Films with a beautiful, literate script

[mortalterror]

I don't?!?!?!?!?

Actually, that was the last thing that you didn't know. Now, you know everything.

For those of you who don't know everything, here's a link to my blog with a recommendation of the best films for each year. http://www.online-literature.com/for...og.php?b=12188

[Drkshadow03]

Actually, that was the last thing that you didn't know. Now, you know everything.

Thanks Socrates!

[PoeticPassions]

King Lear gives the 'experimentalists' plenty of scope but audiences should be warned of their extent. A colleague once told me that he went to see a production in which Lear stripped naked and then did hand stands on the stage. At which point a row of uniformed schoolgirls departed with the teacher who was accompanying them.

hahaha... I probably would have departed with them. But I am sure those schoolgirls were never the same...

[KCurtis]

It's amusing that he quotes Jurrasic Park because, although I gave it a wide birth, as I do to all catch the impressionable kids efforts, two different people in their early twenties and not in the least connected, told me that they fell asleep while watching the film. Perhaps the explantions for the over the top computer generated graphics were too long for their attention span. At 54 you are bound to know better but try telling that to a 20+ who has still to learn that he/she doesn't know it all.

I try to put myself back in time when I was 20, that helps. I like young people though- however I find that many may think people my age talk down to them, which I don't ever want to do. Many 20 year olds are smarter than I was at that age. You have to have 20 year old thoughts to get to age 54. We have more in common than many young people think. That's one reason I am here, I like the energy. I still like punk rock-try to keep up with new bands I think are good. I try not to be "stuck" like so many my age.
Okay enough of that. Back to Jurrasic Park. That was not even a well written book, so ofcourse the movie was better! JMO!

[kelby_lake]

As for whether books are written to be films or not, nowadays, they sort of are. If your book is good enough/lucky enough to become a bestseller, chances are you're going to have people interested in making a movie of it.

[Emil Miller]

[QUOTE=KCurtis;1114333]

I still like punk rock-try to keep up with new bands I think are good. I try not to be "stuck" like so many my age.
JMO!

So at that rate, by the time you get to 80 you'll be the oldest punk rocker on the block and will probably sound like Minnie Bannister on this recording.

http://youtu.be/cZIQZZpprHw

[KCurtis]

[QUOTE=Emil Miller;1114344]

So at that rate, by the time you get to 80 you'll be the oldest punk rocker on the block and will probably sound like Minnie Bannister on this recording.

http://youtu.be/cZIQZZpprHw

LOL!!!! In the Nursing Home, listening to the Pixies, everyone else yelling at me to turn it down!!!!

[FranzS]

Literature isn't dogma. As a writer yourself, wouldn't it make you happy to hear that someone took something that they find valuable from your work, even if you didn't necessarily intend it to be taken that way?

[Butting in] I'm not a "proper" writer, but I've had poems published, and I certainly wouldn't be happy if people thought my poems meant something other than what I intended. It would suggest either than I hadn't made myself clear enough, or that the reader hadn't read them properly, or that the reader is so arrogant he doesn't regard my intentions as important. None of these possibilities is flattering to a writer.

The purpose of art is to communicate. There's a word for art that doesn't intend to communicate, and that word is pretentious.

Just as it is frustrating and alienating not to get one's point across in conversation, so it is in writing.

[Veho]

American Beauty has probably already been mentioned. So I'll mention it again. After watching it I always think how it would make a beautiful book if written by the right author. I wonder who would be the best person - alive or dead - for it.

[FranzS]

American Beauty has probably already been mentioned. So I'll mention it again. After watching it I always think how it would make a beautiful book if written by the right author. I wonder who would be the best person - alive or dead - for it.

I was surprised not to see "American Beauty" mentioned in this thread - a genuinely "poetic" film from what I recall.

[Prince Smiles]

I guess it’s strictly not a film script per se, but my vote goes to Oscar Wilde’s, “The Importance of Being Earnest.”

The 1952 production directed by Anthony Asquith, starring Edith Evans as Lady Bracknell, Michael Redgrave as Jack Worthing; and the lady with the most beautiful voice in the all Christendom, the gorgeous Joan Greenwood, as Gwendolen Faifax.

I would have given anything to have just touched the hem of Joan Greenwood’s garment.

She was adorable in the Ealing comedies: Whiskey Galore, Kind Hearts and Coronets, and The Man in the White Suit.

Check out the clip from The Importance. Just listen to Joan’s voice! It is a tragedy in itself when she is sent to wait in the carriage outside by Lady Bracknell.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIxJvENNp4E

[Desolation]

[Butting in] I'm not a "proper" writer, but I've had poems published, and I certainly wouldn't be happy if people thought my poems meant something other than what I intended. It would suggest either than I hadn't made myself clear enough, or that the reader hadn't read them properly, or that the reader is so arrogant he doesn't regard my intentions as important. None of these possibilities is flattering to a writer.

The purpose of art is to communicate. There's a word for art that doesn't intend to communicate, and that word is pretentious.

Just as it is frustrating and alienating not to get one's point across in conversation, so it is in writing.

Thanks for the view point.

Do you like metaphors? Spinning words around? If you write poetry, I'm guessing that you do (and how could you not?). Let's say you write a great metaphor about war. Your intentions are purely centered on war and your only intention was to comment on war. A woman reads your poem, and she has recently suffered abuse. Your excellently crafted metaphor on war speaks to her and she feels that she can apply it directly to her situation. This gives her comfort. Is that frustrating?

[Adolescent09]

I was surprised not to see "American Beauty" mentioned in this thread - a genuinely "poetic" film from what I recall.

This..^^ And Citizen Kane, the quintessential American saga of success and failure, triumph and adversity, youth and elderly decrepitness... Some parts of the script seemed to be pieced together by a bard who is just gauging each character's significance and writing a beautiful story through each of their perspectives.

[FranzS]

Thanks for the view point.

Do you like metaphors? Spinning words around? If you write poetry, I'm guessing that you do (and how could you not?). Let's say you write a great metaphor about war. Your intentions are purely centered on war and your only intention was to comment on war. A woman reads your poem, and she has recently suffered abuse. Your excellently crafted metaphor on war speaks to her and she feels that she can apply it directly to her situation. This gives her comfort. Is that frustrating?

Difficult question without being able to conjure up a concrete example... Because poetry is (or should be IMO) suggestive rather than simply declarative, there are always emotional overtones. Any decent poem about war is, by definition, going to be about violence in general. I'd never set out to write a poem whose "only intention is to comment on war".

The question is whether the reader is making a valid association with her own situation, or whether she is completely misreading the poem and does not realise it is about war at all.

[Prince Smiles]

The film The Lion in Winter has outstanding dialogue, the best I've ever seen in a movie. It was based on a Broadway play and starred Peter O'toole and Katherine Hepburn. The acting is also top notch.

I wholeheartedly agree with you.
There isn't a bad line in this movie.

Katherine Hepburn and Peter O'toole are just brilliant.

Acting debuts for Anthony Hopkins and the unrecognizable Timothy Dalton


My favorite lines:

Prince Geoffrey: I know. You know I know. I know you know I know. We know Henry knows, and Henry knows we know it. We're a knowledgeable family.