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Tom Ronca - 2007-01-15 13:20:51
"Fight Club" may be one of the great literary adaptations (into a movie) of all time; I rank it right up there with "A Clockwork Orange" myself. There's really only one major deviation between the novel and the film, and that's the relationship between 'Jack' and the Marla Singer character -- in the book she's almost a throwaway, and quickly loses her importance about mid-novel. In the film, she's a major character, and turns what would be a real downer of a movie into a kind of screwball romantic comedy (well, almost). What can I tell you? I have a very broad definition of the "romantic comedy" genre...
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Greg - 2007-01-15 13:23:19
Paula--did you catch the Debbie Reynolds cameo in Fight Club?
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Greg - 2007-01-15 13:32:50
Hey Tom Ronca--I have to agree with you, and it's not that I'm not a particularly big fan of Chuck Palahniuk (sp?). Fight Club was a really clever book but I do think it worked even better as a film. Agree with Paula that Ed Norton was stellar, and I think he's always pretty impressive. There are few other cases for me where a film has outstripped the book. Clockwork Orange is a dead heat--love both. In a totally different vein, someone was telling me a couple years ago about a pending film adaptation of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast Trilogy which I was VERY interested in. Van Morrison had been offered a role in it... That's the last I heard.
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Paula - 2007-01-15 13:56:01
I thought the film version of Jesus' Son did justice to Denis Johnson's book, and The Hours got the tone of Michael Cunningham's book just right. And there's a special category for Bladerunner, which is a great movie that has very little to do with the great novella on which it was based.
Those are the only three I can think of off the top of my head, I'm sure there are more.
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Tim W. - 2007-01-15 13:57:23
The BBC production of Gormenghast was pretty good, if a bit superficial.
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Bina - 2007-01-15 14:38:10
The Constant Gardener. Although not literary fiction, the film adaptation is simply stunning. Ditto for the English Patient. And who could forget Trainspotting?
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Paula - 2007-01-15 15:03:09
Bina, I loved the first two films you mention (never saw Trainspotting), but haven't read either book. Recommended in any of these examples?
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Tom Ronca - 2007-01-15 15:04:14
I think that quite a few movie adaptations of literary sources 'work' by transforming them into some sort of recognizable film genre -- so, "Fight Club" (I am a Palahniuk fan, I must say, Greg) becomes a romantic comedy of sorts, "Bladerunner" becomes a film noir and Kubrick's adaptation of "Lolita" becomes (with the casting of Peter Sellars in the Claire Quilty role) a farce; not that that wasn't an element of the novel, but it's what Kubrick chose to emphasize in his adaptation. I found the BBC production of "Gormenghast' disappointing -- pretty to look at, but kind of missing the point of the novels -- Peake himself said the core of the books was the relationship between Titus and the "Thing"; a relationship very much de-emphasized in that adaptation. Interestingly enough, an omitted chapter from the "Gormenghast" novels, published separately as the short story "Boy in Darkness", seems to have had quite an influence on Del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth" -- there are too many parallels for it to be mere coincidence.
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Greg - 2007-01-15 15:33:56
I'm going to see if I can rent the BBC Gormenghast. The books blew me away. I liked Trainspotting but was somewhat disappointed in Irvine Welsh's other books. The movie was great in its own right but after reading the book I felt it missed the proper tone. It was very entertaining in a flash kind of way. It captured the dark humor for sure but missed something else. I think Mike Leigh should have done it. Tom R--I can't put a finger on what it is with Chuck P. that doesn't grab me. I read a couple of his books and thought they were clever--and then I read Invisible Monsters and couldn't stand it--the last book I felt that way about was American Psycho. Both just over the top, and I usually eat up the dark stuff. Peake though... what his words construct inside the brain just couldn't be duplicated on film.
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Tom Ronca - 2007-01-15 15:52:12
Greg: agree with you on Peake -- his work may well be truly "unfilmable". I am embarassed to say that I have never completed reading the entire Gormenghast trilogy; I may need some sort of extended vacation or lengthy convalescence to do that. But I did read the short story "Boy in Darkness" long before I even heard of the Gormenghast books and recommend it highly if you haven't turned to it.
