By Valerie Kalfrin
Signature Reads, Sept. 23, 2015
Writers and filmmakers know that words and images reach only an approximate truth. Author Jon Krakauer seemed painfully aware of this when chronicling his 1996 expedition to Mount Everest in the best-selling book Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster. Eight people from two climbing groups died in twenty-four hours trying to find their way down from the summit in a sudden blizzard, then the deadliest time on the mountain. As he reported and recounted those events, Krakauer cited Joan Didion’s famed quote about the interpretation of reality: “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”
So far, reviews of “Everest” are positive, and praise especially the dizzying cinematography. Some critics wanted more emotional connection with the climbers, but Variety was among those impressed by the film’s lack of sentiment: “There is only death and survival here, and the human spirit, it turns out, has little to do with any of it.”
Real stories and the authors who become part of them hold such appeal but can lose an essential truth moving from life to page to screen. We salute writers brave enough to share their emotional crucibles, and the actors unafraid to portray them. Here’s a sampling of those whose skill on the page met with onscreen magic.
“Wild” (2014)
Reese Witherspoon earned an Oscar nomination via her portrayal of Cheryl Strayed, who hiked the Pacific Crest Trail in her twenties after her mother’s death set her on a destructive path of depression, casual sex, and heroin use. Strayed, now in her forties, wrote about that journey of self-discovery in a best-selling memoir of the same name. Even though Witherspoon was thirty-eight in the film, the author said they connected on several levels. “She impressed me from that very first conversation as someone who is both intelligent and honest and funny and trustworthy, and as somebody who could really capture the range of emotions that you see in Wild,” Strayed told IndieWire.
“Shadowlands” (1993)
British scholar, Christian theologian, and novelist C.S. Lewis is perhaps best known for The Chronicles of Narnia, but the cancer-caused death of his wife, Joy, triggered a crisis of faith that he wrote about under a pseudonym in the 1961 book A Grief Observed. Writer William Nicholson drew on Lewis’s work to craft a television production, a stage play, and this screenplay about the romance and too-brief marriage of Lewis (Anthony Hopkins) and American poet Joy Davidman Gresham (Debra Winger). Directed by Richard Attenborough, the film received an Oscar nomination for best adapted screenplay and kudos for its “amazingly versatile and moving” performances.
“Tracks” (2013)
Mia Wasikowska earned favorable reviews as Robyn Davidson, who in 1977 walked 1,700 miles across the Australian outback with four camels and a dog, an adventure she first described in National Geographic Magazine and later in the book Tracks. Although the film doesn’t delve into why Davidson made such a trek, it offers a “therapeutically beautiful” look at a world where loneliness can be a comfort, The Telegraph wrote. Davidson herself is private about her reasons, writing, “I like the freedom inherent in being on my own, and I like the growth and learning processes that develop from taking chances. And obviously, camels are the best means of getting across deserts. Obvious. Self-explanatory. Simple. What’s all the fuss about?”
“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” (1979)
Poet and author Maya Angelou co-wrote this TV adaptation with Leonora Thuna of her celebrated 1969 autobiography, which depicts how books and words became Angelou’s refuge from racism, parental abandonment, and the trauma of rape at age eight. The all-star cast includes Esther Rolle as Maya’s mother, Madge Sinclair as influential teacher Miss Flowers, Diahann Carroll and the venerable Ruby Dee, with Constance Good as young Maya.
“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” (2007)
Before his death at age forty-four, French Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby suffered a stroke that left him speechless and nearly paralyzed except for the movement and blinking of his left eye. A speech therapist helped devise a code for him to communicate and took down his memoir – one letter at a time – with evocative descriptions of his imprisoned body (the diving bell) and flights of imagination (the butterfly). This adaptation netted Oscar nominations for its screenplay, cinematography, and editing, as well as for director Julian Schnabel, whose creative camera use and imagery transform what seems like a restrictive story into “an eerie stunner of a movie.” Mathieu Amalric (“The Grand Budapest Hotel”) stars as Bauby.
“The Motorcycle Diaries” (2004)
Before he became a symbol of revolution and an image on college tee shirts and posters, Ernesto “Che” Guevara was a medical student in Argentina who hit the roads of South America on a decrepit motorcycle to celebrate a friend’s thirtieth birthday. Based on Guevara’s memoir of the same name, this film earned praise for humanizing Guevara through “humor, exquisite compassion and visual grace” and received an Oscar nomination for best adapted screenplay. It doesn’t demonstrate how Guevara evolved from a tender youth to an advocate of violence, but Gael García Bernal winningly combines youthful folly, wanderlust, and quiet passion, critics said.
“The Killing Fields” (1984)
When I was a crime reporter in the late 1990s, I was blessed to work with Sydney Schanberg, who until that point I’d only known about through this film. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his coverage of the Communist takeover of Cambodia. His affecting friendship with Cambodian journalist and interpreter Dith Pran before and after the fall of Phnom Penh formed the basis of a New York Times Magazine article, a 1980 book, and this film. It received several Oscar nominations, including best actor for Sam Waterston as Schanberg, and won three, including best supporting actor for Haing S. Ngor as Dith. The Times‘s film review said it lacked the emotional intimacy of the memoir but praised the performances, sayingWaterston “possesses the strength, humor, and compassion of the increasingly obsessed Mr. Schanberg.” Over the years, I’ve known Syd to be a kind and loyal mentor, humorous, self-effacing, intelligent yet irascible when a topic engages his convictions. This isn’t an easy film to watch, but in Waterston’s tone and expressions, I glimpse that fire. It’s an admirable tribute.
From http://www.signature-reads.com/2015/09/in-thick-it-everest-7-authors-protagonists/