Sunday, March 30, 2008

Forget the book. Where's the movie?

So one of the billion blogs I keep up with (thanks, Google Blog Reader!) is the AustenBlog. Yes, I know: I am a geek. The blog is all about Jane, from books to plays to music to movies.

Anyway, it has this piece of news: "A poll reveals that one in ten British students confess to watching film adaptations rather than reading the books for class assignments."

That sounds about right. I've probably done it, though I can't remember any one time specifically. I think I watched Frankenstein with Kenneth Branagh (one of my many fave Brit actors) shortly after reading the book my senior year of high school, just to make more sense of the crazy novel. Bottom line: I was kinda meh about the book and the movie.

Anyone else want to cop to watching a movie instead reading its original book? It's okay; we won't judge.

Oh, like I said before: If anyone's interested, I've got two film versions of Persuasion and am happy to host a screening...

And remember: Book club meeting coming soon; see the details at right!

2 comments:

Angie said...

From that article, this is also disturbing:

"Two thirds of Britons were also unaware that films such as 10 Things I Hate About You and Clueless were actually adaptations"

I can't say I ever opted for movie over book when it was a class assignment -- but back then the movie adaptations were bound to be as dull as the books! "Grapes of Wrath," anyone? It was made in 1940! There was nary a Colin Firth in sight ...

Doris T. said...

I love "Wuthering Heights" but have to admit to having watched the movie, which is kinda great in its black-and-white glory, before really getting the bare-bones story. I guess it was the equivalent of using the visual Cliffs Notes to jump-start my understanding.