While She Knits - Movies
Aug. 4th, 2012 11:35 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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queensthiefNo time to read the classics? This idea comes from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
1221bookworm :
There are some really good BBC/Masterpiece/similar type movie productions of the classics out there, and as much as I enjoy Charles Dicken's "Bleak House" or Jane Austin's "Pride and Prejudice," there's no way that I could read them, since some days I only get to read for 3 minutes while trying to eat my lunch, and as movies, I get to enjoy them the pain-free way.
What are some of your favorite video adaptations of books? Where should1221bookworm start?
1221bookworm :There are some really good BBC/Masterpiece/similar type movie productions of the classics out there, and as much as I enjoy Charles Dicken's "Bleak House" or Jane Austin's "Pride and Prejudice," there's no way that I could read them, since some days I only get to read for 3 minutes while trying to eat my lunch, and as movies, I get to enjoy them the pain-free way.
What are some of your favorite video adaptations of books? Where should
1221bookworm start?
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Date: 8/4/12 03:43 pm (UTC)My favorites are:
'Pride and Predjudice', with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth, because if Colin Firth isn't in it, it ain't P&P!
'The Importance of Being Earnest' is another awesome book adaptation with Colin Firth in it. I had originally read the play, and thought it was hilarious, and the movie is even better, and very true to the book. It also has Frances O'Connor and Reese Witherspoon in it.
I also like alot of the Charles Dickens and Jane Austen movies. BBC and Masterpiece Theater both make great movie adaptations. Bleak House, which Bookworm mentioned is also great.
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Date: 8/4/12 08:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/5/12 12:05 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 8/5/12 12:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/5/12 02:12 am (UTC)(By the way: I'm re-reading Mansfield Park. Haven't read it for years and years, and then only once, so I didn't remember much about it. But I suspect the reason I *didn't* re-read it was because I seriously want to smack Fanny Price one right upside her overly-weepy, constantly-blushing, wimpy and annoying head. Yearrrghhh!!!! )
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Date: 8/24/12 03:55 am (UTC)I agree with you. I didn't care for that version.
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Date: 8/24/12 03:57 am (UTC)~deirdrej
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Date: 8/4/12 04:07 pm (UTC)Some other great movies:
Victoria and Albert with Victoria Hamilton and Jonathan Firth. Great story about Queen Victoria in her early years on the throne, and her relatioship with her husband, Prince Albert. (It was recently semi-redone as The Young Victoria, but I haven't seen this one, only the old one.)
The Phantom of the Opera for anyone who likes opera and music too. Andrew Lloyd's Webber's version with Emily Rossum and Gerard Butler. (We read the book after we watched the movie, and believe me, the book was torture.)
There's also Nicholas and Alexandria, it tells of the end of the Russian tsars, and it is sad, because at the end they all get shot, but it is an interesting movie, and there is nice music in it.
And if anyone is interested in more recent docudramas, Iron-Jawed Angels is an HBO home movie about the end of the Woman's Rights Movement. This movie really makes the people in the history come alive.
Looking foward to seeing everyone's responses!! :)
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Date: 8/5/12 12:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/4/12 04:15 pm (UTC)The 1985 movie adaptation of E.M. Forster's A ROOM WITH A VIEW is a favorite of mine as well, though watch out for the full-frontal male nudity (brief, and in a totally non-sexual context, so I always forget it's there until somebody comes flapping back to me yelling "YOU NEVER WARNED ME ABOUT THE POND SCENE!!!" and I say, "Ohhhh, right!").
This probably makes me a horrible bad Jane Austen fan, but I liked the Gwyneth Paltrow EMMA and thought Jeremy Northam was the perfect Mr. Knightley. I think the 1995 PERSUASION with Ciaran Hinds and Amanda Root is excellent too, and if you haven't seen the Emma Thompson SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, you should get on that.
And speaking of Emma Thompson, the Thompson/Branagh MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING is not to be missed, even though Michael Keaton's Dogberry is just weird and I have no idea what Keanu Reeves thought he was doing in that film. (Denzel Washington is lovely, though.) Ditto Branagh's HENRY V, though the recent BBC trio of RICHARD II (Ben Whishaw) / HENRY IV Parts I and II (Jeremy Irons) / HENRY V (Tom Hiddleston) are really very fine as well.
