Film and Literature

[prendrelemick]

I've tried Ulysses three times and enjoyed the first 20 pages. Finnegans Wake might be an even better candidate for a hopeless film. I've been able to tolerate a few pages of FW. I like quoting it. Just pick anything and it should work. I figured I might as well learn quantum physics or brain surgery as try to understand the book. The task would be at least possible. However I'm glad Joyce wrote the book.

It is hard going. I think the key is to be aware of the strange/imperfect relationship between written language and the sounds actually used for commuication. This is the passage that got me thinking about it. (I only read it last night.)

"-Stephen stared at nothing in particular. He could hear, of course, all kinds of words changing colour like those crabs about Ringsend in the morning burrowing quickly into all different colours of different sorts of the same sand where they had a home somewhere beneath or seemed to. "



It would also help to have been born in Dublin in the late 19th century.

[YesNo]

It is hard going. I think the key is to be aware of the strange/imperfect relationship between written language and the sounds actually used for commuication. This is the passage that got me thinking about it. (I only read it last night.)

"-Stephen stared at nothing in particular. He could hear, of course, all kinds of words changing colour like those crabs about Ringsend in the morning burrowing quickly into all different colours of different sorts of the same sand where they had a home somewhere beneath or seemed to. "



It would also help to have been born in Dublin in the late 19th century.

That quote sort of makes sense.

I like quoting this one from Ulysses:

--You're not a believer, are you? Haines asked. I mean, a believer in the narrow sense of the word. Creation from nothing and miracles and a personal God.
Joyce, James (2009-10-04). Ulysses (p. 12). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.

This was published in 1922. Later that decade the idea of the universe expanding was first considered. Recently I read that Lawrence Krauss says it came from "nothing". It is amazing how far we have come in a hundred years.

However much that makes sense, here is a sample from the first page of Finnegans Wake: https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/j/joy.../episode1.html

He addle liddle phifie Annie ugged the little craythur. Wither hayre in honds tuck up your part inher.

Can one make a movie out of this? Perhaps. If one has some creatures speaking in this language which one can sort of understand but not quite and then have a normal plot and dialogue above that like what one gets in the movie "Minions": http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/minions/

[free]

I think that it takes a great screen writer and a director to make a movie of a book that is mostly philosofical (like the ones you quoted). There are, also, philosofical movies reminding of such books (Bergman's, for example). Only, they wouldn't be much commercial, I guess. That is why they don't attract movie creators.

Some times ago, I read Clarke's The Space Odyssey, only to try to see if the book is offering more to understand the film. I didn't find it, the movie was made perfectly in accordance with the book, nothing is different.

[prendrelemick]

^ That is a great film.

What usually happens is some writer or production team imagines they can make a classic better by adding sex, violence, or worst of all, current social mores.

[free]

What usually happens is some writer or production team imagines they can make a classic better by adding sex, violence, or worst of all, current social mores.

Maybe because they think it would attract more public. I like the films in which one can sense its creator's admiration for the novel's author.

[Leopard]

I agree that film and literature are closely connected (even silent films have screenplays) and it annoys me how undervalued the screenwriter (not to mention the composer) often is compared to the director. The literary and musical aspects of a film are just as important as the visual in my opinion.