British Author Challenge 2022 Wildcard I: Read the movies

Rules are the same as last year: read something, watch the movie or TV show, and compare. Also, feel free to include plays.

Suggestions
To Sir, with Love by E. R. Braithwaite
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
The Madness of George III by Alan Bennett--->The Madness of King George {1994 film}
The Silver Pigs by Lindsay Davis--->Age of Treason
Roth Trilogy by Andrew Taylor--->Fallen Angel (2007 mini-series)
Where Eagles Dare by Alistair MacLean
The Once and Future King by T. H. White--->The Sword in the Stone {1963 animated film} & Camelot {1967 film}
All of William Shakespeare’s plays (There’s a new Macbeth with Denzel Washington coming soon.)
The Wreck of the Mary Deare by Hammond Innes
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
The Venetian Affair by Helen MacInnes
Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh--->Bright Young Things {2003 film}
Sharpe's Adventures by Bernard Cornwell
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson
The Forbidden Territory by Dennis Wheatley
Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem by Peter Ackroyd--->The Limehouse Golem
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Sandman series by Neil Gaiman (The Netflix series is supposed to be out this year.)
Regeneration by Pat Barker (The movie is sometimes called Behind the Lines.)
I, Claudius by Robert Graves
The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
Journey into Fear by Eric Ambler
Lost Empires by J. B. Priestly
Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne-Jones
The Quiet American by Graham Greene
Theatre by Somerset Maugham--->Being Julia {2004 film}
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Maurice by E. M. Forster
Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
Follyfoot series by Monica Dickens
The Mystic Masseur by V. S. Naipaul
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi
Chocolat by Joanne Harris
Noughts & Crosses series by Malorie Blackman
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Edward II by Christopher Marlowe
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
Loving by Henry Green
Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Small Island by Andrea Levy

Great list you have there. I love reading the book/seeing the film and comparing. It always makes for great conversation.

I’ve just started reading Vile Bodies (Waugh is in incredible form and being snarky from the very first sentence) and will watch the film (Pretty Young Things) later on.

Amanda, I think we talked about doing something of a shared read for this on? You’re welcome to join me if you’re interested (so is anyone else, of course).

>3 PawsforThought: Sure! I need to finish my current reading, but I can start Vile Bodies in a couple of days.

I just finished reading and watching Howl's Moving Castle. While I loved the book, I was dissatisfied with the movie. They made too many changes. While the bare bones of the story was there, it just felt filled out all wrong. If I hadn't read the book I may have really enjoyed the movie.

>5 fairywings: Sorry to hear you weren’t a fan of the film - it’s a perpetual favourite of mine. But it is definitely different from the book, to the point where id say it’s inspired by it rather than based on it.

>6 PawsforThought: Yes I would have to agree with that. I think my problem was more that the movie was missing the banter between Sophie and Howl.

>5 fairywings: I liked the movie, but yes, it wasn't the book and wasn't near as good. I disliked all the war that got added in.

>3 PawsforThought: I started reading vile Bodies in earnest yesterday and am now almost finished! Waugh's humor is as cutting as ever, and he really created an incisive portrait of celebrity/celebrity culture here. Another thing that strikes me: give all the characters smartphones and make them several orders of magnitude trashier and they'd be right at home on TMZ.

>9 amanda4242: Wow! I've been terrible at reading lately but I've decided to allocate time to read 50 pages a day of Vile Bodies. It shouldn't be too difficult.
I'm only just getting to know the people, but I can already see what you mean by comparing them to "celebs" of today.
I feel like Waugh's humour comes across more strongly in this one than some others I've read. It's apparent from the very first sentence that he's making fun of people, whereas it took me several chapters of The Loved One to be certain that it really was a satire.

>7 fairywings: and Howl should have dark hair!!! I know this for certain as he was one of my teenage crushes...

I am using the Wild Card for this month. I read The Hound of the Baskervilles and watched the TV adaptation with Jeremy Brett.

>12 cbl_tn: ooh, Brett was the best Holmes!

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (1868) was a re-read from nearly 40 years ago, so it felt like a new book to me.

I then watched this 1972 BBC TV series starring Robin Ellis (the original Poldark). Not the most cinematic version, but the acting was good and the script maintained most of the details of the mystery.

>14 kac522: and Robin Ellis was/is my favorite Poldark, mmm.

>15 fuzzi: And did you spot him in a small part (a judge) in the new Poldark series?

>16 kac522: no!

I've only seen snippets of the new Poldark. I do not care for the Ross actor.

>17 fuzzi: Here's an image of the old and new Poldarks as they appeared in the recent series:

>18 kac522: That's kind of cool, but the least flattering image I've seen of either of them.

