Movies and Books

I don't watch too many movies, but the ones I enjoy the most are usually based on books. Sometimes I have read the book first, but other times the movie comes first and I find out that there is a book.

For example, this year, I went to see The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (basically because I adore Bill Nighy) and discovered that it was taken from a book originally titled These Foolish Things by Deborah Moggach. I enjoyed them both.

Also this year I came upon the books Millions and Framed written by Frank Cottrell Boyce. I read Millions first and then rented the movie version. On the other hand, I found Framed on Masterpiece Theatre and that led me to the book. 

I tackled The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas in July for the "Paris in July" blog challenge and managed to watch three versions of the movie all of which were very different. Each included and excluded different parts of the adventure told in the book. All of them were terrific. 

Others I have read and watched this year include All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren and Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes. In both cases the books were better although I don't really spin my wheels bothering with that argument. I try to take each book or movie on its own merits.

Two other movies I saw this year were Bell, Book, and Candle - for obvious reasons - and 84 Charing Cross Road. BB&C had many bookish aspects to it. It was originally a play and then was adapted for the big screen. Since I plan to read a play or two in 2013, perhaps it will find its way onto my TBR pile.

I own a copy of the book 84 Charing Cross Road and have slipped it into my Books to Be Re-read stack. Make that Re-Re-Re-read. I never grow tired of reading it.

Conversely, I rented The Hunger Games (star Jennifer Lawrence is from my hometown and I was curious to see her in action) but I have no desire to read the book.

What is your take on the book/movie idea? Do you enjoy seeing the characters On Screen as well as On Page? Any favorites?

Swording it up in Paris

I am so surprised at how fun it is reading The Three Musketeers. There are many more stolen kisses, lost letters, intrigues, adventures and witty writing than I ever would have expected. And everyone is so polite...even when one is getting ready to stab another in a duel.

And although many of the Paris streets mentioned are gone, there are still plenty les rues and landmarks to keep the reader grounded in the city.

I can see why movie makers are so attracted to the story.

I love Michael York at D'Artagnan in the 1973 film version and think the casting of the others in that movie is just about perfect. There has never been a better Cardinal Richelieu than Charlton Heston. Luckily, fans were treated to a sequel in 1974.

Michael York as D'Artagnan
1973

I looked at the cast of the movie made in 1993 with Chris O'Donnell as D'Artagnan. This one is by Disney and features Keifer Sutherland and Charlie Sheen - neither of whom is a favorite of mine. I watched it long ago, but now am curious to watch it again just to see how the story is handled.

Chris O'Donnell as D'Artagnan
1993

Then there is the 2011 version with Matthew Macfadyen (he of MI-5 fame) as Athos. This version is much more visual (it was filmed in 3-D) but alas I watched in on my laptop so missed much of the impact. But it was still pretty spectacular.

Matthew Macfadyen as Athos
2011

Do you have a favorite?

Getting from here to there

A lovely passage from The Three Musketeers that explains how we sometimes get from here to there:

Nothing makes time pass more quickly or more shortens a journey than a thought which absorbs in itself all the faculties of the organization of him who thinks. External existence then resembles a sleep of which this thought is the dream. By its influence, time has no longer measure, space has no longer distance. We depart from one place, and arrive at another, that is all. Of the interval passed, nothing remains in the memory but a vague mist in which a thousand confused images of trees, mountains, and landscapes are lost.

The Tapeworm Is In

David Sedaris

This morning I did finish reading the reflections of the male writers on Paris in Paris Was Ours. The best of course was David Sedaris's The Tapeworm Is In. Here, after moving to Paris, he wanders the city listening, not to French language tapes on his Walkman, but books on tape in English. He comments:

If a person who constantly reads is labeled a bookworm, then I was quickly becoming what might be called a tapeworm.

His sister, Amy, sends him a tape of Pocket Medical French with phrases spoken in English and then repeated in French.

I was quickly able to learn such sparkling conversational icebreakers as "Remove your dentures and all of your jewelry" and "You now need to deliver the afterbirth."

 Tapeworm indeed!

On another note, one of the best things about reading The Three Musketeers on my Nook is that it is so easy to look up the definition of words...and there are quite a few that are unfamiliar to me, such as:

baldric - an often ornamented belt worn over one shoulder to support a sword or bugle

windgall - a soft tumor of synovial swelling on a horse's leg in the region of the fetlock joint

poltroon - a spiritless coward

See what I mean. This is not contemporary vocabulary and I am well pleased at the ease with which I can find the definition. I just hold my fingertip on the weird word and voila! the definition appears. Modern technology at its finest.

Louis Le Francais restaurant

I have had another lovely Frenchy day. I began with a cup of coffee and the first chapters of The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas. I have had it on my Nook for quite a while and I am determined to read it before Paris in July is over. That gives me eleven more days. The Nook copy comes in at 672 pages. I am on page 72...so let's see that means I must read about 60 pages a day.

I am surprised at how funny it is. And easy to read. I have watched three of the Musketeer movies this year and now it is time to read the real story.

I also had lunch at a fairly new French restaurant, Louis le Français. When I walked in I was greeted with, "Bonjour!" It turns out the owner really is French and his cousin, Arzelie, is here from Paris to work in the restaurant. She was delightful and perfectly French - slim, black dress, hair swooped up with a beaded clip. So elegant and simple.

The restaurant is located in an historic building and its decor is delightful. Yellow and blue walls, wooden floors, and a blue ceiling filled with white fluffy clouds. The blue chairs are right out of a Parisienne cafe and white tablecloths cover the tables. When we left the chef, Louis, and his sous-chefs were sitting down to a feast of their own.

My friend and I both ate the salade verte and Bouchée à la Reine (puff pastry, chicken, mushrooms, onions, cream sauce).

Très bon.

The Three Musketeers

I am a big fan of the movies The Three Musketeers (1973) and The Four Musketeers (1974). Nothing can beat the cast of Michael York, Charlton Heston, Raquel Welch, Oliver Reed, Frank Finlay, and Richard Chamberlain. Both films are great fun and I just recently watched them both again.

Last year a new version was filmed starring a bunch of actors I had not heard of.  I do know Matthew Macfadyen, also known as Tom from MI-5, who played Athos, and Orlando Bloom, who starred in a movie filmed in my home town, who played Duke of Buckingham. The others I had not seen and don't really think they compare with the cast of the other films. D'Artagnan and Constance looked to be about 13 years old. Of course this latest version was quite spectacular featuring Da Vinci's flying war machines and lots of tricks.

Wikipedia lists 25 film versions of the swashbuckling tale beginning with a 1903 French production that includes the description "about which virtually nothing is known." There are comedies, French versions, silent versions, a Soviet musical, and a Mexican version.  There are six animated versions including Barbie and the Three Musketeers (2009) in which the Musketeers are female.

There are seven sequels including this one that I must see: La Femme Musketeer (2004), a made-for-TV production starring Susie Amy as d'Artagnan's daughter "Valentine", with Michael York, Gérard Depardieu, Christopher Cazenove, John Rhys-Davies, and Nastassja Kinski.

Really. Who knew?

All this leads me to tell you that I have never read Les Trois Mousquetaires (1844) by Alexandre Dumas. Francophile that I am, I find that to be shameful. So to remedy that, I have downloaded the e-book onto my Nook.  And now that I am almost through with the Frances Mayes's books about Tuscany, I think a trip to 17th century France is next up.

"All for one, and one for all."