Adaptations

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the nature of adaptations, in particular adapations to film, but also to other media. Partly this was brought on by my reflections on Wodehouse and how first person works necessarily lose something in the translation to filmI’ll probably, at some point, write up my thoughts on how the ideal medium for Jeeves & Wooster is the audiobook–preferrably with Jonathan Cecil narrating–and why screen adaptations are doomed to fail, even if well-scripted and populated with two top actors.. Partly it is in reaction to all the discussions about adaptation that I took part in (and in some cases read) during the V for Vendetta opening days. Partly it’s down to having just seen the quite good adapation of Christopher Buckley‘s Thank You for Smoking. Of course I’ve been thinking about this on and off for years as various books (or short stories) I’ve read became movies.

I don’t know that I’ve reached any useful conclusion except that a successful adaptation“to adapt”==”to make fit (as for a specific or new use or situation) often by modification“ is almost always going to result in something very different than the source material. Oh, and that most of the time the adaptations aren’t going to be successful–but that’s no surprise: good movies that start out designed for the screen are rare enough, why would you expect adaptations of something crafted for a wholly different medium to be more common.

Anyway, apparently the Guardian books section is tackling the question of what examples of good adaptations are.

I’m not sure what their criteria for a “good adaptation” are. It’s obviously not “most faithful translation of the source material”, or else “Breakfast At Tiffany’s” and “Blade Runner”–to pick just two easy examples–wouldn’t be in there. It might be “cases where a good movie results from adapting a good book” though.

Anyway, the Guardian is going to make a big deal of this with public voting, etc. I’ll keep an eye on it to see what Britons think about these particular adaptations, and I guess I’ll have to spend some time sharpening my thoughts on adaptation.

Meantime, here’s the list with my meme-y notes on which ones I have read (R) and seen (S), and some quick notes where I can’t help it.

• 1984 (RS) – When I was a kid the movie scared the hell out of me. Now the book scares me a lot more.
• Alice in Wonderland (R)
• American Psycho (RS) – Subjectivity enters in here–I thought the book was more than a bit crap, but the movie was a fair adaptation of it.
• Breakfast at Tiffany’s (RS) – Great book, the movie considered as adaptation is not-so-great given its highly sanitised nature, but considered as an independent work is pretty good (except Rooney).
• Brighton Rock (RS)
• Catch 22 (R) – I know… I should be taken out behind the woodshed and shot for not having seen the movie version.
• Charlie & the Chocolate Factory (RS) – I wonder if they mean Gene or Johnny. Gene, I hope.
• A Clockwork Orange (RS) – Hmm, a case where I think the movie is a better work than the source material. That’s pretty rare.
• Close Range (inc Brokeback Mountain)
• The Day of the Triffids (R)
• Devil in a Blue Dress
• Different Seasons (inc The Shawshank Redemption) (RS)
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (aka Bladerunner) (RS) – A pretty good movie that manages to be both more and less than the source story.
• Doctor Zhivago (S)
• Empire of the Sun (S)
• The English Patient
• Fight Club (RS) – This might be a paradigm case of a successful adaptation–not a faithful translation, but a capturing of the same spirit for a new medium.
• The French Lieutenant’s Woman
• Get Shorty (RS)
• The Godfather (S)
• Goldfinger (RS) – Bond is an interesting case when discussing adaptation, since the gap between the books and the movies is SO VAST, but the movies are so ingrained in populate culture…
• Goodfellas (S)
• Heart of Darkness (aka Apocalypse Now) (R) – I know… woodshed… I know
• The Hound of the Baskervilles (RS) – Rathbone? Brett? It really makes a difference.
• Jaws (S)
• The Jungle Book (RS) – The cartoon works really well on it’s own, but it’s hardly a fair translation of the source material, which is much less childish. Also, I have a real hate on for Disney these days.
• A Kestrel for a Knave (aka Kes)
• LA Confidential (RS)
• Les Liaisons Dangereuses (S)
• Lolita (R) – Weren’t there a couple of movie versions of this?
• Lord of the Flies (R)
• The Maltese Falcon (RS)
• Oliver Twist (R)
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (S)
• Orlando
• The Outsiders (S)
• Pride and Prejudice (R)
• The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
• The Railway Children (R)
• Rebecca
• The Remains of the Day
• Schindler’s Ark (aka Schindler’s List)
• Sin City (RS) – Here’s your paradigm case for the possibility of adaptation as intensely faithful translation. I think this only proves that comics, at least Miller’s Sin City comics, are much lower bandwidth than novels.
• The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (R)
• The Talented Mr Ripley (RS)
• Tess of the D’Urbervilles
• To Kill a Mockingbird (RS) – This is also a pretty successful case– a good book, a great movie, and the changes that come with the medium don’t lose the spririt of the work.
• Trainspotting (RS)
• The Vanishing (RS) – I hope to Christ the movie they are considering is the Dutch one, and not the American remake abortion with Keifer as the villain.
• Watership Down (RS) – This is also a great adaptation.