Literary/Cinematic Authorial Correlates

[Qrazy]

Alright so I'll name a few authors and you tell me who you think represents an interesting parallel voice in the cinema (in terms of tone, thematic preferences, narrative technique, aesthetic, etc). Most times there won't be a complete correspondence between authorial voices but hopefully there will at least be some similarities. You can name specific films by certain directors and specific novels by writers since many directors (and writers) change their styles significantly with time... but please do not name specific films adapted from an author's work. Feel free to name your own authors or go in the other direction and name directors which someone will have to match with an author.

George Orwell
Samuel Beckett
James Joyce
Hemingway
Steinbeck
Joseph Conrad
HP Lovecraft
Proust
Dostoyevsky
Zola
Goethe
Kerouac
Salinger

[trotchky]

George Orwell - Lars von Trier

[Amnesiac]

I haven't read any Dosteovsky but I've been reading a lot about Tarkovsky lately and I believe his name has been brought up as an influence a few times. I know for certain Tarkovsky adores Dosteovsky and I'm pretty sure he's gone out of his way to compare himself to him a few times (in regards to artistic motivation).

[Qrazy]

I haven't read any Dosteovsky but I've been reading a lot about Tarkovsky lately and I believe his name has been brought up as an influence a few times. I know for certain Tarkovsky adores Dosteovsky and I'm pretty sure he's gone out of his way to compare himself to him a few times (in regards to artistic motivation).

I can see it.

[Qrazy]

George Orwell - Lars von Trier

Are you referring primarily to 1984 and then with Von Trier his focus on paranoia and confusion (Element of Crime) as well as the general exploitation of most of his protags by the rest of humanity/the 'system' (most of his films)?

[baby doll]

Marguerite Duras - Marguerite Duras

[trotchky]

Harriet Beecher Stowe - D.W. Griffith
Upton Sinclair - Michael Moore

[trotchky]

Philip K. Dick - Richard Kelly

[trotchky]

Jack Kerouac - Lindsay Anderson

[trotchky]

Chuck Palahniuk - Quentin Tarantino

[trotchky]

Martin Amis - Oliver Stone

[trotchky]

Dennis Cooper - Gregg Araki

[trotchky]

Are you referring primarily to 1984 and then with Von Trier his focus on paranoia and confusion (Element of Crime) as well as the general exploitation of most of his protags by the rest of humanity/the 'system' (most of his films)?

Yeah, plus the apparent bluntness of both of their works and their use of allegory.

[trotchky]

Nabokov - Godard

[Qrazy]

Nabokov - Godard

Not seeing it. Explain?

When I think Godard I think TS Elliot.

[lovejuice]

Harriet Beecher Stowe - D.W. Griffith
Upton Sinclair - Michael Moore

true.


Philip K. Dick - Richard Kelly

poor dick, but yeah.


Chuck Palahniuk - Quentin Tarantino

quite so.


Martin Amis - Oliver Stone

not seeing it.


Nabokov - Godard

definitely not seeing it.

how's about i do the reverse? you guys give me a list of directors?

[MacGuffin]

When I think Godard, I think Godard.

[Qrazy]

how's about i do the reverse? you guys give me a list of directors?

Fellini
Welles
Renoir
Wilder
Scorsese
Dreyer
Truffaut
Polanski
Tati
Malick

[megladon8]

Lovecraft - Del Toro (visually), Lynch (tonally)

[Qrazy]

When I think Godard, I think Godard.

You and Baby Doll should get a room where you have sex with title cards in flashback.

[Milky Joe]

James Joyce - Orson Welles
Samuel Beckett - Luis Buñuel? I've never even seen a Buñuel film but it sounds right to me.

[Qrazy]

James Joyce - Orson Welles
Samuel Beckett - Luis Buñuel? I've never even seen a Buñuel film but it sounds right to me.

Yeah that sort of works for Beckett... maybe Bunuel meets Bresson.

[lovejuice]

i'll write the first name that crops up in my head.

Fellini -- Angela Carter (circus obsessed)
Scorsese -- Puzo (no brainer here. if you say "coppola" i'll answer the same.)
Truffaut -- Salinger
Polanski -- Conrad
Tati -- Wodehouse
Malick -- E. E. Cummings


Lovecraft - Del Toro (visually), Lynch (tonally)

i'm about to say that.

[Milky Joe]

Truffaut - Richard Brautigan

I'm trying to do Kurt Vonnegut. Was going to say Wilder - Vonnegut but then deleted it.

[Amnesiac]

What about Kafka? I've only read The Metamorphosis thus far... so, who? Lynch? Cronenberg?

[Milky Joe]

Lynch, imo. Cronenberg is too technical -- Burroughs, maybe?

[Qrazy]

What about Kafka? I've only read The Metamorphosis thus far... so, who? Lynch? Cronenberg?

I actually want to say Polanski for Kafka.

[Winston*]

I know Lynch himself identifies himself with Kafka.

