READING OR WATCHING?
6.1
57
VOCABULARY
LITERATURE AND FILM
6
Match words in the article with their meanings 1–10.
1
a writer
2
a writer of fiction
3
books about someone’s life
4
a writer of books for other people
5
a person who writes films
6
a person whose job is to give their opinion of
books, plays, etc.
7
the story of a film or book
8
the words spoken in a book or film
9
a new version of a film
10
all the people who perform in a film, play, etc.
7
Work in small groups to discuss the questions.
1
What book should be made into a film?
2
Which actors do you think would be good in it?
3
Is there a film which you think should be remade
because the original was not very successful?
LISTENING AND SPEAKING
8
a
6.1
Listen to four members of a discussion group
(Michael, Jenny, Paul and Erika) talking about the book and
film of
Pride and Prejudice
. Who liked/disliked it? Why?
8
b
Listen again. Which adjectives did they use?
brilliant disturbing dreadful dull
gripping
lightweight moving old-fashioned overrated
riveting shocking tedious thought-provoking
wonderful
9
Complete the following expressions used by the
members of the group. Check your answers in Audio
script 6.1 on page 174. Which express a positive and
which a negative opinion?
1
I couldn't
it down.
2
It’s a real
turner.
3
I's not my
of thing.
4
I just couldn't get
it.
5
I found it
going.
6
I could
to the characters.
7
The film was well
and
me interested.
8
The ending is
.
10
Work in small groups. Talk about a book or film
you really enjoyed and one you didn’t really like. Use
language from Exercises 8b and 9.
actually written by the person themselves or by
a ghostwriter. Films may also be based on short
stories, comic books or stage plays. Each can
cause its own problems.
A biography of a famous individual requires
the film’s director to find the correct actor for
the main character. Daniel Day Lewis earned
an Oscar and great reviews from critics for his
portrayal of Abraham Lincoln. Choosing John
Wayne to play Genghis Khan was not such a
good idea. Short stories may need extra material
added to provide 90 minutes of entertainment.
Making a filmbased on a classic novel, though,
leads tomany problems. First, books tend to
have far more content and characters than
can be successfully shown in a two-hour film.
Therefore, the screenwriters have to decide what
to leave out and how to script the dialogue.
Secondly, Hollywood filmdirectors may feel that
the ending of a book is too sad or ambiguous
for a film audience so they may even decide to
change it. They have to remember, of course,
that a large percentage of the audience won’t
have read the book andmay not understand or
enjoy the film if the screenplay sticks too closely
to the plot of the original novel. Finally, getting
the cast right is vital. Everyone who has read the
book will have a picture of the characters in their
minds. This can cause huge problems for film
adaptations.
One thing the director
may do to avoid such
problems is to update
the story and set it
in the modern day.
Great Expectations,
a novel by Charles
Dickens, was first
filmed in 1934, and
there have been
several remakes since
then, with the 1946
version usually the
critics’ favourite. The
latest version was set
in Victorian England and
received predictable criticism for changing the
story and choosing the wrong cast for some
parts. However, a different version, made a few
years earlier, was set inmodern-day New York.
Although not everyone liked the film, no one
could say that it wasn’t really faithful to the
book or that the wrong actors had been chosen.
Changing the time and place of the actionmade
such criticism irrelevant. This was the director’s
own version of the story, not the novelist’s.
Many films are based on novels,
although the audience may often be
unaware of the fact. However, when
producers, directors and screenwriters
get together to plan an adaptation of
a classic novel, they know that many
people in the audience will be ardent
fans of the book they are basing their
filmon and will be highly critical of
anything that they believe is not up
to the standards set by the original
author.
It isn’t only novels that are turned into
films. There are also adaptations of
non-fiction books such as biographies
and autobiographies, whether
Next week:
Do Androids Dreamof Electric Sheep?
…
and how a change of title can make all the difference!
Based on a novel
