Marquez Novella Turned Into Film

As has been noted everywhere round the sphere, Gabriel Garcia Marquez has just sold the film rights to Love in the Time of Cholera to Hollywood producer Scott Steindorff. The Australian is rather critical of the Columbian author for taking the Yankee dollar while criticizing U.S. foreign policy. The Guardian is somewhat kinder in its article on the literary icon. When I heard about the film adaptation, I was worried that producers might turn the novella into some bland production where white actors play the lead parts, with Columbian accents to boot (remember Captain Corelli’s Mandolin? Those horrid Italian and Greek accents?) There are so few lead roles in Hollywood movies for minorities that you’d think that when the story calls for them, they’d at least get to play the parts. But already there’s talk of Nicole Kidman for the role of Fermina rather than Marquez’s choice, Salma Hayek.