Best book and movie

[Dinsdale]

The mention of To Kill A Mockingbird elsewhere (Great book, BTW!) got me thinking, I loved the book, and loved the movie as well.
What other book/movie combinations can you think of where you really enjoyed both?
Note, this does not require that whichever came second was entirely faithful to its predecessor.

Somewhat related question, what book/movie combinations can you think of where both received the critical, public, and (I assume) commercial success of TKaM. Maybe Gone With the Wind, I guess.

Still haven't been ablle to convince any of my kidds to dress up for Halloween as a ham. Darn!

[yabob]

Clockwork Orange

Terrific book by Anthony Burgess. Very faithfully and stunningly adapted by Stanley Kubrick.

[Scarlett67]

Fried Green Tomatoes (the book by Fannie Flagg adds at the Whistle Stop Cafe onto the title. As usual, the book is much richer, but the movie was a fine piece of work.

[lucie]

"Rosemary's Baby", a nice, taut little thriller written by Ira Levin turned into a nice, taut little thriller by director Roman Polanski. Very faithful adaptation, too.

To expand on the definition of "movie", I'll add the extremely faithful BBC mini-series adaptaion of "Pride & Prejudice" starring Colin Firth. Loved the book, loved the mini-series.

[Jack Batty]

Golding's Lord of the Flies and the short film that my buddy and I made as a book report for it back in high school in 1983 -- and the 1961 movie wasn't bad either.

[dalovindj]

Jurassic Park
Bladerunner

DaLovin'Dj

[delphica]

Dinsdale, I will dress up like a ham if I can go trick or treating with your kids. This is always on my list of possible costumes, and for one reason or another, it always gets passed over.

Now, I know some people hate the movie, but I am always very impressed by the animated film Watership Down.. It takes the book seriously -- the rabbits are not too cute or dressed up in little pants or anything. The happy parts are happy, and the violent and sad parts are violent and sad. It is fairly faithful to the book, given that long parts of the novel are about the internal life philosophies of rabbits.

It is mildly amusing that the parts about the mythical rabbit are done in a sort of trippy 70s style, but I think it was a noble attempt to show a difference between the "real" events and the folklore of the rabbits.

[Dinsdale]

Originally posted by delphica
Dinsdale, I will dress up like a ham if I can go trick or treating with your kids. This is always on my list of possible costumes, and for one reason or another, it always gets passed over.

uh, possibly cause it renders you susceptible to knife wielding white trash?

Stop by. In our neighborhood, they hand out candy to the kiddies, and alcohol to the parents.

[Atreyu]

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk was a great book made into an outstanding movie starring Ed Norton and Brad Pitt. The adaptation is extremely faithful. Whole sections of narration and dialogue are transferred verbatim into the screenplay.

The Hunt for Red October was also a good book, and the movie adaptation of it was a reasonably good transfer, given the complexity and density of the source material.

If we can include TV miniseries, I would have to say that the adaptation of Gulliver's Travels starring Ted Danson was just terrific. And yes, I own and have read the unabridged original novel and like it.

[Agrippina]

Misery

Silence of the Lambs.

[Danimal]

Huh? Nobody mentioned Puzo's and Coppola's The Godfather?

[xenophon41]

Moby Dick (the 1956 movie with Ray Bradbury screenplay)

[Wumpus]

THE MALTESE FALCON (the John Huston version--it was filmed twice before.)

[yabob]

Oh yeah, seeing as I mentioned it in the other thread:

The Big Sleep

The Humphrey Bogart version, not the Robert Mitchum version (moving Philip Marlowe out of LA would be odd. Moving him to England is just plain bizarre).

On the other hand, Robert Mitchum's version of "Farewell My Lovely" is good. He may actually be a better Philip Marlowe than Bogart - it's close.

[rjung]

The Princess Bride. I didn't think it was possible to capture the fun of the movie in the novelization, but I was happily proven wrong. Both funny in their own ways, and both play to the strengths of their respective media.