[Derek]

You and Baby Doll should get a room where you have sex with title cards in flashback.

Will you be next door having an orgy with all those C's you're so fond of?

[Milky Joe]

I want to say this even if I don't fully agree with it:

David Foster Wallace - Paul Thomas Anderson

[Qrazy]

Will you be next door having an orgy with all those C's you're so fond of?

What I do in my private life is my own business.

[trotchky]

I want to say this even if I don't fully agree with it:

David Foster Wallace - Paul Thomas Anderson

Good one. I was thinking Bret Easton Ellis for Anderson but DFW is probably a better fit.

[trotchky]

When I think Godard, I think Godard.

And when I think Nabokov I think Nabokov, but that's not what this thread is about.

[Milky Joe]

I mean they are both even referred to with three-letter acronyms. The similarities are striking.

trotchky you're sig made me think of this one:

Michael Chabon - Wes Anderson

This one's a little iffy.

[Derek]

I want to say this even if I don't fully agree with it:

David Foster Wallace - Paul Thomas Anderson

Yes, good call.


What I do in my private life is my own business.

:lol: I will respect your privacy.


Michael Chabon - Wes Anderson

This one's a little iffy.

I'd go Salinger - Wes Anderson.

[Melville]

George Orwell -> Kubrick for the similar sense of precision and social commentary. I can't think of any movies that are all-out allegories like Orwell's books.

Samuel Beckett -> Pasolini for the absurdity of Teorema.

James Joyce -> Peter Watkins for Edvard Munch's exploration of consciousness and its relation to others and its environment. But you'd have to mix in some Godard for the sense of playfulness, references, and experimentation.

Hemingway -> Hawkes for his explorations of masculinity and doom.

Steinbeck -> Probably an Italian neorealist or something, though I don't know if they're heavy-handed enough.

Joseph Conrad -> PT Anderson for There will be Blood. They share a feeling of heaviness, allegory, and caricature.

HP Lovecraft -> Polanski. I think his horror movies have the same kind of fear of the unknown and psychological disintegration.

Proust -> Wong Kar-Wai in his most swooning depictions of the richness of sensory experience and the weight of memories. Or Kieslowski for Double Life of Veronique, for the same reason.

Dostoyevsky -> Definitely Tarkovksy. Their spiritual concerns are very similar, though they have very different styles.

Zola -> I haven't read anything by him.

Goethe -> Peter Watkins for Edvard Munch again. I love that movie.

Kerouac -> I haven't read anything by him.

Salinger -> Zwigoff for Ghost World.

[Qrazy]

Zola -> I haven't read anything by him.

You may find him too heavy handed, he's all about workers rights etc but he's also very even handed. Germinal is an excellent novel.

[Raiders]

Probably not and a stretch, but it is honestly what came to my mind first:

Knut Hamsun - Terrence Malick

I suppose their ideologies and style (if they can be compared across artforms) are not necessarily similar, but there is something in Hamsun's internal style and focus on man and his relationship with his natural surroundings that just takes me straight to Malick.

At the very least, I would certainly pay to see a Malick adaptation of Pan.

[Dead & Messed Up]

George Orwell's 1984
Terry Gilliam's Brazil
Parallel here is pretty obvious. Too obvious, maybe? But both stories fully invest in a nightmarish world of bureaucracy and the impotence of the individual outside his or her chosen institution.

John Steinbeck's The Pearl
Vittorio De Sica's The Bicycle Thief
Obvious plot similarities, but also something of a cruel view toward the man who tries to escape his class/station in life, said spiral courtesy of one crucial decision.

HP Lovecraft's The Music of Erich Zann
Roger Corman's X - the Man With the X-Ray Eyes
Both focus on the gradual deterioration of a mind exposed to too much of a particular sensation (audio and visual stimuli, respectively), with the apex of that sensation being a strangely supernatural and/or religious experience.

[baby doll]

I'm trying to do Kurt Vonnegut.The Alex Cox of Repo Man, maybe.

[trotchky]

John Steinbeck's The Pearl
Vittorio De Sica's The Bicycle Thief
Obvious plot similarities, but also something of a cruel view toward the man who tries to escape his class/station in life, said spiral courtesy of one crucial decision.

One key difference: The Pearl is garbage while The Bicycle Thief is a masterpiece.

[trotchky]

Synecdoche, New York is Bret Easton Ellis' Glamorama: The Movie in that both are and are about the absolute extremes and outermost limits of post-modernism.

[NickGlass]

Not seeing it. Explain?

When I think Godard I think TS Elliot.

Nabakov works with Godard if you focus on Lolita, and boil it down to its core of loving literary allusions (which therefore serves as a self-reflexive commentary on the medium itself) and the doomed fate of the disaffected protagonist.

Of course, there's much more to Lolita, and Nabakov's other works don't align with Godard's (except perhaps Pale Fire's take on poetry). It's still not a completely bizarre comparison.

