What a wonderful Mother's Day post! The Anne of Green Gables series is the reason I now live in Canada. I had seen the series as a young teen in Switzerland, falling absolutely in love with the story and the place. I went on to read the books and developed a deep desire to live on Prince Edward Island. I did manage to convince my parents to let me go on an exchange student year in Ontario (very far away from PEI) and decided to make Canada my home (have now been here for over 28 years although I visit Switzerland together with my family every year).
Interestingly the series was mostly filmed in the Toronto area. My most amazing surprise was when I looked out the large nursery window of a church we were thinking about joining: I gaped in disbelief when I saw the bridge where Anne had held onto the pillar, soaked and embarrassed, and where Gilbert had proposed to her! The bridge is right next to a Bible translation mission, which hosted annual tea parties by the little bridge in honour of Anne.
I discovered the location of Anne's home when stuck in an unlikely traffic jam on a country road near the Toronto zoo. One look at the house and I knew it was the Green Gabels house. A quick google search at home confirmed it. I ended up contacting the current owner of the house (which was now a simple rental home) who used the location for a horse therapy practice. Our homeschool group nearly ended up using the property for nature study meetings.
I never would have imagined that I would indeed end up living just short drives away from many of the filming locations that were at the heart of the series, which still remains my favourite as well.
that is incredible! i think I would have crashed my car...
I thought it was all filmed in PEI... I'm originally from Montreal and so not the world's biggest Toronto fan, I might have to reconsider after that comment... thank you!
I was born in Hogtown but taken west at a year old- I do not favour the Centre of the Universe.
I avoid movies, except for James Bond, but generally try not to see anything until five years after release. The hype has dissipated and if still discussed there may be some merit.
Roman Polanski's "Tess" was first-run when I was an intern. It was after his fall from grace (for a similar peccadillo as Justin Trudeau) but still was an artistic gem. I don't think that the visual impact would be possible short of a movie theatre, and the slow progress of the story returned me to a high school encounter with Hardy's "The Mayor of Casterbridge."
The 90 minute movie actually seems to work best when based on a novella of about 100 pages- otherwise too much is lost. A full novel is better presented as a mini-series as you note, but the big screen is still very powerful.
Happy Father's Day, I am a bit behind in my Substackig.
My favorite adaptation of a book to a movie is Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" as "The Muppets Christmas Carol" starring Michael Caine. As silly as it may be to have muppets in the movie, I think they captured a lot more joy than, say, the Patrick Stewart adaptation, which was incredibly faithful to the book.
If you have not seen it, you should. They've kind of butchered the DVD releases. There's a scene that was cut from the movie that was left in in the VHS and LaserDisc. It's *not* an inconsequential scene, as it really is the end of "Act 1", if you consider it a musical. People complained for 20 years over Disney's decision to do this, as, legend has it, someone in the Disney C-level group hated the song and never wanted it to see the light of day again. Apparently, they also lost the original film to that part, so doing a restored DVD would have been impossible. Anyway, in 2020, when people at Disney had nothing else to do than to reorganize the archive, they found the original film, and last December, for the first time since the LaserDisc edition in the 90s, The Muppets Christmas Carol was released in full in widescreen. Unfortunately, at that point, it was only available on Disney +, but I hope they come out with a DVD or Blu-Ray that is complete soon. (I only have two editions of the DVD, the LaserDisc - but no player - and two copies of the soundtrack... yeah, it's probably my favorite movie of all time!)
I love the way she reads it. She gives it time. There are a lot of people who make audiobooks who are amazing at what they do, but they need to keep it moving pretty quickly to keep the running time under control. It's nice to see somebody take a different way so beautifully. :)
I would note that the recommendation above is for the excellent 1985 version, not the more recent but wretched and semi-woke "Anne with an E."
Yes, absolutely so. Apologies for not making that clear!
Absafreakinlutely. Megan Follows IS Anne.
