Why Paradise Lost?  Why?  Because it hasn't been done yet, and the time is right!  We've struggled through the work in school, and the reason we didn't like it is because they made us read it.  Go back and give it a go now that you're doing it for pleasure, and you'll probably say, "Wow, that didn't suck!"  Of course it didn't suck.  It's about the only thing that would have been large enough to stand up to The English Patient at the Oscars.

What's the scoop?  Well, there's not much that can be said about PL that hasn't already been said elsewhere.  Suffice to say, one thing that might cross your mind would be--"Widge, how the hell would you pull off something like this?  I mean, it's Milton for God's sake!"  Well, in a world where someone actually went out and published a "novelization" of PL, nothing is sacred.  Hell, someone got credit for adapting a novel of Bram Stoker's Dracula!  WHAT?  I digress.  Anyway, the reason I can't say too much about how to pull it off, or who plays Lucifer, or anything...is the same reason I gave the assignment to adapt the thing for the screen to Greenaway.  If you haven't seen his films, especially The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover and Prospero's Books -- do so.  You'll understand that he would be able to do this and do it beautifully.

I actually suggested this to my Milton professor in college and she looked at me like I had just suggested to her that the Pope was really a heathen.  "Keep him away from my Milton!" she exclaimed.  Heh heh heh.  Never.