[yabob]

Originally posted by rjung
The Princess Bride. I didn't think it was possible to capture the fun of the movie in the novelization, but I was happily proven wrong. Both funny in their own ways, and both play to the strengths of their respective media.

Just a note - the book came first. The William Goldman novel was published in 1973. Goldman also scripted the 1987 movie. I agree that both are great.

[Kaitlyn]

I read the book and seen the movie in every case listed.

Field of Dreams captured the spirit of the book Shoeless Joe. Wholesale changes to the plot were made, events rearranged, and a major character dropped. It didn't matter.

Shindler's List actually improves opon the very good book of the same name on which it is based. The power of the music, stark photography, and the outstanding performances brought the somewhat dry semi-biography to life.

Matilda perfectly captures the flavor of the Roald Dahl book of the same name. Children's books seldom get the treatment they deserve when adapted; witness the truly dreadful Harriet the Spy movie taken from the wonderful book.

The Silence of the Lambs: A sublimely beautiful adaptation.

The Shawshank Redemption is based on a Stephen King novella, and almost perfectly replicates the events and moods in the story. Morgan Freeman's voiceover work is flawless.

The book Psycho has inspired Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs. The triple crown.

I Am Legend was made into one good movie, The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price. It was later remade as Omega Man, but not nearly as well. It was highly influential on (read: it was ripped off) Night of the Living Dead.

Who Goes There? was the source for both versions of The Thing of which the John Carpenter version is far better, and all three versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers all of which are good.

Where the Heart Is is one of those quirky, small town stories that made for a good book and a very good movie.

Get Shorty and Out of Sight are by far the best adaptations of Elmore Leodard's work. They actually lifted sections of the dialog directly from the book for Shorty, and adapted it well in Sight.

[BingoBurringo]

For some reason, the cinema has been very kind to George Orwell.

1984, Animal Farm, and Keep the Aspidistra Flying have all been turned into excellent and faithful feature films.

[beegirl13]

Another mention of Ray Bradbury: his Something Wicked This Way Comes is a great book, made into a really good movie (by Disney, IIRC). I don't know if Bradbury had any input on the movie or not.

[yabob]

Originally posted by BingoBurringo
For some reason, the cinema has been very kind to George Orwell.

1984, Animal Farm, and Keep the Aspidistra Flying have all been turned into excellent and faithful feature films.

Animal Farm - I HOPE you don't mean the recent TV adaptation.


***** spoilers follow ******

















They did do a pretty good job up to a point, and the digital effects to make the animals "speak" were interesting. HOWEVER, they tacked on an utter travesty of an alternate ending which completely destroyed Orwell's original intent. The Orwell novel ends with the animals peering in the window watching the pigs and the owners of the nearby farms, and realizing that the pigs had become as bad as the original humans (or worse). The TV adaptation added some new human owners coming back to take the place over, promising new hope and evrything. Downright Disneyesque. The Orwell original is a comment on the utter futility of revolution, and reminds you of The Who's observation:

"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss"

[yabob]

Oh, and the first guy to observe that the new ending was justified to update Orwell's allegory of Communist Russia to a post-cold war era gets a punch in the mouth.

[bagkitty]

Gunter Grass' "The Tin Drum". I think part of the reason the film version was so well done was that they didn't try to film the entire novel -- they would have needed a trilogy to do it properly. The self-contained part of the book that they did film was done "just right".

Of course there is also my choice for a film that was done better than the original novel -- Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being".

[Sir Rhosis]

Number Six,

Which character from the book was dropped in the translation to film?

Just wondering if you meant J. D. Salinger from Shoeless Joe who became a fictional, though similar (a recluse) writer in Fields of Dreams, played by James Earl Jones.


Sir Rhosis

[Kaitlyn]

Originally posted by Sir Rhosis
Number Six,

Which character from the book was dropped in the translation to film?

Just wondering if you meant J. D. Salinger from Shoeless Joe who became a fictional, though similar (a recluse) writer in Fields of Dreams, played by James Earl Jones.


Sir Rhosis

Changing J. D. Salinger was one of the "wholesale changes" to which I referred. The major character that was dropped was Ray's identical twin brother, who had become a carnival barker, and couldn't see the players at first.

