Still, one of the commenters -- Joseph Angier -- picked up this theme and wrote:
One thing Caryn James only vaguely alluded to were the times when the movie-makers actually improved on the source book. Of course it's subjective, but off the top of my head I'd include "The Verdict" and "The Shining" on that list. Both times, the filmmakers saw powerful themes that had been given short shrift in the books. In the first, David Mamet and Sidney Lumet turned a so-so legal thriller into a meditation on Irish fatalism (yeah, I know, they're both Jewish). In the second, Kubrick and his writer (Diane Johnson?) added the writer's bloc, plus the word versus image battle between father and son. I read somewhere that Stephen King hated this movie, but as Nicholas Ray once told me (about the author of the book "Thieves Like Us," who'd written the first screenplay draft of what became "They Live By Night"): "He didn't understand his own book!"
So let's have a discussion on this topic. I'll throw out the really, really obvious example: "The Godfather." And I'll add two I feel strongly about: "Fight Club" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"
Okay, your turn.
UPDATE: Botched backwards post title fixed.
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28 comments:
"Forrest Gump." I know it's popular to razz the movie, but I think it's damn fine (and the movie falls apart with a lesser actor than Hanks in the lead). Far better than the book, which goes far more childish with the premise.
Pretty much most of the Philip K. Dick short story based movies are at least plausibly this way. Most of those movies are based off of tiny short stories that contain the germ of an idea, but are quite unlike the movie. Sometimes they don't really have much of a traditional plot. Thus, it's not surprising if someone prefers the movie. "Total Recall" versus "We can Remember it for you Wholesale." (The latter is a very brief story that has a bit of the "implanting memories" idea, but that's it.) "Minority Report" versus the short story of the same name. "Blade Runner" versus "Do Androids Dream of Electic Sheep?" There are others; the movie is at least arguably better in all.
He gets a lot of movies made because he's one of the "second wave" SF writers, who tends to imagine negative effects of technology. Moviemakers love "Frankenstein" scenarios where "science that Man was not meant to meddle with" goes out of control. It's easier to use Dick's stuff, which has a lot of that vibe already, than massively twist stuff like "I, Robot" into a completely different philosophical view than its author's.
I would have to name "The Bourne Identity" and The Bourne Supremacy". Both came from still amazingly hysterical and unreadable books. I reread the first to see how close it was to the film and quit. Even the current Jason Bourne book by Eric Van Lustbader is better than the Ludlum versions.
John: Having read "Do Androids...," I was disappointed by "Blade Runner" back when it came out. Short stories often make better movies than novels. "AI" was also a short story.
Matt: You're right about "Gump." The book had a very different tone that made it not so engaging.
"Gump" and "Blade Runner" are interesting to compare to each other, because one was loved when it came out and disrespected later and the other was the opposite.
Another really clearcut example is "Dr. Strangelove" -- based on "Red Alert," which was a serious thriller and not a comedy at all. Not that I've read "Red Alert."
I might be in the minority, but I'll throw out James Whale's "Frankenstein" and "Bride of Frankenstein". Also, "Silence of the Lambs" kept all of the good parts, jettisoned the unnecessary material, and had great performances. "The Thing", both versions, is superior to the original story if for no other reason than the movies add characterization.
And, to be really controversial, I prefer Kurosawa's "Ran" to King Lear.
I haven't read Jaws or The Bridges of Madison County but I hear they're widely accepted as being better movies.
Leland: I saw "The Swimmer" back when it came out. It was a huge deal at the time. And "Picnic at Hanging Rock" is a great, great movie. Don't know the source material for that at all.
There's a current book -- I keep noticing it at the bookstore -- that collects a lot of relatively obscure short stories that famous movies were based on.
This gives me an idea for a separate post raising a different question.
"The Taking of Pelham 1,2,3."
"The Searchers."
"The French Connection."
"Psycho"
"A Place In The Sun"
Also, completely agree with Ann's picks -- especially "Fight Club."
I thought Monty Python and the Holy Grail was way better than Malory's "Le Mort d'Arthur". I had trouble hearing the coconuts and visualizing the swallows in Malory's work. I thought Python fleshed it out nicely.
I'll gove one that's equal... "Patton"'s screenplay (by FF Coppola) was adapted from Ladislas Farago's biography of him. The biography is a rollicking good read and the movie is a rollicking good "watch" too. I don't know if bio and biopic strictly fit the bill here though.
And who can forget Ben Hur???
The silent and the Chuck "Damn Dirty Apes" Heston version are superior to Gen. Lew Wallace's book -- which is actually pretty good. I know I know CHuck is a ham. For all of you doubters I have just 2 words. "Chariot" and "Race" and just in case... I have 2 more "Large" "screen".
