For most of us with a bit of the snob in us, the ‘book’ is innately superior to the movie based on it.
Some movies, though, rise heads and tails above the nonsense they’re based on.
I just saw ‘The Horse Whisperer’ on DVD six years after reading the book beside a pool in Malaysia. I should have guessed something was up when the woman who lent me the book said “No need to let me have it back” as she handed it over.
By the end, when things had got completely out of hand plot-wise, I had tears running down my cheeks, but not for the reasons the author had intended. “Jesus”, I turned to my wife, “lives in Montana, but has a bit of an adultery problem.”
Cue the movie. You get great mountains, great actors, great horses, humane branding sequences, and great hair. Everything you could ask for in a flick.
And no full-blown adultery either. Just a bit of rugged groping. Brilliant.
Actually, I’ve got two movies that I can think of off the top of my head that I prefer to the book versions.
First is Princess Bride. I don’t know what Goldman’s problem was, but I don’t see how they got that wonderful, enjoyable, totally upbeat movie out of that bitter, grumpy, and disillusioned book. Mind you, the offbeat humor is in both, and reading Princess Bride isn’t the torture that the OP seems to say The Horse Whisperer is. (I can’t say for myself, since I neither saw the movie, nor read the book.)
Second is Mister Roberts. The book and the movie are far more closely related, but while both are a bit bleak, the movie has far more by the way of redemption in it. It’s not so much that I think the movie got prettied up to make it more marketable, I just felt, while reading the book that I had somehow slipped back into high school was being forced to read Waiting for Godot again.
These are, in my experience, the exception, not the rule.
The book adds not one but two completely unnecessary subplots. One on adultery, and one on the mob. The movie distills it down to its pure essence: three men and a really big shark.
Then there are all those Amy Tan (“we were so poor that we had to sell the Merc and get a BMW”) tearjerkers. Dire books (with all the Charlie Chan broken English). Mind you, dire films too.
Hannibal, the movie, wasn’t great, but when I watched it, I was amazed at how great the director was. Turning the terrible, terrible book into an OK movie was a work of genius!
There are a lot of movies that outstrip their sources, but then there are a lot of movies that people don’t realize are based on books. Most of the Hitchcock ouevre is based on novels or short stories, and while I haven’t read enough of those to judge accurately, I’m willing to bet Hitch gave those authors a run for their money.
A short list of notable movies that may equal or outstrip the books they were based on:
Gone With the Wind
Bridges of Madison County
The French Connection
The Big Sleep
Blade Runner
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
The Last Detail
The Exorcist
The Maltese Falcon
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (yes, it was a book)
The Shining
Charley Varrick
Fast Times at Ridgmont High (magazine article)
The Shawshank Redemption
The Friends of Eddie Coyle
Double Indemnity
Short Cuts (based on stories of Raymond Carver)
Smoke
Let me add Forrest Gump.
After the movie, when the book started to actually sell, the author was quoted as complaining, “Why didn’t they buy my book before?” Because it was horribly written and simply served as the inspiration for a most enjoyable movie.
I read the book version of Jaws. I found it at the library one summer several years ago. It sucks. The adultery subplot involves Hooper having an affair with Chief Brody’s wife! As far as I could tell, the author added this subplot so he could justify having the shark eat Hooper near the end.
Also, the book ends differently. Brody doesn’t kill the shark. It just kinda stops killing and leaves after eating Hooper, sparing Brody for no apparent reason. It’s a really lame ending.
I will second Forrest Gump. Also like to add that the author wrote a second, even worse book in a weak effort to cash in on the movie’s fame.
Big Fish. An amazing, magical movie, from that book. I don’t know how they say that. Yeah, it was directed by Tim Burton, so I’m expecting many a flame.
The Exorcist III, it’s written and directed by William Peter Blatty who wrote the original Exorcist book and it’s sequel Legion (this is what he used as the basis for the EIII film). The ending of Legion is a bit weak in the book, and you’re left wondering why the author chose to wrap it up that way. In the film, however, the ending’s very tight and makes perfect sense.
Well, The book Hunt for Red October was not crap but I found the movie to be much better. The book had the typical multiple subplots added to fill pages while the movie got down to basics: sub commander wants to defect.
To be honest you could say this about EVERY Tom Clancy movie. “Patriot Games,” “Sum of All Fears” and “Clear and Present Danger” were all competent, enjoyable movies made out of mediocre novels. All Tom Clancy novels are twice as long as they need to be (primarily because Tom insists on getting a submarine in there somehow, preferably USS Dallas and, wherever possible, involving that ol’ seadog Bart Mancuso, even if completely unnecessary), poorly written, and in the case of SOAF, increasingly fascist, racist, and strident in tone.
“The Hunt for Red October” is the most obvious one because it’s by far the best movie of the lot, but they’re all better movies than books.
Wow! :eek: I feel totally the opposite on this one. This is my all time favorite book, and one of my favorite movies, but the book… is awesome. It’s one of a few books that I’ll always read cover to cover at least two or three times a year.
For me the movie that was better than the book was Mystic River. I couldn’t get through that boring piece of crap. To the best of my knowledge that’s the only book that didn’t hold my interest enough to finish. I read close to half way through it before I finally gave up on it. Ugh.
