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Home > Blogs > Sir Critic on Cinema > Archives > 2008 > September > 10 > Entry
How does a good book turn into a good movie?
Tuesday’s popular post about the reported changes made to the film of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince sparked a lot of comments, with some people lamenting the various cuts the films have made over the years.
And that makes me wonder - just what, exactly, makes a good movie adaptation?
Some people apparently believe a movie needs to follow the book to the letter. These are the kind of people that would be fine sitting through a five-hour movie. Problem is, they aren’t most people.
I remain surprised at how little some people seem to understand that what works well on the page doesn’t necessarily translate to film. People who groan and cry about every little moment that’s missing from the movie are missing the point. Movies are movies and books are books, and rarely do those two trains meet.
Take the Potter films, for instance. I really liked the first two when I first saw them, but when I read the books and went back to those films later, they actually seemed less magical. They followed the books SO closely that they developed hardly any life of their own. Consequently, they’re the movies I revisit least often now.
So when screenwriter Steve Kloves loosened up a bit and started getting more liberal with cuts when he scripted Prisoner of Azkaban, that’s when the film series truly took off. Azkaban is my favorite of the Potter films by a comfortable margin, largely because it forged its own identity and was more unique and intriguing that way.
A lot of fans complained about this cut or that, particularly the deletion of the background of the Marauder’s Map. But that wasn’t essential to the story the movie was trying to tell. Had they included all of Rowling’s details, the movie would have spent half an hour or more in the Shrieking Shack. Fine for the die-hards, maybe, strained rear ends for the rest of us.
As Rowling herself says on her official site, when asked about that particular cut: “I was fine with it. It is simply impossible to incorporate every one of my storylines into a film that has to be kept under four hours long. Obviously films have restrictions novels do not have, constraints of time and budget; I can create dazzling effects relying on nothing but the interaction of my own and my readers’ imaginations - hence my preference for the page over the screen.”
For me, a movie shouldn’t be an audiobook with pictures added. That’s boring and predictable. If that was all that was required, WB would be fine filming Jim Dale doing his readings and then supplying a clip here and there. No, a movie has to be true to the SPIRIT of the story. Radical changes can work as long as the main thrust isn’t lost. If the final scenes of Half-Blood Prince really are cut, that would be a loss.
So I ask you: What makes a good film adaptation? Or a bad one? Give me examples of movie adaptations that did justice to the books, and some that desecrated them. I’ll start.
Good adaptations; Misery, The Lord of the Rings, The Grapes of Wrath, The Polar Express, A Clockwork Orange
Bad adaptations: Bonfire of the Vanities, The Cat in the Hat, Bonfire of the Vanities, The Cat in the Hat, Bonfire of the Vanities, The Cat in the Hat
Permalink | Comments (7) | Post your comment | Categories: Ask the Audience
Comments
By Cali
September 11, 2008 1:47 PM | Link to this
I also loved the book “That Was Then, This is Now,” but I haven’t gotten around to seeing the movie yet. I read the book “Marley & Me” and absolutely loved it! I totally can’t wait for the movie to come out! I saw the preview for it, when I saw “The House Bunny” and I was a little disappointed in the preview that they showed…it was so short! All they showed was Jennifer Aniston and her co-star Owen Wilson, chasing after the dog. Which was awesome, but I was just hoping to see more. You can see the preview right here on their website: http://www.marleyandmemovie.com/By Kim
September 11, 2008 1:46 PM | Link to this
I can understand that, Eric - you can go ahead and sleep tonight knowing that I “forgive” you - ha! I sometimes wish that I could see the movies and watch the story unfold without knowing what is going to happen. I need one of those memory zappers from “Men in Black” - ha! Hmmm - actually - sometimes I think someone HAS been using one of those on me when I wasn’t paying attention…By Sir Critic
September 11, 2008 10:54 AM | Link to this
Well, having been sufficiently chided, let me explain what happened with Potter and me, Kim. When the first movie was announced, I deliberately avoided reading the book so as not to be tainted. Since I’m a movie guy, I wanted to discover Harry Potter that way. I did, and I was enthralled. Then, as an experiment, I went ahead and read book 2 before seeing “Chamber of Secrets.” Consequently, “Chamber of Secrets” seemed a little anti-climactic to me, even though it was more confidently directed than the first movie. In fact, I think people have been to hard on director Chris Columbus, even when he did a yeoman’s job of setting the template. People tend to forget how important that is. I still very much enjoy the first two movies - just not as much as the others, which were more freely adapted.By Kim
September 11, 2008 10:06 AM | Link to this
This is an interesting topic - and I do understand that films have to be different. I am okay with that as long as the film flows, and I love seeing the story from a different angle. I make it a point to NOT read the books again right before the movie as some do, because I want to appreciate the movie for itself without the book fresh in my mind. I think a lot of it depends on the book itself - it is more of a challenge when it is an iconic novel. And of course it depends on the skill of the movie maker. The Lord of the Rings movies were wonderful and I loved the film version of Pride & Prejudice with Keira Knightly and Emma Thompson’s version of Sense & Sensibility. Since Jane Austen is a favorite of mine - it’s saying something that I like it. I even enjoyed the fluffy Clueless, which modernized the novel Emma. Gone With the Wind is a great one (even though Scarlett’s son was completely left out)and Wizard of Oz is an example of one that far outshines the book for me and it is significantly different. But then the play Wicked is also very different from and far better than the book. I also liked Dune. I think Cat in the Hat does have to be the worst book movie ever - ha! But how do you turn a child’s nonsense poem into a movie anyway??? For the most part I have been thrilled with the Potter films - while acknowledging that I’m a die-hard that would love to see more, more, more. It’s kind of like going to see a fave artist in concert and then they don’t sing your favorite song. It may still have been an awesome concert and they may have sung a dozen #1 hits, but there was something left out that you would like to see. OOTP was really the first film that left me with any disappointment because I thought that the way it was done really messed up the flow of the story and made elements in the film just seem apparently random. I also have to chide you, Eric, for saying you thought the first two films were wonderful until you read the book, and now you don’t think they are wonderful anymore. Just like I don’t think a movie HAS to follow closely to be good, I also don’t think it’s fair to think a movie is less because it does. Sometimes the story is just that good - and there are actually quite a few folks that have never read the books and have only seen the movies. Those are the folks that I’m worried for on film 6! It will not necessarily be a good film for kids - especially very young ones. That was actually my least favorite book in the series - I think it could benefit from some editing. But you have to be careful on those really pivotal scenes. Hmmm - apparently this a topic that I could rattle on about endlessly - ha!By Sir Critic
September 11, 2008 9:58 AM | Link to this
Is it any wonder, then, that two of the better King adaptations - “Stand By Me” and “The Shawshank Redemption” - are based on short stories?By SRCputt
September 11, 2008 1:33 AM | Link to this
One of the best lines from Leonard Maltin’s movie guide: “Officially known as Dr. Seuss’s The Cat In The Hat, which is an official insult.”By SRCputt
September 11, 2008 1:27 AM | Link to this
My favorite book in my teen years, That Was Then, This Is Now became a terrible film due to a script that lost the message of the book, as one friend grew up and the other didn’t, as the one who grew up in the book understood some of the stunts they pulled as kids were not acceptable but in the movie at the end he goes and pulls one of the stunts. So, I understand how fans of a book can feel betrayed when certain elements are lost. The first priority should be to make a good film. The second priority is to keep the voice of the book, which sometimes can be near impossible in trimming a novel down to two hours (see: most Stephen King adaptions).