>19 quondame: Better?

>20 kac522: Much. But Aidan's unshaven face is better with a bare chest than a full suit.

>18 kac522: thanks!

I remember having a crush on Robin Ellis ha.

>23 Caroline_McElwee: yep.

Robin Ellis didn't need to take off his shirt to "wow" me.

This month I finished listening to an audiobook version of David Copperfield, read by Simon Vance.

And last night I watched the above 1999 movie version, starring a young (pre-Harry Potter) Daniel Radcliffe as young David, Bob Hoskins as Mr Micawber and Ian McKellen as the creepy Mr Creakle. But the clear star of the movie was Maggie Smith as Aunt Betsey Trotwood--just outstanding. This is a 3 hour TV movie (in 2 parts) that had to eliminate some characters and subplots, but the performances were all wonderful and felt true to the book.

Crash by J. G. Ballard

Together we showed our wounds to each other, exposing the scars on our chests and hands to the beckoning injury sites on the interior of the car, to the pointed sills of the chromium ashtrays, to the lights of a distant intersection. In our wounds we celebrated the re-birth of the traffic-slain dead, the deaths and injuries of those we had seen dying by the roadside and the imaginary wounds and postures of the millions yet to die.

This book isn't for everyone. It's a story of the violent melding of technology and human sexuality, written with all of the eroticism of a technical manual. It's brutal and vulgar and hopeless, but for those willing to engage with it --and I fully understand why many would not want to--there is a fascinating examination of the relationship between humans and their creations.

Crash {1996 film} directed by David Cronenberg

This movie isn't for everyone. Cronenberg cranks up the nihilism to eleven, but he creates a film that is as hard to look away from as it is to watch. The cast is almost uniformly superb: Elias Koteas disturbs and compels as the charismatic Vaughn; James Spader is captivating as the neophyte entering Vaughan's surreal world of car crash fetishism; Holly Hunter is commanding and assured; and Rosanna Arquette imbues her character with an unapologetic sensuality. The only clunker in the cast is Deborah Kara Unger, who is significantly less life-like than a department store mannequin.

Fun fact: J. G. Ballard greatly admired the film, and actually thought it better than his book.

>26 amanda4242:, such a nice job of summarizing the book. I can't say I appreciated the book when I read it but I will never forget it. I did go on to read other Ballard books and I appreciate his writing. The movie won't be for me. I don't think I could watch it as I can't watch violence tho I can read it.

>27 Kristelh: Thanks! That book is hard to summarize without going to some really weird places. I have to be in just the right mood to read Ballard's speculative fiction and really don't recommend it for everyone, but Empire of the Sun and Miracles of Life are both excellent books that will appeal to a wider audience.

As for the movie, I wouldn't call it violent. The budget wasn't large enough for huge, explosive car crashes--not that I think Cronenberg would have gone for them even if he'd had the money--so it's very much about the characters. The characters do carry the physical trauma of having gone through multiple crashes, but it's the nature of the beast that these wounds are shown as a kind of beautiful melding of human and machine rather than marks of violence.

>26 amanda4242: It's a while since I read any Ballard. He needs a revisit. I have his complete short stories in two volumes. Maybe an autumn project Amanda.

I'm enjoying reading Where Eagles Dare, though I've never seen the movie.

>30 fuzzi: I enjoyed the movie but have never read the book.

>31 amanda4242: well, give it a try! :)

I read Twelfth Night:


and then watched this 1988 production, directed by Kenneth Branagh. Great music by Patrick Doyle, with a theme composed by Paul McCartney:

I watched several book-to-movie adaptations this month.

Since I re-read North and South in June, I started out July with the 1975 BBC miniseries of North and South starring Patrick Stewart, which I had never seen:

Yes, THAT Patrick Stewart, who unfortunately could not save this production from utter boringness. And I love this book. And I like Stewart. But it was so, so dull, dark and just plodding. Plus the most important plot point (Margaret tells a lie) is left completely out of the script, so we have no real reason why Margaret spends the last half of the film brooding. I would say the only decent scene was the very last scene in the movie, which is a love scene, and Stewart was very good here. But unless you are a Stewart fan, skip it.

To cleanse my palate, I watched (for the umpteenth time) the 2004 BBC North and South production with Richard Armitage:


Great cinematography, fantastic script, outstanding performances and unforgettable music, plus Richard Armitage--what's not to like?

-->Side note--why did the BBC make the DVD covers for the 2 N&S productions almost exactly alike???

