AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY weighs in at a staggering 828 pages. That is because its author, Theodore Dreiser, is in the words of a critic, “endlessly faithful to common experience” (emphasis on “endlessly”). To read a paragraph from the novel, scroll down to the bottom of this blog.* I did not read the novel cover to […]
Search Results
Search Results for: print to screen
FILM CRITIC Pauline Kael called THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER one of the most terrifying movies ever made. A psychotic fundamentalist preacher hunts and tries to murder two orphaned children to get $10,000 they have hidden. The money was stolen from a bank by their father, who killed two men to get it. The setting […]
SOMETIMES A MOVIE SURPASSES its source material, as PSYCHO does. Sometimes a movie uses its source material as a launching pad, as CABARET does. Then there’s James Joyce’s short story “The Dead” and John Huston’s movie THE DEAD. Rarely are a movie and its source material such well-met equals. My God, this movie is good. […]
IN THE MOVIE CABARET, several people get writing credits: Jay Allen, the screenwriter. Joe Masteroff, author of the book of the 1966 play CABARET. John Kander, composer of the music for the play and the movie. Fred Ebb, the lyricist for the play and the movie. John Van Druten, author of the 1951 play I […]
HERE IS SOMETHING you don’t know about Norman Bates if you have seen the movie but not read the book: Along with his collection of pornography, he owns copies of A New Model of the Universe, The Extension of Consciousness, and Dimension and Being. Something you don’t know about Sam Loomis, Marion’s boyfriend: In the […]
FROM THE BEGINNING, it was a performance piece. A Christmas Carol was published in December 1843. By February 1844, it had three London stage productions. Charles Dickens himself did 127 readings from it. There are more than 20 movie versions. The Wikipedia article on adaptions left out the one starring Barbie and the 2012 gay […]
WUTHERING HEIGHTS IS THE ONLY NOVEL by Emily Brontë, who died in 1848 at age thirty. It has been adapted for the movies nine times (1920, 1939, 1954, 1970, 1985, 1988, 1992, 1998, 2011) and for television at least four times. Bernard Herrmann wrote an opera based on it. Its theme: deny the heart at your […]
David Mitchell, author of CLOUD ATLAS, is apparently happy with how the movie turned out. He should be. The movie—faithful in spirit but unfaithful in many details—does something I would have sworn was impossible: it soars like the book. Film critic Roger Ebert wrote: On my second viewing, I gave up any attempt to work […]
AFTER I SAW the 2002 film version of THE QUIET AMERICAN, I read the Graham Greene novel on which it was based. Then I saw 1958 film version. To see both movies is an odd experience—not good, just odd—because they use the same story structure, the same characters, and sometimes the same dialogue to tell […]
If you spent most of your time watching movies this past week, you might have missed these articles here at Home Projectionist: Art imitates life: Reel History From Print to Screen: A CHRISTMAS CAROL TCM Remembers: the ones we lost during 2012 THE LADY EVE — Funny and Really Not That Funny At All Remakes of Movie Posters from Mondo […]
If you spent most of your time watching movies this past week, you might have missed these articles here at Home Projectionist: The Thrill of the ’70s Leads to Protest Films of the ’80s: The Story of Film “Well, look who’s here!” (part 1): An Alfred Hitchcock Cameo Quiz 10 Things about choreographer Busby Berkeley Video: All 85 Best […]
If you spent most of your time watching movies this past week, you might have missed these articles here at Home Projectionist: From Print to Screen: CLOUD ATLAS WITHOUT WARNING: Noir Without a Budget TCM Classic Film Festival-Update: Four Films Announced The ’20s Get Surreal and the ’30s Get Sound Pale Ale Honors Levon Helm and THE […]
If you spent most of your time watching movies this past week, you might have missed these articles here at Home Projectionist: So Many Stories in “The Story of Film” Tricks & Treats: 31 Nights, 31 Frights, 31 Bites Streaming Surprises #7: Anna Lucasta “But first, a libation”: an Alfred Hitchcock film quiz From Print to Screen: The Quiet American […]
WHEN I FIRST SAW Robert Wise’s THE HAUNTING, which was adapted from Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill House, I had a writerish reaction: how dare they change her book so much? It wasn’t until I saw the movie the second time that I realized how brilliantly the novel had been adapted for the […]
“The Hitchcock 9” have started their U.S. tour. No, it’s a not a rock band. They’re the nine surviving masterpieces from Alfred Hitchcock’s silent years, and they’re coming to a theater near you. The Herculean restoration project by the British Film Institute required a series of daunting tasks — from reintegrating lost footage to tinting […]