And if you're into longer series, the early 80's TV adaptation of James Herriot's ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL is delightful.
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Date: 8/4/12 04:29 pm (UTC)A great (smashing, wonderful, re-watchable) A&E series is Horatio Hornblower (based on the books by C. S. Forester, starring Ioan Gruffudd and Jamie Bamber). I own the complete series and WISH WISH WISH they would continue it at some point in the future...
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Date: 8/4/12 05:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/5/12 12:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/15/12 04:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/4/12 05:22 pm (UTC)(And I totally did not make up imaginary romantic conversations between Hornblower and Captain Sir Edward Pellew. Not at all.)
After watching the series, I went and read several of the Hornblower books, which Megan likes, too. There may or may not be a tribute quote buried in the books somewhere.
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Date: 8/4/12 09:11 pm (UTC)Which makes me think that someone needs to write a scholarly biography of the Annux Eugenides.
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Date: 8/5/12 12:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/6/12 01:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/6/12 04:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/4/12 06:57 pm (UTC)And I start to tear up just thinking about "Non Nobis, Domine". Patrick Doyle, you are killing me here.
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Date: 8/4/12 09:08 pm (UTC)Hornblower also excellent, and more agreement about wishing it would continue...
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Date: 8/4/12 07:51 pm (UTC)Sigh. Such a swoontastic interpretation by Richard Armitage. The things that man can do with his eyes...
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Date: 8/5/12 12:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/4/12 09:01 pm (UTC)And also about All Creatures Great and Small. The people don't necessarily look like I imagined them looking, but they captured the flavor of the books perfectly, and since I usually loathe tv or movie adaptations of books I love, that's a real compliment!
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Date: 8/4/12 05:18 pm (UTC)An old favorite from the '80s is the adaptation of E.M. Forster's A Room with a View, starring the young and gorgeous Helena Bonham Carter (yes, Bellatrix LeStrange herself) and the youngish Maggie Smith (yes, Professor MacGonagall AND the Dowager Countess herself). It is lush, unbelievably romantic and beautiful, with equal parts of amazing Italian and English scenery.
Although people complained that the leads were too old, I still love Ang Lee's version of Austen's Sense and Sensibility starring Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet, and Roger Michel's Persuasion, which is so wistful I wanted to cry throughout it. The BBC remade both of these a few years ago, but while the leads are more age-appropriate, the treatments also seem shallower (they also did a remake of A Room with a View with similar results).
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Date: 8/4/12 05:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/5/12 01:52 am (UTC)and...Sense and Sensibility also fits that category, actually. (The novel suffers from having been converted from an epistolary to a regular novel and that last-minute bit where Wickham shows up to apologize.)
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Date: 8/10/12 12:52 am (UTC)The other two, for me, are East of Eden and What's Eating Gilbert Grape. The Lord of the Rings are also really good adaptations, IMO.
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Date: 8/4/12 05:47 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 8/5/12 12:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/5/12 02:22 am (UTC)The one that's called Eldorado I think is the one (apart from the original) on which the Anthony Andrews one was based.
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Date: 8/5/12 03:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/5/12 04:05 pm (UTC)And if for some, like me, its more convenient to listen to an audiobook rather than read (especially on a computer screen, which makes my eyes hurt after too long)... librivox to the rescue! Here (https://catalog.librivox.org/search.php?title=&author=orczy&status=all&action=Search) are all of Baroness Orczy's books that are recorded.
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Date: 8/5/12 12:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/5/12 02:26 am (UTC)(I sometimes think Orczy was paid extra for each time she used the phrase "inane laugh." I have to say that having Sir Percy be Anthony-Andrews-sized instead of a giant, as he is in the books, makes more sense to me; easier to disguise yourself as a whole bunch of different people if you're normal sized).
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Date: 8/4/12 09:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/6/12 01:54 pm (UTC)You should also watch Little Women, (the one with Wynona Rider and Kirsten Dunst). Best death scene ever.
