Novels always trump film adaptations
March 18, 2010 by MAGGIE SUMMERS
Filed under Columns, Opinions
The 2005 biopic “Capote” recently arrived to my house via Netflix per my request.
SUMMERS
I’d seen it once before and I wanted my roommates to check it out. After hearing their mostly positive reviews, I started thinking about the increasingly common art of turning books into movies.
I have always been particularly critical when it comes to movie adaptations of books. My English minor shows my bias, but this medium-changing practice has become more and more common.
Four of the 10 movies nominated for Best Picture at this year’s Academy Awards were based on books.
“The Blind Side” is based on a 2006 novel by Michael Lewis, titled “The Blind Side: Evolution of A Game.” Novelist Nick Hornby adapted British journalist Lynn Barber’s memoir “An Education” into a film. “Up In The Air” was first a novel by Walter Kirn, and “Precious” was first the novel “Push” by Sapphire.
All of these films are wonderful and obviously, reputable. They serve as book-turned-movie success stories.
Last year’s Oscars were no different. Three of the five Best Picture nominees were first literary works. The winner in the category, “Slumdog Millionaire” was a novel written by Vikas Swarup in 2008.
There are countless examples of books turned into good and bad films. It wouldn’t be difficult to name 20 or 30 instantly if asked. How about the Harry Potter, Twilight and Lord of the Rings series? All fiction turned cinema.
Some of my favorite novels have been created for the big screen, much to my fright and sometimes, my dismay.
Luckily, a few of them have revered the book I first loved; some have even made the experience of reading the novel that much better.
Both film adaptations of Ian McEwan’s “Atonement” and Jeffery Eugenides’s “ The Virgin Suicides” did just that.
And I can think of one that absolutely horrified me, and took forever to leave my mind: Sam Mendes’s movie adaptation of Richard Yates’s brilliant novel “Revolutionary Road” (although many liked it).
It takes a special movie to pull off a successful adaptation because for every one of the great movies that found their roots in a book, there is a handful of bad ones.
Most everyone can relate to the feeling of one of his or her favorite novels turned into a wretched film, and the aftertaste can be pretty bitter.
The worst part about the book-turned-movie process is the inevitable redesigned, “Now A Major Motion Picture” book edition.
The agents and movie people get a hold of the book’s cover and turn it into a publicity vehicle. They’re usually placed front and center in the bookstore, hiding the original, artful edition, or worse, the store carries none of the old editions at all.
Regardless, a great movie — from wherever its story is derived — is a great movie. Movies encompass all the elements missing from books — striking visuals, beautiful actors, stunning music.
The movie version provides an hour-and-a-half escape from the world, an experience that may require more than a month of time if you read the book.
But there is something remarkable about a novel’s power to create for its reader a completely imagined world, one where the reader dreams up the 3-D version.
Of course, movies are beautiful, moving and significant, but when it comes to choosing the movie or the book, I’ll pick the book every time.
— Maggie Summers is a senior from Chicago majoring in magazines
