Is there a film version of Dandelion Wine in the works?

I just replied to this post, but apparently my message was lost in the ether...

I haven't heard of any firm plans for a film version of this book. It would be a difficult one to do, I think, due to the episodic nature of the narrative. But others here are much more knowledgeable than I, and can tell you for certain if such a film is even in the earliest planning stages.

However, I would certainly like to see a film version of this! To see Green Town, Illinois, as it is in the book, and not the rather sad, run-down version of the town of Waukegan as it appears in the present day--now that would be something.

And yet, I don't know that any film could compare to the vision I have in my head. I can picture it all so clearly, most particularly stories like "The Swan." I don't know that any film could possibly be as good as the one I would imagine.

I suppose I need to read the play version of this book. Has anyone else here read it, and how does it compare to the original?

Thanks for posting a reply. I figured someone at this site would have thoughts on the topic. I have toyed with the idea of penning a screenplay version of the book (egads!) with the hopes of someday acquiring the budget big enough to make happen. I'd imagine it would have to play out like "Amelie" for Bradbury's world, eh? Just think of all the scenes! And it wouldn't be a musical like the one that already exists...
At any rate... a pipedream. The book blew my mind in high school and now, at 32 with one movie under my belt, I am courting the whim of taking on the project. A grand undertaking for certain, but one that may very well need to happen - for someone at least...
Thanks for your input.

You might check out Robert Altman's "Short Cuts". This movie tied together about eight Raymond Carver short stories. This has a dark side and nudity, but you might look at how he tied the stories together. In the case of DW, of course, the characters are already tied together, but it might be worth checking it out.

Somewheres, way way back in the posts, there is a small film company noted, with web address, that made a film, a short film, of 'Dandelion Wine'. Whatever happened to it, is ??? And then there was a Russian film company noted in previous posts somewheres that did a film... and that one is with ???s as to what has become of it or how to find it....

Click here for info on the Russsian version of 'Dandelion Wine' (Vino iz Oduvanchikov)
Clicking on the' info' may take a minute to download...
http://www.genordell.com/stores/spirit/RBmedia.htm


[This message has been edited by Nard Kordell (edited 09-26-2003).]

Great. Thanks for that link. I'll do some more research.

Mr. Dark - Yes. I see how "Short Cuts" relates to DW. Makes sense. My hopes would be to string Douglas Spaulding's thread through the whole story line, linking as many of the chapters together... Don't know if it can work. As with any book-to-movie project some are disatrous (Bonfire of the Vanities) and some are brilliant (Shawshank Redemption). "Something wicked..." was a great adaptation. And I thought they were remaking Far. 451? At any rate, I'll continue to do research on the topic. Thanks.

Octobercountry, I started to read the play version of Dandelion Wine, but I'm afraid I couldn't stomach it - it seems so twee and sugary-sweet compared to the novel. I've recently read the plays of F451 and Martian Chronicles, and both of these seem to strike exactly the right tone, while leaving an awful lot open to interpretation in the staging; Dandelion Wine, on the other hand, seems to dictate a particular visual style which (to me) jars with the images I get from reading the novel.

Still, I've just re-read the short story "I Sing the Body Electric", which I used to (ten-fifteen years ago) find horrendously over-written; but now it seems quintessential Bradbury in style. Maybe Dandelion Wine (play) will seem that way to me one day.

Phil

Perhaps not entirely fair to count this in the same category as a book, as, being written in play form, it was halfway in film form already, but did anyone see the terrific Broadway version of Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize winning "Our Town," with Paul Newman as the stage manager? It just aired on PBS--we are still crying!

"The Member of the Wedding" is a wonderful story of American small town life which made two fine films. One black-and-white, one color, one theatrical, one for TV, both great.

Next to these two stories, I would count Thomas Wolfe's "Look Homeward, Angel" and Ray Bradbury's "Dandelion Wine" as the most brilliant written depictions of 20th Century American small-town life. "Look Homeward, Angel" was adapted into a play, which, like "Our Town," won the Pulitzer Prize, but I don't know of it's ever being filmed. "Dandelion Wine" has NEVER appeared as a full-length movie, except in Russia, where it was a miniseries, not available on video in this country. If done properly, it's about time for these. If not done well, then never.

Dandelion,

I caught Our Town and thought it was a wonderful production. I'd recently re-read the play and had forgotten how powerful it is. Of course, I'd made the connection between Our Town and Dandelion Wine (Sorry. Never read any of Wolfe.)and think it would be an interesting term paper for any of the students on this board. Yes, the surface details are similar: small town life depicted in, perhaps, a nostalgic light but the underlying themes of the power of memory and the importance of living every day in the moment and cherishing the present as well as the past. But it might be challenging to compare and contrast the styles of each writer and how they chose to tackle the very similar subject matter.

(Tears? You're darn tootin'! Anyone unmoved by this production needs to see where they've mis-laid their heart. Newman was great, of course, but so was the rest of the cast. I'm usually a stickler for realistically presented theatre but I was entranced and taken in by the suggested pantomimes and sets with no problem. Yeah, I know this play is a chestnut put on by just about every high-school and community theatre but there's a good reason for it: You can't go wrong with good material.)

Pete

Pete--you are absolutely right, of course--I happened to miss having the play in high school due to switching schools, but read it after the episode of "The Wonder Years" in which Winnie Cooper played the part of Emily in their school production. My mom's comment about that was that the line, "Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you" was "so great she couldn't even spoil it by her poor delivery." (I actually didn't find her delivery all that poor. In fact, I consider "The Wonder Years" to be the late 20th Century's natural successor to the early 20th Century's "Our Town" and "It's a Wonderful Life." It was one of the few consistently excellent TV series ever, with never a single bad episode or even mediocre moment.)

"Dandelion Wine," "Our Town," and "It's a Wonderful Life" are not only all fine, if a bit sentimental, portrayals of American small-town life, but make vital comments on realizing the value of individuals' own lives. In "Dandelion Wine," Douglas asks, "Tom...does everyone in the world...know he's alive?" "Sure. Heck, yes!" "I hope they do," whispered Douglas. "Oh, I sure hope they know."

In "Our Town," right after the line quoted above, Emily asks, "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute?
Stage Manager: No. (Pause.) The saints and poets, maybe--they do some."

And, of course, in "It's a Wonderful Life," George Bailey's guardian angel, Clarence, reminds him that one man's life touches so many, when he is gone, it leaves an awful hole.

Another similiarity between all three is that an important moment of romantic bonding takes place at a drugstore soda fountain. Perhaps it's the decline of the drugstore soda fountain which led to the decline of romance in America!

Mom said a friend of hers met Thornton Wilder and described him as "such a wise man you didn't have to tell him anything. He already knew." This would also be a very apt description of Ray!

I believe that "Dandelion Wine" could be pulled of as a film. It would have to be done as a one season television series. A two hour film wouldn't be near enough time, neither would an eight hour miniseries. PBS could pull it off. They could just make it as long as it needed to be, no padding out, no removing material to shorten it - just put that book right on the screen. As John Houston told Mr. Bradbury, "... tear the pages from your book and cram them into the camera."

(it's Russian film)

I like this snapshot . Look, how many sun there is!

quote:

Originally posted by From Greentown Illinois:
As John Houston told Mr. Bradbury, "... tear the pages from your book and cram them into the camera."

I thought that was Gene Kelly who told him that?

Actually it was Sam Peckinpaugh, when he signed on to direct "Something Wicked This Way Comes," sometime during the 1970's. I just looked it up - it's in Mr. Bradbury's Afterward to the SWTWC book from Avon