[GWF Hefel]

Originally posted by BingoBurringo
For some reason, the cinema has been very kind to George Orwell.

1984, Animal Farm, and Keep the Aspidistra Flying have all been turned into excellent and faithful feature films.

Please, allow me to differ, and rant a little...

When I was ten or eleven, I snuck downstairs one night to watch the 2 A.M. showing of 1984. I found the ending to be truly inspiring deep within my snotty prepubescent soul; the indomitable spirit of the individual will triumphs!

A few years later I actually read the novel. I discovered the film's black & white grittiness invoked the atmosphere of the novel and that the lead casting of pudgy Edmund O'Brien with his pasty-white skin blew a chill grade-B movie wind that heightened the verisimilitude even further. All things considered, I found the film remarkably faithful to the spirit of the novel...up until the last page.

[Cue: Final Scene]
Edmund O'Brien is sitting in the cafe when he suddenly decides he can't take it anymore, jumps up denouncing Big Brother & get machine gunned by instruments of the State (aka, the cops).

That's not quite how the book ends. I was absolutely appalled & outraged as only a teenager can be that I had been lied to and manipulated in such a manner. And they expected me to register to be drafted for their stinking little war? I've never completely trusted anyone since then.

I just looked on the IMDb and apparently the hack who directed the film is still alive (and making crap for 40 years). I hope he lives forever making straight-to-video Disney movies.

[Kaitlyn]

I'd like to add something to the discussion. I don't think that being faithful to the source material--be it a book, play, song, or whatever--is what determines the quality of a movie. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that how faithfully a movie replicates the plot of the book on which it is based is entirely irrelevant to the movie's quality. A movie owes nothing to its source material. It should be judged solely on the basis of whether it is a good movie, not in comparison to the book. If you are going to compare it to something, compare it to other movies of the same type.

In my list, some of the movies are very faithful (Silence of the Lambs, Matilda), some are very different (Field of Dreams), and some take a basic idea, and use it for an entirely new story (Chainsaw, Body Snatchers). All three approaches can produce good movies.

Which isn't to say that comparing a book to a movie isn't a worthy exercise. It's often quite revealing about the movie-making process to see what was kept and what was discarded in making a movie from a book. To identify changes from the page to the screen is informative and a worthy intellectual exercise. To say that a movie is bad because it was different from the book is unfair. A movie should be judged entirely on its own merits.

That said, I can't always follow my own advice. Having read twice and loved the brilliant A Prayer for Owen Meany, I am incapable of fairly evaluating "Simon Birch". "Simon Birch" may be a good movie for those who haven't read the book, but it can't help but pale in comparison to one of the great literary works of the 20th century. But I recognize this, and so I disqualify myself from making judgements about it, because I know that I can't see it as a movie by itself, only as a very weak adaptation. I suspect that I would have liked it had I never read the novel.

Let me use another example. "What Dreams May Come" uses many elements of the Richard Matheson book on which it is based, but makes big changes to the plot and the ending. In nearly every case, the changes impove the story. I liked the book a lot, and I like the movie, although I think the alternate ending included on the dvd is a lot better than the one finally used.

GWF, you seemed to like the movie 1984 before you read the book. Doesn't this indicate that the movie, when judged just as a movie and not in comparison to the book, is a good movie? Does having read the book later invalidate your initial enjoyment of the movie?

To summarize, I believe that "The movie was bad because it was different from the book," is not a valid criticism, nor is "The movie was faithful to the book," necessarily a good thing.

[Agrippina]

Originally posted by GWF Hefel

A few years later I actually read the novel. I discovered the film's black & white grittiness invoked the atmosphere of the novel and that the lead casting of pudgy Edmund O'Brien with his pasty-white skin blew a chill grade-B movie wind that heightened the verisimilitude even further. All things considered, I found the film remarkably faithful to the spirit of the novel...up until the last page.

