Movie to be made of “Across the River and Into the Woods”

Plierce Brosnan will bring a little-known Ernest Hemingway novel to the screen, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

adriana and gun

EH2841P nd. Ernest Hemingway and Adriana Ivancich with stuffed lion. Finca Vigia, San Francisco de Paula, Cuba. Copyright unknown in the Ernest Hemingway Collection at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.
EH2841P nd.
Ernest Hemingway and Adriana Ivancich with stuffed lion. Finca Vigia, San Francisco de Paula, Cuba. Copyright unknown in the Ernest Hemingway Collection at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

adriana on boat

hem and her

Across the River and Into the Woods was one of Hemingway’s poorly received books.  It was written while Hemingway was infatuated with Adriana Ivancich who was the prototype for Renata.  It still sold decently and at one point, there was talk of a movie with a very young Sophia Loren as Renata and Gary Cooper as the Colonel.  I liked the book but did not find Renata to be an interesting character or sufficient to draw the intense attention of the Colonel who clearly was partially based on Hemingway himself.  Should be interesting.Hem and Adriana, far right

Adriana type
Adriana type

More about Hemingway’s Letters

For readers of Ernest Hemingway, it can be tempting to mix the iconic writer’s fictional characters with the public persona of the writer himself. He never kept a journal and apparently integrated many of his personal experiences into his art.

More of Hemingway’s letters are being published and they are so revealing and fun. For example, Hemingway is known as being a bit of a bully to his wives yet some of the letters show great sensitivities to Martha Gellhorn  and admiration and support for her career as a writer. Please take a look when you have time.

Best, Christine

EH5598P 1940 Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn in Sun Valley, Idaho, 1940. Photographer unknown in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.
EH5598P 1940
Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn in Sun Valley, Idaho, 1940. Photographer unknown in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

Casting the Big Novels: Me as Casting Director

Now, who should play the great parts that Hem has provided for us?  My selections in bold:

Thinking cap

The Sun Also Rises: (1957)

Blake Lively

A Farewell to Arms: (1932)

  • Helen Hayes (Angelina Jolie) as Catherine

    Angelina as Catherine
  • Gary Cooper (Clive Owen) as Frederic

A Farewell to Arms (1957)

  • Jennifer Jones as Catherine (Hemingway dismayed that she was 40. Catherine was supposed to be in her twenties.)
  • Rock Hudson as Frederic

A Farewell to Arms (In Love and War) (1996)

  • Sandra Bullock as Catherine
  • Chris O’Donnell as Frederic

For Whom the Bell Tolls: (1943)

RooneyMara
  • Ingrid Bergman (Rooney Mara) as Maria
  • Gary Cooper (Ben Affleck) as Robert Jordan

The Snows of Kilimanjaro  (1952)

  • Gregory Peck (Ed Harris) as Harry
  • Susan Hayward (Sharon Stone) as Helen
  • Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale) as Cynthia

    Kate Beckinsale

The Old Man and the Sea ( 1958)

  • Spencer Tracy ( Javier Bardem) as Santiago

SO HOW DID I DO?

Javier Bardem

 

 

 

 

When More Is . . . More

Reading is my life.
Reading is my life.

Purple is not only highly coloured prose,” he wrote. “It is the world written up, intensified and made pleasurably palpable, not only to suggest the impetuous abundance of Creation, but also to add to it by showing – showing off – the expansive power of the mind itself … When the deep purple blooms, you are looking at a dimension, not a posy.”

On praise of purple prose
In praise of purple prose

This is an interesting article in praise of “purple prose,” the opposite of minimalist prose favored by Hemingway. It does not pan that prose but argues that there is a place for “more.” nice commentary. Best, Christine

More is more
More is more

Restoring the Finca Vigia outside Havana : Work to Begin

#HemingwayFincavigia

#Hemingwaycuba

Havana, Cuba (CNN)Ernest Hemingway’s home near Havana is expected to soon receive an infusion of badly needed building supplies from the United States.

