Aleathia Drehmer:  Welcome writer's to Virtual Roundtable #3. I will be taking the wheel from Pat on this one, so work with me while I get the kinks out. It seems apparent to me that movies have had a large influence over our lives in so many ways, and have given us inspiration. This week we will be discussing "What are the effects of movies on literature and how have they molded your writing?"

With the high rate of movies being made on the basis of books, do you think that today's writers gear their novels in a way that makes them easily transitioned into film? Do you think that book based films encourage viewers to turn the television off and pick up a book by that author, or have movies taken the place for the need to read?

Have fun with this one everybody!

Miles Bell: I loved Thomas Harris' Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs, then Hannibal was a bit shoddy, then Hannibal Rising seemed specifically designed to be made into a film; short set-piece chapters, no real psychological stuff.

But generally speaking I separate movies from films in my head. The kind of movies I watch, I wouldn't want to read the book they were based on particularly. I watch thrillers, and have a soft spot for rom-coms. And the sort of books I read (mid to late 20th Century American novels) would maybe not be made into films, or certainly not benefit, so I would steer clear.

Haven't helped much, have I?

(I always wondered why "A Confederacy of Dunces" wasn't made into a film. It would've been perfect for John Candy. Too late now, for obvious reasons. Although The Neon Bible was a pretty good film, I saw that after reading the book.)

Michael Grover: I think movies have played a major role in the dumbing down of america. Possably the world, honestly I can only speak for america. I mean how many people are too lazy to read these days. I can't count the strange looks I get because I would do something strange like read. And those that do read are so used to the steady diet of shock & awe, sex & violence that they expect it all of the time. So now we have writers that will write mostly about sex and violence to try to appeal to that crowd. I guess the lazy way is easier than the hard way. It is tough to write what you want these days.

J.D. Finch: Miles, re Confederacy...

It seems there's something about coming of age stories that just don't translate into film. Catcher In The Rye was never a film. Eggers's A Heartbreaking Work (etc.) was going to be made into a film, but somehow the deal fell through.

The one coming of age story that everyone of an earlier generation read -- A Separate Peace -- was made into a film that was a bore.

The only one I can think of right now that was as entertaining as its source was The World According To Garp.

But we have to face the fact that today's audiences want the sort of coming of age flicks that have more to do with coming than any thoughtfulness that might come from gaining wisdom. Anything beyond "don't screw the apple pie" is more than the audience wants to think about.

Aleathia Drehmer: There are many movies in my lifetime that have made me feel extreme emotion....enough to pick up a pen and write, and then other movies that have left me drooling on myself involuntarily for lack of an interesting idea. The films that have impressed me the most are those that use solid imagery to tell the story. I know, it's film...they use pictures....I get it. But some films force feed you everything about a character and tell you how they look, what they feel, they dress them, give them a voice, but they do not let the viewer create a connection with the character through imagination. My favorite part of reading a book is building the layers of a character in my mind. I make my own film every time I read a book, the people live with me until the last word has been read, and then I am left alone in the deepest sense of the word.

There are so many books being turned into films these days that I cannot keep up. The books sound quite good and it is a race for me to read them before the film spoils it for me. Case in point, I watched "Stranger than Fiction" and "Running with Scissors" last month. I will most likely never read those books because I would spend the whole time with a preconceived notion of what is going to happen. It takes the thrill out of cracking the book open to see what happens next. I remember having the reverse experience in high school. I read "The Shining" and loved the book. I still consider it one of the scariest books I ever read, but I hated the movie. It never quite captured the creepy and chilling nature of the book.

I find that the problem with literature and film these days is that most of it is mindless. Those types of works have their place and it can be nice to throw in a fluff piece here and there that doesn't require thought or concentration, but it seems that the majority of what is out there, what is visible, is mentally unchallenging. The world today is a pretty crappy place....war, poverty, racism, murder and a myriad of other problems. People want things that make them laugh, that are easy for their minds. I live in a rural area and this is what we have to choose from. If I don't make the effort to dig deep and spend the time scanning book shelves and Netflix for lesser known gems then I am the one that loses.

