Open Discussion:
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
You hear it said all the time, the movie is never as good as the book…
But is that true?
What movies (or TV series) have you seen that were as good as the book they were based upon?
What seems to be the secret for making the conversion work?
What book do you wish would be turned into a film?
About Joanna SchroederJoanna Schroeder is the type of working mom who opens her car door and junk spills out all over the ground. Her work includes being the “She” in She Said He Said, a sex and dating advice blog, and serving as Senior Editor of The Good Men Project. Joanna loves playing with her sons, skateboarding with her husband, and hanging out with friends. Her dream is to someday finish and sell her almost-done novel. Follow her shenanigans on Twitter.
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The Ten Commandments was an awesome movie when it came out. Much better than when I was reading about it.
I think there are a few film adaptations that are as good as the novels they’re based on, but they’re rarely good in the same ways. Print and film are suited to different modes of storytelling, and if a story is to survive the transition from one to the other it has to change to accommodate the new medium. Jurassic Park is a great example of this; I love both the novel and the movie, but they’re very different beasts. The novel focuses more on Ian Malcolm and his views on Chaos Theory, and uses the dinosaurs mostly as an object lesson. By contrast, the movie relegates Malcolm to a comic relief role so that the dinosaurs (which were stunning special effects at the time) to take center stage. Both versions are very successful, but in different ways – the novel as a meditation on mankind’s desire to control nature and the movie as a visual spectacle.
The Princess Bride comes to mind as a rare example of an adaptation that succeeds while remaining very close to the source material. It makes sense that both versions would both be good, considering that the screenplay was written by the novel’s author. They both tell essentially the same story in the same style, but for different audiences. The metafictional conceit of The Princess Bride rests on the idea of an adult telling a story to a child. In the film (which I’m willing to wager more people are familiar with than the novel), the focus is on the child and the experience of hearing the story. In the original novel, however, the focus is on the adult telling the story (which involves a great deal of literary satire). Both versions are excellent, and I think that watching the movie enhances the novel and vice-versa.
So I’m not the only person out there who loves both iterations of “Jurassic Park.” I try to sell people on the philosophy of the book, but most don’t buy because of the movie.
I loved The Princess Bride, but I didn’t even know there was a book. Was that the book the grandfather was reading?
There’s only one instance I can think of that this has happened. I think the movie “Fight Club” was much better than the book. IIRC, it was told in a much more linear fashion in the movie which was much easier to follow. That and “Frank Herbert’s Dune” (Sci-Fi Channel mini-series) was at least as good as the book. Oh, and it’s not really a movie but the stage musical Wicked was very close.
As far as books I’d like to see filmed…? “The Rock” by Robert Doherty, “The Girls He Adored” Jonathan Nassau, “Neverwhere” Neil Gaiman, and 2 that are already done or have been green-lit “World War Z” and “Robopocalypse.”
Palahniuk was still finding his style in “Fight Club.” Movie is definitely better.
*ahem*
The Princess Bride.
*drops mic*
Got that right.
I’d also say “Lord of the Rings.” Tolkien was a brilliant mythmaker and linguist, but a dry-as-dust storyteller.
So I’m not the only one that thinks this?
If I were building a fantasy world there is no one I’d rather have than Tolkien doing the world building. But as soon as it came time to tell stories in this world Tolkien’s work would be done.
There are plenty of writers who are better at storytelling than him. There just aren’t that many writers who are at better at world/myth/lore building than him.
There, sir, I beg to differ. I’ve read the book plenty of times, and I’ll do it again (and again). Not so for the movies. The movies are nice, but they didn’t add to the experience for me.
I would love to see “Red Storm Rising” by Tom Clancy made into a movie.
@JackSkellington
I thought the SyFy’s version of Dune was really good. It lacked the interior dialogues that were so important in the novels, and that David Lynch tried to (??successfully??) replicate in his film.
I think that Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” was very close to the books. (Yeah, you can nitpick about a few things. I say, “Waaah!” to those nitpickers.) I’d have to say I enjoyed these films as much as as I enjoyed the books.
I thought the film “Sophie’s Choice” was better than the novel, only because Meryl Streep did such a remarkable job bringing the character to life.
I thought that the two movies for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows were better than the book.
If we want to categorize when you can definitively say a movie is as good as a book I think you need to ask yourself: “having read the book and seen the movie, would I recommend the book or the movie to someone else.”
The David Fincher version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo passed this test for me.
I preferred the Niels Oplev version, personally, but the books with their oh-so-many names and recounting of this legislation and that act of parliament and just shoot me already. I’d recommend the movies before the books any time.
I’ve never read the novel Housekeeping, but the movie of the same name is one of my all-time favorites. In the latter half of a piece at The Guardian, Jonathan Coe argues that it was “one of the best adaptations of a modern novel ever made.”
Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire was money IMO. Like most works of fiction in order to make the Harry Potter movies a reasonble length material has be left in the pages of the book, thus never making it onscreen. I’ve only read the first four books (though I’ve seen all 8 movies) but the I think the fourth movie was a very good job of picking and choosing what to put on the big screen and what would be left in the books.
By Kurt’s test I’ll say this about Goblet of Fire. If you have time read the book just because there is more in the book than in the movie (which is true of nearly all movie/book comparisons) but if you don’t have time for the book then the movie would suffice.
Tom Clancy-The Hunt for Red October.
The movie may have been better.
Arthur
On the flip side, has there ever been anything as bad as the movie version of “Breakfast of Champions”?
Shawshank Redemption. So-so short story. Absolutely magnificent film.
Even though almost nobody agrees, I would say that the Watchmen movie is better than the graphic novel.
No Country for Old Men
It’s just different enough from the novel to stand on its own, and the Coen brothers executed magnificently. Not better than the book, but definitely just as good.
I would agree with that. I actually saw the movie first, which I think is beneficial in this case because McCarthy doesn’t use punctuation to indicate dialogue.
“Terms of Endearment” was a great movie & a great book- since there was so much divergence between the plots & characters of the 2 I’m not sure if it fair to say that one was as good,as the other.
I felt that “The Road” was just as powerful in either version and the the movie version of “No Country for Old Men” was damned near as good as the book.
And then there is the only movie I ever skipped out on work to see- the director’s cut- “Blade Runner”-
epic compared to “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” which is little more than a pulp magazine piece…
Whenever this question comes to mind, one of the first examples I always think of is ‘Jaws’. The novel is mundane and at times quite unlikeable – but the classic film is much, much better because it leaves out the novel’s problems, and adds more excitement and unforgettable moments like Quint’s USS Indianapolis monologue.
Another example is ‘Fight Club’. When I read the novel before seeing the film, I thought it was a wank straining for effect – but I found the movie very enjoyable because it added a lot of very dark humour.
Yet another example is ‘Starship Troopers’. I read the novel before seeing the film, and nowadays I don’t remember much of the book apart from thinking that overall it was rather dull. As for the film, however – I saw that three times at the cinema during its first run alone, because it was very spectacular and very (darkly) funny.
I liked the film adaptation of Bryan Burrough’s ‘Public Enemies’ – but to do justice to Burrough’s engrossing and massive work, it deserves a full HBO-TV-series-style treatment.
I would add Wonder Boys to this list. The movie and the book are very different and both good. The movie is slightly more upbeat though, and the characters are more likeable, which helps give the movie an edge.
M’A*S*H. The book is average at best.
Interestingly, “Catch 22″, which has many similarities – a farce about war and soldier life, focusing on personal stories and the absurdity of war, based on auto-biographical material – is the other way around.
I’ll do you one better. Below are 2 films and 1 film series that are far better than the books.
1. Forrest Gump
2. Bridges of Madison County (I didn’t like the movie but it was still far, far better than the book)
3. All 3 of the Bourne Trilogy movies.