Friday Reads: Book –> Movie

There have been a load of movies based on books this summer. I have seen exactly none of them. In general, I don’t see a lot of movies these days, but I admit I tend to shy away from movies based on books.

I know lots of people flock to movies based on books, especially books they’ve read. Here’s why I don’t.

This chart illustrates how you can divide up movie adaptations of books.

There are movies in that small pink area. But the majority of movie adaptations I’ve seen… well, they’re not particularly memorable. And some of them are downright bad. Examples? Why certainly!

The Blue

Many of these are obvious. The 50,000 adaptations of classics like Jane Eyre. Not the miniseries, though. Those usually end up much better. And you want to know why? Because most books are just too BIG for a 2-hour movie, there is too much that happens. Trimming down characters and plot tends to leave the movie feeling empty.

I would also tend to put here movies I liked just fine, that perhaps were well-suited for film but didn’t necessarily ADD a lot. Like 2009′s Watchmen, I was one of the few people who overall liked this movie. Was it unnecessary? Probably. Was there enough cool stuff in it that I enjoyed it? Yes. But graphic novels make great source material for movies. They’re more visual. So they translate better… but are also less interesting by definition.

There’s also movies that are so faithful to their source material that there’s no need to watch it if you’ve read it, and no appeal to watch it if you haven’t read it. I recently tried to watch The Age of Innocence, which I read early this year. I figured it had been a while. It’s Scorsese. Daniel Day-Lewis. Gotta do it, right? And after 30 minutes I turned it off. The book had a better voice and the movie gave me nothing that the book hadn’t already given me. In fact, it had so much narration that I might as well have been reading the book.

The Yellow (The Yellow, in case you can’t read it. Excellent color choice on my part.)

Do not get me started on the yellow.

Well, I guess I kind of started myself.

Shall we speak of Revolutionary Road, a book that struck me to the core and left me quiet and meditative except to ask people, “Have you read Revolutionary Road?” for weeks. It was AMAZING. So amazing that I dragged Eric along to the movie with me.

And the movie was so terrible that I can’t even explain to you how terrible it was. It had the right plot, technically, but everything that made the book so brilliant was just gone. You can’t just take a book full of soul and act it out. These books are not just about the story, they are about being in the presence of an amazing writer’s voice and the way he wanders through the events.

It still pains me to think of it.

I am still upset over the adaptation of the Michael Crichton novel Sphere from the mid-90′s. I read that book a bunch of times as a teen, I liked it’s unusual approach to the monster book. But the movie is AWFUL. AWFUL. AWFUL. Yup, still mad. Still haven’t really forgiven Dustin Hoffman. They took a book with an unusual approach and made it completely usual. Blech.

Do you want to know who will not be seeing the upcoming Great Gatsby movie? (Yes, another one.) Yup, me. Another one where simply acting out the plot will not get across the greatness of the book. So why try?

The Pink!

Hallelujah for the pink. It is a small bunch, but they exist.

The most likely movies to be included in this categories come from mediocre books. Harsh, I know, but there’s a palate to add some artistry to. Consider: The Godfather, Jaws, Silence of the Lambs, Jurassic Park, etc. Have you ever read these books? They are okay. They are meh. (Well, Jaws is actually pretty bad. Richard Dreyfuss totally messes around with Roy Scheider’s wife. A lot. And it’s quite graphic. There is more sex than shark in that book.) But some really snazzy directors saw something they could put their stamp on. They added style and finesse and it’s awesome.

Extremely quirky books work, too. Examples: The Princess Bride, Fight Club, American Psycho. All movies resemble the books, but there are wide differences. All three may have seemed unfilmable, but again some smart people came together and made something kind of fun and new.

The last group is the hardest to achieve: the perfect and beautifully faithful adaptation. Let us consider a couple of Merchant/Ivory’s, shall we?  A Room with a View. Howards End. The Remains of the Day. All excellent books, all excellent films. Beautifully shot, perfectly cast, it really feels like you’re sitting down with the book when you watch them in the best way.

In my opinion, Atonement fell mostly into this category. I admit, I’m kind of on the fence about the idea of adapting it at all. You can’t really spring the crazy ending of the book on to a film audience unawares. It’s kind of cruel. But if you’d read the book, the movie was a lovely adaptation that really brought to life a lot of the passion from the book.

One more worth mentioning: The 25th Hour, is both one of my favorite movies and one of my favorite books. I have no idea how that happened. They are very similar and yet distinct. Spike Lee puts just enough of a twist on it to make it a different experience. And it doesn’t hurt that the acting is fall-down fantastic. Also: I cry every time. So there’s that. It’s a modern story told in a traditional manner, and those seem to be some of the hardest ones to get right.

To be honest, I’m looking at the upcoming adaptations and I see little that excites me. While I enjoyed the first book of The Hunger Games, I somehow don’t want to sit and watch children get slaughtered on screen. (That book was uber-violent.) Especially since it won’t be satiric and hokey like the movie version of Battle Royale, which THG resembles so very strongly it verges on suspicious.

But if I hear enough recommendations, I may be convinced to give one of them a shot…

Though I just started watching the Mildred Pierce miniseries with Kate Winslet and sadly, I cannot finish it. I love the book. I even love the old Joan Crawford version. But my dear Kate is horribly miscast, the script has no pacing to speak of, they don’t seem to know that they are in a melodrama and their lines–given so earnestly–sound kind of…tinny. I will just go back to the book one of these days. (Have you ever read it? It’s by James M. Cain, one of my absolute favorite writers, and it’s brilliant. A great book for the recession.)

So no review for me this week. But I have a couple books in progress that I hope to have reviews up for soon. I am taking a little break from Infinite Jest, which I started last week in a fit of delirious ambition, and which I expect to last until the baby is born.

Thanks for reading and tell us your Friday Reads!!

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