Between warriors, orcs, dragons and spells, cinema has always had a good feeling with the fantastic. From The Neverending Story to The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, here is the best screen adaptation of incredible books.
According to a certain way of seeing cinema, the big screen should not show us so much the reality that we find ourselves in front of our eyes, but rather a different reality, populated by incredible characters and creatures. It is the idea of those who love fantasy films and fantastic films, where magic is a fact, monsters and fairies run around among humans and the order of things is subverted.
Since its inception, cinema has done everything, including rudimentary tricks and special effects, to make us experience extraordinary stories. Some of these films set in distant times and worlds, or in our world and today, but with something “beyond” inside, have become true classics. And with good reason, because they are among the most popular films of all time.
Table of Contents
A brief history of cinema
Cinematographic art is characterized by the spectacle offered to the public in the form of a film, that is to say of a story (fictional or documentary), conveyed by a medium (flexible film, magnetic tape, digital container) which is recorded then read by a continuous or intermittent mechanism which creates the illusion of moving images, or by continuous recording and playback of computer data.
The cinema was born at the end of the xix th century. To designate the research that led to the invention of cinema, so before the first films in 1891, we speak of precine. It is often said that the inventors of cinema were the Lumière brothers. They themselves did not claim as much and corrected this assertion by recalling that the cinema was the result of research carried out feverishly all over the world, and that everyone had achieved their ends “in a handkerchief”.
In 1891, it was under the leadership of the American Thomas Edison, the inventor of the industrial manufacture of light bulbs and the designer and manufacturer of the phonograph, that his main collaborator, the electrical engineer William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, succeeded in animated photographic shots and their presentation to the public.
Thomas Edison, who became almost deaf during his adolescence, dreams of pairing a phonograph with a machine that would record the image of a singer or an orchestra performing a song or an opera aria. “We could thus attend a Metropolitan Opera concert fifty years later, when all the performers would have disappeared a long time ago”.
It was the English filmmakers who were the first to discover the virtues of cutting into shots and its corollary, editing. The cinema historian Georges Sadoul groups them together under the name of “Brighton school”, and reserves the most inventive of them a deserved tip of the hat: “In 1900, George Albert Smith was still with James Williamson at the avant-garde of cinematographic art ». Others do not hesitate to declare: “While William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, William Heise, Louis Lumière, Alexandre Promio, Alice Guy, Georges Méliès, in short, the inventors of primitive cinema, do not deviate from the habit, everything both photographic and scenic, to shoot a single shot to film a single action in the same place, George Albert Smith, for his part, describes a unique action taking place in the same place, using several shots which are linked together by visual logic alone. What we will later call the technical division, the division into planes of the space and time to be filmed ”.
A brief history of literature
In the first place, we must distinguish between the “history of Literature” and “literary history”. On the one hand, the history of Literature evokes the evolutions of Literature through writers who have marked their centuries by their works or the forms they took. It thus helps literary history via biographies, bibliographies and the establishment of texts.
On the other hand, literary history has a multidisciplinary orientation, that is to say that it is interested in all fields of creation, in everything that led to the conception of the text from its beginnings to’ at its completion, to what justifies the latter and the author’s choices. In addition, Daniel Mornet, French literary critic, indicates International review of education that allows us to “understand” and “taste” the beautiful. Literary history therefore makes it possible to show how literature was constituted and how its particularity, literarity, manifests itself.
In France, specialists trace the emergence of modern thinking on literature to the French Revolution. Literary history as a discipline has sprouted in the early xixth century, being applied first to the Latin letters before carrying on French literature. Gustave Lanson is one of the actors in the movement aiming to make literary studies a scientific discipline with well-defined methodological principles; literary history is at the forefront in this movement. However, the English stream of New Criticism (at its peak in the mid- 20th centurye century) first, then that of the French New Critique(fromthe 1960s), contested the methods proposed by literary history and historical textual criticism.
The controversy over how to teach literary history have been many since its official introduction in 1880. Suppressed for a few years at the beginning of the xxth century, restored in 1925, the discipline has been challenged by many teachers he who criticize its superficial historicism, its paradoxical mixture of scientism and dogmatism and finally its inadequacy to the goals of education, especially secondary education, for lack of critical awareness. Thus, from 1902 Lanson defined the discipline as a scourge for secondary education because it is a school of psittacism.
Best screen adaptation of books
It’s rare to find a film that actually does justice to the original novel, but when it’s well done, a film can even make you love the book even more. Here are some excellent movies based on great novels. Read below and find out which are the best screen movies based on books.
