The influence between literary world and cinema It is very evident and it is becoming more and more so. Hundreds of films adapt novels to the big screen, as well as other formats such as video games or plays, as well as books that expand or adapt what was filmed to the text on their pages. But sometimes that is not the only relationship between books and cinema, it is also common to see the characters of the Seventh Art reading and since in cinema nothing is coincidental, if a book appears on the big screen it is for a reason. .
Do you read the Bible?
Probably the Bible It is the most influential book in the history of humanity and, of course, movie characters also tend to read it. Sometimes it is its literal meaning that appears on the screen, but let’s not fool ourselves, what is usually liked the most is when it is read and interpreted by characters, let’s say, of dubious morality. It is the example of one of Quentin Tarantino’s most iconic characters: Jules Winnfield from Pulp Fiction. The well-known murderer played by Samuel L. Jackson He often recites the famous verse from Ezekiel, 25-17, before executing his victims. The curious thing is that the Bible of Jules is something special because although the verse does exist, not in the way he recites it.
V’s favorite book
Another of those great novels in history, The Revenge of the Count of Monte Cristowhich also has a film adaptation, by the way, is the favorite book of one of those mythical characters not only in cinema, but in the world of comics: V, the masked icon protagonist of v for Vendetta. It is a story of death, imprisonment, revenge, redemption, improvement and freedom with which it is not only easy to better understand the main character, but also the roots of his motivations and what made him move forward.
You live in the Matrix
Almost all of us know the scene: a boy, named Thomas A. Anderson, is asleep in front of his computer. Known by his virtual alias, ‘Neo‘She opens the door to her apartment when a group of people knock on her. They give him money for an order and he keeps it in a book. And it is not just any book, no, but it is about Culture and drillby the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard. The essay, one of the author’s most important successes, provided the basis for some of the ideas that the sisters (at that time brothers) Wachowski They brought it to the big screen in a much more pop-punk way. Concepts such as reality through what is culturally perceived, hyperreality, the totality of the simulacrum, or the desert of the real, are some of the ideas that perhaps made Neo already suspect that he was, indeed, living in the Matrix.
Before Joker, feminist
Yes to Heath Ledger We all remember him for his role as Joker in The dark knightmany years before he already starred in one of those cult romantic comedy films: Ten reasons to hate you. There, in exchange for money, she intends to make Julia Stiles’ character fall in love with her and to do so she soaks in The mystique of femininity of Betty Friedanwritten by this American theorist and who was key in the Second Wave of Feminism.
Heraclitus and Call me by your name
The well-known film by Luca Guadagnino Call me by your namewith Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer as protagonists, and which is based on the book of the same name by André Aciman, has a surprising philosophical background centered on the figure of Heraclitus, the pre-Socratic philosopher whose most famous quote is that one cannot bathe in the same river twice. In fact, the characters read the book GS Kirk The cosmological fragments of Heraclituswhich include an interpretation of the author’s thoughts and have in the following sentence the summary of the meaning of the relationship between the two characters: ‘The meaning of the flowing river is not that things change and that we cannot see them twice but that some ‘Things only remain if they are changing’.
You have a ‘Pride and Prejudice’
Something similar to what Heath Ledger does Tom Hanks in You have an email when you decide to read Pride and prejudicethe well-known novel by Jane Austenbecause it is precisely the favorite book of Meg Ryan’s character in the film.
The Fantasy of reading
The next level in this relationship between cinema and literature is that of books, which are not read by the characters, but rather constitute the universe of the film itself. One of the most classic examples of this is, without a doubt, The endless storythe film directed by Wolfgang Petersen and which adapts the novel by Michael Ende in which a boy, Bastian Baltasar Bux, stays to read a book in the attic of his school and his very reading makes the story we are seeing possible.
Thus spoke Alfred Hitchcock
The ropelegendary film by the author of Vertigo and Psychosishas a very strong influence from none other than Friederic NietzscheGerman author who wrote works such as Thus spake Zarathustra, The Antichrist either Beyond Good and Evil. In the film, two students who have discussed in class precisely the idea of the Nietzschean Superman, test the superiority of each other with the attempt to carry out a perfect murder and show their teacher how wrong he is.
The ‘spark’ of a good book
Sometimes a good book can be different even in a tape full of them. This is what happens in The bookstorefilm by our director Isabel Coixet in which the main character played by Emily Mortimer sends the books that she considers best to the surly and withdrawn character of Bill Nighy without having excessive admiration on the part of the latter until she finds Fahrenheit 451the legendary novel by Ray Bradbury in which firefighters have stopped putting out fires to be the ones who burn books in a rather undesirable society.
