With a Song in Your Heart

With a Song in Your Heart, Not on Your Screen

by Rebecca

One of Sarah's weekend blogs got me thinking about what strong sensory memories songs can evoke.  So can smells, but I'll leave that for someone else to pursue. In the Stone Age, or The Golden Age, depending upon one's viewpoint, before the advent of MTV and VH1 and all the other music video feeds, we had only our own memories and fantasies to accompany the musical score of our lives.

I'm not a techno-phobe, and I like some music videos as much as the next gal, but I don't like the fact that our own imaginations are taking a back seat to someone else's vision. As much as Michael Jackson's music videos were revered for their creativity, knowing what we know now, do you really want to get a closer look into his head? I know I don't. I can't even listen to his music anymore without picturing the freak he has become.

As a rule, I don't like audio books either, although I understand the appeal. Those characters already have their own voices in my head; I don't want them mucked up by some voice actor, no matter how good.

What really sets me off are great books turned into bad movies. Once in a blue moon, you'll get a Gone With the Wind or a Lord of the Rings--not as good, or as complete--as the books, but wonderful in their own right. But for everyone one of those, you get three V.I.Warshawskis and a couple of animated Animal Farms. Worse yet, you get the kid who, like George Constanza, will rent the movie instead of reading the book.  That's just wrong.

One of my favorite examples, and like Dave Barry, I am not making this up, is when I went to a record store to get the Broadway Cast soundtrack of Les Miserables.  The kid at the checkout counter looked at it, and told me with a straight face that he heard there was a book coming out.  After I stopped choking, I started to explain about Victor Hugo, then just gave up.

Writing, music, art--they are all products of someone's imagination.  We used to get lectures about not using calculators for math tests--you had to learn it first. The same should apply to the creative subjects. Imagination, like any other gift, needs to be nurtured to thrive. If we start relying on someone else's, we risk starving our own.

Comments

[Maryann]

There are times I get the feeling imagination is dead in Hollywoodland...and perhaps NYC as well. Remakes seem to be the order of the day, from Love Affair to Titanic to Sweeney Todd. Plus, everyone and their uncles are now doing 'cover albums'. The newest one I've seen is something like Michael Bolton Swings the 50's. And pardon me if I think that no one does Johnny Mathis or Mel Torme as well as the originals. As for the written word, I think more liberties are taken with it in the creation of movies than anywhere else (except perhaps the floor of the Senate).My favorite example? Grisham's The Client. From his description of our heroine, I got a distinct picture of Kathy Bates...only to have the casting department select for me Susan Sarandon...good actor, but nowhere near the dumpy middle-aged Grisham lawyer.
Anyway...my favorite 'smell' association is the one I have with Old Spice. For years, that is what I thought wallpaper paste smelled like, until I realized the guy I was working with (on a high school musical) was using Old Spice :o) Still brings back fond memories of sophomore musical rehearsals!

[Mary Alice Gorman]

Not such a recent phenom. I remember back in the 70's-------several careers ago-------I had a student teacher who hadn't watched any television in 10 years. She had a very difficult time teching literature when the TV visual metaphors eluded her. In fact, she gave up teaching and is now a lawyer!
mary alice

[Ro]

I thought 'Presumed Innocent' was a terrific book. I like Harrison Ford and loved Raul Julia, so I was really looking forward to the movie. Too bad the movie was awful.

One of the few movies that did a decent service to the book was 'To Kill a Mockingbird' - but maybe that was just because Gregory Peck is so good.

Even the Harry Potter movies, which are great movies, didn't do justice to Rowling's books.

Now I hear that Reese Witherspoon is going to play Stephanie Plum in the movie based on the Evanovich books? I won't be spending the $10 to see that one.

[Kathy Sweeney]

Mary Alice - I have the same battle when I teach - and that's at a college level!

I felt like I needed a crash course in cartoons and video games just to speak their language. That's bad enough - but these kids didn't even have a well-rounded knowledge of pop culture - merely their own small window. I made a reference to Mr. Spock and Star Trek and none of them knew what I meant - had to bring in a DVD to show them the original. Finally, one of them recognized William Shatner from his cameo in "Dodge Ball". Yikes.

Margaret - Old Spice evokes very powerful memories with me too - but they're more private than public!

[ramona]

There was great debate in my house when the first Harry Potter movie was being cast. JKR drew such vivid physical images of her characters that my sons, in particular, were very critical about the actors who portrayed them on screen, primarily because they didn't "look like" the book images. We still do discuss whenever a new character is added. For instance, I was thrilled to learn that the actress who will portray Tonks is the girl who played Ellie in the film version of About A Boy. A book which, IMO, was beautifully adapted for the screen. Changes were made, but it all worked for me--and Hugh Grant got to sing! Off-key!

But on the subject of that new Les Miz book coming out (!!!), for a long time I held the view that children who hadn't read the HP books shouldn't be allowed to see the movie. I was a real tight-asp about it, until the drama teacher at the high school came in with a graphic novel version of Macbeth. She gave me a nice speech about how, in A Perfect World, all kids would read Shakespeare while enjoying their cornflakes. In The Real World, however, she's okay with kids being exposed to Macbeth on the screen, on the stage, in a graphic novel or as a stick figure at the state fair. (I'm not sure what she meant by that last thing, but that's what she said!) So I've decided to back off my high horse a little bit. If watching a movie leads you to the original source, great. If not, well...

As for Les Miz, Javert would have been a great mention in yesterday's blog on the literary meanies.