1. 12 YEARS A SLAVE BY SOLOMON NORTHRUP
12 Years a Slave tells the disturbing story of Solomon Northup, a man who, before the Civil War, was beaten and kidnapped and then sold as a slave on plantations in Louisiana. Solomon Northup ( Chiwetel Ejiofor ) is in Washington with the idea of having the possibility of being cast for a show as a violinist. However, the date turns out to be a trap hatched by two criminals and human drug dealers who snatch Solomon’s freedom documents and, in doing so, manage to sell him as a slave. In Louisiana, where his hell as a slave begins, Solomon tastes two kinds of power: on the one hand, the kind William Ford ( Benedict Cumberbatch), on the other Edwin Epps, the last master to whom the slave is sold, and who has a sadistic and cruel streak that transforms Solomon’s life into a real hell.
2. THE 25TH HOUR BY DAVID BENIOFF
The 25th Hour is David Benioff’s debut novel, published in 2001. Director Spike Lee has made a film of the same name, based on the novel, released in 2002, of which David Benioff was scriptwriter and screenwriter. The novel chronicles the last twenty-four hours of freedom of Montgomery “Monty” Brogan, a New York drug dealer sentenced to be locked up in Otisville jail. Monty spends these last few hours with his girlfriend, Naturelle, and with his friends, Frank, a broker, and Jacob, a literature teacher.
3. THE AGE OF INNOCENCE BY EDITH WHARTON
The Age of Innocence is the twelfth novel by the American writer Edith Wharton, published in 1920 in four installments in the Pictorial Review magazine and later collected in volume by D. Appleton and Company in New York and London. With it the author won in 1921, the first time for a woman, the Pulitzer Prize for the novel. The story is set in the world of the New York upper middle class of the 1870s, during the so-called Gilded Age. Newland Archer is a brilliant young lawyer belonging to the exclusive New York firm, a gentleman heir to one of the best families in the city. Balanced and humane, Archer meets – before his combined engagement with the beautiful but harmless May Welland is announced – Ellen Olenska, the 30-year-old estranged wife of a corrupt Polish count and May’s cousin.
4. AKIRA BY KATSUHIRO OTOMO
Akira, often stylized as AKIRA, is a Japanese manga serieswritten and drawn by Katsuhiro Otomo. Originally published in the magazine in the pages of Shūkan Yangu Magajin magazinefrom 1982 to 1990, the work was collected in six volumes by its publisher Kodansha. The work was published in the United States by Marvel Comics under their trademark Epic Comics, becoming one of the first manga works to be translated entirely into English. Otomo’s art is considered amazing and a reference point for both Otomo and manga.
The story takes place in a futuristic post-apocalyptic Neo- Tokyo. The manga describes the efforts of Kaneda, a leader of a gang of young cyclists (Bōsōzoku), political activist Kei, a trio of extrasensory people, and the military leader of Neo-Tokyo, Colonel Shikishima, to stop Tetsuo (his friend, with mental problems, from Kaneda’s childhood) to use his unstable telekinetic abilities with which he wreaks havoc in the city. To this end, they awaken a mysterious individual with similar psychic abilities called “Akira”.
5. ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT BY ERICH MARIA REMARQUE
Nothing New on the Western Front is ahistorical novel by Erich Maria Remarque, pseudonym of Erich Paul Remark, which tells the story of a German soldier during the First World War. The novel was first published in the German newspaper Vossische Zeitung in November and December 1928 and in volume at the end of January 1929. In Italy the novel was censored by the fascist regime which prevented its publication.
Using the nation’s ideals, honor and pride, teachers at a German school persuade their pupils to volunteer to defend their homeland. The protagonist, Paul Bäumer, enlists together with some of his classmates who unfortunately will all face a tragic end. They are all nineteen and they are convinced that they are living a great adventure, that they are destined to become heroes of their homeland. However, with the passage of time, the children realize how useless war is and ask themselves, without really getting precise answers, who wanted to give life to the conflict and for what reason.
Day after day the adventure turns into a tragedy, in which the bonds of support and camaraderie that served to overcome the daily atrocities and difficulties disappear with the death of Bäumer’s companions. The same fate is also reserved for the protagonist. He will die on a clear day, shortly before the capitulation of the German army, now winding down. And the expression on his face at death will be so serene that no one imagines he could have died in an environment as crude as that of war.
6. AMERICAN GODS BY NEIL GAIMAN
American Gods is a novel by Neil Gaiman, winner of prizes Hugo and Nebula. The novel is a mixture of American artifacts, fantasy and other elements of ancient and modern mythology, all revolving around a mysterious and taciturn protagonist, Shadow. It is Gaiman’s fourth novel, preceded by Good Signs (a collaboration with Terry Pratchett ), Nowhere and Powder of Stars. Some of the themes touched on in the book have their roots in the illustrated novels in The Sandman series.
The theory on which the book is based is that gods and mythological beings exist because people believe in them. American immigrants brought with them dwarves, elves, elves and other spirits and gods. But the power of these mythological beings diminished with the decline of people’s faith. New gods have emerged, reflecting America’s obsession with the media, celebrity, technology and illegal drugs, among others.
