Adaptations
September 4, 2003
I'm not going to rise to Jamie's obvious trolling (perhaps "cave-trolling"? either way, insert ironic smiley here), but it makes me wonder: when was the last time a film was actually faithful to the source material?
One could argue for the first Harry Potter film, but I thought its faithfulness probably worked against it -- there was no genuine intrigue or wonder, and instead the tone was plodding and pedestrian, like overly-faithful school Shakespeare readings.
Isn't it just a given that certain things that may work well in books (say, dialogue heavy passages) don't often work well in film (as an old teacher used to say, why talk about something when you can show it?), and that, when adapting text from one medium to another, accomodations need to be made to suit the story?
As an non-cinematic example, Galton and Simpson had to rewrite their own apparent "classic" Tony Hancock tv shows when they were re-recorded for release on LP.
Sidebar #1: I've always held that both Jaws and The Godfather are rare instances of films rising above the source material being genuinely great.
Sidebar #2: I'd like to suggest that Jamie would have a far better grasp of what to criticise if he sat down and watched the films, but that may seem impolite [insert ironic smiley #2]. Don't knock it 'til you've tried it, my old ma used to say.
It's late and I've run out of things to say. Anybody have any examples spring to mind?
Posted by davidr at September 4, 2003 10:59 PM
Only a note about the modern masterwork in book-to-film adaptation: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
By no means literal, but certainly a much more pure connection between page and screen than usually visible in an adaptation.
Posted by morgue at September 5, 2003 7:54 PM