#Book Adaptations

[inafieldofdaisies]

The Decameron (2024) | Season 1, Episodes 6 and 8 Parallels | Lou Gala as Neifile and Karan Gill as Panfilo

“I can't seem to die without you.”

[bestoftweets]

[sombredancer]

Recent visually beautiful and generally watchable Russian fantasy movies

(because I start forgetting they exist at all) Ironically, all of them are adaptations of books/comics.

I Am Dragon / Он — дракон (2015) This movie is a very free adaptation of the novel "The Rite" / "Ритуал" by Maryna and Serhiy Dyachenko (Марина и Сергей Дяченко). It's a reinterpreting of an ancient tale about a maiden, a hero and a dragon. I don`t like the novel because it's very postmodern, wracks the typical fairytale plot and hurts my escapist feelings by ugly reality, but the movie is pretty fairytale-ish and nice. Firstly, it is visually beautiful and represent Slavic pseudo-medieval lore the way it should have always been in Slavic fantasy.

Secondly, as a love story between a monster and a maiden, it has got A PLENTY of tropes I'm usually looking for in Chinese dramas, so I understand very well why it was pretty popular in Asia.

Thirdly, when I said it's visually beautiful I wasn't joking. The main hero is played not by an actor, but by a male model, who is shirtless all the time (and sometimes pantless) and has a very fit and good-looking body. It's something unbelievable that someone in Russia made a movie to please women's eyes! Really, it's insane!

The folk-rock band Мельница wrote an insanely beautiful song "Обряд" (The Rite) for this movie (more matched to the book plot, though), but it was never used as OST, which is a shame. The song is about a black sheep girl, who is denied by society and asks a dragon to come for her and to take her away, because the dragon is denied by this world just like her. You can listen to it here. The band also has a song "Змей" (The Wyrm) (based on Lev Gumilev's poem), which is more accurate to the plot of the movie: the wyrm kidnaps maidens to make them its wives, but they are all dying during the flight; at the end of the song a hero-knight is ready to shoot it in order to stop it. Listen to it here.

It ends with HE, which is better than the book's obscure ending, so it is pleasure for me to rewatch it till these days.

Major Grom: Plague Doctor / Майор Гром: Чумной Доктор (2021)

It is an adaptation of Russian comic series "Major Grom" by Bubble comics. I am traditionally not very happy with the source material, but it is very good reworked to be the screen play of this movie.

It's very beautifully made in terms of director's, cameraman's and screenwriter's work, which is a rare thing for Russian movies. Also, the actors are young and handsome, especially the villain, which is a rare thing not only for Russian movies, but for the current Western movies, too. It has got a lot of allusions to Russian reality and a lot of beautiful views of Saint Petersburg, the second capital of Russia and one of the most beautiful Russian cities. And it has got some unusual visual solutions that turn it into a comic it should be.

The plot revolves around a mysterious serial killer (kinda bad Batman), a black sheep police officer and Russian Mark Zuckerberg (kind of). Mark Zuckerberg is the best guy of this movie and I like him a lot! Серёёёёжа! 🧡🧡🧡

This movie wasn't popular in Russia because of political situation in the country by the moment of its release (the both sides found out in there something insulting for them and banned it), but even if it has something like that, I honestly didn't pay attention to it. It's just a nice blockbuster with a tragic and handsome villain. The villain also has got his own BL-drama (in the comics they are really lovers, it`s as obvious as it could be shown in a Russian comic).

By the way, the villain is hot, insane, ruthless, sensitive and suffering. How does he contain all of this character treats in one personality? you may ask. He doesn`t. He has dissociative identity disorder, I would answer.

I don`t know if it works by now, but some time ago you could watch this lovely movie on Netflix.

The Master and Margarita / Мастер и Маргарита (2024) This is a loose adaptation of Russian classical novel "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov. I genuinely hate this book, but the adaptation reinterprets it, divides it into very interesting layers and makes it understandable and beautiful.

It`s layered, so it will probably be hard to understand what layer are we currently on if you are not familiar with the original story. The first layer is an ugly Soviet reality, the second layer is a plot of the novel that the main hero is writing, a story within a story. The third layer is the insane intertwining of the first two layers. On the reality layer the Master loses his job and freedom because of friend's denunciation and becomes star-crossed lovers with a married woman. On the novel level he meets devil, who visits Moscow by chance, and the devil gives him and his woman opportunity to live their lives being free from everything that usually tortures people IRL. Somewhere among those layers is a little plot about Jesus and Pontius Pilate.

