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Can great book become great movie, publishers ask
Frankfurt, Oct 17: From Gone With The Wind to Lord Of The Rings, Hollywood is ever hungry for a good story.
Frankfurt, Oct 17: From Gone With The Wind to Lord Of The Rings, Hollywood is ever hungry for a good story.
And the just concluded world's largest book fair, celebrated the alliance between cinema and literature by fuelling the eternal debate - can a great book become a great movie?
The Frankfurt Fair has long played a vital role for film producers as a treasure trove of new material. Now fair organisers felt it was time to take stock of how closely the two are interlinked.
So publishers weary of wheeling and dealing can now retire to the fair's specially built new cinema and decide for themselves by watching screen adaptations of bestsellers.
Another Frankfurt cinema staged a CLIC (Celebrating Literature in Cinema) festival while a third showed great Russian classics. Hollywood and Literature, once uneasy bedmates, have recognised how much they need each other in an age when good storytelling means big money for both of them.
"They are worlds that you can put together. It is a difficult but a happy marriage," said the book fair's project manager Katharina Werdnik whose programme also included a string of panel discussions about cinema and books.
"Yes, I think you can make great films out of great books," she told Reuters.
The rich and glorious tradition stretches from East of Eden and To Kill a Mockingbird through to The Exorcist and The Godfather.
"We have such a visual education from television that influences writers. Most writers today are already thinking in their head the book has to be a film even if they say No, that is not true."
And, citing such complex novels as The English Patient and The Naked Lunch, she said "You can always find a way to make a film out of a book. It is never impossible."
For life without both art forms would be so much poorer as French director Francois Truffaut graphically showed with the burning of books in his adaptation of the Ray Bradbury novel Fahrenheit 451.
Bureau Report
And the just concluded world's largest book fair, celebrated the alliance between cinema and literature by fuelling the eternal debate - can a great book become a great movie?
The Frankfurt Fair has long played a vital role for film producers as a treasure trove of new material. Now fair organisers felt it was time to take stock of how closely the two are interlinked.
So publishers weary of wheeling and dealing can now retire to the fair's specially built new cinema and decide for themselves by watching screen adaptations of bestsellers.
Another Frankfurt cinema staged a CLIC (Celebrating Literature in Cinema) festival while a third showed great Russian classics. Hollywood and Literature, once uneasy bedmates, have recognised how much they need each other in an age when good storytelling means big money for both of them.
"They are worlds that you can put together. It is a difficult but a happy marriage," said the book fair's project manager Katharina Werdnik whose programme also included a string of panel discussions about cinema and books.
"Yes, I think you can make great films out of great books," she told Reuters.
The rich and glorious tradition stretches from East of Eden and To Kill a Mockingbird through to The Exorcist and The Godfather.
"We have such a visual education from television that influences writers. Most writers today are already thinking in their head the book has to be a film even if they say No, that is not true."
And, citing such complex novels as The English Patient and The Naked Lunch, she said "You can always find a way to make a film out of a book. It is never impossible."
For life without both art forms would be so much poorer as French director Francois Truffaut graphically showed with the burning of books in his adaptation of the Ray Bradbury novel Fahrenheit 451.
Bureau Report