Saturday, November 23, 2019

Movies from books

Curious to see it, I convinced Laura last night to watch Bertrand Tavernier's Death Watch, a 1980 movie based on D.G. Compton's The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe, recently praised here. The film, made by a respected director and starring respected actors (Harvey Keitel, Romy Schneider, Harry Dean Stanton), clocked in at a snoozy 130 minutes and basically sucked. Not only does the movie not stand on its own, but it messes with the novel's plot in a way that deprives the story of its power and profundity.

We're also watching the latest screen incarnation of His Dark Materials, based on the classic Pullman trilogy. At least the TV series seems to be true to the story line, and the production is nothing if not high-end. It's watchable. But the downfall here is the same as the downfall of the Harry Potter movies: Human kid actors are incapable of capturing the complexity and world-historical gravitas of fictional characters like Harry and Lyra. Or so it seems to me.

It's a cliché that the movie never lives up to the book, but of course that can't be true. Case in point: The Godfather, not to mention Blade Runner. (Full disclosure: I haven't read either book, but seriously...). But by and large the advice is sound: Read the book.

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