Customer Reviews

Charlie Rose with Michael Mannion, Eileen Egan & George Lombardi; Kurt Vonnegut & Dan Wakefield; Howard Schultz (September 8, 1997)

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Three novelists Kurt Vonnegut, Bruce Jay Friedman, and Dan Wakefield speak with Charlie Rose about adapting novels to the screen. They have all had experience in this with their own novels. Friedman at one point speaks about the impossibility of translating the line- by- line sensibility of the novel to the screen. Wakefield speaks about his first unhappy experience with Hollywood's turning one of his novels upside down, and his second experience of a small independent filmmaker producing a movie in some ways better than the book. Vonnegut expresses a sense that his own books have been treated fairly well by their screen adaptation.
Vonnegut has not written for the screen, and says he could not do so. Friedman on the other hand has worked for years as a screenwriter and made a lot of money doing so. He recently stopped to devote himself to writing novels.
Much is said about the changing relation to the Novel, and the greater place in the ambitions of young people which the screenplay now has.
The three authors are convivial, friendly and humorous. It is a truly pleasurable and insightful segment.
Charlie Rose asks as usual the right questions and really understands the matter at hand.
Outstanding.