Topic: Best and Worse Book to Movie adaptation.

[Kathy]

Reading the other thread got me thinking of this one. Has anyone read Stephen King's "The Shining"? I read the book long before I saw the movie. I can't say I like everything King has written, he is a bit too "out there" at times for me. This book is one of my favorites of his. As far as the movie is concerned, I loved it. I even went to the theater twice to see it. I also bought the DVD. Who could resist Jack Nicholson's "Here's Johnny"?! Even as I type this I can hear him saying it!

[SailorRipley]

But I stand at the point if a movie tries to take the path of the book it should stay on it and it must not be more confusing than the book was.

What good is a movie if you have to read the book to understand it?

Well, I would say two things and they will probably contradict each other.

If a movie is trying to take a path of the book and is not making itself clear, there's obviously something wrong with the movie as a whole for you. In your eyes, you can say someone just didn't do his/her job. But at the same time, it's wise to take into account that there are so many decisions to make, so many discussions that take place that usually it all just becomes a huge blur. What can work in a book, may not necessarily work in a film. And this is just on the screenwriter's side. When you come to a director's or a producer's take on it, he/she may see things differently. It changes all the time. Who's there to blame? Well, it may be that we will never know.

You don't have to read the book in order to understand the movie. You will read the book because you want to read it. Forget about the movie completely, read the book for what it is. And on the other side, watch the movie for what it is, forget the book entirely, regard it for what it is, with all its flaws and departures that you may feel it has.

Reading the other thread got me thinking of this one. Has anyone read Stephen King's "The Shining"? I read the book long before I saw the movie. I can't say I like everything King has written, he is a bit too "out there" at times for me. This book is one of my favorites of his. As far as the movie is concerned, I loved it. I even went to the theater twice to see it. I also bought the DVD. Who could resist Jack Nicholson's "Here's Johnny"?! Even as I type this I can hear him saying it!

Thanks Kathy! This is a great example!

When The Shining opened, who went public to scream and yell? Stephen King did. He complained and complained and complained that Kubrick had ruined his book, that he changed the intentions of the book and cast Jack Nicholson, an already insane man, in a role that from his source novel, has the main character going gradually from a nice, good mannered nice man, to a raving chin-pun-pah lunatic. The book also dealt hugely with child abuse. Kubrick said no to all that, he changed the story to what he deemed would work, cast Jack Nicholson because he felt like it, and scraped the child abuse issue entirely.

This is not to say that Stephen King was right and Kubrick was wrong. Nor viceversa. They are just entirely different animals. Stephen King apparently got wiser with age and learned to accept the film for what it was, even though in the back of his mind, he would always hate The Shining.

So what did he do? Instead of accepting a fact as a fact and deal with the incident that when he chose to sell the rights for his book, he knew this kind of thing would happen, especially with Kubrick, he said "no way, I'm going to do justice to The Shining, I'm going to make a film that is a real reflection of the book and I'm going to do this now". Well, that now came 17 years later, adapted into a miniseries format. King hired his pupil-boy, Mick Garris to direct, who would only do what King said (not a bad thing, but also not something that speaks very highly of a filmmaker), he cast a very bland actor as the Jack Torrance character and included all those things that Kubrick refused to do.

As a result we have now a film that jumps all over the place, that doesn't have any bit of the grace, sense of menace nor technical wizardry that Kubrick injected into the project and that has starring roles for ridiculous labyrinth-bush monsters (growl!), that IMO were a bad idea from the book in the first place. So, in my eyes, thank you very much Mr. King, I will stay with Kubrick's adaptation any day of the week.

[Kathy]

SailorRipley - your comments make me think of the comments Harry Harrison made on how his book “Make Room! Make Room!” was made into “Soylent Green”. It is interesting to gain insight on the thoughts and feelings of those involved in the process of translation of books > movies. I won’t say more in case this develops on the other thread. Point awarded to SailorRipley for the train of thought!

