by Oline H. Cogdill

berryraymond winterlight
I know the reason that so many wonderful mysteries don’t make it as movies is because so often there is a disconnect between what the printed book is and what the movie studio’s vision is.

And then, of course, there are so many people involved in a movie who demand their voice be heard, it almost is a miracle that any film is made.

Just watch the 1992 movie The Player with Tim Robbins.

Yes, there are exceptions: Michael Connelly’s Bosch on Amazon and Lincoln Lawyer; Laura Lippman’s Every Secret Thing (2015) and several of Dennis Lehane’s novels, including The Drop (2015), Gone Baby Gone (2007) and Mystic River (2003).

I also liked the 1996 film Heaven’s Prisoners based on James Lee Burke’s novel. I know that it got mixed reviews when it came out, but I totally bought Alex Baldwin as New Orleans police detective Dave Robicheaux. (I have yet to see 2009’s In the Electric Mist with Tommy Lee Jones as Robicheaux.)

Burke’s work is now back on the screen—though it's not from one of his novels.

Winter Light, an adaptation of one of Burke’s stories, has made the final 10 list for the 2015 Academy Award for live action short films.

The five nominees will be announced January 14.

The film was directed by Julian Higgins and shot on film in the Missoula, Montana area in winter 2014.

Raymond J. Berry, left, (Justified and Born on the Fourth of July) stars as an isolated and stubborn college professor who is drawn into an escalating conflict with two hunters, played by Vincent Kartheiser (Pete Campbell on Mad Men) and Josh Pence (Revenge), who is one of the film’s producers.

Details about the film and the trials of filming during the Montana winter are on the Winter Light Facebook page.

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