: What Maisie Knew by Henry James (intriguingly narrated and very challenging), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (subtle and full of inferences, populated with characters we can all relate to, as I've come to expect from Spark) and Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham (hilarious).