[Melville]

You may find him too heavy handed, he's all about workers rights etc but he's also very even handed. Germinal is an excellent novel.
I have Germinal, and I intend to read it eventually.


At the very least, I would certainly pay to see a Malick adaptation of Pan.
That's the best idea since Wats' idea of PTA and Daniel Day-Lewis adapting Moby Dick. I think Malick romanticizes nature much more than Hamsun does, so his version of the story would be quite different, but he'd work wonders with the dreamlike atmosphere and mythic allusions.


Of course, there's much more to Lolita, and Nabakov's other works don't align with Godard's (except perhaps Pale Fire's take on poetry). It's still not a completely bizarre comparison.
Yeah, Pale Fire seems to fit well enough.

[Qrazy]

Nabakov works with Godard if you focus on Lolita, and boil it down to its core of loving literary allusions (which therefore serves as a self-reflexive commentary on the medium itself) and the doomed fate of the disaffected protagonist.

Of course, there's much more to Lolita, and Nabakov's other works don't align with Godard's (except perhaps Pale Fire's take on poetry). It's still not a completely bizarre comparison.

Well I've only read Laughter in the Dark so to me it seemed like a completely bizarre comparison.

On the other hand I find that TS Eliot has esoteric allusions in spades, Godard's poetic and stylistically experimental approach (Nabokov experiments but in a different way), fragmented narratives. He is also tonally closer in terms of barbed humor at the expense of his protags and general atmosphere (ish).

[Duncan]

Well I've only read Laughter in the Dark so to me it seemed like a completely bizarre comparison.

On the other hand I find that TS Elliot has esoteric allusions in spades, Godard's poetic and stylistically experimental approach (Nabokov experiments but in a different way), fragmented narratives. He is also tonally closer in terms of barbed humor at the expense of his protags and general atmosphere (ish).

Coincidentally, I happen to be halfway through Pale Fire at the moment, and the comparison to Godard actually seems very apt.

[Qrazy]

Coincidentally, I happen to be halfway through Pale Fire at the moment, and the comparison to Godard actually seems very apt.

No, it doesn't. The comparison to TS Eliot seems apt, everything else is wrong. Correct your thoughts.

[Milky Joe]

That's the best idea since Wats' idea of PTA and Daniel Day-Lewis adapting Moby Dick. I think Malick romanticizes nature much more than Hamsun does, so his version of the story would be quite different, but he'd work wonders with the dreamlike atmosphere and mythic allusions.

Whoa, this needs to happen, and soon.

edited for what I meant

[Qrazy]

Only as long as Malick doesn't Malick up the dialogue.

Also he'd never do it. I think he's fairly committed to wholly original creations... only cool with using story/concepts as jumping off points... Pocahontas, Starkweather.

[Fezzik]

For some reason, this one popped into my head:

Joel & Etan Cohen - William Faulkner

I'm not sure I agree, but that's the first one I thought of.

[Melville]

Well I've only read Laughter in the Dark so to me it seemed like a completely bizarre comparison.

On the other hand I find that TS Eliot has esoteric allusions in spades, Godard's poetic and stylistically experimental approach (Nabokov experiments but in a different way), fragmented narratives. He is also tonally closer in terms of barbed humor at the expense of his protags and general atmosphere (ish).
Nabokov is full of barbed humor at his characters' expense, and Pale Fire has something like a fragmented narrative and experiments with style and genre.


For some reason, this one popped into my head:

Joel & Etan Cohen - William Faulkner

I'm not sure I agree, but that's the first one I thought of.
Now that strikes me as a very odd comparison.

[Qrazy]

Nabokov is full of barbed humor at his characters' expense, and Pale Fire has something like a fragmented narrative and experiments with style and genre.

Mine is better.

[Grouchy]

Now that strikes me as a very odd comparison.
The Coens did a parody of Faulkner with a character in Barton Fink, though.

The only ones I'm really seeing are Cronenberg/Burroughs and Polanski/Kafka.

How about this? Paul Auster - Wim Wenders. For their interest in deconstructing Americana and yet ultimately validating it.

[Melville]

The Coens did a parody of Faulkner with a character in Barton Fink, though.
That was probably my favorite part of that movie. It's a pretty vague and unfounded parody, but it made for some great scenes.

[kuehnepips]

Zola -> I haven't read anything by him.



But ... you MUST!

[Fezzik]

Now that strikes me as a very odd comparison.

Yeah, I agree, and its one of those mind flashes that probably has no relevance, but when I think about the odd familial relationships and the quirky southern characters in Faulkner's novels, I see The Dude, Marge Gunderson, Chad Felheimer and just about everyone in O Brother Where Art, Thou :)

In fact, my friend once said that O, Brother seemed like Faulkner's version of the Odyssey.

I said Twain, but I digress.

In closing:

"My mother is a fish."

[Pathétique]

Maybe Malick for Faulkner? Malick's style strikes me as a sort of cinematic stream of consciousness, and they both have used naive, simple-minded characters.