Introduce Yourselves!

[PeterP]

---

DavidScott wrote:
Greetings. My name is David. I enjoy reading literature from this time period. Yet, I have not read Tom Jones before. Additionally, this is the first I've ever participated in an online book discussion.
I'm looking forward to reading what you all have to say.

---

Hi David,

What else have read in the period and enjoyed(or not)?. There is a first time for everything. To tell you the truth - this is first time as on online moderator.

[PeterP]

The film has certainly elucidated some interesting comment. I was thinking about someone’s (was it Italo Calvino?) definition of a classic being a book you should have read but haven’t. Then of some film directors saying that it was always easier to adapt a crappy book because it gave you more to work with – you don’t have to concern yourself with fidelity to the vision or critical estimation of the text you were working with. I don’t think there is any doubt that Tom Jones, as a film, is very important and successful on its own terms – it place in the history of cinema is assured, making it something of a classic in itself. My question is what other important adaptations of classic books can we think of? We can debate how successful a certain adaptation is, but how does a film reflect in more important ways the time it was made in and the ethos of its times?

---

rdm68 wrote:
I saw the film again maybe 3 or 4 years ago, and I too was a little disappointed: it wasn't as good as I remembered it having been when it was first released. It was enjoyable enough, on its own terms. It certainly didn't capture the book, although I'm not sure a film can - or has any obligtaion to - capture a book on which it's based. Film is such a different medium, and does different things from what books do. Just as an opera, say, or a ballet based on a literary source is going to provide a very different experience from the original. It's more an interpretation of the book, or a set of variations on its themes, or a reimagining of the original source.

---

[Choisya]

It is on 2 DVDs Peter - a number of episodes on each - The length is listed as being 313 minutes.

---

PeterP wrote:
Ah, I have never seen it. I will have order it and watch it on your recommendation. How long is it?

Message Edited by PeterP on 08-13-2007 11:45 AM

---

[PeterP]

Thanks much.
-P

---

Choisya wrote:
It is on 2 DVDs Peter - a number of episodes on each - The length is listed as being 313 minutes.

---

PeterP wrote:
Ah, I have never seen it. I will have order it and watch it on your recommendation. How long is it?

Message Edited by PeterP on 08-13-2007 11:45 AM

---

---

[Choisya]

The 1963 film of Tom Jones particularly reflects the ethos of its times because it was then possible to show the bawdiness of the 18th century which was essential to its depiction but which was not possible in earlier eras of the cinema because of censorship. This followed the British relaxation of censorship following the publication and trial of D H Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover in 1960. The 1997 BBC production of Tom Jones has several even more explicit scenes, and nudity. Although some readers in Fielding's day objected to the book's frankness, it was generally well received and I think it reflects a more robust attitude towards life and sex than we have even today. It was this rich seam of English 'earthiness' which existed in then literature and life of earlier centuries that D H Lawrence was trying to tap when he wrote Lady Chatterley's Lover (a much misunderstood novel IMO). If we neglect to appreciate that earthiness and judge films of TJ produced today as too bawdy, or even obscene, then we are failing to understand the ethos of the era they were written in.


Here is another quote about TJ for you Peter:-

George Eliot wrote that 'the author himself seems to draw his armchair into the room and chat with us in all the lusty ease of his fine English.'

---

PeterP wrote:
The film has certainly elucidated some interesting comment. I was thinking about someone’s (was it Italo Calvino?) definition of a classic being a book you should have read but haven’t. Then of some film directors saying that it was always easier to adapt a crappy book because it gave you more to work with – you don’t have to concern yourself with fidelity to the vision or critical estimation of the text you were working with. I don’t think there is any doubt that Tom Jones, as a film, is very important and successful on its own terms – it place in the history of cinema is assured, making it something of a classic in itself. My question is what other important adaptations of classic books can we think of? We can debate how successful a certain adaptation is, but how does a film reflect in more important ways the time it was made in and the ethos of its times?

---

rdm68 wrote:
I saw the film again maybe 3 or 4 years ago, and I too was a little disappointed: it wasn't as good as I remembered it having been when it was first released. It was enjoyable enough, on its own terms. It certainly didn't capture the book, although I'm not sure a film can - or has any obligtaion to - capture a book on which it's based. Film is such a different medium, and does different things from what books do. Just as an opera, say, or a ballet based on a literary source is going to provide a very different experience from the original. It's more an interpretation of the book, or a set of variations on its themes, or a reimagining of the original source.

---

---

Message Edited by Choisya on 08-14-2007 07:48 AM

[PeterP]

Wonderful quote from Eliot, Choisya. It says exactly what I was trying to say and, of course, much better than I could! Lusty ease of his fine English – that is beautiful.




'George Eliot wrote that 'the author himself seems to draw his armchair into the room and chat with us in all the lusty ease of his fine English.'

[rdm68]

My question is what other important adaptations of classic books can we think of?

Here are some other classic books that have been made into films (for better or worse):

The Last of the Mohicans
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Moby Dick
A Farewell to Arms
The Great Gatsby
All the Jane Austen films or made-for-TV series (P&P, S&S, Emma, Persuasion)
Trollope's Palliser series
Moll Flanders
Bleak House
Lord Jim
Passage to India
Women in Love
All the Merchant-Ivory versions of E.M. Forster & Henry James novels
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Les Miserables
The Three Musketeers
War & Peace
Anna Karenina
Zorba the Greek
The Last Temptation of Christ
and, of course, The Bible (directed by John Huston with George C. Scott as Abraham and Ava Gardner as Sarah!)

[PeterP]

From this list (and I haven't seen them all!) I would have to chose the 1939 (?) Hunchback of Notre Dame with Charles Laughton as my personal favorite - 1930's romantic gothic - it had a unique style.

---

rdm68 wrote:
My question is what other important adaptations of classic books can we think of?

Here are some other classic books that have been made into films (for better or worse):

The Last of the Mohicans
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Moby Dick
A Farewell to Arms
The Great Gatsby
All the Jane Austen films or made-for-TV series (P&P, S&S, Emma, Persuasion)
Trollope's Palliser series
Moll Flanders
Bleak House
Lord Jim
Passage to India
Women in Love
All the Merchant-Ivory versions of E.M. Forster & Henry James novels
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Les Miserables
The Three Musketeers
War & Peace
Anna Karenina
Zorba the Greek
The Last Temptation of Christ
and, of course, The Bible (directed by John Huston with George C. Scott as Abraham and Ava Gardner as Sarah!)

---