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Greg - 2007-01-15 16:00:09
I've often dreamed of a lengthy convalescence. I'll find Boy In Darkness this week as soon as I finish my latest Ian Rankin foray. The BBC has adapted a few of his Inspector Rebus books for film but I've yet to see them.
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Sharps - 2007-01-15 16:16:18
Agree with you re: JESUS' SON. I think APOCALYPSE NOW is a good example of Tom's point, a film that transforms its literary origin. YELLOW SUBMARINE sure gets a hell of a lot of creative mileage out of a three-minute novelty tune. The musical film version of THE WIZARD OF OZ is all of the above - arguably more creative than the book, transformative, yet definitive. I'm trying to think of any other time that has happened....ok, here's one: SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER.
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Greg - 2007-01-15 16:35:39
I always forget Apocalypse Now. I'd venture that even Conrad (a miserable cur if there ever was one) would have enjoyed it. Have to admit that I never knew Wizard wasn't an original screenplay. Interesting. Same for Saturday Night Fever. Transforming I'd have to think about--Giving it more thought, there were some great films made from Steinbeck's stuff--devoted to adapting the book though, not transforming it.
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Sharps - 2007-01-15 16:52:35
Yeah, WIZARD was a world-famous, much-beloved children's book, with political undertones (not unlike GULLIVER'S TRAVELS). To be honest, I strayed from the original premise, which I think was "movies that do justice to great books". SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER was based, I think, on a NEW YORK magazine article. "Movies That Are Better Than the Novel They Were Based On" is always a fun list-making activity - I think because there aren't that many, at least when we're talking about the great novels. If you want to experience JANE EYRE, THE SHINING, SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE, CATCH-22, or any Jane Austen novel, you gotta stick with the book (though these are all decent films). PSYCHO is a much better movie, but the novel was just an OK pulp thriller. Another great transformative work was Altman's SHORT CUTS...I finally read all the Carver pieces it was based on (handily provided in the Criterion DVD release - YAY!), and while they are very good, they are surprisingly sparse. Likewise, M*A*S*H nails the book but probably takes it to a level the author never imagined.
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Sharps - 2007-01-15 16:58:49
SPOILER ALERT: Oh, and since someone (me) mentioned PSYCHO, I get to tell my favorite PSYCHO trivia story - to test the scariness of the "Mother" dummy, Hitchcock planted it in Janet Leigh's trailer, then waited to hear how loud she screamed when she discovered it.
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Greg - 2007-01-15 18:03:36
I screamed like a girl the first time I saw it too.
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sharon craig - 2007-01-15 23:07:38
Paula- thoroughly enjoyed your set on Saturday! Compelling and interesting. Definitely not run of the mill. Hope you'll continue to post upcoming shows on
your myspace site. here's my Splendora sister's e-mail [email protected]
Also, would be really interested in any info on the mindfulness gathering.
Shantih, Sharon
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Bina - 2007-01-15 23:28:55
Paula, I'm having a lengthy convalescence at the moment and The constant gardener is my constant companion. It's not literary fiction - overwritten passages, a bit of the snake swallowing its own tail, but still masterful and intelligent. Le Carre handles the love story between Justin and Tessa beautifully. Both the film and the book recommended. The English Patient is a lyrical poem of a book and I also give my thumbs up to both film and novel.
This makes me think of other very good adaptations - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, anyone? Never seen the movie but heard amazing things about it. If we're talking The Shining, Misery is also a decent adaptation of Stephen King's best novel (that man will be writing when he's dead).
If you're into lesbian fiction, Andrew Davies of BBC America (Greg, your prime source for British television and perhaps a good reason to get cable) did a great one of Sarah Waters' Tipping the Velvet, as an example of contemporary fiction being adapted into contemporary television viewing.
Other good adaptations into TV series -Shogun (Clavell), The Thornbirds (Colleen McCullough) and The Far Pavillions (M.M. Kaye and the novel I base my entire romantic aspirations on) are all great.
And finally, did you know that Sex and the City is based on Candace Bushnell's book of the same name. But whereas the TV series is cute and fun, the book is actually quite dark, with Carrie not being quite the spark plug that SJP portrays her as...
Okay, enough from me!