For Jane Austen July, I watched:


Lady Susan adaptation entitled Love and Friendship, 2016--a wonderful parody of costume drama movies based on the short Austen novel Lady Susan, which was a parody of the 18th century epistolary novel.
Persuasion, 1971--if you can bear the 70's hair-styles, it's a decent adaptation.
Persuasion, 1995--my favorite, with outstanding performances form Root and Hinds, and a fantastic score
Pride and Prejudice, 1980--very good early BBC miniseries, with over-all great performances, an excellent script by Fay Weldon, but a very stiff Darcy.
Pride and Prejudice, 1995--Colin Firth--'nuf said

Finally, I read for the first time and watched this month:

Remains of the Day, 1993--outstanding performances across the board from Hopkins, Thompson, Reeve, Grant, etc., etc. The ending was changed a bit, which sort of bothered me. I actually enjoyed the DVD's "Special Features" interviews the best--included the author, Kazuo Ishiguro, talking about what he was trying to explore in his novel.

In September I listened to Trollope's Doctor Thorne on audiobook. It is the third in the Barsetshire books, and one of my favorite novels of Trollope.

Then I re-watched the mini-series:


Despite a good performance by Tom Hollander as Doctor Thorne, I was not engaged with this film. It felt distant. The scenes were all in large over-decorated rooms, where the people were over-dressed, small and far away; or, in the case of Doctor Thorne's cottage, very dark and dismal. I didn't like most of the screenplay changes to the book made by Julian Fellowes--they didn't seem in step with the story. The book feels so personal and immediate, and this version felt very far away, almost unapproachable.

I've started re-watching the mini-series of Gaskell's Cranford, which I re-read last October:


This production is feeling exactly the opposite to Doctor Thorne. The characters feel warm and accessible. Certainly there are outstanding performances by Judi Dench, Eileen Atkins, Michael Gambon and others. The homes, the costumes, the outdoor shots--all as if you could walk into them today and feel right at home. It was produced by Sue Birstwistle (the producer of the 1995 Pride & Prejudice), with screenplay by Heidi Thomas (creator/writer of the current TV series Call the Midwife). Thomas does an excellent job of seamlessly flowing from one Cranford scene to another, since Gaskell wrote her tales as separate stories published over some months, before being published in book form. I'm loving this re-watch.

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

A real page-turner that's full of adventure and memorable characters. It's a classic that more than lives up to its reputation.

Treasure Island {1990 movie} directed by Fraser C. Heston

This is my favorite adaptation of Treasure Island. It's faithful to the book, shot beautifully on location in Cornwall and Jamaica, and has a killer cast, including:
Oliver Reed as Billy Bones
Christopher Lee as Blind Pew
Christian Bale as Jim Hawkins
and Charleton Heston as Long John Silver

>36 amanda4242: Ah, Oliver Reed--wasn't he the guy who played Bill Sykes in Oliver! ?

The RLS that I enjoyed was Kidnapped--do you know of a good adaptation--there are so many that I don't know where to begin.

>37 kac522: That's him, but I always remember him as Athos in Richard Lester's Musketeer movies.

I haven't actually seen any versions of Kidnapped, but my dad likes the 1959 Disney version and the 2005 mini-series.

>38 amanda4242: Oliver Reed was marvelous in a black comedy The Assassination Bureau. I bought a DVD of it this past year and thoroughly enjoyed it again, after about 30 years.

Book & movie in October:

The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde play (1895). So many good lines!:

Lady Bracknell (to Mr Worthing): To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
*****
Later, in the garden with Cecily, Miss Prism states she wrote a three-volume novel:
Cecily: I hope it did not end happily? I don't like novels that end happily. They depress me so much.
Miss Prism: The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.
*****
Cecily and Gwendolen, having just met, are in the garden; Gwendolen produces her diary:
Gwendolen: I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.

I watched both the 1986 BBC version with Joan Plowright as Lady Bracknell. She was outstanding, but I found that the lines flew by too fast for me to catch them all.

The 2001 film with Colin Firth & Judi Dench (as Lady Bracknell) was fine; it had lots of added filming outdoors, dream sequences, etc., and everyone spoke slowly enough that I was able to catch all the lines. But Anna Massey as Miss Prism and Tom Wilkinson as Mr Chasuble stole the show--they made the film for me.

I also listened to Nicholas Nickleby on audiobook and then watched the 1977 BBC 6-part mini-series. It was fairly faithful to the book, and kept most of the major plot points. I didn't recognize any of the actors except for Patricia Routledge as Madame Mantalini. I thought the performances of the actors who played Ralph Nickleby (Derek Godfrey) and Squeers (Derek Francis) were particularly good.