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The beauty of fiction is that each person visualizes the characters, scenery.etc differently based on his or her own personal perceptions/filters. When that book is adapted into a film, then the characters and locales come to life, but it also takes away some of the magic of imagination from it. It shatters that imaginery world you have created and replaces it with the ideas of the film-makers and producers. Sometimes with or without input from the authors. Oftentimes, it's not at all how I imagined it when I read the book. Tom Hanks in the Da Vinci Code is one example. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was one which, weirdly enough, was almost exactly how I imagined it when I read it. There are too many others that I can't remember but those are just two examples. Commonly Hollywood totally butchers a book - I understand scripts aren't the same as novels, but often the dialogue is totally butchered or worse, the whole story is changed like 'My Sister's Keeper' which was a great read. When my mum saw it and told me they'd totally changed the ending I didn't even want to see it. Also, Cameron Diaz is the last person I imagined would play that role. Disney films are notorious for totally changing the original story, but I think it's forgivable. Pinocchio, Alice in Wonderland and the Jungle Book all stand out. All great novels in their own right, but Disney did not follow them at all. While Pinocchio the film was quite dark in parts, the original novel by Collodi was surprisingly 'adult' in parts.
Also, a related question. Once you read a book do you normally make an effort to see the film adaptation?
Terry Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with Johnny Depp, pretty much captured the insanity of Hunter S. Thompson's original book as best any film adaption could possibly hope for. When I saw it after reading the book probably 20 times as a teenager, I was amazed that they could pull it off and stay pretty faithful to what is a pretty disjointed, drugged out novel(how much is fiction we'll never know).
On the other hand the worst book to film adaptions are when they take classic(and well known) works and significantly change the plotline or characters. It's one thing to. Like they made Scarlet Letter with Demi Moore in the 90s and tacked on a happy ending. That's pretty bad... They made a lot of changes to the film version of Beowulf a few years ago, changing Grendel into a somewhat sympathetic character, but that's more of a change to a story based on an epic poem rather than a modern novel.
It's never like I imagined it to be, for the most part. And I'm almost always disappointed with the film adaptations. One exception is the film adaptation of Random Harvest. It strays quite a bit from the book, but I felt it still captures the same tone and feel of the novel. The film adaptation of the Sinclair Lewis novel Arrowsmith, with Ronald Colman is, in my opinion, an atrocity. The same goes for the film adaptation of A Farewell to Arms with Gary Cooper. Both are actors I love, and Helen Hayes is also in both films and I like her as well, but watching each film I almost feel like I'm seeing something I don't even recognize. I realize they can't possibly include everything from a novel in a two hour movie, but I felt they left out huge chunks of story that were absolutely vital in understanding the characters. After reading a novel, I'll often look to see if there is a film adaptation of it. But after the two I mentioned above, I'm not as likely to actually watch it now. Now I'm starting to think that film adaptations may be better left to short stories instead of novels.
The best adaptation I have seen is the 2005 version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The character of Edmund was exactly like I pictured him in the book. The other characters were good as well, but that one stands out to me.
Most of the adaptations are pretty ghastly, but there are exceptions.
A Room with a View is my all-time favorite adaptation, though I'm also awfully fond of the BBC's Pride and Prejudice with Colin Darcy.. I mean Firth.
The Anne of Green Gables PBS movies upset me as a child the first time I saw them because they changed the story and some of the characters SO much. I still loved it though, because Megan Follows and Coleen Dewhurst inhabit the characters of Anne and Marilla to perfection.
I saw the movie One Day over the weekend, and while it was okay, I really liked the book better. As with most adaptations, translating a story with an omnicient narrator who tells the reader all about the characters and what they were thinking and how they felt about their situations and each other into something merely visual doesn't work so well. It's not as if the book was a masterpiece, but it was relate-able, and the movie missed that.
In reverse, I saw The Prince of Tides movie first and thought it wasn't bad. The next day I mentioned it to a friend, who shook her head and said she hated it because she'd read the book first.
Then I read the book and was angry at how the movie was about ten percent of the story told in the book. The title character BARELY EVEN APPEARS IN THE MOVIE.
If you read a book and it's adapted to film, is it usually what you imagine it to be?
Depends.
Most of the time, I prefer the book for the depth of character, expansion of story, etc. But I can think of several examples where a good to great movie was made from a bad book. Such as:
JAWS --- The greatest action/adventure movie ever made. The book is pretty awful. In the novel, the "heroes" were so unlikeable that I wanted the shark to eat them.
THE GODFATHER --- One of the greatest American movies ever made. The book is lacklustre at best. And large parts of it are downright bad.
FORREST GUMP --- Fun movie. Terrible book.
BLADE RUNNER --- Great movie based on a horrible novella.
PSYCHO --- The book by Robert Bloch is actually pretty good. Not what I'd rate a classic, but it's good. The movie is an undisputed classic.
JACKIE BROWN --- Based on the novel Rum Punch by Elmore Leonard. The books is okay. Not one of Leonard's best. The movie is awesome.
All of the BOURNE movies are fun. The books are painfully bad.
L.A CONFIDENTIAL --- Book is okay. The movie is fantastic and easily one of the best films of the 1990s.
APOCALYPSE NOW --- Great movie. Conrad's Heart of Darkness is okay. Coppola nailed the pathos that Conrad was attempting.
The Shining is one of the rare examples where both the movie and the book are good. Kubrick's Shining is completely different than King's Shining, but they both work.
In reverse, I saw The Prince of Tides movie first and thought it wasn't bad. The next day I mentioned it to a friend, who shook her head and said she hated it because she'd read the book first.
Then I read the book and was angry at how the movie was about ten percent of the story told in the book. The title character BARELY EVEN APPEARS IN THE MOVIE.
I prefer to read the book after. I find the movie rarely spoils anything about the book, but the book usually leaves me wondering if the script writers only saw the cheat sheet version of the plot. That way I get to enjoy both.
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