The movie is visually beautiful. Although it feels pretty anti-Soviet, Soviet visuals of the movie are gorgeous. There were used the Stalin-times concepts of Moscow of the Future, the CGI buildings in frame came from the real architecture projects of those times. The Stalin Empire architecture style and views are typical for Moscow (but as I know, ironically, this all was shot in Saint Petersburg). It seems to me that this movie is heavily stuffed with visual allusions to the Western works: devil's escort looks like bunch of Pennywises, Margarita is Enchantress from Suicide Squad I, the scene of blood dripping is from Blade I etc. Usually, when I see it in Russian movies, it feels like plagiarism because I can recognize the reference but there is nothing except for these references . But here we have got the plot, so the allusions work as allusions and don`t irritate me.

The movie is dark, disturbing, uncomfortable. It really makes you feel as if you watch devil and his escort marching around you; they ravage, kill and destroy everything and you can only breathlessly, helplessly and in fear watch them. The German actor playing devil is insanely good. He stole the movie and I understand why it should have been named Woland (the devil's name) instead of the current movie's name. You may want to watch it, because it's very unusual in terms of plot and visuals experience, especially when you are not familiar with the book.

[thisbluespirit]

[wrenswreath]

Every time someone calls something that was only in an adaptation and not the actual book 'canon' a part of me dies.

[ihonestlydontknowwhattocallthis]

Movies made around the 2010s to 2016 or so have a level of entertainment that cannot be replicated.

They don’t even have to be good (cough cough twilight cough cough) to be entertaining their just really addictive.

The hunger games movies, the hobbit trilogy, the twilight saga, the hangover movies, the Harry Potter movies, the maze runner movies.

This might be because a lot of them are based on books but still, I think it’s also because the scripts are really well developed, even if the writing is bad.

[insanelydeadlybookcollector]

One of my favourite things Once Upon A Time did was skew fairytale, myths, fables, and folklore. This isn't new or even remotely groumdbreaking, especially because the entire premise was adapting these stories. But I like how they did it and how much attention they paid to other retellings and, in a manner of speaking, validated those retellings and interpretations.

By this, I mean, how the writers have harnessed the story world Author plot and storybook existence and shown how in a few oral retellings or translations the gist of the story that we as an audience (and Emma in the story world) know has the bones of autobiographical truth but misses a few crucial details.

I could talk all day about retellings of snow white and Cinderella and Red Riding Hood that the writers of OUaT pay homage to (Red as the Wolf is no where close to being a new take but God they do it well). And then even changing the stories in a way that matches what they do with retellings in a novel way (Regina as the Ursula from Disney anyone? meaning the "real" Ursula can be anyone at all because this audience doesn't actually know Ursula) which serves in the same manner as their nods to existing appropriations and adaptations.

But I think, for me at least, how well they do this in their character of Captain Hook, a literary figure with near nothing specific tying him down and 101 readings because academicians and creatives alike have no consensus on what the hell Barrie was on about.

And from these little glimpses and subtle nods to retellings you can see how the story might have been twisted from autobiographical truth to some of the adaptations we know to the source texts. For example,

1. Hook as the original lost boy - a popular theory in adaptations. We see Killian and Liam in Neverland when he is barely an adult and still naive (sort of) and hopeful, long before his revenge days.

2. Hook as a symbol of adulthood, maturity and aging - for those who read Barrie as an allegory for children rallying against growing up and the only adult cast as a symbol of that, this guy is 300 years old.

3. Hook as the villain - sure thing.

4. Hook as fighting the tyrannical Pan - guess what? We've got that too.

5. Hook as rescuing Lost Boys - got that.

6. Hook as the guy kidnapping or otherwise delivering Pan lost boys - you'll never believe it.

7. It's an Crocodile that takes his hand - Hook calls the guy that took his hand that he's afraid of and hates with a passion a Crocodile.

8. Hook is Pan and vice versa, one grew up to be the other - not quite that. But we have a close enough story in 2 ways - pan/Malcolm and pan/henry.

9. Hook is Peter's father - again, a close enough story is provided that could easily be misremembered a few generations down or mistranslated a few times. Peter is Rumples father.

10. Hook wears red and has a perm - and I really do love this. They drop Blackbeard (the Treasure Island character that Hook was based on [so there's an even better nuance there too, not just in story world building but a nice nod to canon that their story world plot of misappropriations of the oral tradition of bedtime stories and generational stories is entirely feasable]) in Neverland looking exactly like Disney's Hook. Indicating that 'hey a pirate that looks like that is in neverland and well, there's only one of those in the story so it must be Hook' happened at some point.

I'll never get over how good they did that in story plot device of we're an appropriation, but our story is about this one source book existing that's a hundred percent accurate although it doesn't have all the details and somehow this realm is a bit mixed up on the facts.