7. AND THEN THERE WERE NONE BY AGATHA CHRISTIE
Anthony Marston, John Macarthur, Emily Brent, Lawrence Wargrave, William Blore, Edward Armstrong, Philip Lombard and Vera Claythorne are invited for various reasons to Nigger Island, a small island shaped like a black head, by a certain Mr. Owen, owner of the only house on the island. The guests do not know each other, and once they arrive they discover that Mr. Owen and his wife are not there; waiting for them are only the two servants, the spouses Thomas and Ethel Rogers, who, like each of them, have not yet met the kind owners of the villa.
In each of the rooms assigned to guests, a nursery rhyme is hung on the wall which tells the story of ten little blacks who, one after the other, die in different ways. Furthermore, on the centerpiece of the dining room there are the statuettes corresponding to the ten negretti of the nursery rhyme.
8. ANGELA’S ASHES: A MEMOIR BY FRANK MCCOURT
Angela’s Ashes is a book by the writer US source Irish Frank McCourt 1996, published in Italy by Adelphi in 1997. It was translated into 30 languages and has sold over 20 million copies. In 1999 the film of the same name was made, directed by Alan Parker.For this book, Frank McCourt won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize. Born in Brooklyn, New York on August 19, 1930, Frank (Francis) McCourt is the eldest son of Malachy McCourt and Angela Sheehan McCourt. His parents are Irish emigrants who got married because of the pregnancy he was born from. Angela is originally from Limerick, Ireland , and loves music, song and dance. Malachy, from Northern Ireland, is an alcoholic known for his “weird manners” and his fantastic stories about Irish heroes. It is often said that Frankie looks a lot like his father, with the face of a sheepdog and the same “weird manner”. The narrative is from the point of view of Frankie as a child.
In America, the McCourts live in modern lodgings near a park and share a common floor and bathroom with other immigrant families from Ireland, Italy and Jewish communities. Frankie has four younger siblings: Malachy, born in 1931, who is often favored over Frankie for being an attractive and open-minded child; the blond twins Oliver and Eugene, born in 1932; and a little sister, Margaret, in 1935.
9. ANNA KARENINA BY LEO TOLSTOY
Anna Karenina is a novel written by Lev Tolstoy and published in pamphlets between 1875 and 1877. With “Anna Karenina”, Tolstoy ‘s attention turns to contemporary life. In relation to War and Peace, here the sphere of realities and problems is narrowed: it is a novel of family life. Anna Karenina is considered Tolstoy’s most “cinematic” novel, benefiting from numerous screenplays. Unhappy Anna was played by famous actresses: Greta Garbo (1935),Vivien Leigh (1948), Jacqueline Bisset (1985), Sophie Marceau (1997), Keira Knightley (2012).
As in ” War and Peace “, the social framework (about 150 characters) is also widely and carefully investigated here. The issues brought into question, illustrated by the main characters, demonstrated by their destiny, have a different character, less social, more individual, more philosophically nuanced: the meaning and purpose of life, the moral conditions of marriage and family life, the relationship between life and death, between love and happiness. However, the writer’s views extend to a vast social field, including intellectuals, merchants, peasants, etc. In the foreground, however, remains the world of nobility, in which, with underlined moralizing tendencies, Tolstoy wants to highlight the corruption of the worldly world, of the urban aristocracy, which is opposed, in a sharp contrasting effect, the simple, sincere, pure life of the rural nobility, represented by Levin family.
10. ANNE OF GREEN GABLES BY L. M. MONTGOMERY
Anne of Green Gables, is a novel by Canadian writer Lucy Maud Montgomery, published in 1908 and the first in the saga of Anna with red hair. Although it was conceived as a novel for readers of all ages, it has become a classic in children ‘s literature over the years. Montgomery found inspiration for the novel in a note he had written years earlier in which he described the story of a couple who had been mistakenly given an orphaned girl., instead of a boy, but who had decided to keep it anyway. Montgomery also included his childhood experiences in the rural area of Prince Edward Island in the story. The inspiration for the character of Anna Shirley instead was given to her by a photograph of Evelyn Nesbit.
Anna Shirley was born on March 23 at the end of the 19th century in Bolingbroke in Nova Scotiaby Walter and Bertha Shirley, two high school teachers. Unfortunately, after three months both parents die of an infectious disease, and Anna, having no other relatives, is entrusted to Mrs. Thomas, a poor neighbor with her alcoholic husband. The child lives with the Thomas family until the age of 8, looking after the children of the lady, until her husband, falling asleep drunk on the tracks, dies hit by a train. At this point, Anna no longer has a place in the family and is therefore entrusted to Mrs. Hammond, who lives with her husband and her 8 children (including three pairs of twins) in a poor shack by the river. The little girl, an expert in small children, also looks after Mrs. Hammond’s children, until, with the death of her husband two years later, she is entrusted to the Hopetown orphanage.
