Comments on: Is the Screen Always Worse Than the Page?

By: Anita

Anita — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 17:23:51 +0000

Hollywood is increasingly turning to books in public domain for material: in the next eight months alone we have film renditions of The Three Musketeers, Sherlock Holmes, Verne’s The Mysterious Island, Poe’s tales, and A Princess of Mars (retitled John Carter.)

One recent novel I would like to see onscreen: Deep Creek, a terrific (and neglected) racial-justice tale with, for once, attractive middle-aged leads.

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 19:49:34 +0000

I’m not sure I heard this right, but I believe that it was Kubrick who said that to adapt a book to the screen you had to, essentially, ignore the intentions of the writer. You couldn’t worry about the book; the book is the book, the movie is something else. In order to be true to the movie, you have to be untrue to the book, otherwise you’re compromising too much all around. I find that good, but not great books (like much of Dick), can make great movies, whereas great books (Lolita and Revolutionary Road come to mind) will never make great movies, even if Kubrick’s at the helm.

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 19:46:32 +0000

Heya Dennis,
I’m not sure I agree. I love Huston and have enjoyed his movies for decades. But Wise Blood pales in comparison the novel, despite the great central performance. I would say the same about Treasure and Man Who Would Be King. Maltest Falcon, however, is and always will be a perfect classic, to me. It would have been something to see him translate Chekhov…

By: Elias J. McClellan

Elias J. McClellan — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 21:05:24 +0000

New to the site and this discussion but I love it. I think PKD’s work was subject to great (and mediocre) adaptation for his semi-lucid depictions which gave screen writers and directors a great deal of latitude. Conversely Thomas Harris’s “Silence of the Lambs” benefited greatly from pruning. Finally, I found “LA Confidential,” practically unreadable after seeing the excellent film. Wonderful topic Ms. Deahl, I look forward to reading more.

By: Gabe Habash

Gabe Habash — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 19:09:40 +0000

What about graphic novels? I liked “A History of Violence” far more as a movie than as a book. The movie worked largely because of subtext, fraught silences and the unknown, whereas the book went deep into Tom’s background. I thought the same principle that horror uses–what works best is what the audience DOESN’T see–applied for the movie, and it utilized that idea to wonderful results.

By: Dennis Johnson

Dennis Johnson — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 15:39:13 +0000

Director John Huston had a very long career of doing justice to an amazing variety of great, great books, including Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood, Dashiell Hammett’s Maltese Falcon, James Joyce’s The Dead, B. Traven’s Treasure of the Sierra Madre, C.S. Forester’s African Queen, Rudyard Kipling’s Man Who Would Be King, and Stephen Crane’s Red Badge of Courage. Also, the big one — yes, the Bible.

With the possible exception of that last title, there’s isn’t a film on the list that people who loved the book wouldn’t have also loved.

Perhaps the best case in point as to how wonderfully faithful to the books Huston was is his version of Moby Dick — a two hour movie in which he astonishingly conveys the full sense of the story, not to mention most of the plot detail. It’s a lesson in adaptation, not to mention a truly great film that will prompt in viewers a deepening in appreciation of the book.

I only wish he’d lived long enough to get to Tolstoy and Chekhov!