When a book or a TV show is so perfect, so untouchable in its execution, it feels wrong to try and transplant it to another medium. If The Sopranos, for example, were to be picked up and given the big screen treatment, it would be entirely misguided.

I suppose most of us feel that way about things that have made an impression on us. However, there are exceptions.

One of the very best books I have read in recent years is Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada. Also known as Every Man Dies Alone, it’s an incredible book. First published in 1947 but only translated into English in 2009, it takes place in Berlin during the Second World War and tells the story of an ordinary married couple who – in a bid to do something, anything to resist Nazism – write and distribute postcards, critical of Hitler and his party.

It’s based on a true story and was one of the first anti-Nazi books to be written in Germany after the war ended.

The book is horrific, uplifting, terrifying and inspiring all at once, and I’m pleased it’s being turned into a film.

You see, unlike The Sopranos, which was hardly starved of an audience, Alone in Berlin is largely unknown, despite its bestseller status in many countries around the world.

People tend to play safe with books. It goes something like:

“I love reading. I’ll read anything.” This novel about Nazi Germany is incredible, try reading this. “I don’t read things like *that*, I mean stuff like Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey. I love autobiographies.” This is based on real life, so.... “Yeah, but I haven’t seen them on telly.”

With films, however, most people are less unadventurous. Not only is the barrier of reading dull words on stupid paper removed, but the appearance of a ‘name’ can suddenly make a ‘boring’ story palatable, if not outright desirable.

And so we come to the news that Emma Thompson has joined the cast of the film adaptation of Alone in Berlin.

Good Bye Lenin’s Achim von Borries has adapted Fallada’s novel, with Vincent Perez directing Thompson alongside Daniel Bruhl and Mark Rylance.

Perez is still best-known for his acting work in La Reine Margot and Cyrano de Bergerac.

If the associated glamour and prestige of these names combined with the accessibility of film can expose more people to Fallada’s incredible piece of work, then I’m unequivocally behind the decision to put Alone in Berlin on the big screen.

---

Legendary cinematographer Gordon Willis has died at the age of 82. Willis was the director of photography on films including The Godfather, Manhattan and All The President’s Men. He was also responsible for the stunning work on Zelig.

A worryingly small amount of cinematographers truly care about their role, opting to point and shoot and see what happens instead of realising that their work is as much a character in a film as the A-lister reading the lines. Willis knew this, and crafted his scenes accordingly.

Due to his lighting techniques, which made good use of shadows, Willis was known as ‘the prince of darkness’.

Willis saw his job as to eliminate rather than to add. Screenwriter and director Christopher McQuarrie said of him: “No one did more with less,” which condenses Willis’ work into a handy soundbite rather well.

Willis was nominated for two Oscars for his work on Zelig and The Godfather: Part III, but didn’t take a statue home until he was awarded an honorary lifetime achievement Oscar in 2010.

Richard Crudo, president of the American Society of Cinematographers, said: “This is a momentous loss. He was one of the giants who absolutely changed the way movies looked. Up until the time of The Godfather 1 and 2, nothing previously shot looked that way.

“He changed the way films looked and the way people looked at films.”

RIP Gordon Willis. You may not know his name or his face, but you’ve seen through his eyes.

---

Bonnie and Clyde have already been the subject of several films and TV series, most famously Arthur Penn’s 1967 film starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. There was even a History Channel mini-series last year. But the surfeit of stories isn’t going to put off Michael Sucsy, whose revisionist tale Go Down Together is being shopped around at Cannes.

This latest version will star Nicholas Hoult (Beast in X-Men: Days of Future Past) and Emilia Clarke (Daenerys in Game of Thrones) and promises to strip away the allure of the two killers, and remind audiences that they were just young, poor and desperate.

Turns out The Great Depression was more than just a catchy name.