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Bina - 2007-01-15 23:32:30
Oh, and another thing - I've been studying screenwriting with someone who's done quite a bit of it, and he always tells me that the best scriptwriters were always novelists because they had the best sense of story and plot - many of them in the golden age of hollywood were hired by studios to write famous scripts (examples fail me at the moment). James Clavell too had a great reputation as a scriptwriter. And he assures me that Ben and Matt did NOT write Good Will Hunting!
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Bob - 2007-01-16 01:01:36
Greg, that's funny, cuz Conrad's Polish self thought Dostoevsky (who obviously influenced him) was a "miserable" Russian "worm"... but I don't think Conrad, who I don't see as miserable, (course for that matter, Dostoevsky's "The Gambler" was fun) would have liked "Apocalypse Now" at all, as an adaptation of "Heart of Darkness"... though he might have liked it on its own just fine, as did I. But "the Horror" and the loathing have no resonance in the movie, whereas, in the book it was an implicit epiphany that the priestess had merely elevated him to elevate herself by association, and the natives worship had more to do with his gun than himself... and the frightening similarity to Kurtz's supposedly more civilized "intended"'s elevation for elevation-by-association's-sake of Kurtz's supposed "good works" resonates quite oppressively with Marlowe, when he visits her back in Europe. But it all pales when compared to the extent of what actually went on in the Belgian Congo, and if you want miserable, (but with some genuine heroes), the nonfiction book "King Leopold's Ghost" is a truly great recounting of THAT horror. Regarding a more explicit adaptation, though, I thought the movie "The Tin Drum" captured a book that I would not have thought capturable on film, but unfortunately so well that it made me wish I hadn't read the book first, cuz that robbed the movie of much impact. And the other way around, the book would no doubt still have had some impact, but even that would have been diminished, it seems. (So be careful what y'all wish for?)
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Tom Ronca - 2007-01-16 01:05:47
Well, quite frankly, there are more than a few good movie adaptations taken from literary sources -- unfortunately the number of botched adaptations (Patrick Suskind's "Perfume" would seem to be the latest to add to this list; although I haven't seen it yet) seems to far outstrip the successes. Bina, speaking of Hollywood Golden-age screenwriters who were also novelists. Raymond Chandler ("Double Indemnity", "Murder My Sweet", "Strangers on a Train"), Dalton Trumbo ("Gun Crazy", "Spartacus", "A Guy Named Joe") and most infamously, William Faulkner ("To Have and Have Not", "The Big Sleep", "Mildred Pierce") come to mind. Faulkner, of course, was fictionalized as the character 'W.P. Mayhew' in the Coen Bros. "Barton Fink".
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Greg - 2007-01-16 09:21:21
Someone told me years ago that Mayhew was actually John Fante but then the Coen's said Faulkner. Fante also wrote for the studios and according to his family, hated it and refused to write sober... of course he may have just been an alcoholic. We had a kid temping here, btw, who did his masters thesis on Raymond Chandler. The excerpts I read were pretty fascinating.
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Greg - 2007-01-16 09:30:02
Bob--I loved Apocalypse Now but one area I think it failed is that the film elevated all these other really colorful characters and they really overshadowed the enigma of Kurtz. I did think overall though that it captured the tone of Heart of Darkness. In regards to Conrad--everything I've ever read about him, which admittedly probably isn't enough, points to serious misanthropy. Some interesting stuff about his relationship with Ford Maddox Ford too.
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Bob - 2007-01-16 14:49:11
Rod Smart, of XFL "fame", also had a serious problem with Conrad.
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Rod Smart - 2007-01-16 15:41:11
I got no truck wit Conrad, but he hate me.
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Bob - 2007-01-16 23:44:22
Actually, Conrad was an allegorical do-gooder with "Heart of Darkness". If you want to see one of the worst (and most publicly hypocritical) misanthropes ever, read that nonfiction about King Leopold.
At worst, Conrad was just being scathingly ironic, rather than misanthropic... with Marlowe's protesteth-too-much insistence on "unknowable", or whatever the word he kept using at the start was... because for the most part Europe had been unknowingly swallowing Leopold's moral edification snake oil while Leopold was raping the Congo in a scarcely believable way. (And I would say that having the Kurtz character as an actual enigma in the movie totally misses out on the book's allegory of Europe as the naiver-than-it-should-have-been "intended".) But hating a monumental injustice doesn't make one a misanthrope....