Miles Bell: Also, we have to look at the fact that the movie is not the enormous thing it was before. Going to the movies in England is expensive, and when somebody always knows somebody who can get a decent DVD copy of a film before it's been released, almost, it makes it pointless going to see the kind of film that you may have taken a chance on 10 years ago. (Not that I indulge in such illegal behaviour, you understand)

Plus, there's video games which sometime are like films YOU'RE in charge of, and the internet is a huge teat to hang off. All of which, I suppose, will make the movie industry ever more reluctant to make a film that's interesting. Some slip through the net, like Sideways, and Lost in Translation.

But yes, I see film and books as two markedly different entities. I don't even have them in the same bracket as far as art goes.

Ed Churchouse: For me, there's a distinction between "movies" and "cinema." These days, increasingly, movies are one of those weird tools of American/Western cultural imperialism (and what about that product placement? How much does THAT devalue what you're watching as art?). A cattle brand, a boot stamped on the rest of the world saying, "this is how to live."

Cinema's different. Miles gives two good examples in Sideways and Lost in Translation. Sideways, I loved - L.i.T. made me sleep, but I still respected (what I saw of) it as having something to say other than what's on the screen in front of you.

It's not a surprise that a lot of books are written these days with an eye on becoming a film; both your Harry Potter pulp and "real" books. If it works, fair enough. I can't remember the last film version of a book I saw that worked (but I just woke up, so I can't remember my middle name, either).

How much does cinema affect OUR writing?

I know I can use a scene, or a memory of a film, that will evoke something in today's reader. But how long will that impact last? Will it resonate if someone in 100 years' time reads a poem I've written?

Pat King: "I was born a poor black child." So begins the great Steve-Martin slapstick vehicle, The Jerk. I'm possibly a rarity these days in that I grew up with books as much as film in my life. From beginner books like Dr Seuss and Ridiculous Nicolas books, I was a book junkie. I devoured everything from Rohl Dahl and the lesser-known Bruce Coville who wrote books like My Teacher is an Alien and the "Camp Haunted Hills" series. Of course there was the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew and those little hardcover books of biographies. Favorites of mine in the series were Babe Ruth, Woodrow Wilson and Abraham Lincoln.

I guess the reason for this was that my Granny and my Mom were also book junkies and I always got stacks of books to fill my bookshelf.

I was born in late 1980. I had so much media input that I just didn't distinguish them at the time. Like, nowadays, I might feel guilty when I watch a movie, thinking I should read something from my growing stack of unread books. Then, there wasn't any thought put into what I would absorb. It was just a matter of setting.

I sometimes wonder why people don't see movies as an offshoot of literature and drama. I mean, all narrative film starts with a screenplay. We study plays and playwriting in high school and college and yet the screenplay is some sort of degenerate half brother that's never given props. And, unlike photography and painting, there is always the element of time to consider when dealing with literature or film.

Either medium can be a mere diversion. Go into any grocery store and see if any of their book selections are designed to make you think. People buy way more spy and romance novels than serious fiction. It's the same with movies.

I think Ed's division of film into "movies" and "cinema" is pretty similar to the division of "books" and "literature."

There's a huge reason why I'm willing to waste time on "movies" and not read any popular fiction at all: It takes too damn much time to get through a novel. Watching Fantastic Four or Spiderman only takes up a few hours of my life (though with both of those movies, I wished for the hours back. Is it just me or hasn't there been a single blockbuster worth watching this summer? If Transformers disappoints me, I'm going to go postal!)

Anyway, to sum up, I think that if we looked at the artforms of dance, drama, movies, music and literature, we see that all of these are artforms of Time. I don't think this means that we need to consider them as the same artform. I do, however, think that we should look very closely before we decide the superiority of one artform of Time over another.

Aleathia Drehmer: "I need this and this and thats all I need." Ah, yes, "The Jerk" is one of my favorites too. Steve Martin was total genius in that film. I can understand what you are saying about not trying to rank "one artform of time over another" and I do hope I wasn't coming across that way. I guess some artforms are more prominent to me than others. Even if I read or watch or see something that I don't particularly enjoy, I still recognize the effort and time that went into creating it. After all, it was someone else's dream right?

Pat King: God, that whole last paragraph of mine sounded pretentious as hell. I only meant that just because we're attracted to a particular artform, we shouldn't just disregard the validity of others outright. I wasn't responding to anyone in particular, just a holier than thou vibe I get from writers sometimes who are convinced of the superiority of the written word as an artform.

