Martin Scorsese can make anybody cooler.

Whenever word gets out that a film adaptation is being planned for a book the response is usually something to the tune of, "time for Hollywood to ruin another book." While it's true that there have been some heinously godawful book-to-movie adaptations over the years I don't think it's fair to label Hollywood as the ruiner of all things good from the realm of literature. Let's face it, occasionally a filmmaker will put together an adaptation of a book that ends up being so good it borders on perfect.

But I'm  not talking about the time that filmmaker from New Zealand directed that little hobbits and elves trilogy that generated the tiniest amount of buzz when it was released earlier this decade. Not that those movies weren't decent or anything, it's just that they don't have a whole lot to do with journalism - although I'm sure you could find somebody who'd argue that they do.

No, in this case I'm talking about a book called Wiseguy written in the mid 80s by New York crime journalist Nicolas Pileggi. In 1990 this Hollywood guy called Martin Scorsese came along and had the nerve to adapt it into one of the most spectacularly entertaining movies of all time.

Like Francis Ford Coppola had done before him with The Godfather, Scorsese had taken this story of life in the New York mafia and given it a perfect cinematic representation. In the case of both films they represent an almost sublime synergy of direction, performances, cinematography, editing and music. Where they differ though, is in their realism and tone. The Godfather is far more theatrical and operatic whereas Goodfellas is far more lifelike and more akin to a punk rock record.

But one thing I've had on my mind since watching Goodfellas again last week is whether or not Scorsese's vision of Pileggi's book distorts the images of the people Pileggi was originally trying to portray. While Scorsese's direction hasn't exactly painted the characters as honorable or misunderstood, the sheer density of cinematic cool he's injected into the film through its cinematography, editing and soundtrack has given the criminals something of a rockstar quality.

In one scene for instance, you've got Robert DeNiro silently plotting the murder of another character while the camera slowly pushes in on his face and Cream's Sunshine of Your Love plays over the top of the scene. It's one of the many examples of this cool mood and atmosphere that Pileggi wouldn't have been able to create in the book.

So again, although Scorsese isn't exactly aggrandising these characters, he has, to an extent, given them more charm than they might have had in the pages of Pileggi's text. Which makes me wonder what sort of implications this has (if any) from a journalistic perspective. After all, Pileggi's Wiseguy remains a highly acclaimed piece of literary journalism, but how does its film adaptation compare to say, the 1967 film of In Cold Blood starring Robert Blake? A film that, by all accounts, was far less stylised than Goodfellas and far more reflective of its source material.

Granted, the film industry is all about entertainment and it's a filmmaker's responsibility to use all of the tools in his repertoire to the best of his ability in order to, hopefully, create the best film he can. Scorsese did that with Goodfellas. But what sort of responsibilities does Hollywood have when it comes to adapting books that were based on true events? At what point does a filmmaker risk making martyrs out of murderers?

Nothing like a good segue.

I'd already planned to do two posts today, but I hadn't planned for it to start this way. I'm going to be writing about Bret Easton Ellis' debut novel, Less Than Zero. Having read all of his published words, I feel it's his best work alongside American Psycho. Anyway, on the back cover of my copy of Less Than Zero there's a quote from somebody named Emily Prager.

I've no idea who Emily is, but she says:

"With spare, seamless writing he tells us a tale of collegiate Christmas in LA that makes Jack Kerouac and his beat generation seem like pussies."

Considering I'd just gotten through writing about Kerouac and the supposedly seminal On The Road, I felt like this was a nice way to tie the two posts together. And now, with nothing else to say, comes a ham-handed segue into my next paragraph.

One of the many things that struck me about Less Than Zero the first time I read it was how pared to the bone Ellis' writing was. A lot like Bukowski, he didn't waste much time by using too many adjectives. The language was sharp, direct and almost apathetic, which seems appropriate given the book's overall feel of nihilism. Adjectives are best left at the disposal of romantics like Fitzgerald.

But while Less Than Zero doesn't really qualify as journalism per sé, its language style is somewhat reflective of how journalists are taught to write. So for that reason I found itsort of  relevant to this whole literary journalism caper. I guess in literature if you're not writing as a journalist you can still write like a journalist.

I'll check in again once I'm through with On The Road.

I remember reading an interview with Hunter S. Thompson once, who said he didn't care for it. He described as "overly sentimental romantic bullshit," or words to that effect.