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Greg - 2007-01-17 05:51:33
>>>But hating a monumental injustice doesn't make one a misanthrope....<<<
But believing that human beings are incapable of better does.
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Bob - 2007-01-17 12:51:06
Greg, you should really read "King Leopold's Ghost" to see what kind of unprecedented propaganda machine Conrad and other, less allegorical objecters were up against. They wouldn't have bothered to object to a monumental injustice if they were misanthropes. And the fact that none of them were hippies, except for maybe Roger Casement, did not at all make them misanthropes.
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Greg - 2007-01-17 13:46:46
I've got it on the reading list, Bob. Thanks. I do know a fair amount about Congolese history. My uncle was born there (1926)and lived the first 18 years of his life there. His parents ran a mission in a leper colony--Family connections stayed through the late 70s though I never visited myself. I would have to disagree with your assessment though and say that there is a huge difference between a misanthrope and a nihilist. Misanthropy is the best reason to battle monumental injustice because often, your own personal salvation is at stake. You are often, by proxy, purging your own demons.
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Bob - 2007-01-17 15:11:20
It's a very good reed indeed, even without your connections and interest in the subject... which should make it even more so. But just because some of the people who knew and cared about what was going on didn't see making a groovy display of their feelings as the best way to make other people care doesn't mean they were misanthropes. One or two personal demon purgers do show up in that nonfiction book, though... and one of them, whom Conrad probably met, may have even been the inspiration for one of Conrad's fictional side-characters... though I don't rightfully remember. But, hey, seeing as I preferred "Full Metal Jacket" to "Apocalypse Now" - and like to ramble - would you consider Private "...and kill them" Joker to be a misanthrope?
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Bob - 2007-01-17 15:18:44
Oh, and if you get a copy of KLG, you could pass it on to Paula, since she was intending to read it at one point.
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Bob - 2007-01-17 15:48:20
Ooh, and if you wanna talk about an extreme allegorical misanthrope, have you seen Bunuel's "Diary of a Chambermaid"? Although based on a WWI era book and set accordingly, it allegorically stars Vichy France as, among other things, an extremely compromised chambermaid. (Or does it not count as misanthropy to hate the French?) [But see, if you're somewhat gentler on them, and write things with titles like "The Misanthrope", understanding gets dismissed as "comedy of manners"....]
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Bob - 2007-01-17 16:03:03
I mean, it's a movie that's virulently antisemitic, virulently anti-antisemitic, virulently anti-male, and virulently anti-female. (But good....)
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Greg - 2007-01-17 16:46:16
I'd call Joker a cynic. Haven't seen Diary of a Chambermaid but it sounds like something I'd be into. I've got no problem with the French as I don't see them any more or less obnoxious or self interested than any other group. Nationalists of most stripes give me the willies, but the French are no more guilty of that than the miserable bastard Belgians or the scumbag Canadians and all those other non-Americans. USA!!!
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Bob - 2007-01-17 22:18:02
I dunno... little Denmark was truly ashamed that it surrendered to the Nazis, and did its best to negotiate enough autonomy to protect its jewish citizens, with the king showing solidarity by wearing the label on his clothing that they were ordered to wear (or something like that). And the king of England volunteered to let them stash lots of Spitfires in his backyard, in hopes of keeping those out of bombs way, which was risky. And Hitler himself seemed to have a keen grasp of the bulldog, (and its engineering capabilities), when he wrote in Mein Kampf: "Britain can be counted upon to show the brutality and tanacity in its government, as well as in the spirit of its broad masses, which enables it to carry through to victory any struggle that it enters upon, no matter how long such a struggle may last, or however great the sacrifice that may be necessary, or whatever the means that have to be employed; and all this even though the actual military equipment at hand may be utterly inadequate when compared with that of other nations." (Maybe Churchill was ghostwriting for him in '33?) Then again, the free French may have tipped the balance of the war by winning key battles in north Africa, and for that matter Farley Mowatt was a big fan of the commie partisans' guerilla bravery in Italy, so, only the complicit are guilty. But it's not misanthropic to call them on it, at the time or historically, or to salute those who wouldn't go along.
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Bob - 2007-01-18 00:59:29
(But all other aspects of Bunuel's adaptation of "Diary of a Chambermaid" qualify as misanthropic, even by my standards.)
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