Karl Koweski: I love film. I'd say my love of film is on par with my love of literature. And I think film is just as viable as literature. I think movies like Taxi Driver, Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia, Reservoir Dogs and The Big Lebowski can stand toe to toe with any literary classics. I can't think of a book that could instill the same visceral reaction or match the kinetic energy as something like The Road Warrior. Nor do I think there's a director alive who could capture the nuances of a novel like Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. I do think there's some instances where an outstanding book makes for a pretty outstanding movie. I'm thinking of Wonder Boys, Children of Men, Fear and Loathing..., Sideways. That's the direction I'm coming from, anyway. I've always leaned toward genre rather than the literary. I love me some sex and violence. Sex and Violence isn't new to literature. I recall Shakespeare writing a thing or two about it. All the Greek tragedies I remember in high school had a thing or two to do with sex and violence. I think that's human nature. We love to fuck and we love to bash people over the head. I'd have to disagree with Covertmike. I don't think movies are dumbing down America. America with the exception of a few flashes of brilliance was pretty dumb to begin with. And cinema is just as important in most other countries as it is in America. I mean, Titanic grossed a couple hundred million dollars in Japan and those cats seem pretty sharp. It's just as easy to talk about the dumbing down of American literature. That said, though, we're all colored differently from experience. I'm sure we all have different favorite films and different favorite books and we'd champion our choices til the end. And if this post reads disjointed... it's because I'm disjointed.

J.D. Finch: Stephen King is our most filmed author. What does that tell the writer? That the audience wants shocks, surprises, entertainment on a visceral level. Unfortunately a lot of the movies based on King stuff suck -- maybe the second layer of escapism (film) dilutes the stories somehow, so that it looses real impact.

This didn't happen with H.G. Wells, who, pre-King, was -- I believe -- the most filmed author. And the films made from his books; The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, The Island Of Doctor Moreau, The Shape Of Things To Come, War Of The Worlds were all good. (The original versions.) Wells was considered a "literary" writer, a thinking writer, and for a Science Fiction writer was better respected than those writing genre fiction currently.

As far as audiences of the two times, perhaps with the slower pace of things in the 30's - 50's the viewer could actually relax and engage his brain and open it to ideas while also being entertained.

But as far as screenwriting is concerned -- because I think many writers would love to adapt something of theirs and see their characters, their creations up on a screen 20' high or in HD -- disappointment is almost innevitable. I think of the classic line to the writer from the cigar chomping old-time studio head...or maybe it was from Barton Fink: "If you've got a message, send a telegram."

Aleathia Drehmer: JD, do you think that films can't have a deep message or just that they cannot be materialized on the screen the way they can in books?

Michael Grover: Ah Karl, but may I propose the question if america was already dumb what is keeping america dumb? There are exceptions to everything. Lebowski was an exception. Or Bullworth, there are always exceptions. As far as sex & violence goes, I never got that into Shakespeare. I had an ex that was a Shakespearain actress and I used to get in trouble for falling asleep out of bordom. I just think we can do better than writting for basic emotional reactions. It seems cheap to me.

Pat King: Mike,

I think Karl's point was that either artform can "dumb down."

I have different reactions to films than I do to books. To me, the experience of reading a good novel is like experiencing a dream. I don't know if it is like this for others, but when I read, the images are closer or exactly like the kind of images my mind forms when I dream. Often, films just have too much input, too much to concentrate on. In a good novel, you're concentrating on one specific thing at any one point. There isn't a lot of noise.

Is it possible that the best function for movies is when they accurately reflect reality and the best function for novels is when they don't? Just a thought. Ahhhh, but I could go on....

J.D. Finch: Sorry if I generalized, aleathiad. To be more clear, I was talking about the sort of everyday, star vehicle, happy ending stuff that is fed to John and Joan moviegoer.

There are meaningful films made all the time, but I don't think you will find too many at the Multiplex. By the time a writer/director (auteur?) has made it far enough to get studio money and distribution he has made concessions and watered down his work. Look at John Waters. (No, I'm not using him as an example of films with deep meaning.) Desperate Living, Pink Flamingos, etc. were great, edgy flicks. But after Polyester's success he became another Hollywood's darling and gave us stuff like Hairspray, Crybaby, etc. that were funny and sometimes near brilliant, but not nearly as transgressive as his earlier stuff.

