Books with Movies, Movies of Books

I saw the movie a week after finishing the book. They were both good. Cloud Atlas the book was layered in a very specific way and the musician was actually my favorite part. In the movie my favorite was the Sonmi story. I could tell that the movie was written to honor the book even where it was forced to change many things and leave other things out. You cannot say that about all movies from books. One does not need to read the book to get the movie but I think it helps with some confusion of moving between stories. Also it is a book worth reading particularly style-wise.

There are several books on the list that I've actually seen as movies but have not read and there are also movies I refuse to watch because I want to read the book first. All of the Jane Austen books except for Pride and Prejudice I saw a movie version first. I have also seen and not yet read A Room with a View and Howard's End. At the same time I will not watch One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, A Clockwork Orange, or Norwegian Wood until I have made my way through the covers of those books.

Personally I prefer to leave a bit of time between the books and the movies or I spend the whole movie trying to figure out what was taken out or changed. I actually also just finished Wicked by Gregory Maguire which is now a musical. Despite living in Chicago for six years I never saw the musical. Mostly because tickets are expensive and student giveaways always went too fast. I liked Wicked except for the ending of course and it made me wonder what was in the musical.

I actually have spent a lot of time lately re-reading old favorites. Some of which would make good movies and some of which would be impossible. When books are more internalized and less action/interaction based it makes for poor visuals. I think the reason that the movies of Dune by Frank Herbert was never captured well despite much action was because the magic of the story was in the minds of the characters not in their actions. Dune is a thinking book, actions matter because of the motivations and knowledge of each character.

Fall feels like one of those comforting times of year (if no disaster leans upon you) where you lean on those old favorites. For me the new year is for great Russian novels, the spring for contemporary fiction and non-fiction, summer for YA, and the holidays for dark personal novels.