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Tuesday, August 17, 2004

Whatever happened to the movie of The Corrections?

"Billy" Elliott director Stephen Daldry targets movie adaptation of Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections"

In January 2002, the BBC reported that the same team behind the film adaptaton of Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Hours" - director Stephen Daldry, playright and screenwriter David Hare, and Paramount based producer Scott Rudin (who bought the rights to film the novel with his own money in summer 2001 - before it was published, by Farrar Straus & Giroux) - were set to make US National Book Award winning novel "The Corrections" into a movie.

Mysteriously, the movie has yet to transpire and seems to have been forgotten. Does anyone out there have any idea what stage of production the project has reached?

The following is taken from a review of David Hare's screenplay for the film.
inSCRIPTions Screenplay Review: "The Corrections"

"Adapting Jonathan Franzen’s “The Corrections�? is an act of futility. Trying to fit its meandrous story into a few hours of cinema without an overpowering sense of loss and dissipation is like driving a car through a door and expecting it to not tear down the walls around it.
Franzen’s big, bad, ambitious novel, which reads like a family drama by Wolfe, is somewhat like the modern-day “Moby-Dick�?: you’re supposed to have read it, and if you haven’t, you lie and say you did. The book, which reveals the tale of the dysfunctional Lambert clan, is at times painfully beautiful and insightful, at times staggeringly pretentious, and manages to make the family’s story represent America in the ‘90s.
Its adaptation, by David Hare (“The Hours,�? “The Blue Room�?), a veteran screenwriter, director and playwright, is a translation by subtraction. Hare, displaying not even an ounce of understanding for the original work, melts down Franzen’s plot, hacks at large sections of it, keeps the basic spine, and presents a work as hollow, emotionless and impersonal as the book was vibrant, involving and vigorous.
The bottom line is this: as hard as it might be, as great as the work is, as much as you want to see it come to life, sometimes books should remain books. Sometimes letting a book exist as a book is the best gift you can give it. With sprawling tales rendering a time and place, and with lengths and depths unmatched by any movie, novels like “The Corrections,�? “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay,�? “Freedomland,�? “The Bonfire of the Vanities,�? and “A Man in Full�? should stay as words on a page. To turn them into movies is to cripple a favorite child."

Franzen 'regrets' Oprah row, BBC, Monday, 21 January, 2002
Best-selling author Jonathan Franzen told BBC HARDtalk presenter Tim Sebastian all about success, money and why he now regrets his fight with Oprah Winfrey.

Don't look for a reason All the explanations for this war are bogus - Bush only invaded Iraq to prove that he could
David Hare, The Guardian, Saturday April 12, 2003

"Tonight in Jerusalem, next to the Garden of Gethsemane, under cover of war, while the world is not looking, Jewish fundamentalists are moving into an armed apartment block on land which belongs to the Palestinians; in the White House, Christian fundamentalists dream of moving on to murder and mayhem in countries beyond count; and on the stony hillsides of Pakistan and Afghanistan, Muslim fundamentalists dream of moving on to murder and mayhem in countries beyond count. The trade union of international politicians exercises an ever more Stalinist grip, moving countries and armies to wars they do not want. Only the people say no."

Salon Brilliant Careers: David Hare - 1999 article examining how the dramatist has reinvigorated theater with plays that are both compelling and successful.

Posted by Nick @ 13:58 GMT

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