Actually, there are two movie versions of 1984. The one closest to the book (and the best one) is the movie starring John Hurt and Richard Burton (in his last movie). The black and white one is real obscure. When Orwell's widow, Sonia Orwell, saw that one, she demanded it to be wiped clean from the shelves, which is why it's so rare today. I'm surprised it was on TV.

[Agrippina]

Originally posted by Number Six
The book Psycho has inspired Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs. The triple crown.

Allow me to nitpick for a second.

Actually, TCM and the character of BB was not inspired by the book Psycho. The character of Norman Bates, Buffalo Bill, and the family in TCM were inspired by serial killer Ed Gein from Wisconsin. Gein was the son of a fanatical mother. When she died, he was alone and began his bizarre lifestyle (to say the least). He robbed graves and skinned the corpses (all the corpses were of middle-aged women--like his mother had been) and made things out of the skins or bones (lampshades, a belt out of the nipples, made a bowl out of the top half of skulls, etc.). He was charged with two deaths, I believe, sent away for insanity and died in 1984. Techinically he's not a serial killer, as they only found two bodies, but it is believed that he did indeed kill other women as well as dig up bodies from the graves.

-bean_shadow, who knows too much about the most morbid of things

[Myrnalene]

Originally posted by yabob
Animal Farm - I HOPE you don't mean the recent TV adaptation.

I haven't seen that movie, but I was at the video store last night and spotted it in the FAMILY section. I almost passed out.

[Kaitlyn]

Originally posted by bean_shadow

Allow me to nitpick for a second.

Actually, TCM and the character of BB was not inspired by the book Psycho. The character of Norman Bates, Buffalo Bill, and the family in TCM were inspired by serial killer Ed Gein from Wisconsin. Gein was the son of a fanatical mother. When she died, he was alone and began his bizarre lifestyle (to say the least). He robbed graves and skinned the corpses (all the corpses were of middle-aged women--like his mother had been) and made things out of the skins or bones (lampshades, a belt out of the nipples, made a bowl out of the top half of skulls, etc.). He was charged with two deaths, I believe, sent away for insanity and died in 1984. Techinically he's not a serial killer, as they only found two bodies, but it is believed that he did indeed kill other women as well as dig up bodies from the graves.

-bean_shadow, who knows too much about the most morbid of things

I don't dispute your main point. The characters in TCM and TSOTL are not based on the book Psycho. All of the characters were directly based on Ed Gein, as you so ably demonstrate in your post. But I never claimed that the characters were based on Psycho. I think that Bloch's book also had an influence, which is why I wrote that Psycho inspired the characters. I make a distinction between "inspired by" and "based on", but rereading my post, that isn't clear. I use "inspired by" to mean an indirect or weaker influence on, and "based on" to indicate that the plot and characters come directly from the book. Much of the publicity about the Ed Gein case comes from Psycho, so I think it can be fairly said that any character based on Mr. Gein has to some degree been influenced by the Bloch book.

[Laughing Lagomorph]

I quite like the novel "2001: A Space Odyssey". I understand the movie is generally thought of well, too.

I hope to heck we can add "The Lord of the Rings" to this list when Peter Jackson's movies come out.

[TV time]

Originally posted by Laughing Lagomorph
I quite like the novel "2001: A Space Odyssey". I understand the movie is generally thought of well, too.

The film and later novel were based on Sir Arthur C's wonderful short story "Sentinal". Of the three I felt the novel (novelization?) was the weakest. Yes, I know, Sir Arthur felt the film left questions unanswered, but is that necessarily bad?

May I agree with the earlier mentioned Maltese Falcon as great in both catagories and add The Longest Day.

May I suggest as good books and pretty good movies:

The Dirty Dozen, Six (movie Three) Days of the Condor and Marathon Man.

Side note nere-For the longest time I was bound and determined to not like the film, The Princess Bride because I so loved the book. Eventually I warmed to it.

It was a very good book and a charming film.

TV

[Albert Rose]

I'll go with Charles Dickens's novel Great Expectations, along with the 1930s (?) film featuring John Mill and Alec Guiness. Very well done.

I much enjoyed the adaptions of E.M. Forster's novels A Room With a View and A Passage to India.

