Brideshead Revisited

I wonder if it'll show in Singapore.

I read about the movie in Elle US and then ran off to Borders to get the book. It was pretty good but I suspect it's the kind of book that gets better for me with a second reading. Sometimes, when I am too excited about a book, I speed through the pages in an attempt to get to everything faster. And with some books, when you do that, you lose a lot.

Anyhow. Today I read another article about the flim on IHT here, and this bit caught my attention:

The filmmakers also have played up the love triangle of Charles, Sebastian and Sebastian's bewitching sister, Julia (Hayley Atwell). An extended scene during a night of erotic possibility in Venice serves to advance Charles's romance with Julia. (All the changes - including placing Julia in Venice - were approved by the Waugh estate, the filmmakers said.) "This puts Julia center stage," Brock said of the Venice scenes. "When you read the novel, there is a sense that she is slightly the one who comes after Sebastian, that she is No. 2, and I think it's not quite fair. The true love story for Charles is the one with Julia."

Not quite fair? To whom?

I'm just mildly disturbed by the wilful interpretation here. If you read a book and derive from it that the author meant for it to be a certain way, is it alright for you to be rewriting the story in your own head?

Perhaps it's just the way the quotes were phrased.

How many authors have flipped in their graves since filmmakers got the bright idea that they can make movies "based on" books?

Ah well. Just a random train of thought derived from random morning reading.