For me, good films and good books are irreducible to a lesson. You can't just kind of translate them into one statement. On the contrary, the more you do that, the less wisdom in art there is.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
There is a sort of theory that you should adapt bad books because they always make more successful films.
You learn as much from doing a bad film as a good one.
Books provide context and allow you to think about things over time. Film is like writing haiku; there is an immense amount of pleasure in paring down and paring down. But it isn't the same.
Every book you pick up has its own lesson or lessons, and quite often the bad books have more to teach than the good ones.
When I go out to direct a film, every day we prepare too much, we think too much. Knowledge becomes a weight upon wisdom. You know, simple words lost in the quicksand of experience.
I adore book-to-film adaptations when they're done well, and I'm more lenient than many readers when it comes to what counts as 'done well.' For me, the most important thing is that the film maintains the spirit of the original book.
Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn't matter. I'm not sure a bad person can write a good book, If art doesn't make us better, then what on earth is it for.
I think my background in film taught me that a great book adaptation is not always slavishly faithful to the source material.
I don't hold with the notion that only bad books make good movies.
I've always had the perspective that roles come into my life when I need them most and sort of teach me lessons. The same can be true of films, films are released into society to aid in a lesson, inspire people, comfort people.