In terms of meaningful films there are those reality based, like Shindler's List, Pollack, Michael Connelly, etc. that have the importance of their subject built-in because history has already declared that their topics are important. I prefer films that are imagination based, like The Hours, which looks at the past and present through (to somewhat borrow Pat King's image above) a dream-like prism. I find historical dramas rather didactic and hard to take sometimes, especially as I know that film makers play fast and loose with the facts. I've become pretty good at being able to smell a soft soap when a film tries to slide it by.

But to answer your question, aleathiad, films are very seldom as interesting (though they can be more exciting, eg, The Shining) as the book they're based on, because of the time factor and also because it has to appeal to a mass of people, whereas a book, unless it is a bestseller, need only address itself to a smaller, more discriminating audience, which is willing to devote more of themselves to it.

There are exceptions, like the film Breakfast On Pluto, based on the book by Patrick McCabe, about a transvestite who on the surface was a somewhat unsympathetic character at the beginning of the film. But by the end the viewer is on his side and sees him as a human being, not the freak we first met. There was no deep meaning there, I guess, but there was deep feeling.

As for films with "deep meaning": does The Trial, directed by Orson Wells qualify? I liked it very much, but it is obviously what used to be called an "art house film". Parts of it reminded me of Pink Floyd The Wall in its surreal depiction of the horrors of bureaucracy and uniformity. Hilariously though, if you search for The Trial at imdb, the first return is Who Framed Roger Rabbit. And that may somehow reinforce my point.

David Lineberger: Movies have influenced books in many ways. The most obvious example of this is the inclusion of soundtrack music in most books. Virtually all of today's major fiction works, and many non-fiction bestsellers, include at least some incidental music during key paragraphs. Although the intended effect is apparently to heighten the reading experience, I find it annoying at best. I do, however, enjoy the subtitles that now come with many foreign language books.

David Blaine: I believe part of the original question was do movies influence your writing. I enjoy movies when they are well made. I especially enjoy movies with great cinematography. Oliver Stone made a movie called U Turn a long while ago. It starred Sean Penn and Billy Bob Thornton. The scenery in this small desert town in Arizona was phenom. Watching film like that is very inspiring. Another one that comes to mind is the scene in American Beauty where the boy shows a home movie of a bag blowing around in the wind. It's like watching a ballet.

These things help inspire the imagery in poetry and prose for me.

So do films that use symbolism, like Lost in Translation. The red blinking lights at the opening, when the plane flies into Japan. And Bill Murray driving by his picture on the billboard, then later, the same picture on a bus driving by Bill Murray. How poetic, without any words whatsoever.

Some of my favorite films, for the above reasons, are All The Pretty Horses, A River Runs Through It, Freida, U Turn, Leaving Las Vegas...It's hard to really form a short list. I like a lot of the Focus Films titles too.

Pat King: See, David makes a great point. I think people forget that the main power of the cinema lies in its images. This may seem obvious, but it's not. Think about all the other noise you get when you watch a movie, particularly in the theater. You get surround sound, shitty dialog, etc. Really distracts from the photography and the visual experience.

Neither film nor literature give you total sensory experience. I don't know if I'd want to go through something like that. Again, I think the power of literature is the power of dreams while the power of cinema is the power of vision.

Such different experiences! Yeah, like I said before, they both deal with bitch/goddess Time but that's where the similarity stops. To me, it's almost like comparing beef to cabbage. Yeah, they're both food, but my how they taste different! Especially if the beef is still alive when you're trying to eat it. Ahhh....but I digress.

Aleathia Drehmer: Since we are getting into imagery favorites, I would like to say that some of the best films I have ever seen have little dialogue. The ones that come to mind are Blue, Ponette, Dreams (Kurosawa), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and Pan's Labyrinth.

There is something about the silence between humans in film that inspires me. The glance across the room, the gentle touch of a hand, the tilting of a head all tell a story and the great part it is the viewer gets to make that up.

This seems as good a place as any to wrap up this topic. Thanks to all that participated and were eager to lend their opinions. Stay tuned for next week's conversation that will be moderated by Pat King on the topic "What constitutes a bad writer?" Thank you to all that continue to read the Virtual Roundtable.

Last update : 22-06-2007 13:52

Average user rating

   (0 vote)

Display 4 of 4 comments