HORRORS!

This thread was inspired by the book burning thread.

But, IS there such thing as a good movie adaptation?

As an example quite to the contrary, Fahrenheit 451. An excellent book with an absolutely ridiculous screenplay. A few points I remember from seeing it a couple years back (don’t read if you haven’t read the book and don’t want it spoiled):

1)At the beginning of the movie, Montag and company go to a house, search in all the nooks and crannies for every last book, then take the books outside to burn them. Contrast this with the book, in which they search long enough to find a single book, then douse the entire house in kerosine and light it like a torch. Thus, with the changed version, it makes no sense later in the movie when Montag sets his own house on fire instead of just throwing all his books outside. In the book, if he doesn’t do it himself, the other firemen will do it for him, whether he likes it or not, because that’s what the firemen always do, even if the owner only has a single book in there. In the movie… what?

2) Instead of novels being illegal, they’ve made it so that all print is illegal. Therefore, it would seem to follow that no one would be in the slightest bit literate anymore. But no, apparently Montag can read not only English, but Spanish, Russian, and Chinese as well, as a big deal is made of titles in these languages being burned with the rest of his books. The total ban on written language leads to all sorts of other silliness as well - for instance, when Montag’s wife overdoses on sleeping pills, it seems more important that Montag can’t tell the poison control people what she took due to the lack of printed labels, than the fact that his wife doesn’t care about her own life. Oh, and speaking of whom…

3) Montag’s wife’s name is changed with absolutely no reason apparent.

4)Clarisse, who inspired Montag’s interest in reading, has, also with absolutely no reason apparent, been changed from a high school student to an elementary school teacher.

5)The movie does not contain the mechanical hound. I cannot even begin to speak about how little sense this makes. The simple fact that the hound would have been difficult to produce at the time does not excuse how terrible this is. To replace the inhuman threat, they added flying men with rocket packs on their backs to the movie, producing one of the most laughable chase scenes of all time.

6)The book people are not the last bastion of humanity’s reason, but insomniac crazies who wander around in the snow mumbling to themselves while staring into the distance.

This is only part of what I remember off the top of my head. The sheer number of details gotten just plain wrong cannot be listed in a single post. Of course, most movie adaptations aren’t nearly so glaring, merely impressively mediocre. Anyone know of any that are actually good?

~Silver

I thought Brideshead Revisited did a fairly good job. So did A Good Man in Africa. I’ll have to ponder before I can dredge up some more.

- PW

I would say that the movie October Sky was a good adaptation of the book.  Hollywood loses points for changing the title from the more descriptive Rocket Boys, but does earn some back by using a title which is an anagram of the original.  Hunt for Red October is an adaptation that I tend to use as an example of a way to streamline the story, while still being faithful to it; the issue for so many novels is that there’s so much more on the page than can be conveyed on the screen.

On the other hand, I have to say that the movie The English Patient did not inspire any desire on my part to so much as pick up the book on which it was based.  And I didn’t even consider going to see Blood Work, which is based on Michael Connelly’s thriller of the same name, because it’s obvious from the casting of Clint Eastwood in the lead role that it’s already screwed up.  

I’m sure more will spring to mind later ...

I think that anyone who goes to a movie expecting to see a faithful adaptation of a book, either hasn’t read many books, or hasn’t seen many movies. Giving all the benefit of the doubt, these two art forms just connect with us in different ways. The visual impact of a celuloid sunset has no comparison to the delight a well crafted descriptive passage can invoke.

On another note I’m reminded of a woodcarver who solved the problem of criticism of his adaptations. He said that he would tear open a paper shopping bag, make a sketch of his intended project on it, and tape it to the wall to use as a reference. When his project was complete he would crumble up the sketch and burn it.

DJ

Maybe it was less expensive to burn a pile of books rather than build a house and burn it down.  

I know I’ll never forgive the Sci-Fi channel for their adaptation of "The Cold Equations," or HBO for their adaptation of "Harrison Bergeron."  

The worst adaptations I’ve ever seen are "Jurassic Park" and "Jane Eyre (both versions)".

I think that adaptations are faithful only for the guy that made the film, because he is putting on screen what he saw in his mind when he read the book.

At least movie adaptations of good books start out with good writing.

DJ

[quote author=demijohn link=board=omni;num=1052798744;start=0#7 date=05/14/03 at 10:26:54]At least movie adaptations of good books start out with good writing.

DJ

But they can go downhill rather quickly.  Take the Bill Murray version of "The Razor’s Edge."  Please!  Despite some of the reviews, I don’t believe he made as good a translation to drama in that movie as Tom Hanks did in "Philadelphia" or Dan Aykroyd did in "My Girl."  

Rebecca?

There’s an old Hollywood joke credited to Alfred Hitchcock: "Two goats are eating the contents of a film can. One says to the other, ‘Hey, this is pretty good.’ The other goats shrugs and says, ‘yeah, but I prefer the book.’"

The Color Purple was a success, in my book…

-Tim

I thought The Color Purple was an excellent film. I have no idea how close it stayed to the book. But perhaps, in this case, it isn’t necessary to know that.

Some films can stand on their own even if they are adaptations of a book. Though that is quite rare. OTOH, so is a good film a very rare thing. Now that I think of it, good books are not all that common either.

Patricia/AgDrgn

Addendum: I liked the movie version of 2001: A Space Odessy much better than the novel. But I hated the sequel(s)! Arther C Clarke has no concept of personality with any more depth than dry cardboard.

Patricia

According to my limited experience, first reading the book and then watching the movie, makes one disappointed, while doing the reverse, gives the opposite.  It may be due to that reading the book, one imagines the characters and plot in a different way than the director.  For example; (1) I have always imagined Hercule Poirot as a very short man, while in the movies he is a rather big man; (2) CATCH 22 - in the filmed version, I only remember the death scenes, while in the book I mostly remember the hilariuos funny parts.

I’ve always imagined Hercule Poirot to be almost exactly as the actor who plays (played?) him for the Mystery series. I saw him and I was amazed that some casting director saw the same image as I saw!

Patricia/AgDrgn

There you are.  You have just proven my point—diffrent people make different images.

Probably the worst travesty of a book that I have ever come across, certainly in recent years, was "A Beautiful Mind". I saw the film version first and found the basic story interesting enough to buy the book soon afterwards. Apart from the name and a few touchpoints based around unavoidable events, the two versions had very little in common that I could see.

Despite this, I still think that the film was well-made and well-performed. The book is far more intersting in depth.