11. ATONEMENT BY IAN MCEWAN
Briony Tallis, a 13-year-old English girl with a talent for writing, lives on her family’s large country estate with parents Jack and Emily Tallis. Elder sister Cecilia recently graduated from Cambridge University with Robbie Turner, son of the governess of the Tallis family and childhood friend of Cecilia, an extremely bright young man; his studies were paid for by Jack Tallis.
In the summer of 1935, Briony’s maternal cousins Lola and her twin brothers Jackson and Pierrot come as guests of the Tallis as their parents are going through a difficult divorce. Briony’s immaturity and her inability to grasp certain situations that are beyond her understanding, lead her to misinterpret a quarrel between Cecilia and Robbie that she casually witnesses: dragged by fantasy, she becomes convinced that Robbie is behaving in aggressive way towards her sister because of Briony’s idea of patriarchy and the domination that men exercise over women.
At the same time, Robbie realizes that he is in love with Cecilia; after their quarrel he writes several drafts of a letter to her in which he apologizes and expresses his feelings, and then gives it to Briony to give to her sister. By mistake, however, he gives her a discarded version that he had jokingly written, containing obscene and vulgar references, realizing it only when it is too late. Briony reads the letter before passing it to Cecilia despite the instructions not to open it and is shocked.
12. BASTARD OUT OF CAROLINA BY DOROTHY ALLISON
It’s been 27 years since the release of bastard out of carolina, the first semi-autobiographical novel in which Dorothy Allison remembers the childhood spent with her mother, pregnant with her at only 15 years, but above all of the repeated sexual abuse of her stepfather, which devastated his youth.
There is a lot of her in the protagonist, Ruth Anne (Bone) Boatwright, narrator of the novel, called “bastard” for the illegitimacy of her birth, who with sharp sarcasm provides a picture of a society stained with racism and discrimination, even towards of her, considered, with her family, “white trash” ; in Allison’s book each character has stories to tell to explain his vision of the world, and hers is the narration of a world full of contradictions and contrasts, where love and cruelty mix, and male brutality and resilience emerge on everything of women, opposite poles that, however, intersect in an indissoluble way.
13. PSYCHO BY ALFRED HITCHCOCK
Next to the definition of Masterpiece in the dictionary, there is certainly the photo of the Bates. Alfred shows up at the Studios with this book in hand, and they looked at him doubtfully. But Hitchcock is not offended and determined to prove how wrong they were, he shoots the film with the 4 coins they give him. He takes the cameras of Alfred Hitchcock presents to save money, shoots everything in black and white to avoid censorship due to blood, he is persuaded by the composer Bernard Herrmann to put the violins in the shower scene. Alfred believed it: he terrified the audience in the 1960s and created a piece of cinema history.
The film follows beautiful young Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), when she runs into Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins). No spoilers for those who haven’t seen this movie yet, but run to see this show in black and white.
14. SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK BY STEPHEN KING
Those who, in addition to horror films, also love horror books cannot miss these two titles: Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep, and Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories to tell in the Dark. The first is the sequel to The Shining, brought to the cinema by Kubrick, the second is instead the transposition of a series of horror stories. Both titles are perfect for October 31st. The choice is yours whether to enjoy them as a Halloween movie or to dedicate the Witches’ Night to a terrible read!
Scary Stories to tell in the Dark is a children’s book, so it is suitable for a fairly young age group (but with a bit of guts). It was released in 1981 and in the last 40 years it has become a real classic of the genre. Doctor Sleep is more recent, it was released in 2013, and allows us to find out what happened to Danny Torrence, son of the scary Jack.
15. LITTLE WOMEN BY LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
It is the masterpiece of Louisa May Alcott and boasts countless attempts at transposition. There is the classic in black and white with Liz Taylor, there is the more modern version with Winona Ryder, the TV series with Angela Lansbury and Mia Hawke and, finally, the version of Greta Gerwig with Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Laura Dern.
After all, the book Little Women is a cult read for entire generations, the story of the March sisters and of female emancipation, represented above all by the character of Jo, still has an irresistible charm today. Left alone by their father fighting the Civil War, Meg, Jo, Amy and Beth face their fate with courage, sometimes making choices that are decidedly out of social conventions and sometimes accepting that not everyone is willing to defy the norms.
16. INTO THE LABYRINTH BY DONATO CARRISI
Donato Carrisi is never wrong. The writer, beloved in Italy and abroad, has already shown to have excellent qualities as a director on the occasion of the transposition of his novel The girl in the fog and is now ready to do an encore. This time it was the turn of Man of the Labyrinth, a thriller written by Carrisi, to go from page to screen.
