Movie studios could learn a thing or two from British publishers. There is an intelligence, and a respect for writers; things that you hope for and never get in Hollywood.
I've read and traveled a lot in the Middle East, and I built on eyewitness accounts of horrific executions that would shape a boy's character and beliefs if he watched his father die that way. These are the stuff of which nightmares are made.
I went to Australia from England when I was right at that age when you learn to read. It's a very confronting thing, traveling halfway around the world and having a mother who was deeply unhappy at ending up in Australia, so you look for some way to find comfort, I guess, and I found it in books.
I think I can speak with a degree of authority... today, the biggest driving force of movies is pace; God help you if you try to put in a scene that is about character and not plot.
I have nothing but praise for J. K. Rowling. Her contribution - apart from the books themselves, obviously - is showing writers how to interact with the 21st Century.
