Terrill,
Re your comments below:
> That's just not true. In the real world of books and
film, the only
thing a filmmaker owes a novelist is a contract and a check.
If the movie made breaks with the spirit of the contract, the
author (or his estate) is free to sue the filmmakers
afterwards - as is happening right now with Clive Cussler.
But few, if any, producers would have given any novelist the
kind of control Cussler had over SAHARA. I'm sure there was
nothing in the Long Goodbye contracts that promised absolute
(or any, for that matter) fidelity to the source material.
The cost of the rights for a book are miniscule compared to
the cost of making and marketing a motion picture.
Was it not clear that, when I mentioned what a filmmaker
"owes" the shource material, I was talking morality, not
legality? I know that the notion that even the denizens of a
place like Hollywood should behave honorably may be
ridiculously niaive, but there you are.
But morality aside, there's frugalisty and thrift. Why even
buy the material if you don't LIKE the material in the first
place? Why make a movie based on material you have nothing
but contempt for?
> It is a "seller beware" situation. Anybody out there
who wants to
protect their books from the shame of "misadaption" should
just turn down that filthy money when the producers come
calling. And they should leave instructions with their
executors that they never want Hollywood ruining their good
name after they are dead as well.
Yeah, you're right. Why should the executors of a literary
estate assume that the author would prefer any dramatic
adaptations to be faithful? Certainly nothing in Chandler's
past dealings with Hollywood moguls or broadcast execs,
nothing in his letters on the subject, nothing in the
articles he wrote, nothing anywhere in the written record,
would give them any clue about Chandler's feelings in the
matter.
> Maybe he has something to say about all of that as
well. Who said
all art must be generated out of respect?
Fine. If he wants to say it, let him commission an original
script, or write his own script. I'm not talking about
legality here. I know he had the legal right to do with the
book whatever he wanted. But it was dirty pool to make a
movie purporting to be based on Chandler's novel, when he
clearly had so little respect for it.
> (And for the record, I believe you are putting a lot
of words in
Altman's mouth.)
Altman put them into his own mouth. And even if he hadn't,
the film he made makes his attitude manifestly evident.
> I beg to differ. That IS the point
exactly.
It's not the point when the issue isn't artistic worth, but
morality. And I'm talking about morality. What he did by
adapting the book the way he did offends me to the point that
whatever artistic merit the film had (and, frankly, there
didn't strike me as being much) was lost on me.
> As does your opinion to anyone sitting on the other
side of the
aisle, Jim.
Since I'm always right, and not just right, but obviously and
manifestly right (at least whenever I'm speaking EX
CATHEDRA), I must regard any and all who disagree with me
with mystification and puzzlement.
JIM DOHERTY
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