Inspired by

Inspired by

This week’s English expression is “inspired by.” We use this with the passive voice. For example, in today’s lesson, I said that the movie “Stillwater” was inspired by the real-life case of Amanda Knox; “was inspired by.”

And we use this when talking about creative work like movies, music, TV shows, books, stories, and things like that. There is another way of using “inspired by,” but today we’ll stick to the context of creative works.

When a creative person gets “inspiration” for a story, there’s something in real life that helps generate the idea. We learned today that there was a real-life case of a student who went to Europe to study and was convicted of murder. That case is what gave the director Tom McCarthy the idea that eventually became the movie “Stillwater.” I think I made the point clearly enough that the movie is not a faithful representation of the facts ! But the real-life case is where the idea began. They changed big elements of the story. But the idea had to come from somewhere, and it came from a real-life case. So, we say that the movie “Stillwater” was inspired by a real-life murder case.

Have you seen the TV show “The Lord of the Rings”? Surely, you’ve heard of the famous trilogy of novels by the author J. R. R. Tolkien; those came out in the mid-1950s and are some of the best-selling books of all time. A new TV show is inspired by the books. It takes place before the story in the books starts. So, the TV series is not a faithful reproduction of the story in the books. It’s a totally different story. But the basis of the story was the Tolkien trilogy. That’s where the idea started. The producers of the show took it in a totally different direction and even started their story years before the books’ story begins. Therefore, we say the TV show was inspired by the books. The producers of the show got their idea from the books.

A lot of first-time novelists are inspired by events in their own lives. That’s a classic way for a writer to get that first great idea. But novels are works of fiction; they are not history books. So many writers are inspired by a real person or a real event but write a piece of creative fiction. They got their idea from something real, and then took it in a different direction.

Here’s a famous one. “West Side Story” is a famous musical by Arthur Laurents; the composer Leonard Bernstein wrote the music. It tells the story of two street gangs on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, in New York City. The Jets and the Sharks, they’re called, and they hate each other. Wouldn’t you know it, though, a member of the Jets falls in love with the sister of a gang leader of the Sharks. Two young people in love, with powerful forces aligned against them. It almost sounds like “Romeo and Juliet,” right? Actually, the story was inspired by the Shakespeare Play “Romeo and Juliet.”

Romeo and Juliet did not live in New York; they did not belong to a street gang, and Juliet was not Puerto Rican. So “West Side Story” is not a perfect re-telling of “Romeo and Juliet.” But it was inspired by the Shakespeare play. It was the beginning of the idea, from which Arthur Laurents then made his own original creative work.

JR’s song of the week

Today’s song of the week is “Rosalita” by Bruce Springsteen. It’s one of Bruce Springsteen’s most popular live songs; it’s a long one, too, at over seven minutes. It’s about the singer’s love for Rosalita, whose parents disapprove of her romance with a rock and roll song. So, thanks JR for this week’s musical selection, “Rosalita” by Bruce Springsteen.

See you next time!

By the way, there is a new “West Side Story” coming out. They made the musical into a movie in 1961. But Steven Spielberg is coming out with a new version of “West Side Story” that supposedly is closer to the original musical than the first movie was. So, we’ll have to see that. Spielberg, by the way, said that the music from “West Side Story” was the first popular music his parents allowed into his home. Spielberg finished filming the newer version in late 2019, but they had to delay the release due to the pandemic. That’s coming out in December, so be on the lookout.

And that’s all for today’s Plain English. This was lesson number 395, so remember the full lesson can be found at PlainEnglish.com/395. We’ll be back on Monday with a new lesson. See you then!