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Subj: I'm reminded of an assertion by film critic Joe Queenan ... Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2007 at 10:59:40 pm EST (Viewed 326 times) | Reply Subj: I read it in the last year or so... Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2007 at 10:12:29 pm EST | ||||||
... Who claimed that good books automatically made for bad films, and vice-versa, and used the films of Alfred Hitchcock as an example, by noting that a lot of Hitchcock's best films were made from "penny dreadfuls" that had truly earned that title. If I recall correctly, Queenan's sweeping statement was that good books primarily draw their strengths from characterization and use of language, neither of which he considered well-suited to cinematic interpretations (although the fact that guys like Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith rose to fame due in large part to their dialogue might counter that latter claim), whereas bad books rely primarily on piling plot developments upon plot developments, without really pausing to explain them or address their implications (depressing to see how much this is reflected in current superhero comics), which he believed were much easier to adapt for the screen. And personally, I think he has a point; John Grisham never rose above the level of a formulaic page-turner author, but even the mediocre movie versions of his work are much more watchable than any attempt to translate Moby Dick to film (Queenan himself used Moby Dick as an example, calling it "a great book" whose movie versions have all been "fucking dogshit" in his opinion). And since Alan Moore said that he wrote Watchmen, at least in part, with the specific intent of showing how film couldn't equal comic books ... | |||||||
