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Willa the Wisp; PBS's Condensed Cather Novel: Abridged Too Far

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From: The Washington Post
Date: 20010502
Author:Philip Kennicott

Willa Cather was so dismayed by what Hollywood did to her 1923 novel "A Lost Lady" that she forbade any future cinematic treatments of her writings. That worked until copyright protections ran out, which is why we're now seeing a slow trickle of television adaptations of her early novels, like 1915's "The Song of the Lark," which will be shown tonight at 8 on Channels 22 and 26.

If she could see this oddly truncated treatment, Cather probably wouldn't change her mind about dramatization of her immensely nuanced and painstakingly built novels. At a little less than two hours, this production ...

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