I haven't read Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, but the film was so good that I'll mention it anyway.

[CalMeacham]

The Day of the Jackal-- Frederick Forsyth's novel was excellent, and Fred Zinneman's 1972 adaptation of it was very faithful, considering the time limits imposed by a standard movie.

(We will not even deign to mention the Richard Gere-Bruce Willis monstrosity.)

My all-time favorite thriller. By the end you're rooting for both the assasin and detective inspector Lebel to win.

[okielady]

My choices are all from the same author: Stephen King. I'm not fond of the majority of his horror stuff because I'm too much of a chicken. Hiding under the covers with night sweats still plagues me occasionally as an adult.

Stand By Me from the novella The Body was the first Stephen King work that I really appreciated. It was because of this movie that I bought Different Seasons which also opened the door for...

The Shawshank Redemption - The first incident I can remember of reading a book and actually enjoying the movie afterwards. The movie stuck pretty close to the book.

The Green Mile actually made me cry, and I don't cry when I read books. I can cry at the drop of a hat, otherwise, so I knew the movie would be a boo-hoo fest. Once again, the movie was pretty close to the book. Loved it.

I'll probably get slammed for the next one, but The Stand was a good one. I never quite made it all the way through the book, and I didn't read it until after I saw the movie. I know the actors and lines are often cheesy, and the special effects weren't that great IMHO, but I liked the plot of the movie so much that I bought the DVD.

[Janet O]

The Last Detail

FUCKING excellent FUCKING book, FUCKING out-FUCKingstanding FUCKing movie. Starring Jack FUCKing Nicholson.

All kidding aside, this is a true to life story of what it was like to be a sailor in the late sixties to early seventies. Also one of those rare cases where the movie is actually better than the book.

[GWF Hefel]

Originally posted by Number Six
GWF, you seemed to like the movie 1984 before you read the book. Doesn't this indicate that the movie, when judged just as a movie and not in comparison to the book, is a good movie? Does having read the book later invalidate your initial enjoyment of the movie?

To summarize, I believe that "The movie was bad because it was different from the book," is not a valid criticism, nor is "The movie was faithful to the book," necessarily a good thing.

Dear Number 6

Imagine, if you will, a film faithful to your namesake's TV series except at the very end he becomes #1, a boot-licking employee of the CIA or MI6, and just plays at being #6 to better subvert others in the village...

I believe that "The movie was bad because it was different from the book," is a valid criticism when the difference depicts an aspect of human nature that is the diametric opposite of the philosophical intent of the novel (and just happens to serve the political ends of the powers that be in Hollywood and further afield). The original filming of 1984 was a complete betrayal Orwell's point and at the same time a perfect example of doublethink (as defined in the novel) and thus a validation of Orwell's warning; anything/everything can/will/must be converted into bread and circuses for the entertainment/distraction of the masses. There are times when art must be judged in the context of society.

[Kaitlyn]

SPOILERS FOR THE PRISONER

Originally posted by GWF Hefel
Imagine, if you will, a film faithful to your namesake's TV series except at the very end he becomes #1, a boot-licking employee of the CIA or MI6, and just plays at being #6 to better subvert others in the village...

GWF: Well, it is revealed in the end that Number 6 is Number 1, so that part of your example would be a faithful reproduction of the series. Also, there are no others in the village to subvert. They are there for the sole purpose of subverting Number 6. However, it wouldn't bother me a bit if they decided to change those aspects for the purpose of making a good movie. I don't think that it would necessarily be a bad thing if a movie version showed Number 6 eventually being turned by Number 2 and revealing the circumstances of his resignation (which was what Number 2 wanted), if it was done well. I don't think the ambiguous ending of the series would make a good ending for a film version. Different isn't always worse, nor is it always better. It's just different.

I believe that "The movie was bad because it was different from the book," is a valid criticism when the difference depicts an aspect of human nature that is the diametric opposite of the philosophical intent of the novel (and just happens to serve the political ends of the powers that be in Hollywood and further afield). {snip}

So a change from the book to the movie is bad when it subverts the purpose of the story? I agree. What I said was that different all by itself isn't bad. In the case you list, which I agree with completely, the ending isn't bad because it is different, it's bad because it doesn't serve the needs of the story that came before. That is, the ending is bad because it is bad for this story in this movie.

