BREAKING NEWS: TWIST OF FATE TAKES FIRST IN THE GOLDEN GATEWAY SINGLE TITLE CATEGORY - Manuscript Requested -
WAHOO!
Wow! What a great weekend I had. Courtney Milan and I traveled to Los Angeles to celebrate our good friend Tessa Dare's first sale. We also got to see her win the Orange Rose! Please note, Ms. Dare's divine historical, GODDESS OF THE HUNT, also took first in the Golden Gateway Historical Category!
Moving on to my actual topic...My daughter also lives in LA and happens to be the program coordinator for film at the Skirball Museum, one of the sponsors of the AFI film festival. So she snagged passes to the festival's closing gala, the North American premier of LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA. Now I'm just a hick, and not used to Hollywood, so it was quite a thrill for me to sit in a small theater and have the director, Mike Newell, bring each of the stars up in front for an introduction: Javier Bardem, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, and Benjammin Bratt among others. Benjamin Bratt is unbelievably handsome in person, but I digress.
LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA is a story of undying love and devotion (siigh), and Ben Bratt is sitting right there in the theater watching as we do, so you can imagine how much I wanted to love this movie. I really really wanted to love it. But alas, although I found much to admire--the cinematography, the music, Benjamin Bratt without a shirt--I just couldn't love it. In times past, I would have walked away feeling let down without knowing why. But last night, I knew just exactly why the film didn't work for me.
Emotion. Motivation. Character development and growth. It just wasn't there. The film opens with a scene of a young man making eye contact with a young woman. Then poof...we are now told he is desperately in love with her, and later she accepts his proposal of marriage, but her father finds the match unsuitable and whisks her away.
In order for the rest of the story to work, we must BELIEVE in this first blush of love. But I couldn't. Because the director or screen writer or whoever is in charge of STORY didn't show me who these characters were, what motivated them to feel and behave as they did. In short, I didn't care about the characters because I didn't know anything about them, and I certainly didn't feel their love. Now I realize that movies are short, but they must engage the viewer's emotions, just as we as writers must engage the reader's emotions. This drove the point home to me that I must take the time to understand my characters and to reveal them in the pages I write or no one will care.
I'll mention DR ZHIVAGO as one movie that made me truly believe in undying love. The director shows us the heroic side of the main and secondary characters, their weakness, their hopes, the way they engage one another and the world and makes me CARE what happens to them.
Can you name a movie (a love story) that made you care? What was it about the story that made you feel the love?
16 comments:
My first comment was eaten and was so much better. First, big congrats! You know I promised to be in your fan club.
I could buy the love in Dangerous Beauty, although it was far from perfect. Most of those "yearning" movies seem to be YA. There was a movie a million years ago w/Meryl Streep and Robert DeNiro where they met on a train, which showed their reluctant but unmistakable attraction, to the point of them walking away from their marriages. It was very sympathetically done. Can't remember the name tho and too lazy to Google!
Thanks, Maggie! I loved that movie, but must confess I didn't remember the title either. So I did google. It's called Falling in Love. And apparently there is a term, limerance for the kind of love characterized primarily by infatuation and mental activity. Who knew?
CONGRATS!!!!
I'm not surprised that you won, especially after reading TOF.
I know this is more of a chick lit film, but I could buy most of the love stories in Love Actually --- the one with Colin Firth and the Portuguese woman in particular.
And Gone With the Wind also comes to mind... when Scarlett O'Hara's at the party, climbing up the stairs and she whispers to the woman next to her: Who's that man who keeps staring at me? He looks at me as if he knows what I look like without my petticoats on? I *love* that scene and especially when the camera shows Rhett's reaction as if this is the first time he's seen a woman he wants to marry.
Thanks for the congrats, Ely. And thanks for reading Twist!
The relationship between Colin Firth and the Portuguese woman in Love Actually is a great example!
The story wonderfully reveals that relationship with virtually no dialogue. Yet we feel the love and the heat between these two characters so intensely...in all the small things they do for and with one another. I especially love the scene where she helps him to retrieve his manuscript pages, which are scattering to kingdom come.
Congratulations, India! I'm so happy for you, that you're finally getting recognition as the winner we all know you are.
Okay, it's late - that sentence made no sense. But I hope you feel the love anyhow.
Movies where I feel the love... hm. Broken record warning...
Honestly, this is why I love Jane Austen. Because it's ALL communicated in little touches and glances and comments with double meanings. And there is no better example of a look that spells love like CF's "The Look" from the P&P mini.
Photographic evidence here.
Glad you had a good time in LA. I'm not sure I could love a movie that had Cholera in the title...no matter how romantic...
Congratulations! That's brilliant, and they will love it!
Thanks Tessa! And congratulations on your double win! Your support means the world to me. And I'm so with you on Colin and his "Look".
LOL, Ericka. Then I'm guessing you wouldn't like the vomitting scenes!
Well, brilliant might be a bit generous, Gillian. But thanks! I'm honestly quite excited!!! Maybe you couldn't tell from all the caps and exclamation marks.
Congrats! I am so excited for you! I can't wait until TOF is introduced to the world at large. The book 'Love in the Time of Cholera' is amazing. I was hoping the movie would be as well. Alas... there is so much in Marquez's writing that is non-linear and comes through the beauty of the prose itself. I can see where that would be hard to capture on film.
Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry I'm late to congratulate you on your win! How thrilling! Huge congratulations for winning and for having the manuscript requested. I love the name of your book, too. How's the nanowrimo writing going?
Congrats on the win and request for a full, India. That is so, SO awesome :).
I'm kinda with Ericka on enjoying a movie with cholera in the title. That said, the ads for the movie have given me an idea for a book of my own, which I'm calling _Love in the Time of Cholesterol_.
Take care and good luck with the request. I'm expecting to add another FanLitter to the list of published authors very, very soon!
Lenora, Leigh (Hey!We miss you!), and Jacqueline, thanks for the congrats.
LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLESTEROL? Tee hee!
Er...NaNo...er. Well, I know now that I must be clear on my story before I write - and clear on who my characters are. It's all coming into focus though.
This weekend I'm back in California, attending a medical conference on a topic that will help me with BLACK BOX WARNING - since the medical component is outside my own specialty. So I am working...thinking and researching at this stage
I just realized I never entered my congratulations here. Oops! Sorry, India--but you know how hard you rock!
I don't see many movies. But I have to say.... in my mind, I just absolutely adore North and South. Colin Firth is find and all, but I just think Richard Armitage is so deliciously sexy.
Sigh!
Thanks, CM! I'm rather fond of North and South myself!
CONGRATULATIONS!!!!
And thanks for the review. I knew I didn't want to see a movie with a depressing name like LITTOC.
Thanks, Lacey! Oddly enough I just saw a great movie on DVD that took place during a cholera epidemic in China. The Painted Veil started off a little slow, but dragged me in and had me believing in real love by the end.
Post a Comment