[Kerry, the Martial Tart]

I just tell my students that all my pop culture references are at least 20 years old. I can sort of understand them not knowing about Star Trek (a pity, because I have a great mnemonic for remembering amino acid structure based on the call letters of the Enterprise -- I am such a geek!), but now I'm having trouble with Buffy and Xena!

I personally find Shakespeare much easier to manage live than on the page. And I don't know about anyone else, but I can think of one instance in which I liked a movie way better than the original novel: Jaws. No extraneous stuff about love affairs, just perfectly executed suspense and fright.

Oh -- and it's not quite the same, but related. My daughter, who is now waiting tables and bartending at the country club, is having to learn about wine for the first time. She was very excited to let me know that they now make a red Zinfandel :)

[ramona]

p.s. In my haste to post (post-haste?), I did not read my comments carefully, esp. the bit about children shouldn't be allowed to see the movie without reading the book. I didn't mean that someone should actually, you know, do that, as in there should be movie nazis questioning you at the ticket counter. When a parent asked me if I thought their kids would like the movie, I always said they should read the book first. That's all.

Is this how politicians feel when they've said something stupid?

[tes]

All art a remix of nature observed and retold. Inspired stuff comes from the very highest reaches of the neo-cortex. Somebody said, art is a collaboration between God and man, and the less man has to do with it the better. The iternal order and surprise of art gives pleasure at the edge of the soul from where we can almost, but never quite, see the divine. The power of this near glimpse stays with us.

[Maryann]

I don't think politicians ever think they say anything stupid...it is always the inability of their constituents to comprehend their true intent.:o)
I'm better off watching Shakespeare than reading it in most cases, although that didn't excuse us from having to choose a play from Lamb's Shakespeare and write a report on it in eighth grade. Now, we have parents coming into the bookstore frantic to find a Cliff Notes...or something... on To Kill A Mockingbird because their children have a report 'due tomorrow'. On the plus side, there is now a series out titled No-Fear Shakespeare for most of his plays. Original dialogue on one page, contemporary English on the facing page. As far as his dramas go, contemporary might be easier to digest.:o)

[Carstairs38]

I have watched very few music videos. Mainly because it's hard to find them for the music I listen to.

As a result, there are some CD's that immediately pull me to a time and/or place. It doesn't matter I haven't been there for 10+ years, they still do that to me.

I know most movies don't do justice to the books, yet I still hold out hope. I was very pleasantly surprised with last year's Narnia. They changed a lot in the middle, but it made for a great movie. Adapting the book straight wouldn't have made the movie as good because so much of the character bits are done with narration in the book, which you can't do in a movie.

Mark

[Kimmy]

Music is very personal to me - I stopped watching music videos years ago because they were never as good as the pictures I imagined myself.

Someone mentioned how many artists are simply re-doing someone else's work. Sometimes that's fine - Springsteen's new CD with the Pete Seeger songs is wonderful. But Michael Bolton singing Sinatra? Forget the flag-burning amendment - that should be unconstitutional!

[Kathy Sweeney]

On Shakespeare - I think most of us prefer to see it on stage because that's what it was written for - live performance.

I second the "No Fear Shakespeare" recommendation - when we first started to our daughter to read him, we found those books, and they're great.

As far as Sinatra goes - Michael Bolton?! Michael Buble - fine, great even, especially live. But Michael Bolton? I'd rather hear Michael McKeon a la Spinal Tap. Sounds like another sign that the apocolypse may be upon us.

[Kerry, the Martial Tart]

I agree with Mark about Narnia. There were a few bits I didn't care for (very short pieces designed, I thought, mostly to placate modern sensibilities), but I thought the addition of the beginning sequence (the air raid, not in the book) was a brilliant way to quickly outline the characters, their motivations, and their relationships to one another. In fact, I felt that I knew and understood them better after seeing the movie than I ever have -- and I've been reading and re-reading that book for, um, gosh -- almost 40 years!

FWIW, I never allowed my daughter to use Cliff Notes :)

[Cinema Dave]

As a child diagonsed with a learning disabilty, my parents did something real cool. They let me stay up late to watch "The Alamo" on a school night. It motivated me to read more because I had to learn what happend next.

Since I work in the AV section of a county library system, AV materials are number one in circulation and this seems to be a national trend.

It is a transitional time for popular culture, good movies get ignored by mainstream critics and over rated ones get nominated for Oscars. Kids do not know who Mr. Spock is, but they do recognize Wolverine, Spiderman and Superman. So at least kids are reading comic books!

[Amie]

What a wonderful post!!

I am a product of the MTV generation. But I rarely watch music videos. And I get a perverse thrill out of telling my kids some hot new song is a remake.

I have, if nothing else, made it a point to introduce my kids to pop culture beyond what's current. They watch Fresh Prince on Nickelodian (which they found on their own) and I get such a kick out of reminding them how old it is (and making fun of the characters all over again). I rented the series Sliders on DVD -- and Ferris Beuller and Sixteen Candles and even the original Terminator and Alien movies, because for me, they're all classics as much as anything with Katherine Hepburn (who I love). I know I know --sue me *sigh*

[Saracen]

One of my favorite indulgences is to listen to recordings of some of the old radio broadcasts such as Escape and Suspense. What great exercise for one's imagination. It would be interesting to compare imaginative descriptions of the various characters and events arrived at by individuals without the assistance of multimedia effects.

[Dena]

Catching up on blogs while I was away.

I listen to audio books in the car, and I've found that when I read the books, I hear that same voice in my head.

[Mark Vane]

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