Maj Sjowall Quotes

After Strangelove I also started work on an adaptation of The Collector.

Most films are rooted in a book or a comic strip, but I don't go out there saying I want to do adaptations.

With 'Anna Karenina,' I just think it's a stunning visual tour de force for a director who is at the top of his game.

An author entices the readers with their words, and it is painful for them to even lose a sentence. But films and books are two different mediums and should be dealt differently. What works in a book might not work for a film. When I saw 'Anna Karenina' on screen, I didn't like it at all, whereas 'The Godfather' was legendary.

I watch movies all the time, so it's hard to pick certain specific directors that have inspired me in the aggregate.

If you are making a script based on a book it can be frustrating going back to the source novel, because you're turning the story into a totally different thing; the narrative of film is different from that of a book.

I watch 'Goodfellas,' and suddenly it frees me up entirely; it reminds me of what great film directing is all about.

If you take a really good book, then the potential is for a really good film. But you've got to get it right.

The novel succeeds on terms exclusive to literature. A good film succeeds on terms exclusive to the cinema. That's why so many bad novels can become good movies, like 'Jaws' or 'The Godfather.'

I always thought that as much as I love 'White Jazz,' it became almost unfilmable at some point, because there are so many strands, so much, and it became so psychotic... that's what made it such a great book, but those things would not carry over into the filmic realm, I thought, with ease.

I think every movie is its own little world, and a director certainly sets the tone.

'City of Bohane' has been optioned for film, and I've finished a first draft of the script.

I'm all for whatever transitions the book properly to a movie.

I am very lucky: not very many writers can say they genuinely like the film of their book. However, I do.

Designing Woman was written for the screen.

I think successful movies that are based on books are their own thing. I think if you're too faithful, word by word, character trait to character trait, it can hurt the movie.

I've just had the opportunity to see the finished film of 'The Hunger Games.' I'm really happy with how it turned out. I feel like the book and the film are individual yet complementary pieces that enhance one another.

I had written for the theater and didn't know that I knew how to write for film. Ultimately, I think it's just trusting your voice, trusting your characters, and then telling them in a different medium.

I tried to buy the script of 'Hancock.' I loved it. The script was far darker and edgier than the movie.

'Underworld' was my first filmed book. I think there are about seven of my lines in it.

I've seen movies that are slavishly devoted to books but don't work because they haven't turned it into a movie: they've turned it into a dramatisation of the different scenes.

For the film 'Saat Khoon Maaf,' which was adapted from my story 'Susanna's Seven Husbands,' I did collaborate on the screenplay. I even took a small role in the film, of a priest.

Polar' is based on the first and a little bit on the second book and all the characters from those novels are in there. The story is based on the graphic novel, but when it came to the execution of the film I felt I couldn't really make a movie without any dialogue.

'Devdas' isn't a real film. It isn't in the same genre as Mira Nair's 'Monsoon Wedding,' where the camera's presence is so understated it almost disappears.

The thing that interested me, there are so many filmmakers I admire - like David Lynch and Quentin Tarantino - they have these themes where there's not much going on, but they were suspenseful.