Imagine you are one of a group of studio executives who for a long time have been dealing with the less-than-pleasing critical and financial receptions of recent releases. You are all going through script after script of original stories, looking for what to greenlight next, but nothing seems to be giving you any feeling of a sure-fire success. But then you pick up another script and before you known it you are having an endless number of phone calls and meetings trying to obtain high-profile actors and directors. You may wonder, what was so special about this particular script that got so much to do so quickly? It’s simple. The very first page the reader saw featured two words that executives love, and those words are “based on”.
For years, studios all over the world have a long and mostly proud history of adapting whatever they can, if they think it has the potential to be a film. From TV shows to stage plays, even Christmas songs. But the most popular format of story to adapt for the screen seems to be novels. In most cases they make substantial amounts of money and get some good reviews, and with a little luck they can earn admiration from both the hardcore and average fans of the source material. If they’re really lucky, the author of the novel will voice their approval. But of course, there is always the risk of doing the exact opposite, and films have given us plenty of both outcomes (as well as others in between) that may help them as films but not as adaptations, or very occasionally, the film will surpass the novel in terms of quality.
When it comes to book adaptations, the people who will have the most interest are the fans of the original and the easiest way to get them on your side is to stay as faithful to the source as you can. That means making as few changes as possible to the main plot and characters, and not giving the film a tone that doesn’t match that of the book. I’m sure I could provide many examples of films that respect the original book, but one that immediately jumps to mind is the 2001 adaptation of Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone directed by Chris Columbus. Just about everything seems to have made an almost perfect translation from page to screen. There are some minor differences like the way that some characters don’t look their counterparts in the book, but I think the only substantial element that didn’t make it into the film is when Malfoy tricks Harry and Ron to a duel at midnight that he had no intention of showing up for, just so that they would be caught out of bed after hours. It may have annoyed some people but not me – I didn’t even notice it had been omitted until years after I first saw the film.
Another challenge can be to take an older book and remake it for modern times. Sometimes you can get away with keeping the story intact but let the characters have a little time to be fleshed out. Think of how, in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), we are told very little about Willy Wonka as an individual. Of course, this makes him less predictable but that might not work in modern films where stronger characterisation is often used. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) keeps the main story and characters from the book, but more time is devoted to the difficulties Wonka faced in his business – from spies stealing recipes to eventually reconciling with his dentist father (not in the book) who for years disapproved of his son’s passion for chocolate ever since he was a child. Even the Oompa-Loompas get a small but interesting backstory, but if there’s one thing from the book that could have been usefully omitted, it’s Wonka travelling to India to make a palace for an Indian Prince – made of chocolate. Somehow he manages to complete this despite the obvious disadvantage of the Indian climate.
Another slightly more successful attempt at adapting an older work for the screen would be Martin Campbell’s Casino Royale (2006). It was a reboot for the franchise that strived to recapture the grittiness of the books. Of course, it had already been adapted for the screen in 1967 but that was a spoof and I doubt it pleased anyone who had actually read the book. The 2006 version with Daniel Craig does have a lot of its own story, such as Bond having only recently been given the 00 status, plus the Madagascar embassy scenes and Le Chiffre losing money in an aeroplane explosion (in the book, several brothels under his ownership go bust). He eventually faces the wrath of his investors, which I’m sure isn’t in the book; and Le Chiffre’s attempt on Bond’s life goes from assassination that he stops with just a chair in the book to having his drink poisoned in the film. Everything else in the movie resembles the novel as closely as we could hope for.
Now it’s time to address those occasions when what you read and experience on the page doesn’t line up with what’s on screen. The Bond franchise is guilty of this on two notable occasions, both from the Roger Moore era. They are The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker. Yes, the films came one after the other in 1977 and 1979, but in the continuity of the books they are miles apart. That’s the least of their differences. The film of The Spy Who… is primarily about Bond teaming up with a Russian agent to investigate the disappearances of several submarines. In true Bond fashion there is a villain with a gigantic lair and trap doors for anyone that displeases him. However, the book is mainly told from the viewpoint of a woman named Vivienne Michel who gives the reader way too much uninteresting information about her love life. She winds up staying in, and becoming trusted to look after, a lodge where eventually a group of gangsters shows up and makes her life miserable. Then near the end, Bond shows up and kills the gangsters… and of course Vivienne has fallen for him. So very different. I thought the film was acceptable but for anyone who has seen the film but not read the book yet, the darker story and tone of the original might come as a bit of a shock.
