From: Jim M
Category: Amis
Date: 7/9/99
Time: 5:44:29 AM
Remote Name: 195.11.50.204
With respect, Mr Cadwaller, when are you going to stop and let people have their own opinions? You always seem to want to have the last word (mind you, we all tend to get like that on this site, so I'm not really one to talk). However, I am actually extremely pleased that London Fields is now less likely to make it to the big screen, and I'm not going to deny that - whatever you say about the new Hollywood interest, I'm not too worried - I study film a great deal and I know that VERY VERY FEW things actually get made out there, and I hardly see this queer, dirty British tale storming through too many greenlights in L.A., regardless of how much they've paid for it so far. The majority of stuff that's snapped up never comes to anything. Scott Rudin, I believe, has pounced on the rights for DeLillo's 'Underworld', which quite frankly just makes me laugh. I'll bet you now we don't see that picture. SO MANY books are bought by Hollywood. SO FEW get made into films. Why adapt a sophisticated, unconventional Amis when you could be pouring your money into a real cash-cow like a Grisham or a Crichton? That's the studios' ultimate mentality. Besides, even if they proceed with 'the Fields', you know yourself all too well how many pitfalls and hurdles there are. I am sure we are now less likely than ever to see the film version of 'the Fields', and that, I'm afraid, makes me very happy. No doubt you think the film will get made my inferior artists now, and maybe your passion to make 'London Fields' is greater than anyone else's could be, but at crunch time, it really doesn't matter because, as I've said before, I don't think ANYONE can do even REMOTE justice to that book in cinematic form - and it's nothing to do with their artistic stature or sympathy to the material...as I've already said, this book is about WRITERS, it's about WRITING...it deeply relies on the fact that it's a novel. Maybe this is ignorant, but I don't understand how you can adore the book and not completely see that. You must admit yourself that ultimately you would have had to COMPROMISE key features of the book to make it into a film (namely the non-appearance of Samson, and with it, the 'book within a book' structure and its final twist, then also the nebulous game Amis plays involving who the final author is and whether Mark Asprey takes credit for the whole enterprise, the endpapers, the crucial foreword, even, and need I go on?). WHY COMPROMISE, though? Most of Amis's later literature (save 'Night Train') is preoccupied with authorial control/omniscience - this is what these books, especially 'London Fields', are fundamentally about. You CANNOT translate that to film. If you do, you'll strip them of a crucial dimension. Yes, I know no one can ever turn a book into a film without changing stuff ('Rosemary's Baby' aside) but with 'London Fields' it would be like ripping its spine out. Why can't people just leave some things alone? Why does everything need to be turned into cinema? Books aren't just pitches for screenplays. Bravo to J.D.Salinger for stopping 'Catcher' being massacred by the movies. I would be very grateful if you just respected this opinion, for once. I am entitled to it.
Good luck with your other projects. I do not disrespect you in any way and I am actually sorry that you have invested so much work and time into a project that has not come to fruit, but I will not disguise my relief that the 'London Fields' film may now never be made.