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I pretty much agree though I’m not sure I’d trust the fanatics to educate film-makers on what elements of a novel could or should be changed when telling a stor

I pretty much agree though I’m not sure I’d trust the fanatics to educate film-makers on what elements of a novel could or should be changed when telling a story in the very different medium of moving pictures. There are too many purists in the world; I probably was one when I was a teenager / young adult. > you have directors who pride themselves on having never read or seen the original. That is indeed mind-boggling. I’m curious which directors have taken this approach. Also, if they haven’t read the actual source, what do they use as their source instead? The Wikipedia article, an outline written for them by someone else?

russellbeattie 4y ago
Cuarón bragged about never having read Children of Men, which is why I mentioned it.
- Anthony-G 4y ago
  Thanks for the response. While I hadn’t read the novel, I thought Children of Men was an excellent film and your comment had piqued my curiosity of how the film’s story came about. I found the following interview by Film Maker magazine¹: > Filmmaker: How did you become interested in adapting and then making Children of Men? > Alfonso Cuarón: It was when I realized that the premise of the book, the premise of infertility and humanity, could serve as a metaphor for the fading sense of hope that I feel humanity has [today]. It was an amazing opportunity. > Filmmaker: I also read that 9/11 was a motivating factor to wanting to do this. > Cuarón: Definitely. I was trying to cope with the reality we’re living. Even before September 11th things were changing. The big phenomenon of globalization that started becoming so obvious in the ‘90s was really having a lot of repercussions. That was pretty much what I was trying to explore. > Filmmaker: Your adaptation of the novel is quite loose. How did you approach your source material? > Cuarón: Once we decided to do this exploration on the state of things – and you don’t have to go very far to realize that the environment and immigration are pretty much on the top of the list – then we had to craft a story. I had the story I wanted to tell so clear in my head that I was very afraid of reading the book and getting completely confused. I read an abridged version of the book, and Timothy J. Sexton, my writing partner, read the [entire] book. But our whole idea was lets find out what elements are relevant to what we’re doing and lets disregard what we think is irrelevant. I don’t think I’d call that bragging. It seems more like Cuarón had a set of ideas he wanted to explore and the book was a suitable hook on which to hang them. ¹ https://web.archive.org/web/20081009182846/https://www.filmmakermagazine.com/archives/online_features/hopeless_future.php https://web.archive.org/web/20081009182846/https://www.filmm...

russellbeattie 4y ago

Cuarón bragged about never having read Children of Men, which is why I mentioned it.

Anthony-G 4y ago
Thanks for the response. While I hadn’t read the novel, I thought Children of Men was an excellent film and your comment had piqued my curiosity of how the film’s story came about. I found the following interview by Film Maker magazine¹: > Filmmaker: How did you become interested in adapting and then making Children of Men? > Alfonso Cuarón: It was when I realized that the premise of the book, the premise of infertility and humanity, could serve as a metaphor for the fading sense of hope that I feel humanity has [today]. It was an amazing opportunity. > Filmmaker: I also read that 9/11 was a motivating factor to wanting to do this. > Cuarón: Definitely. I was trying to cope with the reality we’re living. Even before September 11th things were changing. The big phenomenon of globalization that started becoming so obvious in the ‘90s was really having a lot of repercussions. That was pretty much what I was trying to explore. > Filmmaker: Your adaptation of the novel is quite loose. How did you approach your source material? > Cuarón: Once we decided to do this exploration on the state of things – and you don’t have to go very far to realize that the environment and immigration are pretty much on the top of the list – then we had to craft a story. I had the story I wanted to tell so clear in my head that I was very afraid of reading the book and getting completely confused. I read an abridged version of the book, and Timothy J. Sexton, my writing partner, read the [entire] book. But our whole idea was lets find out what elements are relevant to what we’re doing and lets disregard what we think is irrelevant. I don’t think I’d call that bragging. It seems more like Cuarón had a set of ideas he wanted to explore and the book was a suitable hook on which to hang them. ¹ https://web.archive.org/web/20081009182846/https://www.filmmakermagazine.com/archives/online_features/hopeless_future.php https://web.archive.org/web/20081009182846/https://www.filmm...