Then there’s Moonraker. In the book Bond definitely does not go into space, in fact I don’t think the action of the book ever leaves England. There is a rocket called Moonraker which is just a fancier version of the V-2 rocket from the war and the main villain is called Hugo Drax. But those things aside, much of the film, like Bond’s time in America and Rio, is in the film alone – as is the character Jaws who was carried over from the previous film. Jaws and the business in space only made it into the movie due to the huge popularity of the recent films Star Wars and, well, Jaws.
So, if you like the darker Bonds like the ones with Dalton and Craig, you may warm to the books more easily. But if you prefer the campier films of the Moore era then stick with them – they’re good enough as films but not at all faithful to the books.
Now I want to talk about those times when even the smallest of changes stops something from simply being an adaptation and begins to feel like a quite distinct film in its own right. A famous example might be that of the 1980 Stanley Kubrick version of The Shining. In the book, the protagonist Jack Torrance seems as normal as you could imagine; but when the role goes to Jack Nicholson, he looks instantly unsettling, like a bomb waiting to go off. The change in him is supposed to be unexpected and gradual, and although the film follows that idea to an extent, it doesn’t have the same effect since Nicholson looks so unhinged to begin with. Jack also gets a lot more backstory in the book – how he was well liked by most people and was in charge of a debating club at a school, but he had a run-in with a former club member he had to let go from the debate club who, as revenge, attacked Jack’s car. His wife Wendy is blonde in the book but in the film is played by the black-haired Shelly Duvall. I could go on about the lack of similarities between the two but I think they have been discussed often enough. King hated the film so much that years later he produced a miniseries adaptation that is supposedly more faithful to the book. Even Jack’s death is drastically different. Book Jack dies when the hotel blows up, Film Jack freezes to death and becomes part of a picture on a wall. Stephen King’s other work has faced all sorts of changes when adapted into film or tv. In the book of Misery, Annie Wilkes cuts off one of Paul Sheldon’s feet and cauterises the wound, but due to the graphic nature of this an alternative had to be found which led to the film’s famous hobbling scene. No matter which adaptation of IT you come across, there’s always one scene you can count on not being there… and anyone who has read the book more than likely knows what I’m talking about.
The first film adaptation of Red Dragon, retitled Manhunter, also makes several changes in addition to the title. One is removing any element of sympathy we might have for the serial killer Francis Dolarhyde. Manhunter portrays him as just your average psychopath. But the book takes the time to address his deformity and the abuse he suffered in his childhood at the hands of his grandmother. The tone of the film is also different – the book feels very dark but the film was directed in the mid-80s by Michael Mann of Miami Vice fame, so there is glossiness and brightness all over the place. It doesn’t help that it also has a very 1980s synthesiser score. But even if didn’t get a good reception, there is no denying that Red Dragon (the 2002 film version) fixed a lot of the damage in terms of faithfulness.
But possibly the worst case of disrespecting the source material came in early 2020 with The Personal History of David Copperfield. Despite staying broadly faithful to the novel in terms of plot and character, the film had a jarring comedic tone throughout (the book has some very dark passages). Worse, the casting of British Indian actor Dev Patel to play a character inhabiting England in the 19th century and clearly meant to be white is even more jarring. I know the film got lots of praise from some people, but I doubt it would please many fans of Dickens, or of realism.
Finally, there are some rare instances of a film actually improving on the book. A stand-out example is Alfred Hitchcock’s iconic adaptation of Psycho (1960), based on the rather ordinary book by Robert Bloch. In the book, Norman Bates is still dominated by Mother, but is middle-aged and unattractive. If this had been carried over to the screen it would have made for a much less surprising reveal at the end, as well as losing any initial sympathy the audience feels for the character as played by the young, handsome Anthony Perkins. In the film you’re much less likely to suspect Norman of being the murderer, but with the sleazy, unsavoury Norman from the book you’d probably guess right away. Also, the iconic shower scene in the movie is light-years ahead of the same scene in the book, which is short and perfunctory.
So, while film adaptations will doubtless continue, these are some of the many directions they have the potential to go in. I don’t know about you, but as someone who reads a lot of books and watches a lot of adaptions. I would hope they follow the examples of Casino Royale and Charlie the Chocolate Factory and not Kubrick’s Shining or The Personal History of David Copperfield.
1 Comment
Liz Mccann
Very enjoyable read. Wel done