Business, Memoir, Movie

My Movie Business: A Memoir

After two producers, four directors, thirteen years, and uncounted rewrites, the movie version of John Irving's acclaimed novel, The Cider House Rules, at last made it to the big screen. Here is the author's account of the novel-to-film process. Anecdotal, affectionate, and delightfully candid, My Movie Business dazzles with Irving's incomparable wit and style.John Irving's novels pose tantalizing challenges to filmmakers: at his best, Irving has proven both popular and ambitious, crafting rich, picaresque fiction that juggles Big Themes and antic comedy, braiding his central narratives with intriguing subplots and discursive back stories driven by vivid characters. Irving's accessibility teases the would-be director or producer with the prospect of commercial acceptance even as the scope and intricacy of his work raises crucial risks for the scriptwriter. With two early novels that made it to the screen, The World According to Garp and The Hotel New Hampshire, Irving's box office impact thus far evenly translates to hit and miss.

This slender memoir offers a perceptive, if hardly objective, critique of the inherent differences between novels and screenplays, with the writer sharing his own experiences creating both. Irving focuses principally on his crusade to bring The Cider House Rules to the screen, tracing its gestation through four successive directors; with Irving himself attached as scriptwriter, we see the novelist struggling to reconcile the demands of concision against his paternal instincts toward the original book. Written before the final cut of The Cider House Rules, My Movie Business often verges on self-justification. Irving's respect for the movie's ultimate caretaker, Swedish director Lasse Hallstrom, is evident, as is his hopeful enthusiasm for the project's casting (which includes Michael Caine, Tobey McGuire, Jane Alexander, and Charlize Theron). Yet Irving can't repress the wariness prompted by his earlier disappointments with both this and other novels.

Ultimately, such candor doesn't diminish the account's value as a post mortem of the creative process behind serious filmmaking, nor does it overpower the reliable grace of Irving's prose. Fans will also find My Movie Business revealing in its exploration of the inspiration behind The Cider House Rules and its eloquent stance against the antiabortion movement--Irving's own grandfather, a leading doctor, administrator, and Harvard professor of obstetrics and gynecology. But moviegoers, as well as those who haven't read Irving's original novel, should be forewarned that this memoir does reveal key plot elements of both. --Sam Sutherland







Rating: (out of 24 reviews)







List Price: $ 12.95



Price: $ 5.50

Other posts like this, by keyword:

Business:

Law for Business ...
Generation to Generation: Life Cycles of the Family Business ...
Utah business impacted by Japanese quake ...
Business Statistics in Practice with Student CD ...
The Essentials of Strategy (Business Literacy for HR Professionals) ...
The Business of Teaching Sewing ...
Filling the teacher gap: a quicker way for professionals to move into the classroom. (Education).(Transition to Teaching alternate licensing ...
The Juneau attraction: enjoy fine arts, good food, fantastic hiking trails and beautiful scenery.: An article from: Alaska Business Monthly ...
Running a Side Business: How to Create a Second Income Reviews ...
University college a bargain: president. (Algoma University College president Douglas Lawson) (Focus on Sault Ste. Marie): An article from: ...
Memoir:

Living to Tell the Tale: A Guide to Writing Memoir ...
Point to Point Navigation: A Memoir (Vintage) ...
Anton Chekhov: A Brother’s Memoir ...
A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity: A Memoir Reviews ...
Teacher Man: A Memoir ...
Bitter Ice: A Memoir of Love, Food, and Obsession ...
When My World Was Very Small: A Memoir of Family, Food, Cancer and My Couch ...
Charlie Sheen to tell all in memoir ...
The Gastronomy of Marriage: A Memoir of Food and Love ...
Paper Daughter: A Memoir ...
Movie:

How much money does a graphic designer make in America and are there requests for a movie poster designer? ...
Q&A: What is a good horror movie that also has a good story? ...
What’s a Serious Detective Like Me Doing in Such a Silly Movie? (A Stevie Diamond Mystery) ...
MOVIE MARVELS: FILM FACTS YOU’LL FLIP FOR (Ghostwriter) ...
The Ghost at the Drive-In Movie (The Boxcar Children Mysteries #116) ...
movie Juliette Binoche dans les Yeux ...
Essential Elements Movie Favorites Violin (Essential Elements String Folio) ...
What are good movies for a teen outside movie party? ...
Jackie Chan’s 100th movie ‘1911′ gets Sept. 26 release ...
Headlines III: Not the Movie, Still the Book ...