What a wonderful Mother's Day post! The Anne of Green Gables series is the reason I now live in Canada. I had seen the series as a young teen in Switzerland, falling absolutely in love with the story and the place. I went on to read the books and developed a deep desire to live on Prince Edward Island. I did manage to convince my parents to let me go on an exchange student year in Ontario (very far away from PEI) and decided to make Canada my home (have now been here for over 28 years although I visit Switzerland together with my family every year).
Interestingly the series was mostly filmed in the Toronto area. My most amazing surprise was when I looked out the large nursery window of a church we were thinking about joining: I gaped in disbelief when I saw the bridge where Anne had held onto the pillar, soaked and embarrassed, and where Gilbert had proposed to her! The bridge is right next to a Bible translation mission, which hosted annual tea parties by the little bridge in honour of Anne.
I discovered the location of Anne's home when stuck in an unlikely traffic jam on a country road near the Toronto zoo. One look at the house and I knew it was the Green Gabels house. A quick google search at home confirmed it. I ended up contacting the current owner of the house (which was now a simple rental home) who used the location for a horse therapy practice. Our homeschool group nearly ended up using the property for nature study meetings.
I never would have imagined that I would indeed end up living just short drives away from many of the filming locations that were at the heart of the series, which still remains my favourite as well.
that is incredible! i think I would have crashed my car...
I thought it was all filmed in PEI... I'm originally from Montreal and so not the world's biggest Toronto fan, I might have to reconsider after that comment... thank you!
I was born in Hogtown but taken west at a year old- I do not favour the Centre of the Universe.
I avoid movies, except for James Bond, but generally try not to see anything until five years after release. The hype has dissipated and if still discussed there may be some merit.
Roman Polanski's "Tess" was first-run when I was an intern. It was after his fall from grace (for a similar peccadillo as Justin Trudeau) but still was an artistic gem. I don't think that the visual impact would be possible short of a movie theatre, and the slow progress of the story returned me to a high school encounter with Hardy's "The Mayor of Casterbridge."
The 90 minute movie actually seems to work best when based on a novella of about 100 pages- otherwise too much is lost. A full novel is better presented as a mini-series as you note, but the big screen is still very powerful.
Happy Father's Day, I am a bit behind in my Substackig.
My favorite adaptation of a book to a movie is Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" as "The Muppets Christmas Carol" starring Michael Caine. As silly as it may be to have muppets in the movie, I think they captured a lot more joy than, say, the Patrick Stewart adaptation, which was incredibly faithful to the book.
I’ll never say no to Michael Caine! We were trying to watch sleuth just the other day but it’s not available streaming for who knows what reason…
If you have not seen it, you should. They've kind of butchered the DVD releases. There's a scene that was cut from the movie that was left in in the VHS and LaserDisc. It's *not* an inconsequential scene, as it really is the end of "Act 1", if you consider it a musical. People complained for 20 years over Disney's decision to do this, as, legend has it, someone in the Disney C-level group hated the song and never wanted it to see the light of day again. Apparently, they also lost the original film to that part, so doing a restored DVD would have been impossible. Anyway, in 2020, when people at Disney had nothing else to do than to reorganize the archive, they found the original film, and last December, for the first time since the LaserDisc edition in the 90s, The Muppets Christmas Carol was released in full in widescreen. Unfortunately, at that point, it was only available on Disney +, but I hope they come out with a DVD or Blu-Ray that is complete soon. (I only have two editions of the DVD, the LaserDisc - but no player - and two copies of the soundtrack... yeah, it's probably my favorite movie of all time!)
I'm not afraid to admit that I enjoyed the Anne of Green Gables series, watching with my older sisters growing up. ;)
This is from 2020 of Megan Follows reading a bit of "Anne of Green Gables". She's still Anne, somehow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vsJ-o70i1E
what a find, thank you! she was made for the role
I love the way she reads it. She gives it time. There are a lot of people who make audiobooks who are amazing at what they do, but they need to keep it moving pretty quickly to keep the running time under control. It's nice to see somebody take a different way so beautifully. :)