Adapted screenplays, accurate or not?

[Dan_Snow]

Hello

I was interested in finding out people's opinions on whether or not adapted screenplays can accurately reflect the books and literature they are based on?

In terms of story, characters and atmosphere I'd like to see whether you think the transitions to the screen are unsuccessful / successful in their methods of re-telling a story.

V for Vendetta, Throne of Blood, Sahara, Lord of the Rings and even the Batman films are examples I've been thinking of.

Thanks

[kiki1982]

Haha, this is one of my hobby horses. My husband gets mad when I start :lol:.

Most of them are crap, while there are a few exceptions, mainly by the same writers, but not always. Time is not really the deciding factor in this, it mainly seems to be if the writer of the screenplay is familiar with the concept 'book' or not. Those who are not familiar with it, think it is clearly only a story and so miss the point entirely sometimes. Some of them are familiar with the concept 'book' and have actually succeeded in filming the thing without getting it too wrong.

I think the greatest difficulty is writing the dialogues when one has not read almost everything that is relevant on all the characters, references and customs. Characters can say some shockingly irrelevant and plainly wrong things if they are not studied properly and are not thought about.

A prime example of good writing was Lost in Austen (yes, I do keep making publicity for it :D). It was not a mere adaptation, but it was more than that. The writer actually managed to put down a convincing Darcy (Eliot Cowan) who was worthy of Firth in Davies's version, but who had to react to occurrences not occurring in the original novel, thus mirroring his original inner conflict. Doing that convincingly takes skill. A lot of actors and screenplay witers have tried Darcy and none of them succeeded, apart from Davies and Firth before Cowan. Not only that, but this series both satirised our and Austen's world.
Also good writing was Emma Thompson's Sense and Sensibility (the one which brought Hugh Grant into teenage heaven ;); the whole of my class was in love with him). She adapted the script pretty much, but even made it (admittedly) that bit better. But still did not miss the whole point. The film wasn't too short either, it wasn't rushed, it was great.

A prime example of abysmal writing was the latest BBC Emma-version by Ms Welch. I have never seen anything that missed the point so much as that. Her writing in Jane Eyre was also abysmal, but Emma did even better (or worse). That was an example of 'I will film the story and a little bit a psychology and then it'll be ok'. There are several ways to do this, but that one wasn't the right one. It even destroyed one of the most witty, sparkling and adorable characters - although a bit too enthusiastic at times - in her work. So adorably written by Davies and portrayed by Coulthard, but Welch totally misinterpreted him. Shame.
Bad writing was also the Persuasion-film by ITV recently. It just missed the whole point of Austen as an author and Persuasion in particular. Compare that with the A&E film from the 90s and you can't even recognise it.

[PeterL]

There is a great deal of variation in screenplays adapted from novels. Some are very true to the book, and some barely touch it. One problem is that a 0 minute movie is the quivalent of about a 30,000 word novella, so a 60,000 word novel would be a bout three hours as a movie. There are some short novels that have been done beautifully, The Maltese Falcon andThe Red Badge of Courage are two tat come to mind. The great John Houston was an ace at following the novel; he did The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and others that followed the book well. Interestingly, The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett like The Maltese Falcon was a horrible adaptation of a novel that would have been easy to make; I guess that the producer decided to save as much money as possible.

Perhaps the worst adaptation ever was Kubrick's Lolita. Kubrick hored Nabokov to write the screenplay but used only one scene from that. The movie is nothing like the book and is pretty bad.

The Lord of the Rings movies did a better job than I expected, but the essence of the three books as a whole was lost, because the initial part of the Fellowship and the ending of the Return were dropped, so the sense of having the story make a full circle was lost.

[Calidore]

Re. LOTR, I can understand their reasoning behind dropping the "scouring of the Shire" sequence, that being that people had already sat through a 3 1/2 hour movie, gotten their big climax, and nobody would stay for the rest. People complained about all the epilogues as it was.

The way Peter Jackson put it when addressing fans' complaints about the many changes from the sources was that they were adapting the story, not the novels. Novels and film are two different art forms, and a literal adaptation of the books simply wouldn't have worked.

I think that answer applies to the OP's question as a whole. Two different mediums, sometimes compatible, sometimes not. Good novels can be bad movies and bad novels can be good movies. It just depends on the skills of the respective creators and the nature of the material.

[kelby_lake]

Here's another thread about film adaptations:
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52800&highlight=adaptation

With a film adaptation, you're judging it on two things: its fidelity to the book and whether it's a good movie or not. The latter should always take precedence- there are things in novels that simply don't translate to screen and you're not doing any justice to the book by trying to force them onto the screen. Though if you can't get the spirit of the novel across onto the screen (like the 2005 film of Pride and Prejudice, which was abysmal), you're going to alienate everybody who read the novel.

Plays can be quite hard to adapt for screen, certainly nowadays. In the fourties and fifties, it was not so much of a problem because the audience accepted the slight staginess, as they were being given access to something that they might have been unable to see on stage. Now, with all the special effects, CGI, and nifty camerawork, we expect the play to be opened up. If there is any hint of its theatre origins, it will be condemned as being 'stagy' and it will be argued that it should have stayed in the theatre.

However, most films seem to be based on some existing literature. Brief Encounter was based on a one-act play called Still Life, and it eclipsed the original.