Imagine if the novel ended the same way. The ending of the movie would then match the novel. Would this make the ending a good one just because it matched the book? Of course not. Imagine if the movie existed on its own and wasn't an adaptation of a book. The ending would still be bad. It is a bad ending beacuase it doesn't serve the needs of the story being told.

It isn't being faithful to the book that makes a movie good, it is being faithful to the needs of the story being told in the movie, which may be different from the book.

There are times when art must be judged in the context of society.

I agree.

My point, which I may have expressed poorly, is that a movie has an existence that is separate from the material on which it is based. The example above, (1984) is a poor example because the change was harmful to the story, so it seems to support the idea that different is bad. It that case, different was worse. Let's look at a couple of other examples.

In Betty Letts Where the Heart Is, the main character has a phobia about the number 7, and indeed, terrible things seem to happen to her daughter Americus on dates involving the number 7. For the movie, this was changed to the number 5. Fans of the book criticized this change. But the story works just as well with 5 as with 7, so this a difference that is neither better nor worse.

In Shoeless Joe, exactly who the field will eventually bring back is revealed in the first chapter. Ray's wife Annie is one-dimensional. It takes many years to complete the field, and the players are brought back one by one. The writer Ray kidnaps is J. D. Salinger. There is a fence in the outfield through which the players arrive and depart.

All of these things were changed for the moveie Field of Dreams. The person the field is to bring back is revealed at the end. Annie becomes a rounded character. The field is comleted in a single season, and the team comes back in a group. The writer was fictionalized, and the fence was eliminated. In every case, the change improved the story as it appeared on the screen. In this case, different was better. By the way, W. P. Kinsella agrees that the changes improved the story.

Again, I will say that "The movie was bad because it was different" is not a valid criticism. But I will further say that "The movie was bad because changes were made that detracted from the story" is a legitimate criticism, and that's exactly the kind of criticism that GWF was aiming at the first 1984. And it is one that I agree with.

Different isn't always bad, it's just different.

[Johnny B. Goode]

Originally posted by Danimal
Huh? Nobody mentioned Puzo's and Coppola's The Godfather?

I second this and also add Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" with Coppola's "Apocalypse Now".

[WordMan]

Originally posted by Johnny B. Goode

I second this and also add Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" with Coppola's "Apocalypse Now".

IIRC, isn't Puzo's the Godfather generally considered to be best-selling, Harold-Robbins-like trash? The fact that Coppola found the heart of it and turned it into the movie(s) he did speaks much more to his skills that to Puzo's...

As for "Heart of Darkness" and "Apocalypse" now THERE you go with a true 1 - 2 punch...

To Kill a Mockingbird pretty much set the standard, though, a long with The Maltese Falcon...

What about The Wizard of Oz?

[Johnny B. Goode]

Originally posted by WordMan
IIRC, isn't Puzo's the Godfather generally considered to be best-selling, Harold-Robbins-like trash? The fact that Coppola found the heart of it and turned it into the movie(s) he did speaks much more to his skills that to Puzo's...
[/b]

I won't debate whether it is generally considered trash. I think it is a great book and Puzo was a fine writer. The beauty of this combination for me is that Puzo wrote the book and the screenplay and thus the film is very faithful to the book. The fact that I am not entirely pleased with the third movie in the series is compensated by the fact that, at least it happened as Puzo intended.

[detop]

Originally posted by Number Six
Who Goes There? was the source for both versions of The Thing of which the John Carpenter version is far better, and all three versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers all of which are good.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers was written by Jack Finney.

delphica, count me in also amongst the person who loved the animated Watership Downs. Although the mythical rabbits parts reminded me more of Australian aboriginal art than 70's art.

Another interesting one is Who Killed/Framed Roger Rabbit. Both are good and both take into account their medium of origin, i.e. the book concentrates on comics characters, while the movie concentrates on cartoons.