Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Books in Movies - What Characters Read

September 9, 2012


I was thinking about the movie You've Got Mail the other day.  One of my favorite scenes is where Meg Ryan is waiting in the coffee shop with a copy of Pride and Prejudice and a rose.  Just that one little scene reveals so much about her character, just like the opening scene from Pride and Prejudice where Keira Knightly's Elizabeth Bennet is reading while walking.  This got me thinking about other movies where characters are reading books in movies.  Has anyone else ever noticed this?  How much deeper is our sense of character is he or she is reading Twilight as opposed to The Grapes of Wrath or even Nora Roberts' The Search.

What if John McClane, Bruce Willis' character in the Die Hard films, was shown reading How to Win Friends and Influence People?  Or if Ace Ventura read Dostoevsky?  What could we learn, or what jokes would we get, if we paid close attention?  I'm going to keep this thought in the back of my mind for a while and report my finding.  In the meantime, if you've ever noticed what characters read, please let me know.  If you haven't, what do you think your favorite film and TV characters read?  Let me know in the space below.

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