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Ricochet Movie Fight Club: Question 1
What is the best film portrayal of a book character?
The Rules:
- Post your answer as a comment. Make it clear that this is your official answer, one per member.
- Defend your answer in the comments and fight it out with other Ricochet member answers for the rest of the week.
- Whoever gets the most likes on their official answer comment (and only that comment) by Friday night wins the fight.
- The winner gets the honor of posting the next question on Saturday.
Notes:
- Only movies will qualify (no TV shows) however films that air on television (BBC films, a stand alone mini-series) will qualify.
- Your answer can be as off-the-wall or controversial as you’d like. It will be up to you to defend it and win people to your side.
- Fight it out.
Ding! Ding!
Update:
We have a winner:
Charlotte with 18 likes for Alan Rickman’s portrayal of Professor Severus Snape in the Harry Potter movies.
Congratulations, Charlotte, you get to choose question #2.
Published in General
I agree with your assessment of the film but have to correct your false assertion about Scandinavians not having any writing in the 10th century. They had by that time been using runes for over seven hundred years, based on the oldest inscriptions we have found, and we have found them on swords, spear heads, combs, bracteats, belt buckles and kefli (rune sticks used to send messages such as “Olaf, your wife is looking for you” and “Björn, you owe me two bales of homespun, still”). And “Varangian” was only applied to those who had served as mercenaries in Constantinople.
Official Answer: Captain Winters in Band of Brothers.
In the book, all the men describe their absolute love and respect for him, and it comes across in the mini-series.
That portrayal made Gus McRae my all-time favorite fictional character. Duval was perfect, and I understand it was his favorite role. Hard to believe that Gus McRae is also Tom, the Godfather’s consigliere, the “I love the smell of napalm in the morning” guy, The Great Santini, the weasely bad guy in True Grit, and even THX1138 from George Lucas’s first movie. That’s some range.
As far as totally convincing and perfectly cast to be the character in a book, I would say every actor in The Princess Bride.
But if I have to pick one, I’ll say Cary Elwes, as Westley. Official answer.
Agree. We’ve been reading The Princess Bride again as a family and I’ve been surprised how spot-on the movie is. I would have gone with Mandy Patinkin, as Inigo but Cary Elwes is also perfect.
Yup. The man is a national treasure.
Official winner: Chevy Chase as Irwin M. Fletcher.
Andre the Giant as Fezzik. I doubt Goldman believed they would find anyone so perfect when he wrote the novel.
I’m going to disagree here. Yes, Hopkins’ work in Silence of the Lambs is excellent. Of all these films, however, Manhunter is superior for the same reasons that Brian Cox is a slightly better Lecktor: it’s understated rather than over the top.
Lecktor’s most potent attack on anyone in this film comes from words, and perhaps his most menacing line is, “Dream much, Will?” Lecktor knows he haunts Will Graham. The audience already has a pretty good idea, and Michael Mann doesn’t hit you upside the head. He trusts you to get it, to hear the sick satisfaction in Cox’s somewhat subdued Lecktor. This Lecktor is a growling caged lion, and he has no need to brag about his conquests, for Will Graham is one, though he struggles not to be.
Superior director, superior depiction; it’s not Anthony Hopkins’ fault, he was just in the wrong movie.
You get my vote. We have broken out our Petherbridge Wimsey DVDs to help get through the captivity.
So much of the first Jack Reacher movie success was the script and direction of Christopher McQuarrie, who helps suffuse the movie with the right vibe of the book, with Cruise getting the attitude perfectly right. But, way too short to qualify for this competition.
Disagree. Can you imagine Russell Crowe in debtor’s prison? Land based Aubrey tends to be a bit naive. Maturin would be a better choice.
Willem Dafoe would be a good pick.
Michael Caine as Peachy Carnehan in The Man Who Would be King
One of three entries: Hallie Steinfeld as Mattie Ross in the Coen Brothers’ remake of “True Grit.” I am listening to the audiobook of the Charles Portis’ novel, and Steinfeld has more of the original beyond-precocious quality of Mattie in the movie, much more so than Kim Darby in the original. She is the narrator of the book and the character around which everything rotates, and so Steinfeld’s characterization is note perfect!
For me, Jill Paton Walsh falls short of Sayers’ writing. Well, maybe not of Sayers on a bad day such as in the Wimsey Papers and the like, but Walsh’s novels disappointed me.
Al Pacino as Michael Corleone in The Godfather.
Second of three: Raul Julia as Harrison Ford’s defense counsel Sandy Stern in Alan J. Pakula’s wonderful version of Scott Turow’s debut novel, “Presumed Innocent.” The entire cast was great and John Williams’ score was perfect. Julia does the best job of capturing the character from the book, the expensive defense lawyer schooling the prosecutor on how to win his case, not necessarily whether he believes Rusty Sabich is innocent.
Agree wholeheartedly. I thought that Brian Cox was the epitome of creepiness: “Dream much, Will?”. Anthony Hopkins was trying a bit too hard.
Third of three: Titus Welliver is the best detective in a police procedural, but it’s an Amazon Prime series so it doesn’t count. I love Humphrey Bogart better as Sam Spade than as Philip Marlowe, but my favorite version of a mystery novel character is Matthew McConaughey as Michael Connelly’s Mickey Haller in “The Lincoln Lawyer.” Haller has gone on to be a fixture in many later Bosch novels, but in this first version, McConaughey captures so much of the street smart/world weariness of Connelly’s Los Angeles.
I haven’t read this book, but I sure do love Caine’s character and portrayal.
James Cromwell as Farmer Hoggett, in Babe. The pig, not the baseball player. Sheer perfection.
Maybe. I haven’t read the story, since the movie came out. But I do remember being somewhat disappointed. I came away thinking this is one case where the movie was better. The characters and the story were better realized on film. But then, I’m a sucker for John Huston.
My memory of “Taming of the Shrew” is vague, but Elizabeth Taylor might be the perfect Kate.
Yes, a kid’s book–Babe: The Gallant Pig, originally published as The Sheep-Pig in the UK. It’s a movie I can watch over and over–I think Mrs. Hoggett is excellent too. As are the selfish and nasty little children. The pig ain’t bad, either.
I agree that Baldwin was a better Jack Ryan.
Sean Bean would have been a good Clark, when he was younger and if he could lose the British accent. I think that Nathan Fillion would be a good Clark now, in the later books like Rainbow Six. He could actually team up with Jon Huertas, his co-star from Castle, who could be a pretty good Ding Chavez.
Crowe was great, but too skinny. Aubrey was a big fat dude like me. Well, not quite as fat as me. I seem to recall him weighing 15 stone in the books, which is 210. I left 20 stone in the rear view mirror a while ago. :)
Huston was a master, and Caine and Connery were at the height of their powers.
What always strikes me about Kipling as a writer is how he can pack a lot into a short piece of fiction, in this case less than 15,000 words. Not to mention looking as though he’s not working very hard.
But there’s certainly a difference between the Victorian and modern sensibilities.
Malcolm McDowell, Alex Delarge in A Clockwork Orange.