The story is very intricate: a girl is kidnapped and disappears for 15 years, only to mysteriously reappear. The family at the time of the disappearance had turned to a private investigator, Bruno Genko, who was obsessed with the case because he could not solve it. This is how he decides to talk to the young woman, who is called Samantha, and who is confronting a psychologist in an attempt to recover the memory about what happened …
The premises of the book are so good that the cast is convinced to return Toni Servillo, former protagonist of The Girl in the Mist, and Dustin Hoffman makes his debut. In the role of Samantha there is instead the talented Valentina Bellè.
17. MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN BY JONATHAN LETHEM
It is one of the most loved books by Jonathan Lethem, the great American writer, who has won many awards with this noir. It is a noir and the protagonist Lionel Essrog, also known as Testadipazzo a man who suffers from Tourette’s syndrome, a condition that occasionally leads him to make strange movements or to speak in a completely disconnected way.
Testadipazzo is very attached to Frank Minna, a mafia gangster to whom he owes practically everything, since when he was a child it was he who pulled him out of the orphanage where he ended up. Minna is killed and Madhead then decides to investigate and find out who killed him. The film version of Lethem’s book is due to none other than Edward Norton, who is both director and protagonist of the film.
18. MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN BY RANSOM RIGGS
Reading Ransom Riggs’ Miss Peregrine ‘s Home for Special Children, you can’t help but think of Tim Burton for a film adaptation. And in fact it was the director himself who directed this film, with a disturbing atmosphere to say the least. The book tells the story of 16-year-old Jacob, who leaves for Wales to investigate the past of his grandfather, who died under mysterious circumstances. The boy will discover the house where his grandfather lived during the Second World War, a house where special children live.
19. THE DARK TOWER BY STEPHEN KING
Stephen King’s passionate project took a long time to write. It is a hugely epic fantasy set in a dying alternate world known as the Mid-World; it (and our universe) is protected by the Black Tower, which is slowly failing. The last Gunslinger (a kind of knightly order in that world) is on a quest to reach the Dark Tower and find a way to save his world. The film, starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey, is not an adaptation, it is a sequel.
Or, not so much a sequel as a continuation. In the novels ( spoiler alert ), the hero, gunslinger Roland Deschain, eventually discovers that he has repeated this quest over and over again, more or less having the same experiences each time. At the end of the novel series, however, a key detail changes as he returns to start over, where the film adaptation begins.
20. ANNIHILATION BY JEFF VANDERMEER
VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy is one of the smartest and scariest science fiction stories of recent years. The film sports incredible talent: Alex Garland adapted the book and directs, and the film stars Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tessa Thompson and Oscar Isaac. But it’s the ideas the story proposes that should excite you, which is why reading the book first is essential.
The film is based solely on the first book of the trilogy, which tells the story of a team of four who enter Area X, an environmental disaster site that has been cut off from the rest of the world. Eleven teams entered before them – including the group’s biologist’s husband – and disappeared. Some members of those expeditions mysteriously returned and most died within weeks of aggressive tumors. Set almost entirely in the frightening and mysterious Area X, the first book is tense and tortuous as the team dies one by one until only the biologist (the narrator of the story) remains. It’s a self-contained story, ideal for a film adaptation, but there are so many things you’ll enjoy more if you’ve at least read “Annihilation” before.
21. A WRINKLE IN TIME BY MADELEINE L’ENGLE
One of the great science fiction classics of all time, L’Engle’s book combines an intelligent understanding of the more complex issues of physics and other sciences and makes it a fun game in the universe as Meg and Charles Wallace Murry team up with a partner of school, Calvin, and three immortal beings named Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which to track down the Murry’s missing father and fight an evil force attacking the universe known as the Black Thing.
Put simply, there’s a reason this book has been continuously printed since 1963, spawned four sequels, and inspired countless discussions. There was a film adaptation in 2003, but it was criticized and L’Engle herself wasn’t very happy with the result. The most recent adaptation directed by Ava DuVernay, on the other hand, received critical acclaim, as did its stars Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon and Chris Pine. Part of the fun, though, is falling in love with the universe that L’Engle created and then seeing those characters come to life, so you should read the book first.
22. READY PLAYER ONE BY ERNEST CLINE
This story of a fractured future in the midst of environmental and economic collapse where the most stable currency and social structure are in a virtual world known as OASIS. Part role-playing, part immersive experience, players use equipment such as VR glasses and tactile gloves to enter this virtual world. The inventor of OASIS left instructions in his will that anyone who could locate an “Easter egg” he encoded in virtual reality would inherit his fortune and control over OASIS. When a teenager discovers the first of three clues to the location of the Easter egg, a tense game begins.
The story is absolutely filled with pop culture and nerdy references, with nearly every single clue, challenge, and plot point a cross-reference to a book, movie, or song. Additionally, the story is a twisted mystery that offers more than surprising development, so reading this before the movie is a requirement.
23. MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS BY AGATHA CHRISTIE
Arguably Agatha Christie‘s most famous mystery, “Murder on the Orient Express,” remains one of the smartest and surprisingly murder resolutions eight decades after publication. In fact, there’s a chance you already know how it ends, even if you’ve never read the book – the twist is that famous.