The audience’s response to that process is also interesting. DJ Doena gets credit for sending this twisted brain went off in yet another direction. Point awarded! Do you read the book first or the film? (I always read the book first. I’m so anal I even try to read the books in the order that they are written.) What influences that decision? (I’m nuts) Are there exceptions to the rule? (nope  ) If you own one do you have to get the other? (Yep)

Finally, it got me wondering if Al Gore had read “Make Room! Make Room!”or seen “Soylent Green”.  Do you think he’s a science fiction fan?! I haven’t read Gore’s book, or seen the movie based on, but I’m going to pick up both tomorrow.  I’ve been meaning to get both of them and I’m running short on new reading material

Touti – you offered to hook me up with smilies - can you get me one riding a train? I’ll give you a merit point! 

Merit points for sale here – anyone want a merit point? 

[DJ Doena]

The audience’s response to that process is also interesting. DJ Doena gets credit for sending this twisted brain went off in yet another direction. Point awarded! Do you read the book first or the film? (I always read the book first. I’m so anal I even try to read the books in the order that they are written.) What influences that decision? (I’m nuts) Are there exceptions to the rule? (nope  ) If you own one do you have to get the other? (Yep)

Most of the time it's from movie to book.

That has several reasons. The first is, that I don't go into a book store, grab some books and read them. I'm somewhat conservative, I read what I already know. It's stupid I know but reading a book costs a lot of time and I don't want to waste it. When I watch a movie and I like it and I know there is a novel to it, I'll buy it. There's still the chance that it is completely different (Bourne Identity) but the possibility of disapointment is less than with a blind buy. The second reason is, that the story of a book is often more complex due to the fact that you can write things that you have to leave out in a movie because of the medium. So, chances are if you watch the movie first you get a good movie and then an even more better book. On the other hand if you know the book you might be disappointed what they had to leave out.

[Kathy]

Anne Rice (writing as Anne Rampling) wrote a book “Exit to Eden” which was made into a movie. I think this is one of the worse book > movie translations. The novel, erotic with a touch of romance, ended up as a “comedy”.

The casting was…well…Rosie O’Donnell in stilettos and skin tight black leather. Can you picture it? Need I say more? Dana Delany, who I usually like, was not right for Lisa – not like Jack Nicholas in The Shining.

I don’t want to make out that the novel was the best thing I ever read; too much of the “happily ever after” for me. The film though, in my opinion, really sucked. The pacing, dialogue, everything was just off. Who to blame, the screen writer or director? 

This was directed by Gary Marshall, I usually like his movies, but he lacked vision in this case. The book might have been better served if directed by someone like Cuaron, Bertolucchi, or Kubrick who each brought similar subject matter to the screen much more effectively.

[Achim]

And today I went to the "Order of the Phoenix". As I said it's not one of my favourites. But the director managed to compress the story into one hell of a movie. I am inclined to put it on top of all movies. The story was well-told, nearly complete[...]

And as you might have read elsewhere, it was the longest book, yet the shortest movie. So, if yu felt it was complete, that was obviously quite an achievement!

I liked it too, would rate it as one of the best as well. But I think in parts it is also, because the story became more mature. The first book was very weird to read, as it is very much a children's book. Yet, with every book she made the story more sophisticated, as if the story grows up with the audience.


To catch up on an earlier of your points: I read the first book after seeing the first movie (finished the second just in time before seeing the second movie) and therefore, when reading, all people in my head look like the the people from the movie.

[Kathy]

I had a few thoughts as I read the posts. First, I should explain that I am an avid reader. I own thousands and thousands of books – and have read them all. I never met a genre I didn’t like. Action, fantasy, comedy, adventure, sports, history, autobiographies, how-to …I really like ALL genres! The first book > movie I want to touch base on is The Lord of the Rings.

The LOTR novel: I have read this book at least once a year for at last 20+ years. It is a tradition that I follow faithfully and will continue to do so. There is something magical in this book – I love everything about it. I never thought it could/would be able to be brought to screen – I admit it, I was VERY skeptical! Now about the LOTR movie: “Peter Jackson, will you marry me?” about sums up my feelings.  I’m reminded of the TV series “Sliders” or “Alice in Wonderland” when discussing the movie, it’s LOTR in a different reality. The book and movie are totally disparate, and yet just the same. Oh, and the discrepancies, they don’t bother me at all.

I'm bumping this post to show Antares... you can no longer say that you do not know a woman that loves Lord of the Rings!