John Le Carré holds forth on the film adaptation of his first novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. Some gems:
The real art of screenwriting is to turn the cow into a bouillon cube.
The last person to sing the praises of a movie is the writer of origin.
If you’re a writer, do watch it all. And if you’re just someone who appreciates a good vocabulary, same.
And at the moment of this posting, the film is free on YouTube.
#thiswritinglife Chatter John le Carré The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
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I am reminded of something Susan Isaacs said when asked her opinion of the casting of Melanie Griffith as the protagonist of Shining Through. In the book, the character is very much like Susan herself, whom I knew in college: a Jewish girl from Queens, dark curly hair, a tad zaftig. None of which describes Melanie Griffith.
Susan’s response: Once I sign away the rights, they could cast Minnie Mouse and there’d be nothing I could do about it.
True that. I’ve heard so many stories just like it. (About Winds of War and War and Remembrance) Mitchum really was horribly miscast. So was Ali McGraw as Natalie and Whositz as Byron and they were just as bad as Mitchum. And then in Part II they changed Natalie to Jane Seymour and Byron to some other actor. I mean… One thing they did better than many many other adaptations is stick to the novels. Possibly because Wouk did such a good job of sticking to the events of World War II, they couldn’t change anything without screwing up a real timeline.
I remember how beautifully cast Sara Paretsky’s Vic Warshawski movie was (Kathleen Turner as Vic!!! How perfect!) and then how horribly they butchered the plot. When I saw the opening credits and the seven screenwriters, all of them male, I wanted to walk out of the theater. And should have. All Sara said was something like “I might have done it differently.” Anne Rice was very upset about Interview With a Vampire and said so but I didn’t see that that got her anywhere. Another writer told me that even a bad adaptation sells more books and for all their sakes I hope its true.