[melodylsimpson]

Book-to-Movie/TV Adaptations From Black Writers

Did you know that only 160+ movies/shows have been adapted from books by Black authors since 1908? 4 of these were sci-fi/fantasy. Of the 160+ adaptations, 61 are adaptations of 2 books. Meanwhile, in YA alone, 50+ adaptations have been released in the past 20 years, half of which were sci-fi/fantasy. But that's not all.

My findings can be found in the essay, "Dear Hollywood, Where Are the SFF Book-to-Movie/TV Adaptations From Black Writers?" over on Reactormag.com, previously Tor.com.

Also, be sure to check out:

My Spreadsheet of ALL Black Book-to-Movie/TV Adaptations From Black Writers

My Letterboxd List of ALL Black Book-to-Movie Adaptations From Black Writers

Happy Black History Month!

[lizzy-bonnet]

Sad to say goodbye to Michael Gambon, who played Mr. Thomas Holbrook in Cranford, as well as Mr. Woodhouse in Emma (2009).

[inafieldofdaisies]

The Decameron (2024) | Season 1, Episode 6 “A Stony Brook Away” | Lou Gala as Neifile

“What shall we do today?” “I just want to talk... about everything.”

[killerfrostisme]

My heart goes out to all the Shadow and Bone fans. I'm so sorry about the cancelation. I'm not really a part of the fandom but I understand completely, having gone through the same thing 6 months ago with Lockwood and Co. Capitalism has once again shown its ugly side. I hope you guys get picked up by a platform who cares about their subscribers/audience.

Sincerely,

A (still) devastated Lockwood and Co fan

[baberbackbookstack]

what do you mean we're finally going to be able to listen the songs in daisy jones and the six??? what do you mean they're actually going to be real songs we can obsess over??? that's so wild and cool and out of this world. like i was reading the book and i just thought 'they sound like they make great fucking songs i wish i could actually listen to them because i just know they would be great' AND SOON WE WILL ACTUALLY BE ABLE TO LISTEN TO THOSE SONGS

if that isn't crazy and if it doesn't make you smile so hard you should read that book again

[crowleysgirl56]

OMG! David Tennant AND Aidan Turner?! Why was I not informed of this?!

Georgia is right, cannot wait for this one. Also her description of Cuming soon. Apt. Very apt. 😏🥵

[thisbluespirit]

Films watched (1990s): THE WINSLOW BOY (1999); dir. & screenplay David Mamet (adapted from the play by Terence Rattigan). Starring Nigel Hawthorne, Jeremy Northam, Rebecca Pidgeon & Gemma Jones.

"No, not justice. Right. Easy to do justice. Very hard to do right."

[matthew-macfadyen-gifs]

Any Human Heart (2010)

Episode 2

[maddiesbookshelves]

Coraline, by Neil Gaiman & P. Craig Russell (Illustrator)

When Coraline steps through a door in her family's new house, she finds another house, strangely similar to her own (only better). At first, things seem marvelous. The food is better than at home, and the toy box is filled with fluttering wind-up angels and dinosaur skulls that crawl and rattle their teeth. But there's another mother there and another father, and they want her to stay and be their little girl. They want to change her and never let her go. Coraline will have to fight with all her wit and all the tools she can find if she is to save herself and return to her ordinary life.

I've been wanting to read the book for a while, and then during my internship I started reading every Neil Gaiman comics I could get my hands on (minus Sandman and his work for DC). I really love the movie so seeing this version of Coraline was weird, but it helped me see them as two separate things, which was a plus. I've got to admit, I don't really remember my reading experience, I only remember liking it a lot and it making me want to rewatch the movie and finally read the book, haha

French version under the cut

Lorsque Coraline passe une porte dans la nouvelle maison de ses parents, elle découvre une autre maison, étrangement semblable à la sienne (mais en mieux). Au début, tout semble merveilleux. La nourriture y est meilleure qu'à la maison, et le coffre à jouets est rempli d'anges mécaniques volants et de crânes de dinosaures qui rampent et claquent des dents. Mais il y existe aussi d'autres parents, copies conformes des vrais avec des boutons cousus à la place des yeux. Coraline devra employer toute son intelligence et tous les outils à sa disposition pour se sauver et retourner à sa vie ordinaire.

Je voulais lire le livre depuis un moment puis pendant mon stage je me suis mise à lire tous les comics de Neil Gaiman auxquels j’avais accès (sauf Sandman et ses comics pour DC). J’aime énormément le film donc voir cette version de Coraline était bizarre, mais ça m’a aidé à les voir comme deux choses séparées, ce qui est un plus. Je vous avoue que je me souviens pas bien de ma lecture, je me souviens juste avoir beaucoup aimé et avoir eu envie de revoir le film et d’enfin lire le livre, haha