Terrific.

"On The Road" again.

I'm sure this happens to everybody. People are talking about movies or books or TV shows or music or whatever, and something comes up that everybody in the group is familiar with. Everybody but yourself, that is. When it becomes apparent to the rest of the group that you've never had the purported privilege of experiencing whatever it is they're raving about, the following conversation usually takes place:

"Oh my god, seriously? You haven't seen it?"

"Yeah, never got around to watching it."

"How?"

"I dunno, just didn't."

"Oh dude, you HAVE to see it. Next time you go to the video shop, get it."

"I don't go to video shops anymore."

"Okay, well download it or whatever."

"Will do."

"Actually, better still. I've got it on DVD, I'll let you borrow it."

"No, that's okay, thanks though."

"No it's no problem. I'll bring it over next time I'm at your place."

"Cool, thanks."

Nine times out of ten the endorser will forget to lend you the DVD, which is great, because then it saves you the trouble of leaving it on your coffee table for 3 months before finally giving it back without ever watching it. Maybe that's just me.

Anyway, there are three works of creative fiction that I've never got around to experiencing, but ALWAYS come up in conversation in my life.

They are: The Princess Bride, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and Jack Kerouac's On The Road.

Fans of the first two find the fact that I've never seen them the most troubling, seeing as I spent 4 years working in a video shop, but it's the literati crowd who can't come to terms with the idea that there are people who haven't read Kerouac's book.

Yes, I get it, he's an important literary figure.

Yes, I get it, he influenced generations of writers that followed him.

Yes, I get it, On The Road is meant to be a genre-changing piece of work.

 I have no real excuse for not reading it until now, other than not particularly giving a shit. But now it's become relevant to my life once again,  this time as a required text for not one, but two Uni subjects. So I guess I'm out of excuses.

I'll post another entry once I'm done with it. Maybe I'll love it, maybe I'll hate it. Maybe it'll change my life's direction, maybe I'll forget it after closing the back cover. Who knows? What I do know is that after this, I think I'll be done with stories of troubled young men in early 20th century America for a while.

Having recently re-read Catcher in the Rye, Junky, The Great Gatsby and now On The Road, I feel like I'm about due for something more contemporary.

Not quite fact, but not quite fiction either.

Be forewarned that as I write this I'm operating on a bunch of cold and flu meds while in the throes of a mad fever and a handful full of other unpleasant bodily malfunctions, so, apologies if my thought patterns seem a bit out of order. Thing is, I had this idea for a blog post and if I don't get it out now, I'll keep putting it off until a later date. And I know that making hilariously original jokes about procrastination is how all Uni students fill in about 86% of their spare time, but yeah, I need to get this done. 

Here goes...

Recently I spent a couple of days reading The Great Gatsby again, a book that everybody in the world has read and everybody in the world worth knowing enjoys. Well maybe that's not quite accurate, but it seemed like a cool statement nonetheless.

Anyway, I refuse to drone on about the book's themes of romance and nostalgia and personal identity and all that because, by this point, what can be said about Gatsby that hasn't been said already? I suppose you could say that the scene where Nick and Daisy are chased down a canal in a speedboat by an Apache gunship is poorly written, but the statement wouldn't have much credibility. When criticising literature it's best to make comments that are actually true of the book. And that scene was awesome.

What I do want to talk about in this post though is the book's geographical and historical setting; Upper-class America in the 1920s. 'The Jazz Age,' as Fitzgerald himself put it. Among the myriad accolades heaped upon this book, one thing Fitzgerald is often credited for is crafting an incredibly accurate portrait of the lifestyles of the wealthy at that time and place in history. Just as John Kennedy Toole is credited with painting the most accurate literary portrait of New Orleans in A Confederacy of Dunces, which is kind of a shame, seeing as that portrait is nestled in the pages of the most infuriatingly bad book I've ever forced myself to finish reading.

But while both authors have written narratives that are fictitious (more or less), the setting of both books and the idiosyncrasies of the characters who inhabit those settings both ring very true to life. Which got me thinking that sometimes, if written well enough, a work of narrative fiction could be more accurate in portraying society and reality than a traditional piece of news journalism. When an article demands a lead of 25 - 30 words there's no room for those little details that are often so prevalent in fiction and, as I keep discovering, literary journalism.

That's it.

But finally, just because I'm feeling sentimental:

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning-- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past