Day #26 of the 30 Day Film Challenge
Sep. 25th, 2020 09:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatDay #26 of The 30 Day Film Challenge.
A Film You Like That Was Adapted From Somewhere
(And no, we can't pick the one we just did.)
This is my favorite Harry Potter film, which was directed by Alfonso Cuarón, who is among my favorite directors. He improves on the book, and manages to do something the prior directors didn't which is improve on the book and make it something new.
Adaptations are hard to do. You have to please the people who loved the original, and bring in a new audience. Also somehow stay true to the source material. John Le Carre famously stated that he preferred adaptations that veered from his work - he liked to see another point of view. I considered picking one of his, but I can't remember the films adapted from his books that well.
I feel like this is a memory test - and I'm kind of failing at it. Although to be fair, my brain has a lot to deal with at the moment.
A Film You Like That Was Adapted From Somewhere
(And no, we can't pick the one we just did.)
This is my favorite Harry Potter film, which was directed by Alfonso Cuarón, who is among my favorite directors. He improves on the book, and manages to do something the prior directors didn't which is improve on the book and make it something new.
Adaptations are hard to do. You have to please the people who loved the original, and bring in a new audience. Also somehow stay true to the source material. John Le Carre famously stated that he preferred adaptations that veered from his work - he liked to see another point of view. I considered picking one of his, but I can't remember the films adapted from his books that well.
I feel like this is a memory test - and I'm kind of failing at it. Although to be fair, my brain has a lot to deal with at the moment.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-26 01:46 am (UTC)So I chose an adaptation of an adaptation: Magazine cartoon to TV series to movie, The Addams Family
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G388UMkJIBE
no subject
Date: 2020-09-26 02:39 am (UTC)That's a good pick. It was also turned into a musical and then an animated film.
I liked the movie though - perfect casting. I mean it really did have perfect casting.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-26 03:17 am (UTC)This was actually the third attempt to put Hammett's novel on film, the first two sinking without a trace.
The screenplay retained Hammett's cynical snap, but Huston's real accomplishment was the cast of characters he brought into the studio. Bogart's version of Sam Spade was just plain fun, as he played cat and mouse with Greenstreet and Lorre and pushed Elisha Cook all around the set.
(But I have to give a special salute to Mary Astor, who doesn't always get enough credit. Brigid plays her "damsel in distress" character all through the movie, and she never breaks character, even when Sam knows she's lying, and she knows he knows. I swear, half the attraction on Sam's part is admiring her for keeping up that level of bullshit.)
The movie that cemented Bogart as a superstar and started the entire film noir movement. The measuring stick for all detective movies (and adaptations).
https://youtu.be/3a9YU1SVbSE
no subject
Date: 2020-09-26 08:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-26 02:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-26 02:22 pm (UTC)Although I was certain the screenplay was by Raymond Chandler. Apparently I'm wrong on that point. Weird - since I remember seeing Chandler's name in the credits when I saw the movie - but it is possible I confused that with another noir film I saw. (shrugs)
It was made into a movie in the 1930s as well.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-26 02:23 pm (UTC)Well, one popular form of adaptation would certainly be a film adapted from a play, and of the possible choices I had there, I'll pick what I hope to be one of the most obscure and pleasantly outrageous plays that made its way to a filmed version, or at least one that-- unbelievably considering the content-- made it's way to PBS back in 1973, which is where I first saw it. (A commercial DVD was released many years later). I thus present to ya'all:
A selection from Bruce Jay Friedman's Steambath
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVSM-UGJO8s
Wikipedia link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steambath_(play)
Note- doubt it will matter to anyone on my flist, but the youtube clip does contain partial nudity.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-26 02:43 pm (UTC)Apparently it worked the other way around, too! ;-)
This film could have gone so badly, but oh my, did it ever not! As 'kat already noted, just brilliant casting. A classic of the genre, for sure.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-26 10:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-09-27 01:48 am (UTC)