Too Lazy to Sign in,
Puppeteergirl
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Date: 8/6/12 06:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/6/12 07:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/8/12 06:15 am (UTC)Delayed posting, so someone has now beaten me to these:
Cranford, based on three novels by Elizabeth Gaskell. Very good. The sequel/follow-up Return to Cranford is good, though not as good (I think it was either only very slightly based on Gaskell, or the screenwriters wrote it themselves); for Tom Hiddleston lovers, he is in it.
Nicholas Nickleby (2002). This was a theater release, so can be watched in one night if you aren't in the mood for a miniseries. The same director, who was also the screenwriter, also directed and screenwrote the Gwyneth Paltrow Emma.
Some others I haven't seen listed yet:
Shorter/feature length/can easily be watched in an evening--
Twelfth Night (1996), Helena Bonham Carter and Ben Kingsley. Love this.
Enchanted April, based on the novel by Elizabeth von Arnim. A lovely, gentle film.
Les Miserables (1998), Liam Neeson, Clare Danes. There is at least one other version (maybe more?) that is also good.
Silas Marner (1985), Ben Kingsley is Silas.
Under the Greenwood Tree (2005), based on the novel by Thomas Hardy. Something by Hardy that is actually not depressing.
84 Charing Cross Road. Not one of my tops (think I've only seen it once), but based on a book and pretty decent.
Longish or miniseries--
Little Dorrit (2008). There is also a version from 1988 starring Derek Jacobi, which I think was pretty good, too, but it's been a long time since I saw it, so won't claim that strongly.
Middlemarch (1994).
Martin Chuzzlewit (1994).
David Copperfield (2000), starring a pre-Harry Potter Daniel Radcliffe.
Crime and Punishment (Prestuplenie i nakazanie) (1970) Faithful adaptation, if you can find it, but very long. The actors seemed to capture the spirit and essence of the characters. One caveat: since this is a Russian movie, you'll have to watch with English captions. Since the captions were white and the movie was black-and-white, sometimes when the background was really light the captions would fade into near invisibility and be almost impossible to read. This was on a video tape, though--maybe they would have fixed that problem on the DVD version.
Series--
Jeeves and Wooster, series starring Hugh Laurie and Steven Fry, each episode about 40 minutes. As hilarious as the books.
Brother Cadfael, detective series, starring Derek Jacobi, based on books by Ellis Peters. OK, the books don't really belong in the "classics" category, but still worth watching/reading. Each ep about 75 minutes.
Foyle's War, detective series set in England during WWII. Excellent. I mention it last only because it is not based on a book, but mention in spite of not being book-based because it is that good. Each ep about 1 hr 40 min.
--Handmaiden
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Date: 8/8/12 05:23 pm (UTC)Oh! And while on the subject of British mysteries... BBC's Sherlock is fantastic. I love how closely the writers are sticking to canon, even while cleverly placing them in the modern day. It's one of those things that had incredible potential for being horrific... if they weren't doing it so perfectly!
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Date: 8/13/12 06:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/10/12 12:47 am (UTC)East of Eden This movie is perfection. It manages to crystalise the entire many-hundred-paged Steinbeck book into a short story that gets across the same ideas, but is BETTER. The characters are better, the story is better, and the performances are great. James Dean is fascinating, and then there's a wonderful female character, Abra. The movie allows her character to shine and gives her an importance she never gets in the book. I was touched that the male filmmakers and writers were able to understand a female character so well, and allow her to express herself so honestly. John Steinbeck had a hand in adapting the screenplay, so I think this must be one of the reasons it's so good --as though the author was given a second chance to actually improve on his book itself.
A Room with a View I love this too. It's a little sweeter than the book (although the book is also absolutely wonderful). And it has some very funny scenes. If you like period dramas, please watch it. And if you don't, please watch it. It's like cream and strawberries. :)
What's Eating Gilbert Grape I don't know why this movie isn't more famous. Johnny Depp plays a young man who's stuck in his Iowa town. Leo DiCaprio plays his mentally disabled younger brother. Both of them are really good and the movie manages to condense the story in a way I really like, a little sweeter than the book (which is very bitter and sarcastic), but without being too sweet. :)
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Date: 8/24/12 04:11 am (UTC)Speaking of adaptations that are even better than the book, does anybody else love the BBC (or was it ITV) Flambards? Such a fun series! I'm hoping I'm going to find it on DVD someday...
~deirdrej