It´s such a difficult business

Last week I attended a very interesting interview. It was one of those rare occasions on which you have the opportunity of learning a bit more about a person whose work you admire: Nick Hornby. As I pointed out some months ago literature and cinema are closely linked and very often, it is impossible to understand films without the direct influence of literature. I dare say that this English writer has become a household name for the people who are interested in contemporary fiction but the work of this author has been influential in the lives of cinema-goers who are not familiar with his novels. In brief, most of his novels have been adapted for the big screen and perhaps the name Nick Hornby doesn´t ring a bell but what about the following films: High Fidelity, About a Boy or  Fever Pitch?

                                                  The official trailer for About a Boy.

If you´re into cinema and especially into comedies, I´m sure you´ve watched some of these films. Probably one of the reasons why Horby´s stories appeal to viewers/ readers is his ability to create characters whose concerns, emotions and attitudes are so universal. His novels may take place in England but the readers in Germany, in Spain or in the States feel moved in the same way as British readers do. And that´s why, his stories are usually adapted for the big screen by American people and take place in the States but as Nick Hornby recognises, it doesn´t matter because however British his characters may look, the important thing is to be able to translate the worries, aspirations, dreams and failures that define every character to the screen. In this sense, Nick Hornby feels grateful to film-makers, producers, musicians and all the people involved in making films for their effort and work because making a film is such a difficult business that it is not easy to gather the right group of people  - at the right time –  in order to work together on the creation of a  story . And that´s one of the lessons that I learnt from Nick Hornby: we often take films for granted. I must confess that I had already reached that conclusion myself but sometimes we do need to be reminded of the more obvious things. We have a look at the newspaper or on the Internet and we find out that there´s a new film at our local cinema and next week there´ll probably be another one but we must be aware that beyond the pictures on the screen which move us in very different ways, there are lots of people working really hard and those people are part of the film industry, the industry that trades in images and emotions, invisible but powerful currency, don´t you think?

                              The screenplay of An Education was also written by Nick Hornby.

Have you watched any of the films based on the novels by Nick Hornby? What do you think about them?