March 30th, 2007 by Editor
Readers and writers aren’t only found in bookstores—you’ll see them in movies as well. This column lists ten movies featuring writers or readers as characters. If you know about other movies, we’d love to hear about them! Let us know your favorites in the comments.
This list is not an endorsement of any site and should be used for informational purposes only.
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Love, Actually. Colin Firth. Yum, yum.
I’m horrible with titles, but I remember watching an awful movie starring Johnny Depp as a rare book dealer, in which he would handle these supposedly priceless tomes with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Nothing like a little smoke stench, ash burns, and nicotine stains on that first-edition Bible to ensure its preservation…
Miss Potter, of course.
http://gimmethatremote.com/high-def-diary/miss-potter-nice-magical-sweet/
Oooh! Love “Misery” and “Dead Poet’s Society”!
Oh, and don’t forget the movie “Sideways”. The main character (I can’t remember his name) kept trying to get his manuscript published with frustrating results.
Stranger Than Fiction.
Ahhh. “Romancing the Stone”. When I’m writing and I’ve painted myself into a corner with a particular plot point, I can always hear the words “Okay, Joan Wilder. Write us out of this one.” in the back of my head. (And yes, sometimes I even say it out loud.)
Another movie is “Paris When It Sizzles” which is a romance about a screenwriter (William Holden) and his new secretary (Audrey Hepburn).
When we first meet Shrek, he demonstrates a unique appreciation of the written word…
Funny Farm with Chevy Chase, in which he plans to write the Great American Novel and… doesn’t.
That first Johnny Depp movie (chain-smoking rare book dealer) was The Ninth Gate. He also played a writer in Secret Window, which was so awful I couldn’t watch it even for the eye-candy factor.
This is how riveting my day job is, that I can do it even while a large percentage of my brain is processing movie trivia…
Wonder Boys
American Dreamer
Almost Famous
Continental Divide
Mmm… what was that one with Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve? I believe it was theater, first.
Answering my own question after a quick trip to IMDB…
Deathtrap was the Michael Caine one.
A few I can think of:
Under the Tuscan Sun (Diane Lane as book reviewer and writer)
Author, Author (1982 – Al Pacina as playwright)
Sunset Boulevard (1950 – Hollywood screenwriter)
Adaptation (2002 – Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep)
Finding Neverland (Depp as JM Barie)
The Libertine (Depp as John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester, a 17th century poet)
Secret Window (Depp as a writer accused of plagiarism)
Impromptu (1991 – Composer Chopin pursued by writer George Sand)
My Best Friend’s Wedding (The friends in question are a food critique and sports writer)
I just saw “Paris When it Sizzles” when it was on TCM last weekend and thought it a great movie the way it spoofs tired cliches and trite plots. Who hasn’t found themselves going down that road before?
Emma, we were posting at the same time — the one with Christopher Reeve was “Somewhere in Time,” in which he portrays a playwright. Had forgotten about that one!
LOL… same time, different answers.
I’d completely spaced off Somewhere in Time.
Shadowlands – Anthony Hopkins as CS Lewis.
Closet Land with Alan Rickman and Madeleine Stowe and nobody else (it was a cool movie, kind of like a play). “A young writer is interrogated by a sadistic secret policeman. She is accused of embedding political messages in her children’s stories. The entire movie takes place in one room, with only the two actors. The movie is set in an unidentified, modern police state.”-from IMDB
Completely forgot one of my favorite romantic comedies when I posted earlier, Speechless, in which Geena Davis and Michael Keaton play political speech writers for opposing parties, and Christopher Reeve plays a news correspondent.
Alos not yet mentioned: Capote.
God, I love it when people ask me about movies! Almost as much as when they ask me about books!
A Love Song for Bobby Long – John Travolte as an aging, alcoholic writer Southern writer. Marvellous!
Infamous – about Truman Capote – better than Capote!
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen – well, there was this huge library – that counts doesn’t it?
Tristan and Isolde – she read to him!
Okay – that’s all I can remember right now.
In “A Knight’s Tale”, Paul Bettany plays writer/bard Geoffrey Chaucer.
*sigh* I love that movie way more than I probably should.:oops:
You’ve hit all of the ones I can think of off the top of my head, but I remember a scene in Kate and Leopold. Kate (Meg Ryan) breezes by her assistant who is reading a romance novel at her desk and they talk about the pirate plot. My friend and I clearly recognized the book’s cover as one by Christine Feehan. We looked at each other and said, “No pirates. Vampires.”
I remembered another I was trying to think of earlier, “The Front” – a 1976 film about the McCarthy era, in which Woody Allen plays a cashier posing as a writer in order for a group of blacklisted writers to publish their material.
Alex and Emma starring Luke Wilson and Kate Hudson. Luke plays Alex, an author who needs to get his book out in 30 days or his debters (I think it’s the Brazilian Mafia..??) are going to kill him. Very cute movie!
cant believe no one mentioned these yet
Field of Dreams – James Earl Jones as an author
The Hurricane – Denzel Washington’s character biography
A Murder of Crows – Cuba Gooding Jr., cant really say why cause it would ruin the plot for those who havnt seen it
Sliver – Sharon Stone an editor & Tom Berenger a writer
thats all i can think of other then the ones listed already
84, Charring Cross Road with Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins.
Disney’s Beauty and the Beast- remember Belle in the bookshop at the beginning?
This is when I wish I watched more movies than I do. I’ve seen a lot of reading from Captain Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation. I think some of the writers for that show must have been English majors. There were tons of lit references in that series (Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes, Robin Hood, Mark Twain, etc.). That’s all I can think of for now.
Watching one right now–”Something’s Gotta Give”
Reading over the replied from last week reminded me of another, one I haven’t seen in years, THE BARRETTS OF WHIMPOL STREET, about poets Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning.