Entertainment For Lively Minds
When the film is better than the book
I recently saw the Scorsese film 'Shutter Island' on a flight. I seem to remember it got mixed reviews and that no-one felt it was one of his 'important' movies ... but I am a sucker for puzzle stories and I loved it.
So I picked up Dennis Lehane's original novel. I'm enjoying it, but mainly, I think, because I'm 'reliving' the film. The characters seem flat and the writing seems a bit, well, dull compared to the crime/mystery authors I read all the time (like Michael Connelly).
All credit to Lehane for having the idea in the first place, but it struck me that while I might think he's a 'merely ok' writer, Scorsese is one of the greatest film-makers ever. Is it surprising that he's somehow taken the material and worked magic with it. In particular, the 'look' of the film - the slightly unreal appearance of the island and the prison it houses - is extraordinary, and obviously created independently of what's in the novel.
Are there any other examples of mediocre books that were turned into great films? I can only think of one other contender right now - I've heard that the Puzo novel 'The Godfather' is a fairly poor potboiler. Not so the film...
- More from Specs_Beard.
- Login or register to post comments
-
'Jaws'
'Jaws'
Watchmen
I really enjoyed the film, read the comic book and thought it a bit ho hum. RE the fornication scene as mentioned in this month's Word, I thought it was meant to be funny. The film is set in the 80's and thus has a pastiche 80's sex scene. Expect to now be mugged by Andrew Harrison for such blasphemy.
Harrison Proxy
I wonder if one's opinion is affected by which version you get first.
To use Watchment as an example, I first read it, oooh, many years ago. Any film was always going to be second best to the book,if only because of the reaction that I had to the book.
I suspect that the 'definitive' version is the one that you get first. Everything after that is struggling to meet your reaction and the internal expectations that you set at that moment.
Field of Dreams
It's by no means a bad book but the screenwriter did some excellent tidying up that made it a more satisfying story.
The only examples I can think of (I haven't read it in twenty years or more)are the main character Ray has a twin brother who seemed to serve no purpose other than to confuse people, "I'm sorry I thought you were..." and the reclusive character played by James Earl Jones was J.D. Salinger. Not someone with that name but the actual writer and I sometimes felt queasy reading it. They probably only changed it for legal reasons but it's a massive improvement.
It's the only time I've ever thought the film was actually better than the source material.
This is the movie they SHOULD have made
Someone made the comedy
Office Space into a very effective horror film trailer. It's been deleted sadly.
Godfather
The book is OK but not high art. The films are high art and could never be described as just 'ok'.
The Godfather film disposed of the...
"lady whose lady bits were just a bit too baggy to accommodate your average gentleman with the exception of Sonny Corleone, luckily these things can be operated on" subplot.
Wisely I felt.
OMG!
As the young people would say.
I had completely forgotten about that! I must have read The Godfather about 20 times in my teenage years - dvd's of the movies being a distant dream at the time - and that part of it had completely fallen out of my memory.
What the hell was the author thinking? What on earth made Puzo think we were interested in gynaecology? And now that you've stirred up the memories, I've had a sudden proustian rush recalling what the thinly-veiled Sinatra character likes to do with his finger on a first date.
I have to read it again now.
Don't forget the equally unpleasant things...
... that "horses head guy" also likes to do.
Deeply unpleasant book on so many levels that.
<dons flak jacket>
The Two Towers, mainly for threading the contemporaneous Two Towers adventures of Frodo and Sam on one side and Merry and Pippin on the other. In the book, you do all of one pair's adventures, then go back in time and do all of the other.
Burn me at the stake, Tolkien fanboiz but the film managed it better. Although there wasn't the presumably unintentionally hilarious Frodo/Sam homosexual subtext in the books, so...
Additionally, all of the film versions get kudos for removing any terribly clever yet almost entirely skippable Dwarven/Elven/Tom Bombadil-ian poems and songs.
Also: Last of the Mohicans, mainly because nothing could be as tedious as the novel.
Last of the Mohicans
is the least readable novel in history...
My brother and I would try to get through it every summer - it was sort of a competition to see who could endure the longest - but we usually had problems just getting through the first chapter...
Possibly the worst first chapter in history, AND it had maps as well, wich didn't help.
One summer I managed to get to chapter six or seven, out of sheer stubbornness, but then it stopped raining and I never read another line of it!
And I can't remember what it was about at all. Nothing. It's completely blank. There must have been a mohican in it, but I'm really only guessing this based on the title...
My mother always claimed to have loved this novel when she was a little girl. I can only assume that her childhood was extremely boring.