It used to be (and may still be) the highest grossing work of fiction ever when BO from the movies, plays, Broadway runs, video, DVD, book sales, etc. are taken into account.
I'll go with "Sideways". Saw the movie a month or two ago, and am now reading the book. The movie is much better--tighter and more focused than the book. Granted, my opinion is probably skewed from having seen the movie first, but the clunky writing in the book is not helping to win me over.
I am not Rex Pickett.
I can't believe the book "Forrest Gump" was worse than the movie. It just doesn't seem possible.
Yesterday I happened upon the stadium they filmed his football scenes in. It's at East L.A. college of all places. They're quite prouf of it.
Casablanca is based on a terrible play that nobody hears about anymore, called Everybody Goes to Rick's. The movie isn't close enough to the play to really call it an adaptation, but its amazing how somebody can take a kernel of an idea and turn into a classic like that!
The Juror... proably nobody ever heard of the book or the movie, lol.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116731/
cheers!
I don't think any of the Shakespeare movies come close to beating the originals, but Kenneth Branagh gets honorable mention for Henry V -- a very nice try.
Kurosowa gets an honorable mention too, but no stinkin' movie -- even by the master -- beats the Bard. What next -- O Brother Where Art Thou? is better than the Odyssey? "John Huston's The Bible" is better than "Genesis"? Not bloody likely.
See, I completely disagree about "The Firm." The book made clear that McDeere was an unethical asshole, but even he had his limits. On the other hand, the movie turns him into the bright shining light. I find characters (especially heroes) that have shades of grey in them much more interesting than those that paint in black and white.
On Princess Bride, there's a lot of good stuff in the movie that's not in the book, and an equal amount of good stuff in the book that's not in the movie (particularly the satire of academia). I view it as a wash.
I have to disagree about The Last of the Mohicans. The relationship between the father and the son is so much stronger in the novel, they are so much better depicted, and the son's death at the end of the book is much more tragic.
She was so not worth it, lol.
I haven't read it in years but I remember the horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach- the only time I experienced anything like that feeling from a book was Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms.
Although I loved the book "The French Lieutenant's Woman", I believed that it would be difficult to film, due to the meandering, flashback style that re-wrote scenes with additional, alternative resolutions (not once, but many times). The movie, starring Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep, managed to interweave the story into a sub-plot (not in the book) about aldulterous lovers in modern times. It was different, but very, very good.
gs,
"2001" grew out of Arthur C. Clarke's short story "The Sentinel," written years earlier. Clarke worked with Kubrick on the film. He then wrote the book, partly to make money, partly because he's a writer and that's what he does, and partly to say, "See, the movie really does make sense."
"A Room with a View"
The two that I always think of when I consider movies that were better than the book are: Terms of Endearment (book by Larry mcMurtry) and Beaches (book by Iris Rainier Dart)
I would add "The Hours" by Michael Cunningham to the list. The book, unlike the movie, had definitive breaks between the stories as where the movie began connecting the stories much earlier. Both are excellent, but I think that the movie (partly due to it's stellar cast) prevails in this case.
Also, "The Virgin Suicides" by Jeffrey Eugenides (also due in part to the casting choices) makes a better movie than book.
I was predisposed to love the book Ordinary People because I was sitting in on a class by the author, but I found it trite--rather like a Good Housekeeping novel. The movie so far transcended the source material that I was blown away. The movie also dispensed with a gratuitous sex scene from the book--normally in the 80s one would find the reverse. I have no idea how Robert Redford saw the gold inside that book, but I was awfully glad he did.
"The Guide"... Hindi movie based on a novel by R.K.Narayanan
The film version of Children of Men is so different from the novel that it seems unfair to compare them, and to the book's credit, it does have a lot of nuance and detail the movie lasts, but the film's ending was so much better than the novel's. So much better.
I realize this blog entry was posted a few years ago, but I'd still like to add in that I thought the movie "A Walk to Remember" was a lot better than the book. That may be because I saw the movie before I read the book, but I found the book slow and boring when compared to the movie. On the other hand, I thought the original short story "1408" was much better than the movie. I'm not sure what popular opinion about this is. I saw the movie before I read the original short story by Stephen King and I thought the original was much more entertaining and a lot more terrifying.
The Devil's Advocate - The movie was entertaining until the end where it spun out of control BUT the book is so much worse. In fact, the book probably could not be any worse.
Interview with a Vampire.
Movie was wayyy better than the book. I've read the series, and yes, there's no question to it, Anne Rice is a great writer. But I liked the movie so much better.
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