Friday, March 26, 2010

Who, Whatsit and Which

Lucy Tang, at The New Yorker, doubts that Hollywood can do justice to Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time:
The Hollywood Reporter recently announced that the children’s fantasy classic “A Wrinkle in Time” is bound for the big screen. Besides my initial hesitations regarding Hollywood's ability to preserve the book’s magic—part of the fun in reading “A Wrinkle in Time” is imagining the centaurs and tesseracts for yourself—I also wondered why it’s taken so long for Hollywood executives to tap into this potential goldmine. Mention “A Wrinkle in Time” to a ten-year-old and his mother, and I bet both would enthusiastically gush about the Murry family and their otherworldly expeditions. ....

...In 2003, Disney produced a television version of the book, in which nearly all the religious elements were removed. L'Engle, asked by Newsweek whether it was all she'd hoped it would be, replied, "Yes, I expected it to be bad, and it is." What are the odds that the movie version will right the wrong? Will the centaurs still sing their characteristic line from Isaiah and the Psalms? Only Hollywood, which has the same pull as God these days, can say.
The Book Bench: We Will Wrinkle Again : The New Yorker

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