Twain on Fenimore Cooper
Fenimore Cooper's prose is utterly glutinous - and Mark Twain wrote a very funny critque of it; Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses
http://etext.virginia.edu/railton/projects/rissetto/offense.html
Here's my favourite bit.
"Another stage-property that he pulled out of his box pretty frequently was the broken twig. He prized his broken twig above all the rest of his effects, and worked it the hardest. It is a restful chapter in any book of his when somebody doesn't step on a dry twig and alarm all the reds and whites for two hundred yards around.
Every time a Cooper person is in peril, and absolute silence is worth four dollars a minute, he is sure to step on a dry twig. There may be a hundred other handier things to step on, but that wouldn't satisfy Cooper. Cooper requires him to turn out and find a dry twig; and if he can't do it, go and borrow one. In fact, the Leatherstocking Series ought to have been called the Broken Twig Series".
Couldn't agree more
The LOTR books are a magnificent feat of imagination and inventiveness but they are tedious with detail and poor pacing, not to mention their descent into mock-heroic dialogue. The films take the thin story and characterisation and breath life into them.
So right on, Fraser M - the books are dullsville; the movies are sublime.
I agree (almost)
The second and third LOTR films really made something well-paced and exciting of a couple of pretty boring books.
I found the first film disappointing though. It gets the Shire all wrong, and loses that little rural England feel. In the book you get much more of a feeling of living in this cosy little rural community and then the world gradually opening up to danger and horror as the bigger picture emerges. The film kind of just hits you over the head and plays loud music: it can't wait to get out of the Shire and show you some orcs.
Give that man a pint of ale!
The best part of LOTR is the appendix, where Tolkien gives you pages of quickly told legends, without the need for characterisation or dialogue. For bile inducing prose, read the scenes between Faramir and Eowyn in the last volume. Truly awful.
Call me a pleb if you will..
Any film of any "classic" novel. Cutting away stacks of dense, flowery prose to reveal the half-decent plot and charicterisation beneath.
Alien.
Alan Dean Foster's original book was very, very good but the film, particularly with H.R. Geiger's design, was better.
Sorry ...
... but ADF's book is a novelisation of the film (I think he did two - one for older and one for younger readers). I believe the film script pretty much nicked ideas from all over science fiction's history.
Happy to agree about the "classics" though.
However bad various Dracula films have been I'd say most are preferable to wading through the turgid book (his ship arriving in Whitby being the one good bit to read).
There was also
a "graphic novelisation" (or comic) which I was given when I was about 9 years old.
It remains the goriest, most repulsive artefact I've ever encountered. My parents may as well have just The Excorcist in the Betamax.
Come to think of it - I think they did!
Snap ...
... my Dad passed me that to read when I was about 10 or so. I remember being quite scared by it and bewildered as to why he'd let me read it. I'm guessing he hadn't actually read it himself.
Alistair MacLean
The novels are almost uniformly dreadful. Rubbish characters lurching through rubbish dialogue and plodding plots. They're just rushed treatments for the movies which, as any fule kno, are fantastic, boy's-own adventures.
Bear Island might be the exception in that both the book and the movie are atrocious, though the book just pips it.
Where Eagles Dare
I can't believe no one has re-made this yet given all the sequels we are subjected to week after week. The book is, as you say, turgid.
The Thirty Nine Steps
I read the novel recently, and the Hitchcock film bears almost no resemblance to it, and is much the better for that. It uses the murder in London and Richard Hannay's flight to Scotland, which start the book, but then develops another plot altogether. There is no romance at all in the novel, and certainly not Hannay being handcuffed to Madeleine Carroll, or the climactic shooting of Mr Memory in the music hall - the scenes which stick in your mind and make the story
I also think that the almost mythical status of both Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Frankenstein owe more to the film adaptations than the books themselves (and I found Frankenstein unreadable.)
I loved Frankenstein
But if I hadn't been 'doing' it for A' Level English, I don't think I would have got half as much out of reading it.
Re: Shutter Island and Lehane's work.
I was rather disappointed with the book, having wanted to find the same enjoyable level of identification and sympathy that I'd found with his earlier central characters. I'd hugely enjoyed his series of detective novels set around Boston.
I guessed what was coming with Shutter Island some way from the end, and found myself willing the story not to end the way it did; hence my disappointment. You shouldn't let this lead you to pass him off as 'merely OK'; he's much, much better than that.
If you're interested in what he is capable of in a more traditional private detective vein, I urge you to try some of the Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro books; they are absolute belters. Start with A Drink Before The War; you won't regret it.
