books into movies
Adaptation II: Writing Books & Making Movies
April 8, 2009
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by Auburn Rutledge
For just a moment, let’s take our eyes away from the books and up toward the silver screen (if you will please indulge my cinephoile rhetoric). Films such as Watchmen, Slumdog Millionaire, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Dark Knight, Inkheart, Harry Potter and Where the Wild Things Are* share a significant commonality: adaptation from a literary work. (And yes, for the umpteenth time, a comic book is a literary work. Just ask TIME Magazine.) Books have long been the fodder of screenwriters, directors and actors hungry to render favorite stories, bestsellers or classic tales as moving pictures. Nowadays it seems almost a prerequisite for certain genres—YA fiction, graphic novels, popular literary fiction among them—to have highly filmable elements.
My background is in screenplay writing, so it’s no surprise that I approach my writing, both scripts and prose, in much the same way—how to translate my story into a visual blueprint? The process is a delicate and rather complicated one. For those who believe that adaptation is simply a matter of filming the book, page-for-page (or as many complain, page-skip several paragraphs-page), you are gravely mistaken. Adaptation has long been considered as difficult as, if not more difficult than, writing an original screenplay. You are confronted with the rigid limitations of form and length, the expectations of an audience, and trying to reconcile your vision with both the reality of what you can film and what others want to see.
That being said, an author should by no means feel that they are obligated to the adapters of their work. That is the beauty of prose: your own imagination and writing skill are the only true limits to what you can create. The toolset of those who adapt the work varies greatly, but offers a chance to create your story in a totally new arena. While some authors are less than enthused about books-to-films (notably comic writer Alan Moore, who can be somewhat venomous toward adaptations), there are those who love the idea of seeing their story in a different medium that can then reach a different audience, which in turn can create a whole new audience for their book. (For instance, I never read the Harry Potter books until I saw the first film.) Films can even uniquely create a storyline from works of nonfiction, such as the box-office hit Mean Girls, based on Rosalind Wiseman’s Queen Bees and Wannabes. 
I bring this topic to your attention as the influx of adapted works continues to inundate the big screen, in hopes of helping authors and viewers alike to understand the complex, sometimes rewarding, and oftentimes terrible trials and tribulations of words-to-pictures. The key in viewing these films is to understand that the word “adaptation” does not mean “re-creation” or “direct translation”; the word itself means to “alter or modify.” And that is exactly what these films do. Most attempt to remain true not to the exact details of the plot and nuances of the prose, but rather to the essential nature of the story. Not that all adaptations do this successfully, but the stickler for an exact rendition of any book is bound to be disappointed. Rather, try to look at the film as an extension or new level of a book—not only will it increase your enjoyment in something that may on the surface seem completely different from your beloved story, but it may give you more insight into the role of those who adapt the work.
A wonderful article that does just this is from Twitchfilm, written by Kurt Halfyard: “Twitch-O-Meter: Adapt That! Five Grossly Unfaithful Book to Film Adaptations…That Worked.” Check it out, and maybe you’ll see what I mean.
What are your thoughts on adaptations from literary works to film? Give us some examples of your favorites, least favorites, why they worked and why they didn’t.
[* A note: The highly anticipated adaptation by Spike Jonze of Maurice Sendak’s 1963 classic Where the Wild Things Are should provide our best example in the upcoming months. Considering that Jonze was the director of the acclaimed (and highly appropriately-named) Adaptation, we can expect things to be interesting, to say the least.]
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The Unfilmables: Why Some Books Don't Make Good Movies
February 21, 2007
by Jenny Elder
With the impending creation of a film version of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, the debate about “unfilmable” books rises again. Unfilmability is the reason a certain number of highly regarded and popular books never make it to the big screen—whether because their content is considered too violent to be filmed (as in the case of Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho), or because the literary voice can’t be translated to a visual medium (as with Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle). But some filmmakers see these difficult cases as a challenge to put paper to celluloid.
Even the late great Stanley Kubrick considered a film version of Patrick Süskind’s Perfume (newly released under director Tom Tykwer) an impossible project. And this is the guy who took on Clockwork Orange. Strictly as a film, Perfume has received critical acclaim, but reviewers still complain that the movie falls short of the book in terms of capturing the world of scent: instead of evoking odors through description, it “tried to convey smell through close-up shots of the protagonist's nose—of which there were no less than 27.”
Rand fans are afraid a similar fate will befall their beloved Atlas Shrugged, a thinly veiled manifesto for her political ideology. In fact, despite the increased readership and hefty rights payments to the author a film version can bring, many fans hold that certain books were meant to remain untouched.
Take, for instance, the perennial favorite Catcher in the Rye. Filmmakers have been trying to get their hands on this bestseller for years to no avail. Salinger himself stands in their way, refusing to sell the rights. A Hollywood version of a literary classic often brings along plot changes, simplification, screenwriters’ poetic licenses, and dilution of the stuff that made the work great. It’s like trying to watch Michael Jordan play baseball: it’s just not what he does best.
There is room for hopeful or adventurous directors in the realm of the unfilmable, though. Consider Michael Winterbottom, who directed the film Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, which is a film within a film about a book. The film tracks the efforts of actors and directors to shoot a film called (what else?) Tristram Shandy, a novel long considered unfilmable because of the ridiculous number of tangents the narrator himself takes. However, the film ingeniously captures the sentiments of the novel as scenes are shot, discarded, shot again, and discarded again, as production crews get distracted by their own lives. Eventually the filmmakers decide that the film is too difficult to shoot, and scrap the entire project. Winterbottom understood the inherent problems in developing a difficult book, and chose instead to take a new tack, perfectly capturing the true sentiment of the novel without mucking up the storyline. It’s a creative approach that works for those who’ve read the book, and those who haven’t.
TIP: If you’re an author and you don’t pride yourself on your unfilmability, check out these suggestions by leading screenplay writer Michael Hauge for developing and pitching your story to studio bigwigs.
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