A movie I would love to write and direct would be Stephen Sondheim's ASSASSINS. Response would REALLY depend on timing of release and all that stuff, but... it's a great story, and it has great music, and people who can't afford the theater deserve to see it.
I would also love to W/D LES MISERABLES for all the same reasons that any fan of the show would. However, I would (I'm going to be lynched for this, but whatever) chuck most of the sung-through dialog because most of it only works on stage; it describes action that you wouldn't necessarily be able to discover if they didn't tell you. For instance:
(after Valjean is invited into the Priest's house at the beginning)
VALJEAN
He let me eat my fill
I had the lion's share
The silver in my hand
Cost twice what I had earned
In all those nineteen years -
That lifetime of despair
And yet he trusted me.
The old fool trusted me -
He'd done his bit of good
I played the grateful serf
And thanked him like I should
But when the house was still,
I got up in the night.
Took the silver
Took my flight!
That scene could EASILY be shown with nothing but action and great acting in a movie.
"Y'know, I think Bertolt Brecht was rolling in his grave."
-Nellie McKay on the 2006 Broadway production of The Threepenny Opera, in which she played Polly Peachum
Updated On: 8/31/06 at 09:31 PM