 

Before it is too late, actual collaboration between the U.S. and Cuba is happening regarding the restoration of Hemingway’s beloved Cuban home. He lived there for about twenty years. As mentioned in previous posts, he and Mary left many papers and mementos when they were not allowed to return. Apparently, there remain many writings/notes of historical and literary interest even after Mary was permitted to remove some of them  post-Hemingway’s death.

Finca Vigia
Finca Vigia

The opportunity to write in Hemingway’s Key West Studio

Anybody can tour the Spanish colonial estate in Key West, Florida, where Ernest Hemingway lived in the 1930s. Now a new contest is offering one lucky and talented writer a chance to work in the studio where Hemingway wrote.

Most of us can’t be a Hemingway even if surrounded by his aura and his home. Still, it has to inspiring. Enter the contest and maybe you can be the one to sit in his chair and banish any thought of writer’s block. Click above link for details.

 

This is not the Key West studio but the writer at work anyway.
This is not the Key West studio but the writer at work anyway.

New Finds at the Finca in Cuba

The Finca Today
The Finca Today
 SI Senor. I love Cuba.
SI Senor. I love Cuba.

It’s been a year since the U.S. and Cuba began normalizing relations. Tourism, business and cultural exchanges are booming. And there is another curious benefactor of those warmer ties — Ernest Hemingway, or at least, his legacy.

please read the above article about the on-going restoration efforts on the Finca and some of the finds made when access was allowed to various areas of the property. Now that Cuba is more open, we can hope for much preservation.

Cover of LIFE
Cover of LIFE

 

Hemingway, Paris, and Christmas

I have been enjoying the nostalgic and beautifully written short pieces in By-Line: Ernest Hemingway; especially Hemingway’s 1923 essay for the Toronto Star, “Christmas on the Roof of the World.” In this exuberant essay, which was written when Ernest was 24 years old, all of the wonder of Christmas and travel are expressed beginning with Christmas morning in Switzerland. Hemingway’s joy is undeniable as he describes Christmas day with Hadley and Chink:

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all. The above is a link to an article in The Hemingway Project about early short stories written by Hemingway. Enjoy. Thank you for reading this Blog and being interested in Ernest Hemingway.

Love, Christine

Where he wrote in Paris
Where he wrote in Paris
Happy New Year
Happy New Year

Biopic Movie of Max Perkins, Hemingway’s editor is a contender

BERLIN • Genius, a star-studded biopic about fabled editor Max Perkins, who published some of America’s most famous writers, is among the five movies in the first slate of contenders announced last Friday for the Berlin International Film Festival next year.

Starring Colin Firth, Jude Law and Nicole Kidman, the film about the editor who launched the careers of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe will have its world premiere at the Berlinale, Europe’s first major cinema showcase of the year that runs from Feb 11 to 21.

I have eagerly awaited this movie since I heard about it. I love Colin Firth and Max Perkins deserves his own glory.  The role of the editor was very different in the 20’s-50’s with huge nurturing of egos and careers. How Perkins managed his stable of temperamental geniuses is beyond imagination.  It should get to the US in early 2016.

Max perkins
Max perkins

Writers and Hollywood: Where did the magic go??

Spencer Tracy as Santiago
Spencer Tracy as Santiago

Nobel Prize laureate William Faulkner found it so unsatisfying that he asked to be released from his Warner Bros. contract. F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose writings defined the Jazz Age, tried once and vowed never to do it again. Even novelist and adventurer Ernest Hemingway took one look at it and advised other famous authors to “jump into your car and drive like hell back the way you came.”

Hemingway famously did not like any adaptations of his novels. Heck, they changed the end of A Farewell To Arms.  He “kind of” liked For Whom the Bell Tolls. To Have and Have Not barely resembled the book.  And don’t get him started on The Old Man and the Sea. He told A E Hotchner that the best way to handle a movie offer is to drive to the CA border, let them throw the money at you, you throw the book to them, and then drive away like a bat out of hell.

Nice article about Hemingway and others. I did a post early on about who I would cast in main roles. Maybe i’ll do that again and reconsider my earlier thoughts.

William Faulkner
William Faulkner
Catherine and Frederic
Catherine and Frederic
The Sun Also Rises
The Sun Also Rises
Hemingway and Gellhorn/ Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman
Hemingway and Gellhorn/ Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman
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