My Movie Business

November 1, 1999
After three of his novels became motion pictures scripted by other writers (The World According to Garp, Hotel New Hampshire and A Prayer for Owen Meany, which was rechristened on screen as Simon Birch), and two of his own screenplays languished unproduced, Irving finally got his chance to adapt one of his novels to film. The focus of this slim, eloquent memoir is Irving's 13-year struggle to bring The Cider House Rules to the big screen, and its passage through the hands of various producers, four different directors and numerous rewrites. Backtracking to illuminate the origin of the novel's pro-abortion stance, Irving introduces readers to his grandfather, an obstetrician and gynecologist, and to the history of abortion. (Abortions didn't become illegal throughout the U.S. until 1846, when physicians sought to take the procedure--and financial rewards--out of the hands of midwives, Irving reveals.) He also offers a fascinating and detailed look at how he trimmed his huge novel into a workable screenplay. Although he professes to love the final product, Irving details each scene and line that was cut as the film was edited down to two hours. While he claims to be pleased with the screen treatments of his previous novels, he is disappointingly silent on the subject of Simon Birch (he refused the filmmakers the use of the protagonist's name and also insisted that the screen credit state that the film was "Suggested by the novel"). 32 pages of photographs. (Nov.) FYI: The Cider House Rules, starring Tobey McGuire, Michael Caine and Erykah Badu, opens Nov. 24.

June 1, 1999
Irving also turns to nonfiction, though his memoir recalls a wild journey of a different sort. Here he details the 13 years he spent on the screenplay for The Cider House Rules.

Copyright 1999 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 1999
The particular business at hand is the new movie based on Irving's novel "The Cider House Rules," for which the novelist wrote the screenplay, composing the first version 13 years ago. Two producers and four directors were involved in getting it filmed, and when the film editing was done, it was some 50 scenes shorter than when shooting commenced. Irving begins his account of that long process much earlier, with his interest in medicine, physicians, and the issue at the center of the novel and the film, abortion. His grandfather was an innovative obstetrician who, Irving believes, saw enough of the consequences of untimely pregnancies to be sympathetic to the sober proabortion argument that informs the drama of "The Cider House Rules." That drama is the story of how, in Depression-era Maine, an institutionalized orphan, personally trained by the orphanage's doctor-director to perform abortions as well as licit obstetrics, rebels against the procedure and leaves the place but, forced to perform an abortion in a crisis, understands his mentor's position and returns to replace him at the orphanage. Irving also recalls his involvement with attempts to film four of his other novels, but he homes in on the "Cider House" experience. His is very much a writer's perspective; he speaks of character, dramatic development, casting, and acting to the virtual exclusion of the details of visualization, sound production, and montage that are additional paramount concerns for a film director. Cineasts as well as Irving's fans ought to find this book enthralling whether they see the movie or not; those who see and like the movie shouldn't miss reading it. ((Reviewed October 1, 1999))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1999, American Library Association.)