By Jeri and Kelcie Mattson
Guest Writers

When we think of favorite movies, there are several titles that immediately spring to mind: The Lord of the Rings, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Shawshank Redemption, The Silence of the Lambs, The Maltese Falcon. Aside from being our favorite films, these works share two additional things in common. First, they’re all incredible movies and staples of classic cinema and second, they were all based on books.

A great book seizes the imagination, transporting its reader into a fantastic world born out of (and limited only by) the creativity of its author’s mind, set to paper and page through the artistry and power of the written word.

Movies bring such feats of imagination to life, adapting the literary into a visual medium through the combined talents of screenwriters, directors, cinematographers, editors, and musical composers.

Each of these individuals utilizes his or her separate talents in the process of adapting a book to the screen, encapsulating the essential aspects of the novel while simultaneously adding their own interpretations of the material as they form a unique new vision. Conversely, a movie adaptation of a novel can also serve as a portal into the world of the original book, intriguing the viewer who may have overlooked it and creating a desire to read the source material.

It’s a powerful alchemy that converts a written work to film. A tension always exists between the need to meet the public’s expectations yet hold true to the moviemaker’s creative instincts.  In 1938, the tsunami of public sentiment swept Clark Gable into the role of Rhett Butler in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind, resulting in an iconic melding of actor and role.

Half a century later young Daniel Radcliffe put a face to boy wizard Harry Potter for millions of enthralled viewers.

Peter Jackson’s visionary masterpiece The Lord of the Rings trilogy remains unparalleled in its success in bringing the world of J. R. R. Tolkein’s Middle Earth to life. And at the opposite end of the scale one finds Battlefield Earth, the disastrous film adaptation of L. Ron Hubbard’s novel, widely considered one of the worst movies ever made.

Of the 82 Best Picture winners since the Oscars began in 1929, fully 41 have been based on a written work of some sort. From the earliest titles of All Quiet on the Western Front, It Happened One Night, and Rebecca, through the later years of The Sound of Music and Ordinary People, to the 2000s and Million Dollar Baby¸ No Country for Old Men, and Slumdog Millionaire, it is clear the reading public is essential to Hollywood’s continued success.

Movie adaptations continue to dominate the box office as well as the Oscars: 2009’s Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey, Jr. (Guy Ritchie’s take on the Arthur Conan Doyle classic) and Best Picture nominee The Blind Side with Sandra Bullock ruled the Christmas season, and in 2010 Tim Burton’s visionary retelling of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland became the fifth highest-grossing film of all time.

As for this summer, only those recovering from a spell of Rip Van Winkle-ism could have overlooked the omnipresent Bella and Edward, protagonists of Stephenie Meyer’s zeitgeist Twilight series, the third installment of which, Eclipse, opens June 30, a guaranteed box office monster.

So this summer, while you’re enjoying the cool dark of a theater or home video, if you find your handful of popcorn suspended halfway to your mouth, chances are you’re lost in storytelling magic that has its origins in a book. When the lights come back up, why not head to the library and check it out?