Nest Book Club
Dear Community,

Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.

If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.

Thank you.

Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.

NBR: Film and Literature Class... what would you do?

We are trying to add more upper level English classes to our high school, and I've been thinking of bringing in a Film and Literature class.  I have a few ideas for books I'd like to use, but am looking for other suggestions (and of course this is the place to ask!).

If you had an opportunity to teach a Film and Literature class to Seniors (and possibly juniors), what books (fiction and non-fiction), short stories, plays, poetry, etc., would you read and then analyze the film version?  Also, looking for a few films not based on literature to look at.

Thanks!
Books Read in 2016: 4/50

Re: NBR: Film and Literature Class... what would you do?

  • hopecountshopecounts member
    Sixth Anniversary 500 Comments 25 Love Its Name Dropper
    edited September 2013
    absolutely P&P and the BBC version if you can spend that much time on it. Wuthering Heights might be a good one. One of the Ernest Hemingway books that we're made into a movie. Mybe Emma and Clueless?
    Warning No formatter is installed for the format bbhtml
  • I had Pride and Prejudice on my list! :)  I haven't seen the Kiera Knightley version... is it good?
    I hadn't thought about Emma and Clueless.  Thanks!

    I was also thinking about throwing in some Shakespeare (Taming of the Shrew) and 10 Things I Hate About You.

    What about modern fiction?  A couple on my list: The Secret Life of Bees, Life of Pi (maybe), Divergent (since the film is coming out in the spring). 

    Is The Perks of Being a Wallflower appropriate to teach in schools?
    Books Read in 2016: 4/50

  • Coincidentally... I made a list several years ago of movies based on plays (mostly Shakespeare).  Here you go:

    Pygmalion - My Fair Lady - She’s All That
    A man makes a bet that he can turn an unattractive, socially awkward woman into a beautiful and popular one.  Complications occur when he takes all the credit for her change.

    Taming of the Shrew - Kiss Me Kate - 10 Things I Hate About You - Deliver Us from Eva
    A father will not allow his popular younger daughter to marry until her unpopular older sister has been married first.  A man makes a bet that he can turn the strong, angry woman into a docile woman in love.  Complications occur when he falls in love with her. 

    Cinderella - Pretty Woman - Ever After
    A poor, but honest, young woman is gifted with the materials she needs to win over a wealthy man.

    Romeo and Juliet - West Side Story - William Shakespeare’s Romeo+Juliet (Dicaprio)
    Two young people, whose communities are violent towards one another, fall in love.  They hide their relationship and plan to run away together (with the help of a drug dealer), but due to some complications they end up committing suicide.

    Othello - O
    One man takes his jealousy out on another, completely ruining the other man’s life, including convincing him that his wife is cheating on him.

    Twelfth Night - She’s the Man (Amanda Bynes)
    A girl arrives in a new place and pretends to be her twin brother, resulting in comical romantic entanglements

    The Tempest - Forbidden Planet - Tempest (1982 Molly Ringwald) - There's a newer one with Helen Mirren as Prospero now
    A powerful man takes control of an island, affecting the lives of people he used to know (including his own daughter).  Having been exiled, he causes a storm to wreck his enemies on the island.  His sometimes-unwilling servants help him to get revenge.  Complications include his daughter falling in love with the son of one of his enemies.

    Hamlet - The Lion King
    A young man comes home from college to find his father dead and his mother married to his uncle (his father’s brother).  Suspecting his uncle murdered his father for his money, the young man acts like he’s lost his mind in order to find out what really happened.

