Sunday, January 6, 2013

"Film-ifying"



"E. M. Forster is probably best known in recent days, ironically, through the film adaptations of his novels. I say ironically, because during his life, he abhorred the idea of someone film-ifying what he'd intended for print. He refused to let anyone adapt his novels for the screen; and I think his adamance at this made a lot of sense. (If you were an author, would you trust someone else taking what you'd written for a book and making it into something other than a book? Sometimes it just doesn't work out the way you expect.)
     Yet I myself was introduced to his work through film, and as a Forster enthusiast, I fully applaud the efforts of James Ivory and Ismail Merchant and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala in keeping a very loyal adaptation, for Howards End in particular. The Merchant/Ivory/Jhabvala team also did A Room with a View and Maurice; David Lean tackled A Passage to India, and Charles Sturridge, along with Derek Granger and Tim Sullivan, adapted Where Angels Fear to Tread.
     The only novel that remains is The Longest Journey, and then there are the many short stories EMF wrote that still enjoy 'singularity.'"
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You can buy all of E. M. Forster's books here...

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