Don't look for books to read well on movie screens

Pakula, who directed both "Sophie" and "Presumed," is also of the older generation; he dates back to live television and has specialized in literary adaptations. These guys are dying out, sad to say. John Huston, the great champion of literary adaptation (from "The Maltese Falcon," his first film, to "The Dead," his last, with stops for "Moby Dick," "The Red Badge of Courage," "Under the Volcano" and "The Bible" in between), is dead; Fred Zinnemann ("A Nun's Story," among others) is too old to work. John Frankenheimer ("The Manchurian Candidate") no longer gets A projects.

The new generation seems not to have been schooled in literature. Thrillers remain a hotly contested Hollywood staple, particularly if they offer a new wrinkle, a new kind of hero, or if they've been written -- as so many of them are -- with an eye on a movie sale to begin with.

But literature? The book of passion and texture and nuance, beautiful as a dream, that takes you places you've never been and literally changes the way your mind works? As a movie staple, unless it's a unique situation, it's dead. Remember when the books of Hemingway and Faulkner and Fitzgerald were automatic movies? Those were the days, my friend, we thought they'd never end. But they did.