HHGTTG
Probably going to get me lynched (I expect to see people with pitchforks and burning torches within the hour), but I love the film of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
I find it to be better than the book. A lot better.
There I've said it. A weight is off my mind. Whilst the book has its moments, the film is a lot more linear in its storytelling, and the casting is absolutely fantastic. Whilst most people say that the radio version was the best (or the 1970s TV show), for those of fuzz not old enough to have the benefit of hazy nostalgia to obscure the truth that they were (quite) cheaply made, the film is where its at. Well, that is, like me, if you like the ideas and characters but find the book a little bit smug. Thats taken out in the film, allowing Mos Def and Martin Freeman to shine as Ford and Arthur respectively.
Its delightfully madcap, has Americana chanteuse She (aka the lovely Zooey Deschanael), it has Stephen Fry, Bill Bailey as a whale, knitted characters, Helen Mirren as a computer, and it has songs by Neil Hannon.
What is there not to love about the film?
you've missed the point
Douglas Adams set out the make the radio series, the books, album, TV series and the film all different to a greater or lesser extent. So I don't think the point is preferring the book to the film. I loved the books, quite enjoyed the film (too American for me but that's just me...I didn't have to sell it to the Yanks) but nothing, but nothing beats the radio series
The 'problem' with H2G2 the book
was that it was developed from the radio series, which was written episodically with no real idea as to where it was going*. Therefore, it is full of brilliant set-pieces and one-liners, but sorely lacking in the coherent-plot department!
*A bit like Lost, if you ask me!
Coincidentally WWII
was recently criticised for being
>>sorely lacking in the coherent-plot department!
see:
http://io9.com/5585549/the-greatest-rant-youll-see-this-week-world-war-i...
Thought this was quite brilliant really. I'm not exactly saying that H2G2 has the strangeness of real life, but had been looking for a thin excuse to post this superb link [And yes, I *do* know about the many debates aout using nukes in Vietnam etc--but I think the satire makes an interesting point about how truth really is stranger than fiction, and Occam's razor doesn't work quite as well in history as it does in, say, Newttonian physics.].
[edit: ... and that the problem with most conspiracy theories is that they lack the smell of the specific way in which reality is actually so very often quite strange. Perhaps the focus of historians on finding out what people *thought* was going on is easier to understand from that pov, because although not fully explanatory, the events alone are pretty hard to work with.]
Great link
I'm pleased I gave you an excuse to shoe-horn it in!
Silence of the Lambs
Felt Anthony Hopkins delivered a better "chill" factor than the written word.
Also, Moby Dick. Jesus, what a waffler that man Melville was.
*Splutters on his Plankton and Chips*
Moby Dick?? Moby Dick?!! Only the finest novel ever written
and a pretty tidy drum solo as well :-)
Moby Dick?
Is that the Jean Luc Picard / Patrick Stewart version? I got that for £1 in Poundland the other day and have yet to find a spare 3 hours to watch it in. I might have a go this evening.
I will let you know if I think its any good or not.
I've seen that version it stinks
worse than the blubber slicing deck of a whaler. Is there a good adaption of Moby Dick on film or tv?
John Huston...
...made a version in the Fifties with Gregory Peck as Ahab. Worth a look.
Here's a couple...
Fight Club: nice IDEA for a book, but just a bit half-formed. With the film, director David Fincher really nailed it. Even the writer himself gets close to admitting that the film is a lot better (in the DVD commentary).
Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas: Probably biased here by my love for Terry Gilliam, but I think he knew what he was doing with this film. I do like the book, but the film manages to get in everything that makes the book good: plus you get the music and fabulous performances from Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro.
I'm still waiting for someone to make On The Road: I think if a good director could reign in the story a bit and lose all the hipster looseness it could be a fantastic film.
Fear & Loathing...
I was a long time lover of both the HST book and Terry Gilliam's direction but I was convinced the film would be a clunker.
Guess what, I was wrong. It's a wonderful, wonderful film and, for me, catches the flavour of the book perfectly.
Er...
On The Road - there's a story?
Isn't the hipster looseness the entire point of OTR?
Ha!
I suppose you're right:
What I think I mean is it would make a good film if someone could wangle a good story out of it. But have an up arrow for cheek!
If you know what I mean...
...someone did make a film of On The Road. It's just that it was called Easy Rider.
It has to be
The Bible.
Although both have a lot to answer for.
James Bond
(any)
Naaaa!
Well.....my holiday reading was 'Live And Let Die' and, whilst I admit the film was a Roger Moore one (i.e. not the 60s, not Connery, not as good), the book was a real cliff-hanger and, from memory, had hardly any link to the film anyway!