    Dangerous Liaisons (book and movie) - Cruel Intentions

    Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (book and movie) - Willy Wonka

    Emma (book and miniseries) - Clueless

    Love’s Labour’s Lost -  musical version (2000 Cole Porter)

    Chicago (1926 play) - Roxie Hart (1942 movie with Ginger Rogers) - Chicago (Catherine Zeta Jones movie)

    Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

    Davinci Code/Angels and Demons

    Dune

    Time Traveler's Wife

    A ton of Stephen King (but the best is The Body ---> Stand By Me)

    Flowers in the Attic

    Mists of Avalon

    Princess Bride

    Jurassic Park (and other Michael Crichton books)

    Dracula has tons of adaptations

    LotR

    HP

    http://www.imdb.com/list/o9e6AZ0j2DU/  This is a pretty good list (has lots of diff genres and reading levels, but it's 3 pages to go through...)
  • Awesome! Thanks @kaylynne
    Books Read in 2016: 4/50

  • SRodi811 said:
    I had Pride and Prejudice on my list! :)  I haven't seen the Kiera Knightley version... is it good?
    I hadn't thought about Emma and Clueless.  Thanks!

    I was also thinking about throwing in some Shakespeare (Taming of the Shrew) and 10 Things I Hate About You.

    What about modern fiction?  A couple on my list: The Secret Life of Bees, Life of Pi (maybe), Divergent (since the film is coming out in the spring). 

    Is The Perks of Being a Wallflower appropriate to teach in schools?

    the keira knightley version is OK, they make a couple of changes that irritate me but it's fairly true to the story. Definitely a Shakespeare. for the modern I'd really recommend The Help if you can get away with it, great story and great adaptation.
    Warning No formatter is installed for the format bbhtml
  • I don't teach, but two that I did in HS that haven't been mentioned yet:

    The Odyssey- O' Borother Where Art Thou (this was my favorite)

    Macbeth- Men of Respect
    Anniversary
              40 books in 2014?

    image

                      2014: 4/40

    [2010: 63] [2011: 35] [2012: 23] [2013: 27]


    my read shelf:
    Stephanie's book recommendations, liked quotes, book clubs, book trivia, book lists (read shelf)

  • In our Senior year, we read the Canterbury Tales and then watched Seven. While Seven isn't wildly appropriate for high school, my teacher had decided it was due to the maturity level of our class.

    image

    Nicolle's book recommendations, liked quotes, book clubs, book trivia, book lists (read shelf)

     

  • Can I take this class :P
  • The Great Gatsby
  • Sorry this one just came to me as well but if you want to deal with only films Star Wars really changed a lot of modern film making technique. Most of the technology that Lucas needed wasn't invented yet so he had to come up with it himself. There are some great documentaries that show the whole process (Empire of Dreams is the best one). Sorry can you tell Hubby is a HUGE Star Wars fanatic?
  • Thanks for the info on Star Wars, @sonore32
    Books Read in 2016: 4/50

  • I really enjoyed The Quiet American (by Graham Greene) in a politics and film class. It was relatively short too but it was in college so I'd recommend reading it, in case it isn't age appropriate. Movie with Michael Caine & Brendan Fraser.
    imageimage
    Izzy and Baby A ~ Adorable Punks
    BabyFruit Ticker
  • Is Memoirs of a Geisha worth doing?
    imageimage
    Izzy and Baby A ~ Adorable Punks
    BabyFruit Ticker
  • I took a Crime Literature class in college and we read the screenplay for Thelma and Louise. It was excellent and showed how some screen plays could be true literature.
    Also Breakfast at Tiffany's comes to mind.
  • EliStarEliStar member
    Ninth Anniversary 10000 Comments 500 Love Its First Answer
    edited September 2013
    I took a Shakespeare and Film class in college. To date, it is my favorite class I've ever taken. It was a three hour class, so every class we would watch a movie having read the book before coming. We would take notes during the movie and afterwards we'd discuss. It was amazing. We watched maybe 10 different Shakespeare movie adaptations? Most of the films listed already and a few others I remember - The Merchant of Venice, we watched Branagh's Hamlet, Titus Andronicus (now I can't remember the name of the movie), Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo + Juliet.

    image image
              Elizabeth Salom (elistar)'s book recommendations, liked quotes, book clubs, book trivia, book lists (read shelf)

  • I took Film as Literature in HS as a junior and really enjoyed it. We did a lot of different movies... We did Les Meserables, Gone With the Wind, Wizard of Oz and many more- I can not even remember them all. It made me look at different things when watching movies after that.
    ~E~
Sign In or Register to comment.
Choose Another Board
Search Boards