Post 4 book adaptations

If I were a director of creating an adaptation of The Book Thief by Markus Zusak I would make it into a musical/play. As I am reading this book I think that form of adaptation would be the best. I think it will help the book portray emotion better and make it have more to the story.

In the book I would keep out the small details that don’t affect the plot, like a lot of the kids she plays with. I would take out the part with Rudy and when he gets into trouble reenacting the Jesse Owens scene. This scene Rudy, Leisel’s best friend paints himself black and act like the runner after the actual runner won the race at the Olympics. This scene is important to the characterization of Rudy, but not particularly to the plot of the whole story. I would also take out the scene/ character of when she meets the mayor’s wife and how she allows Leisel read in their library. Although it hasn’t made much importance in the book yet, so I don’t know where the writer is going with by adding these scenes/ characters into the story.

I would although keep some of the scenes where Rudy and Leisel interact. Like when the students are asked to be tested in front of the class by reading out loud. He encourages her to read in front of everyone and try to show them that she is smart, even though she doesn’t do as well as she thought she could. Also I think when they are stealing from the farms and how it shows how the kids go hungry during the world war. It helps to keep to the viewer’s mind that the war is affecting everyone. Also the main part of the plot of how papa is teaching her to read through the long nights with Leisel. I would also keep all of the interactions of Leisel and Papa, where is talking about the nightmares and her beginning to learn to read. Also I would keep the majority of interactions of Leisel and Max, showing what it was like for Leisel and the family what it was like to be hiding a Jew in their basement during the time of WW2.

The cast for this is critical to understand the whole story. The cast will need to portray the characters to a deeper level than just looks. They need to be accurate to the fine detail, for the people who have read the book to stay true, and also for those who haven’t read the book to express the detail that’s written to be able to visual the depth of each character. They also need to have amazing voices, since this adaption is a musical. They will need to be able to also live the lifestyle of how these people lived at this time in the book. It would be great for them to get into character at the time and be able to have the mindset of being alive in the time of WW2 even though we are filming it today.

 The soundtrack needs to be written by the best classical composer. They need to be older and more experienced. The composer will need to capture all the under toning emotion that is in the story into their music and they will need to be able to make the viewer understand the mood just from listening to the music. The music will have its own story to tell, it will go along with the story, but it will have to also do it on its own. It has to be able to change the viewer’s emotions, like giving them goose bumps by just listening to it. Some of the soundtrack will be directly sang by the cast and the other part will be under the talking of the cast or to fill in the quiet areas of the musical.

The musical will need to be able to capture the time period that it’s in and make it vital to the story. Since WW2 is still talked about from the war stand point today, it need to do a better job of showing how its point of view of the common people around the war. It need to show the world that was going on around the war. It also needs to stay accurate to what was actually happening. It will have to follow the actual timeline of the war, as a side note. Every one that will be helping or working on this movie will need to have a well suited background with the war, like having an understanding of at least what was going on. This will make it easier to create and also make it easy to portray the setting of the story, since the war was the main point to the story, as almost everything revolved around it.