John Copenhaver's "The Savage Kind," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Savage Kind: A Mystery by John Copenhaver.

The entry begins:

So, I’m a big movie nerd. I’ve taught film to high school students for years. I’m always thinking cinematically, and I’ve had readers tell me that I write cinematically. I care a lot about the texture of my writing and how it creates a circa-1950 noir mood for my story. All successful films begin with a cohesive vision, and that vision is the director’s responsibility. With that in mind, for my fantasy movie version of The Savage Kind, I’ll choose a director who has a distinct and flexible style: the insanely talented David Fincher.

Not only are Fincher’s films—Panic Room, The Social Network, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Gone Girl, and my favorite Zodiac—steeped in gorgeous atmosphere and unforgettable visuals, but also, he understands noir. His visual style of rich yet muted colors, lush shadowy imagery, and precise and elaborate camerawork allow him to shift between opulence and grit seamlessly. He prefers closed framed films in which the heroes—and by extension, the audience—feel predestined, locked into a series of unfolding events. Fincher is neither optimistic nor particularly romantic, and he loves stories with moral gray areas and deeply flawed heroes, which would suit Judy Peabody’s and Philippa Watson’s stories perfectly.

Now the question is: Who will play Judy and Philippa, my clever, complicated, and dangerous teenage girls? For Philippa, the “good girl” with secret passions and a barely repressed desire to manipulate others...[read on]

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The Page 69 Test: The Savage Kind.

My Book, The Movie: The Savage Kind.

--Marshal Zeringue