In fact, if you consider that 'Moonraker' and 'Diamonds Are Forever' were also early (i.e. 50s) novels in the series and their equivalent films were later efforts ('Diamonds Are Forever' being the first dodgy film), I think a few of the novels are better than the film.
Diamonds a dog ?
I think not sir. It's probably my fave:
Pistols (or perhaps Walther PPKs), at dawn ...for the hand of Miss Tiffany Case.
[edit: But then On Her Majesty's ...is my other fave, so I guess I'm just perverse ...]
Diamonds Are Forever
Bear with me here; but, for a certain generation, it's sort of the perfect Bond film. If you were brought up on the Roger Moore films, and knew Sean Connery was better but just didn't find, say, Goldfinger as much fun as Live And Let Die, then this is the perfect balance. Because, basically, it's a Roger Moore Bond film. With one significant exception: Sean Connery's in it instead. OK, I'm talking about fond memories of it viewed as a child - as an adult it's pretty cringeworthy, as are many of them - but it entertained me hugely as a child. And Charles Gray is, for me, the definitive Blofeld.
And On Her Majesty's Secret Service's only weak point is George Lazenby. OK, it's a big weak point to have, but he spends half the film dubbed by another actor, and the rest of the film is top notch.
Exactly
my only extra two words are Diana Rigg (and, er, Jill St John).
And of course my other other fave is the new Casino Royale--made by an actor who had a lot to prove, and did so, and the extraordinary Eva "I'm the money" Green.
Schindler's Ark/List
The original book is full of tedious lists and devoid of any emotion.
The Ben Kingsley character is a mere bit part in Keneally's novel - definitely made much more hard-hitting by the film.
Equally, while not exactly a fantastic movie, The Perfect Storm functions far better as a film than book. Sebastia Junger's book is, again, full of facts, figures and lists and not particularly well-written.
The Shining....
...okay I admit that I haven't read the book but the film is one of my all time favourites and I've never been a huge Steven King fan.
The absolute flipside of this is the recent Alice in Wonderland film. One of the best books in the world turned in to one of the worst films I've ever sat through....
Slumdog Millionaire
adapted from a book called Q&A by Vikas Swarup.
The idea behind the book is brilliant and while he writes a moderately entertaining book, he doesn't use the idea to full effect and at times teeters on the brink of homophobia. Slumdog took the good bits and gave it a proper story (there is no brother or love interest in the book).
I'd also say that American Psycho is a far better film than book, though that's because I found the book unbearably tedious at times. The film's not exactly a classic though...
Where do you start
Get Carter
Dr Strangelove
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Gone with The Wind
The Night of the Hunter
In A Lonely Place
Out of the Past
A lot of those 1940's/1950s film noirs came from forgotten books.
In case of Strangelove
Red Alert actually isn't that bad iirc-but hard to find. I have a dog eared *novelisation* of Strangelove though, should pick it up again.
[edit: Wikipedia did make me laugh though
]
Kubrick actually the perfect example of film better than book(s) for many, esp wrt to The Shining, though King hated his treatment.
Case of a Clockwork Orange particularly interesting, though the one I'd actually like to read one day is Hasford's The Short Timers. I'd be really curious to see how much found its way into Full Metal Jacket.
But really, as one of the books about SK says, it's all about his eyes ...[well captured here, imo---a bit NSFW
]
The first three Bourne novels
Took them on holiday having seen the films. Mistake, really tedious. I never got beyond the middle of the second book, and ended up leaving all three at the holiday hotel
Jackie Brown and Out of Sight
are both better than the source material. Although I'm a fan of Elmore Leonard's books, there was a point when he was knocking them out so fast that you felt they could have used another draft or two.
Both films flesh out the characters much more successfully than the books.
Name of the Rose.
It's been some time since I read the book and although the film is a long way from classic I'd rather re-watch the latter than re-read the former.
The classic better film
than book has to be To Have And Have Not. Widely regarded as Hemingway's weakest book, I've read that Hemingway had a bet with Howard Hawks as to whether he could make a decent film of it.
The film is great, but beyond the title there's not a whole lot of similarity between the two.
Shrek 2
is better than the book.
Although, the book's opening as Shrek bites into a Madeleine is poignant. Sadly, it was excised from the film version
To be honest...
... I've never read "Ben Dover's Anal Spunkfest", but I'd be extremely surprised if it's better than the film - a masterpiece.
I did try to read the book
But the pages were all stuck together.
+ 1 for you
and + 1 for you...