Sunday, March 27, 2016

James Anderson's "The Never-Open Desert Diner," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Never-Open Desert Diner by James Anderson.

The entry begins:
I like movies very much, but where adaptations are considered, I regard them as a sort of translation. If a novel, for instance, is a cranberry, when it becomes a movie it will be something else. A pear, perhaps. It is unreasonable to expect your cranberry to remain a cranberry in something as collaborative and primarily visual as a film. In this respect I regard the director as being as important as the actors. The choice of director will determine, along with the screenwriter, how the story is told, with the director taking the lead from beginning to end.

As a novelist, if you’re lucky, a director will share your vision, though go about realizing that vision in his or her own way. The idea of putting my novel in the hands of a great director is quite exciting because it opens it up to all kinds of possibilities that I cannot begin to imagine. Unlike some novelists, I welcome that imaginative release.

My dream list of directors begins with the Coen brothers, Ang Lee, Frank Darabont, David Cronenberg, Robert Redford, Kathryn Bigelow, Debra Granik, Sofia Coppola, Kelly Reichardt. All of these directors have certain qualities that I believe would result in a creative vision that I would find both different and yet in tune with...[read on]
Visit James Anderson's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Never-Open Desert Diner.

--Marshal Zeringue