Last night I watched "The Kite Runner," in which the need to wear a beard under the Taliban in Afghanistan plays a role, so I guess this Hy-Art is fairly appropriate.
I loved the book, thought it was written very cinematically, and yet the movie--though very faithful to the story--never seemed to develop the sort of emotional impact of the book (even though I still cried.) I might have added a narration, because the main character's richness was mostly an interior one that is hard to translate successfully to the screen. But a larger lesson is that screenwriters often need to depart from the original to make a better result.
I'm rereading Gone With the WInd, and I'm so impressed by the choices the writers made in creating the movie. The pulled off the rare feat of doing the book one better, changing and condensing without losing a bit of the psychological texture, in fact, sharpening it. It's rather like the relationship between these two men. One is literary, the other cinematic. You get the feeling the Van Scorel is thinking about himself, but the Holder, below, is thinking about you.
As a screenwriter, albeit a distressingly slow one, these lessons are very important for me to learn. Now I just have to work not talking about writing so much, and actually doing it.
MCO 2008
I hope that today has been very productive and that you've worked on your screenplay. I like your assessment of the two portraits, one introspective and one looking outward. I'm totally in sync with you regarding GWTW. I haven't seen or read "The Kite Runner," but other friends have highly recommended the book and/or the film. I'll have to check it out.