[Leobloom]

I agree with Kubrick, it's what I've always thought on the matter. They are different mediums, they have different strengths, different weaknesses - they can't do the same thing.
Books have beautiful prose or verse that cannot be recreated. There is the careful choice of vocab, the flow of the words, the grammar chosen etc. It cannot be recreated on screen, unless the novel is purely narrative, lacking in the things that make novels unique e.g. Twilight, Harry Potter
The same is true of film being translated into books. Sound stupid? It's just like translating books to films. Take a David Lynch film, Inland Empire for example. It cannot be translated to books. He hides clues in scenes that would be far more noticeable in a book, as the reader is obliged to read about them. Music can be used in film to achieve an effect. This cannot be done in books. I appreciate that I am speaking in very concrete terms and that there are exceptions to what I've said, but they are unusual.
No Country for Old Men is an interesting example. The Coens are very true to the novel in their film adaptation. They capture the beauty of McCarthy's descriptions and the atmosphere, yet McCarthy's prose is unique and one of the best examples of writing that is very difficult to adapt. Why did the coens succeed? No Country was originally written as a screenplay. There is more dialogue and less of the beautiful prose that is so characteristic of McCarthy's work - essentially, the Coens and Cormac reached a compromise.
I believe that the greatest works in any medium will be created for that medium, to exploit all of it's unique benefits. Adapted Screenplays have a place in the film world, but they can never be truly accurate. Take Joyce, the ultimate stylist - his works can only be books.

[ChicagoReader]

I thought The Road and No Country for Old Men were both well done representations of books. Both were quite accurate but I do agree with those above, film and literature are completely different mediums of art. They do things differently, both having their respected strengths. I find I can enjoy a great movie ALMOST as much as a great book.

[Leobloom]

I thought The Road and No Country for Old Men were both well done representations of books. Both were quite accurate but I do agree with those above, film and literature are completely different mediums of art. They do things differently, both having their respected strengths. I find I can enjoy a great movie ALMOST as much as a great book.

I agree that No Country and The Road were great films and they are some of my favourites. However, my point was that, in No Country's case, it was based on a book that was actually originally a screenplay, so it didn't take much to adapt it.

[dfloyd]

Some very good screen plays are:

Rebecca an Alfred Hitchcock film
Oliver Twist a David Lean film
Great Expectations a David Lean film
The Big Sleep
Gone with the Wind a Victor Fleming film
The Leopard an Italian film
From Here to Eternity
The Magnificent Ambersons an Orson Wells film

Films that do not follow the book story line are:

The Last of the Mohicans
The Thin Man
To Have and Have Not
The Snows of Kilmanjaro
The Sea Hawk
The Count of Monte Cristo (any version)
Tender Is rhe Night

The best adaptations were from Masterpiece theatre. Of course their multi hour productions such as I Claudus, Bleak House, and Brideshead Revisited can only be shown on tv, but they are superb.

[Scheherazade]

Recently the Movie Club on the Forum watched "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and there it was said that the screen play was softened compared to the play itself.

I mean to read the play but any opinions on that?

[kelby_lake]

Recently the Movie Club on the Forum watched "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and there it was said that the screen play was softened compared to the play itself.

I mean to read the play but any opinions on that?

I watched the film before reading the play. Softening and tweaking was inevitable- this is Hollywood still under the Code. The play is more morally ambiguous. A lot of people who know the play dislike/hate the ending of the film (which is basically a happily-ever-after ending) but I still think that enough questions are raised about Brick that there's a little awkwardness.
Elizabeth Taylor does a great job with the sexual frustration and Paul Newman is suitably gorgeous, aloof and tortured.

You have to treat the play and film as two separate things really. Pretty much all of Tennessee Williams' plays were bowdlerised but they are still good films. The film of Suddenly Last Summer is surprisingly close to the original play, actually. Night of The Iguana is an opened up version of the play but it's pretty accurate. If anything, it's an improvement. This Property is Condemned was based on a Tennessee Williams short play and that's pretty good as well.


I'd definitely recommend reading Orpheus Descending- it's a great play and probably his most underrated.

[Emil Miller]

Plays can be quite hard to adapt for screen, certainly nowadays. In the fourties and fifties, it was not so much of a problem because the audience accepted the slight staginess, as they were being given access to something that they might have been unable to see on stage. Now, with all the special effects, CGI, and nifty camerawork, we expect the play to be opened up. If there is any hint of its theatre origins, it will be condemned as being 'stagy' and it will be argued that it should have stayed in the theatre.

However, most films seem to be based on some existing literature. Brief Encounter was based on a one-act play called Still Life, and it eclipsed the original.

I would contend that the introduction of CGI and special effects actually detracts from the integrity of the play that is being filmed. The message should be more important than the medium. Whilst it is true that films made of works by such as Tennessee Williams, Clifford Odets or Terence Rattigan etc. etc., sometimes show their theatrical origin, they are nonetheless powerful and entertaining presentations of social interaction.
Brief Encounter is an example of how a good one act play can be turned into a work of cinematic genius without resorting to anything other than the collective talents of a dedicated group of people; many of whom had long experience with the theatre.

[kelby_lake]

I would contend that the introduction of CGI and special effects actually detracts from the integrity of the play that is being filmed.

Oh, I agree personally. I was talking about the demands of a general film audience nowadays.