THE BORE

General => The Superdeep Borehole => Topic started by: Polari on August 20, 2013, 11:25:00 AM

Title: Elmore Leonard dies
Post by: Polari on August 20, 2013, 11:25:00 AM
:(

Wrote Get Shorty, Rum Punch (adapted as Jackie Brown), Out of Sight, 3:10 to Yuma, the Raylan Givens books that Justified is based on. One of the most underrated American novelists in my book, great writer.
Title: Re: Elmore Leonard dies
Post by: Phoenix Dark on August 20, 2013, 12:15:59 PM
I enjoyed Rum Punch. RIP
Title: Re: Elmore Leonard dies
Post by: Stoney Mason on August 20, 2013, 12:29:38 PM
 :'(

One of my favorite writers.

RIP
Title: Re: Elmore Leonard dies
Post by: Tucah on August 20, 2013, 12:40:57 PM
Great author and wrote the basis for some fantastic film/TV too (Justified is so good). RIP.
Title: Re: Elmore Leonard dies
Post by: Stoney Mason on August 20, 2013, 07:51:19 PM
I really appreciated the way he wrote black characters. He just had an amazing touch and ear for dialogue.
Title: Re: Elmore Leonard dies
Post by: Madrun Badrun on August 20, 2013, 08:01:18 PM
Sounds like a white blues singer.
Title: Re: Elmore Leonard dies
Post by: Mandark on August 20, 2013, 09:24:58 PM
Going off my somewhat fuzzy memory:  Earlier in his career Hollywood kept having trouble adapting his stuff for the screen, despite him writing crime and western stuff that you'd think would make the transition pretty well.  There was an anecdote about Leonard visiting the set of a film based on one of his books, and one of the actors came over during a break and asked him "How's it feel to hear people fucking up all the dialogue you wrote?"  His experiences dealing with Hollywood inspired Get Shorty (the Danny DeVito character was based on Dustin Hoffman) which became the first of his stories to become a successful movie, after which he had better luck.


I haven't read anything of his in a while.  In his honor I'll add a couple of them to my increasingly speculative to-read list.
Title: Re: Elmore Leonard dies
Post by: Stoney Mason on August 21, 2013, 12:40:40 AM
I saw Jackie Brown before I read Rum Punch. And at the time I was really taken with Samuel Jackson's performance and that character. I thought wow he probably ad-libbed a lot of that material and Sam Jackson'ed it up. But when I read the book I was shocked by how relatively little of it was Ad-libbed and came right off the page. And I think the character as written was actually better than what Jackson delivered. That takes a hell of a writer to do stuff like that.
Title: Re: Elmore Leonard dies
Post by: bluemax on August 26, 2013, 10:49:31 PM
One of my favorite authors. I feel like the best thing about his books are just how natural all the characters sound. Like they're living breathing people and not attempts at portraying a person.
Title: Re: Elmore Leonard dies
Post by: chronovore on August 27, 2013, 06:27:20 PM
Elmore Leonard wasn't under-appreciated; he's considered one of the finest crime and western novelists ever, and a master of dialog by a lot of people. I suspect there are going to be a lot of joiners to his parade now that he's passed. We've lost another amazing writer; 2013 is not my favorite year, so far.
Title: Re: Elmore Leonard dies
Post by: Stoney Mason on August 27, 2013, 06:36:37 PM
Miley Cyrus>Elmore Leonard.