The Actual Movie

As I watched the movie, The Soloist, I noticed a few differences between the movie and the book. The movie was quite interesting, and it felt familiar. This is because I’ve been reading the book. As I watched the movie, I felt like I knew what was going on the entire time, and I felt like I’ve seen it before. As I watched it, I felt like I knew what was going to happen next, but in some situations I was wrong. The movie changed a few things from the book that I noticed.
The first thing I noticed changed was the fact that Steve Lopez worked with his wife. In the book, I believe he had a wife and a child, a little girl. But in the movie, he had no little girl, and his wife, or girlfriend (they never specified) worked with him at the office. In the book, I don’t even recall any conversations between him and his wife, yet in the movie, they were constantly talking and going out together and things like that. Another difference I noticed is how quickly Steve Lopez got into Nathaniel’s life. In the story, he always talked about trust between them and him trying to connect with him. But in the movie, their relationship grew fairly quicker than it did in the book. In the book, it took time for Steve to think about the situation when people were shipping him the instruments for Nathaniel. He thought about it and told Nathaniel about what was going on before he brought them. In the movie, he just one day showed up to Nathaniel with a new cello.
Another thing I noticed and liked about the movie was that I got a chance to visualize all that I’ve been reading. It was nice to actually hear Nathaniel’s playing and see how much he loved and got into his music. And even though it was a horrible sight, it was nice to actually see skid row as described in the book. Not good because of what was happening there, but good because it helped me realize what the place was really like and how hard life was to live there. Overall it was just nice to see everything I read.
In short, I enjoy reading the book, and even though there are obvious differences between the book and the movie, I still enjoyed the movie better.

Sharing My Thoughts

It seems like Lopez likes to talk and think about other people and their issues. He talks a lot about issues that a lot of other people have to deal with. he likes dive jump in their minds and find out all he can about them. Maybe this is because he is a journalist, and his second nature is to dig deep for the "scoop." But at the same time, he does this subconsciously. He subconsciously asks people about their lives and wants to know all about them. He is a very curious person, yet generous at the same time. He risks his relationship with his family in order to make sure Nathaniel is okay everyday, when he could be at home with his family.

Nathaniel seems to trust Lopez, yet distrust him at the same time because he doesn't want him to take his new instruments to Lamp.

The video clip adds to our reading because now we know how Nathaniel is doing now and how his life has been after the book. Without the video clip, as of now, I would have no idea what Nathaniel Ayers is doing now. I would have many questions like, where is he? Is he still on the streets? What is Steve Lopez doing now? Did he ever help Nathaniel the way he wanted to? Reading the book with all of these questions in my head would make me want to read the book even more to see if I could answer them, but because I know the answers to these questions, I now read the book in order to find out what happened leading up to today.

Questions I have now that I do no yet know the answer to are things like, does Nathaniel stay at Lamp? If he does, for how long? What ever happened to all of his instruments? Does he still have them?

The Soloist by Steve Lopez so far seems to be a pretty interesting story. If I didn’t know this book was based on a true story, I probably would have thought it to be fiction. So far, the story of Nathaniel Ayers seems to be sad yet inspiring. Sad because he has lost everything and is now on the streets, but inspiring because you see that even though this man has lost everything, he still sticks to his passion and wouldn’t give it up for the world. Even though he is on the streets and needs to try and find a job or a place to live, he really seems to not be concerned with any of it. He doesn’t even try to play his violin for money. He plays just for the sake of playing, and just because he loves it.
Another surprising element to this story is the fact that Nathaniel Ayers once attended Julliard, one of the most high profile schools for music in the world. Who would think that a person living in the streets playing a two-string violin once attended Julliard? No one. Even after hearing him play and the level of his skill Steve Lopez still couldn’t believe it and had to research it. Ayers even knew some of the world’s most recognized musicians like Yoyo Ma and a few others.
I look forward to reading the rest of this story and seeing what happens next. This is actually one of the few, if not the only book we’re had to read this year that I actually want to read. I guess because it deals with music and I love music. Or maybe because it’s a true story. I like to read about or watch movies about true stories because it makes me think about if I were in their situation what would I do? I hope this book keeps me thinking. I look forward to seeing what happens in the end and finding out more about Nathaniel Ayers.