If you are going to judge whether the adaptation offers adequate suspense, you will need to have a clear sense of the source material. Plus, Christie’s writing is so engaging that you should indulge yourself in experiencing the story for the first time through her original words.
24. The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
The powerful and emotionally powerful story of two sisters resisting the Nazi occupation of France in very different ways is one of the great novels of recent years. Now set for a 2019 release date, The Nightingale is likely to be a great adaptation, the book offers plenty of stories worth absorbing before seeing the story on the big screen.
25. THE HATE U GIVE BY ANGIE THOMAS
The film adaptation of this blockbuster novel by YA, directed by George Tillman Jr. and starring Amandla Stenberg, was met with widespread positive reviews. The novel, however, is a must-read. With its powerful story of a young woman astride her slum and the posh prep school she attends, which sees white police officers shooting her unarmed childhood friend, “The Hate U Give” is more that timely. It’s one of those rare books that combines art with clever social commentary. In other words, it’s meant to be one of those books being taught in schools to generations to come, so the film version is superfluous for conversation just read it.
26. SLEEPING GIANTS BY SYLVAIN NEUVEL
This novel was self-published online after Neuvel received more than 50 rejections from literary agents and publishers. The book received rave reviews from Kirkus Reviews, and took off, winning a nice publishing deal and selling the film’s rights to Sony.
The story begins when a young girl falls through a hole in the ground and discovers a giant hand (literally, the hand of a huge robot). This kicks off a worldwide effort to investigate the hand and locate the rest of the giant, leading to the big question: Will the end result be an incredible discovery that will carry humanity forward or will it prove to be a deadly weapon that will destroy us all? Either way, you’ll want to join in on this when the movie is finally released, so read it now.
27. THE SNOWMAN BY JO NESBØ
“The Snowman” is not the first novel about Detective Harry Hole, but it is one of the best, exemplifying Nesbø’s profound approach to the character, the bleak vision of the human condition and the steadfast gaze at modern day violence.
Reading the book first might seem inviting spoilers, but in truth you will get to know the character better and the character is what this series of gritty noir mysteries is about.
28. VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS BY PERRE CHRISTIN
This film, starring Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne, is based on a long-running French comic called “Valérian and Laureline” released between 1967 and 2010. There is a lot of material here, and if Luc Besson’s films there all they have taught is that he likes to fill in a lot of images and details in his work. In other words, if you want to get a head start on the vast sci-fi universe this film takes place in, read the source material before watching the film.
29. 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU BY GIL JUNGER
You might not know it, but “10 things i hate about you” is none other than the free adaptation of “The Tamed Shrew”, one of William Shakespeare’s first plays. The plot revolves around the insane love that young Cameron, an insecure high school student, has for the beautiful Bianca, one of the most popular girls in the establishment. The only thing is, the young lady’s father will not allow his daughter to go out with a young man unless her older sister does the same. The problem ? The sister in question, Cat, tends to scare the boys away. The dark Patrick (Heath Ledger, mega sexy in leather pants) however dares to seduce her.
30. CAROL, BY PATRICIA HIGHSMITH
Written by Patricia Highsmith, “Carol” tells the story of the budding romance between two women in conflict in 1950s New York. Carol Aird is a middle-class woman in her forties, Therese is a young woman of modest income, many years her junior. Trapped in their lives, will they be able to free themselves through love? The second novel by Patricia Highsmith, the book was published under a pseudonym in the early 1950s and has been censored. Later, the author will devote herself almost exclusively to the thriller.
31. THE GODFATHER BY MARIO PUZO
Francis Ford Coppola’s masterpiece is adapted from a 1969 novel by Mario Puzo, who is also working on the script for the film alongside the filmmaker. The feature film is very faithful to the novel which inspires it, even if the division is somewhat different: we find certain parts, like that on the youth of Don Corleone, in the second film.
32. THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS BY THOMAS HARRIS
Jonathan Demme’s Oscar-covered thriller is the big-screen adaptation of the second installment of Thomas Harris’s tetralogy on Hannibal Lecter. The saga has fascinated the cinema, since other filmmakers have tried to adapt it: before Demme, there was Michael Mann and Manhunter (1986), then in 2001, Ridley Scott and Hannibal. More recently, Gaspard Ulliel donned the mask in the cannibal Hannibal Lecter: Origins evil of Peter Webber (2007).
33. THE IMITATION GAME BY ANDREW HODGES
“The Imitation Game” examines the incredible life of mathematician Alan Turing. In 1940, he was entrusted with a heavy task which could well change the course of history: to pierce the secret of the German encryption machine “Enigma”, deemed inviolable. By successfully breaking this code (used by Nazi Germany to direct its military operations), Alan Turing contributed to the Allied victory in the Battle of the Atlantic and inscribed his name in the Book of Heroes. An effective biopic, the film benefits from Benedict Cumberbatch’s rendition of asocial genius that changed the turn of World War II. The screenplay is taken from a biography of the mathematician signed Andrew Hodges.
