Movies and Books

I hate to talk about TV so much. But it’s not as if I’m successfully fooling people into thinking that I’m not a TV junkie. I caught the second (of four) part of a Masterpiece Theatre production of Jane Eyre. (Jane Eyre is a great book, by the way. If you haven’t read it you really should – it’s got all the darkness of Wuthering Heights but with sympathetic characters. Now that I think of it, I should reread it, I think it’s been about four years since I last read it). This will be the 3rd adaptation of Jane Eyre that I’ve seen and even though I’ve only seen half of the miniseries, I think it may be the best. For some reason this seems to be a hard book to adapt. I wonder what makes it like that. I’ve been thinking a lot about adaptations recently. While I do my lab work I’ve been listening to Gone with the Wind on tape (36 cassettes!). I’ve read that book twice, and now hearing it for the third time I’m struck by how hollow the movie is when compared to the book. And I love the movie, it might even be my favourite movie (and I am aware of all the problems with this book, but it’s not meant to be a historically accurate depiction of slavery in the South) but it’s like someone filmed the CliffsNotes of the novel. The movie is the salient points but there is so much more to the book. It’s a shame someone like Peter Jackson hasn’t come along, resurrected Clarke Gable and Vivien Leigh, and made a 9-hour adaptation of Mitchell’s work. I’d totally watch the Making-Of featurettes on that DVD.