Anyone hosted a book club with accompanying film?

What's the best way to host a book club reading if you'd like to show the film version to compare/contrast?

I'm hosting a reading of "Gone With the Wind" in February 2007. I'd love to show the film, but it's sooo long, it'd be a marathon book club weekend - and nobody's going to sign up for that. ;-)

Has anyone done this before? Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,
-Jen

It wasn't a book club event but our local library had a "based on the book" summer movie marathon where they showed one movie a week on a Friday night. Unforunately I was only able to attend the first which was Brokeback Mountain. They also had kids movies like Howl's Moving Castle and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe which I would have liked to have gone to as well.

Hi Jenine, that's actually a nice way to do it - with a movie-based-on-the-book marathon.

A few of our friends have discussed hosting a movie night for Gone With the Wind - but my problem is, it's soooo long. We'd probably have to split it into two nights for the movie and one for the book - and it seems a little unlikely that we'd have a good turnout. Maybe the answer is hosting smaller movie nights ("just" 2 hour movies instead of GWTW) like the ones you mentioned.

My book club read Mrs. Dalloway and then watched The Hours a while back. It actually worked out really well. A couple of members had to leave right after the book discussion, but the majority of us stayed around to watch the film. It was beneficial for discussion to have seen the film together. It's not something I'd want to do every month, but it changes things up and was fun. We'll probably do it again in the future.

I work in a high school library and one of our book clubs embraces this concept of reading a book first then watching the movie and discussing. Because we are at a school it works a little bit differently...

The students and staff who participate discuss the book over their lunch hour then in the evening the library hosts the movie night. After the movie we have a brief discussion of both the movie and the book, but for this group we focus our discussion on the book and that occurs over the lunch hour. We started this in September with How to Deal (the movie) based on the books by Sarah Dessen--Someone Like You and That Summer. In November we did Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson and this month we are doing I Am the Cheese by Robert Cormier. The group that currently participates in this book club has been pushing for a lock-in at the library (which call us crazy we are considering). If we do it we want to center it around this book club and are considering doing a book like Pride and Prejudice and watch multiple versions of the films so we contrast both the films with the book.

Happy reading!

Theoretically, wouldn't it have been better to read The Hours and then watch the movie?

If you host a film night, how do you get round the copyright issue? Or do you pay the fees - and in which case, who pays? I'm just curious. If you're in someone's home then that could count as friends watching a film, so you'd be OK. But if you're in a library, or school, or other institution, then performance permission/fees can come in. I'm asking as an interested UK-based former university media librarian. I was always having to explain to students' societies that they can't just have a meeting and watch a film, it's against copyright law. You can only, in the UK anyway, show films in the course of educational courses. Informal 'educational' activities like school clubs or film societies don't count in the UK, but most people don't realise - so I was always having to disappoint people by cancelling their activities, which was no fun! Perhaps it is different in other countries.

Our school pays a blanket fee to allow us to use films for activities and non-curriculum purposes. I don't know much beyond that. Also, as a school library encouraging reading is part of our standards/curriculum (I know that isn't exactly how it is stated) and I think it could be argued that reading a book and then discussing the book in comparison with the movie is related to the curriculum.

We did some checking with our school administrators here to make sure we were not over stepping our laws or licenses.

Good question!

I had a college course on Lit and Film. We did Abe's Woman in the Dunes (great book and film), Steinbeck's East of Eden, Joyce Cary's The Horse's Mouth (hated both!). It's a really great idea.

We haven't tended to do a compare/contrast, but have viewed films after reading the book.

We went to the cinema to see "Chocolat", after reading the book, and it engendered an informal discussion over drinks afterwards.

One of hosted a viewing of "Cider House Rules", again, after reading the book, and subsequent to a separate discussion of the book. It was so transformed from the original, I think this worked well.

These have been fun and lively events, and inevitably do constitute a "compare and contrast" discussion, in any event.

Just last night I watched a documentary called The Beauty Academy of Kabul and I thought it would be a great book club event to read Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil by Deborah Rodriguez and Kristin Ohlson and then watch the film after discussing it.

We have been having a regular monthly book/movie club for two years and really enjoy it. See more at the Book Talk: A Book and Movie Club thread. We read the book and then meet in different members' homes at 5:30 to eat, watch the movie and discuss. We are home by 10:00. This may be because we are not a large group (only 7), and so discussion is not so extended or intense. The trick is to get a book/movie combination that is not too long, as we all have day jobs. Gone With the Wind would be too much for us. When we had a movie that was too long (At Play in the Fields of the Lord), we watched a similar movie, The Mission, and compared the two approaches to a similar theme (missionaries and mercenaries). Some folks also watched the actual film at home. At the other thread, there are lots of suggestions for combos that would be great. (Oh, yeah, we go for thematic foods and produce a cookbook, too!)

When we still met in members homes, we read LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE. We had a pot luck supper, required to bring a food made from a family recipe (as there was a lot of intergenerational cooking in this book) and we watched the movie. Our discussion was about the food we prepared, the origin of the recipe, etc. Nice evening.

When we read CHOCOLAT, the hostess prepared a meal of all chocolate ending with a Godiva liqueur.

Reading a book by Mother Theresa, the hostess made an Indian meal.

But we have moved on to meeting at eateries, pubs, restaurants, after work so those days are over.