34. AMERICAN PSYCHO BY BRET EASTON ELLIS
One of the most disturbing works of the 2000s, by Bret Easton Ellis, also gave rise to a film directed by Mary Harron. Christian Bale plays a Patrick Bateman larger than life, a sort of golden boy made in Wall Street, addicted to trendy places and cocaine. And to the fresh flesh of his victims.
35. TEETH OF THE SEA BY TIM WAGGONER
The first blockbuster in history, this horror film by Steven Spielberg has been hailed by the public and praised by the critics. A small, usually quiet seaside resort finds itself in the heart of the turmoil the day the body of a young vacationer is found excruciatingly mutilated. For the police chief there is no doubt: this carnage is the work of a shark … This film with three Oscars is adapted from the novel by Peter Benchley, a writer who wrote many stories around the sea and of the monsters that inhabit it. Ecologist before the hour, the author regretted the demonization of the shark that the release of the film generated.
Books or movies: which are the best to stimulate your imagination?
Indeed, you may have noticed it around you, the sensitive subject always concerns the relationship with the imaginary. Some say that books make the imagination work more. Others think that films push the boundaries of our brain more than lines drawn on paper. I therefore suggest that you take stock of this competition. Read below and find out why reading is good, and why you should start reading those bestseller books.
In the beginning, there were the books
It is a proven historical fact, the book preceded the cinema. Difficult to believe today as we are used to going to see movies! The book is one of the oldest media in the world. Even before the invention of the printing press (which saved a lot of time for copyist monks who finally discovered what leisure was!), Books and other writings were circulating. Granted, it was limited circulation, and a very small portion of the population could read, but it was a start. Incidentally, I have often thought that the “snob” image of literature came from the fact that, traditionally, writing was reserved for the upper classes of the population.
But over time, the book has become more democratic, as have their cousins the newspapers. The written word began to take up space, and the joint invention of popular literature and serial novels in newspapers created great enthusiasm for the written word. The pleasure of reading was born.
Modern period: the competition of pleasures
The book has always had competitors, starting with music and theater, these two other forms of entertainment which were very popular with the public. But the first real shock wave was the arrival of the radio in homes. Obviously, the first devices were rare and expensive, and not everyone could have them. But with the democratization of radio, it was the first blow to the reign of the entertainment book. It was much worse with the invention of cinema and then television again. The fascination exerted by these two screens quickly devoured the popularity of the book, which has since declined considerably. People read less and less while cinema attendance remains stable. How to explain this?
The screen: a turnkey world
If we try to coldly compare cinema with books, we must recognize that cinema has serious arguments for it: it tells a story, makes you dream of an imaginary universe, presents you with breathtaking images, you surprises, moves you, makes you listen to music while making the characters evolve right in front of your eyes. It is the total entertainment par excellence, the successful crossing of the theater, the novel and the concert with a je ne sais quoi borrowed from the magic show. Cinema is turnkey entertainment. No effort to make: everything is served on a silver platter to the spectator. You just have to walk into the movie theater or sit on your couch, then the movie starts and you have absolutely nothing to do.
The reader, the top athlete
For the reader, on the other hand, there is work. Besides having to hold his book (which, depending on the thickness of the volume can already be difficult), the reader must also exercise the most important muscle in his body: his brain. It is up to him to imagine a landscape, the faces of the characters, the colors of a room, the smells of a flower garden… A reader makes a greater effort than a cinema spectator: he himself is the director. in scene of the unfolding story. He projects inside his head the images of an intuitive film, nourished by his own experiences. A reader brings a lot of himself into a work. This is the reason why our reading experiences are very different from each other, while there are not many different ways of interpreting a movie. There is therefore something very intimate about reading. It also represents a greater effort. The imagination must work, do its part so that history can exist inside our heads. It’s a little more complicated than pressing the button on the television!
It is also thanks to the effort of the human brain that the book will never be really left behind by the cinema. Despite the many technical inventions that make cinema ever more spectacular, there is nothing that the human brain cannot imagine. Our imagination knows no bounds, and in fact, the book will always be ahead of the movies precisely because of that. The cinema is technically limited, while the book does not need a thing to be achievable: it just has to be realistic… and again, this criterion is not obligatory. Think Jules Verne, whose novels everyone thought was delusional fiction. Boats going underwater? What a crazy idea! Rockets to reach the moon? No chance ! Cinema has succeeded in making it possible, many years after the books came out. And even in real life, we finally managed to make those big paper dreams come true. Fiction had paved the way.
Why not read?
The question can legitimately be asked: if some people do not read, (Read More) it is perhaps because they do not have enough imagination? And I don’t have the answer to this question. If the answer is “no”, I would find it very disappointing, and I still find it hard to believe that some human beings can be so devoid of imagination that they cannot even animate a book.
Another hypothesis: some people are perhaps too lazy to read books? There is something patronizing about this question, and yet I think we are getting closer to the truth. When I talk to friends who don’t read or read very little, the same argument keeps coming up: no time. And it’s true that the current pace of life is scary. Everything goes very quickly, and when you come home in the evening, you have only one desire: to collapse on the sofa in front of a TV program that will not require too much effort to follow it. The same goes for the cinema: it’s entertainment that’s easy to access and not too tiring. Here, I would like to emphasize that I am not making a value judgment: I myself sometimes do not read a book at night and watch a movie instead. Not wanting, lazy.
10 Good reasons to read a book
You know those objects with the pages that you placed on the shelf and left there for days, then months and finally years? Here, today I want to give you some good reasons to pick up purchased books that have never been browsed.
At the end of a day in the office, where you have never taken your eyes off documents and e-mails, the desire to have to deal with written words again will not be at the highest level. Yet, just when it seems like reading is too tiring, remember that your eyes need to rest from the light pulses of a screen instead. A good book could become the best alternative to evening zapping.
Reading lowers stress
Not only is a book able to transport you to another place, away from your everyday life, but it does so through written pages and not with the bright colors of the latest Hollywood movie in high definition. Try to make an effort to get through the first paragraph and you will find that the further you go through the story, the lower the level of anxiety and stress you have accumulated throughout the day.
Reading helps you sleep
Precisely because it promotes the relaxation of all the muscles of your body and your eyes, it is a good remedy for insomnia or difficulty falling asleep. If as you flip through the pages, you feel that your eyelids are getting heavier, it doesn’t mean that the story is boring, but that your brain has finally found some rest.
Reading helps you to know yourself better
The characters you meet, especially the more complex ones, lead you to discover something about yourself that you did not know before. They do it by similarity or by contrast, but it is impossible not to be questioned by a person who becomes your travel companion for hundreds of pages.
Reading helps you to empathize with other people
Discovering new characters is a bit like making new friends. And through reading you have the opportunity to really discover them in depth: you are practically in their head. Discovering new personalities and different ways of seeing life will help you to better understand that colleague or friend of yours with whom misunderstandings always arise.
You can read anywhere
Whether you are at home, on the subway, on a train or in the middle of the ocean, you can always leave through the book you have brought with you. No connection problems or dead batteries. The most comfortable pastime of all.
Reading helps to pass the wait
Characters in a book become friends. Friends you can always carry in your pocket. So, while you wait for the train that is always late, or your turn at the doctor, instead of texting on WhatsApp without real content, why not “chat” with your friends in black and white?
Reading extends life
It is not a way of saying, but the result of a study by Yale University, according to which an avid reader will live on average two years longer than those who have read the last book in high school. And why he was forced to.
Reading helps you to speak better
It is not a speech that applies only to your child. Having a more refined and more trained vocabulary (yes, the language must be practiced) will allow you to make a better impression with your boss, with the people you meet for work or for personal reasons. And complex structures of language mean deeper reasoning and thinking. This is why reading is said to broaden the mind.
Reading broadens your culture
Whether you prefer a novel, an essay or a gardening book, when you’re done you will surely know something more than before you opened the book. In itself, knowledge is a great reason to go back to reading.
A book can change your life
Like a movie, or maybe even more, a book can really stay inside you and bear fruit even after years of reading the last page. Maybe a story that seemed trivial to you at a certain period of your life will come back to you after a long time and you will be able to understand it better and discover its most hidden meanings.
How streaming film changed the world
Film streaming has changed the world of theatrical distribution, no doubt about it. What was unthinkable only until a couple of decades ago, due to the technical difficulties of transmission with a too large amount of data, has become the main worldwide distribution channel thanks to realities such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, while cinemas have seen and continues to see a drastic drop in audiences.
Yes, it is true, as the lovers of the big screen say, that a film in the cinema is a very different thing, but obviously we are in an era in which the populations of large urban centers, where the web infrastructures are good, are getting more and more used to the comforts at home, and they have less and less desire to go out for traffic, overcrowding, fear of terrorism, the virus, and who knows what other things. The positive side of the coin, however, is that theatrical cinema distribution has never been democratic while film streaming and online distribution certainly are.
Almost everyone ends up preferring films widely known and advertised by big studios and big festivals, because the real obstacle to this change is the global domination of mass culture, supported by the most expensive advertising media, accessible only to the few who have the budget. necessary. Paradoxically, only the United States, where mainstream culture finds its apex, is there much room for an alternative film culture and for a true critical choice of the viewer, while Europe continues to float in the stagnant waters of the official tradition, recalcitrant to the change, between golden palms and lions that don’t even make much news anymore and are quickly forgotten.
