Best book-to-film adaptation?

[Archae]

My nominee is "The Last Unicorn" by Peter S. Beagle.

Just about 95+% of the movie was faithful to the book.

[MorningGlow]

1. Kinda cheating, but...

I'd have to say Pride and Prejudice, the miniseries. Absolute perfection.

[Flaxbee]

2. Emma Thompson's Sense and Sensibility was quite wonderful

P&P, of course, is the all time best mini-series. :)

[jobycom]

3. That could go two ways. Best movie based on a book, or movie that best represents the book.

In the first category you'd have movies like "The Godfather," "The Shining," and "Jaws," which were brilliant movies made more or less based on the book. In the second you'd have movies like "No Country for Old Men," which tried to be faithful to the book. The latter is more rare because books are so much longer and contain so much more that movies have to leave a lot out and have to rewrite what they put in so it will be manageable. That's my micro-opinion. I have a much larger lecture...

[alphafemale]

16. The Godfather and Jaws were much better movies than books.

I'd also put Psycho and the Exorcist in that realm.

The Shining was pretty much a very different movie from the book, though both were enjoyable.

Pretty much the same with The Wizard of Oz.

And I have no idea how they got the movie Forrest Gump from the book.

[fishwax]

18. I agree with you in theory, though I think both categories are more complicated than they appear

I don’t think it’s only the length of the book that makes direct translation to the screen difficult for most books, though of course you’re right that many books contain too much material to fit into a two-hour movie. What does it mean to “best represent” a book? Your example (which is easily among my favorite films) would suggest that faithfulness in detail is essential … however, McCarthy’s novel had a definite filmic/cinematic quality that few novels adapted for the screen are likely to have. The process of turning that into a movie was more akin to translation than transformation. That’s not true of a movie like Into the Wild—while that movie doesn’t follow the source material quite as precisely, I think that, on some level, it represents the book just about as well.

In the category of good movies based on books, you have movies like There Will Be Blood*, which is a great movie based on a book, though it represents the book only barely. Upton Sinclair’s Oil! is but a starting off point for that movie. Contrast that with The Natural, which is relatively faithful to the book until the end, where (spoiler alert) it reverses Roy Hobbs’s failure in the novel into cinematic triumph. Certainly it can’t be said to represent the book, no matter how many details were transferred directly from Malamud’s novel. Jaws, I suppose is somewhere between those extremes. I know the ending is changed from the book (which I haven’t read), but as I understand it, the change isn’t quite as drastic as the 180 of The Natural.

So I guess, as I said, I agree with your point in theory, but I think it may be yet more complicated. If you wish to share the longer lecture, feel free :).

*What a great year for film: NCfOM, ItW, and TWBB all came out in 2007.

[jobycom]

24. I didn't just mean length, I meant complexity, too.

Take "The Life of Pi." It's not a very long book, but as a movie it would be almost impossible to capture the philosophical element of the book. The movie would be left with a boy and a tiger on a raft. Maybe they could make a half-hour short of it. Throw in a submarine, a crazed archeologist, and a volley ball with a face painted on it, and maybe you could stretch it to 45 minutes (or six hours if you are Peter Jackson), but still no one would stay awake during it. The key elements of the book just aren't visual, and just having an overdubbed voice explaining the philosophy would be ridiculous.

So I'm not really talking about a movie having to slavishly follow the book, but more about movies that make an attempt to capture the main points of the book. "Into the Wild" is a great example of that. Another would be the Harry Potter movies, which leave out most of the books and streamline the storyline, but still basically are about the books, not just based on the books.

"Jaws" only changed the ending a little, saving one character who died and ending with a bang instead of a whimper (exactly the opposite of the way "The Shining" was changed), but in the book the shark was more of a catalyst for other events. There was organized crime, affairs, romance, and politics, and while the shark was central to the story, it was still only part of it. The movie rightfully just dropped all that and made it a monster movie.

That's what I'm getting at--some movies try to represent the books, even if they necessarily leave stuff out or change things to make it work on film. Other movies just loosely use the book as the basis for the film, but are basically their own stories.

[Lionel Mandrake]

48. LA Confidential

is another example of a movie that attempts to capture the main points of the book. It succeeds brilliantly IMO.

[XemaSab]

22. Some of the best movies are made from short stories

The entire story can be told, and the director has room to add artistic flair.

[dimbear]

25. Tough call. Prolly The Maltese Falcon. Another one where

the movie is better than the book. It's mostly so because of Bogart. He was born for that role. That plus his accident/war injury. Gave him that extra devilish look. :)

[nadine_mn]

4. to kill a mockingbird

The movie is pretty faithful... (edited of course) but come on - can you think of anyone other than Gregory Peck to play Atticus Finch?

[sinkingfeeling]

32. +1

[surrealAmerican]

39. This would be my choice.

It is a rare example of the movie actually being better than the book.

[pokerfan]

5. Battlefield Earth

The film perfectly captured the novel. :)

[driver8]

6. That novel must have sucked the big one!! n/t

[pokerfan]

7. Yes it did

The movie won nine Golden Raspberry Awards and the book was of similar quality.

* Worst Movie of the Year
* Worst Actor (Travolta)
* Worst Supporting Actor (Pepper)
* Worst Supporting Actress (Preston)
* Worst Director (Christian)
* Worst Screenplay (Mandell and Shapiro)
* Worst Screen Couple (Travolta and "anyone sharing the screen with him") :rofl:
* Worst Drama of Our First 25 Years
* Worst Picture of the Decade

[driver8]

9. I work at Warner Bros. and I have had to sit through Battlefield Earth more than once.

As a matter of fact, I did some work on it about two months ago.

It still sucks.

[Dr. Strange]

27. Travolta and "anyone sharing the screen with him"

:rofl:

[Generic Brad]

8. Lonesome Dove

I enjoyed both the book and the mini-series.

[applegrove]

10. The Orchid Theif. The screenwriter was as brilliant as the original author. I just loved the book

and the movie. You have to read the book first though.

[TroglodyteScholar]

11. Bladerunner!

[hunter]

35. No way.

Too much Scott, not enough Dick.

The movie overlooked major themes of Dick's book, and even turned some of them on their heads.

I remember being disappointed. My kids have similar complaints about some of the Harry Potter movies, the tell me the story's told in a way that misses the point. (I'm not well read in Wizardry.)

My own joy in reading Philip K. Dick is the way he questions reality and perception. The foundations of meaning are always shifty. Bladerunner lacks that feeling replacing it with a conventional film noir. Nevertheless, before he passed away, Dick did say he was pleased with clips he'd seen of the film. He never saw the entire thing.

A Scanner Darkly with its hideous rotoscope and deliberate confusion seems to me a little closer to Philip K. Dick's reality.

[MrSlayer]

12. Rita Hayworth and Shawshank redemption.

Probably the best ever book to film adaption ever. Nearly word for word.

[alphafemale]

15. The Green Mile was also well done.

The way King originally did that book in serial form really strung me out though. I normally tear through a novel in a few days. That format forced me to learn a little more of the story every few weeks.

[Enthusiast]

30. Plus one on Shawshank Redemption. Also

Stand By Me - the movie being from the Stephen King short story The Body.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

50. Absolutely right!

That novella of Stephen King's was the perfect length for the movie...

I loved the movie and the book...

:hi:

[travelingtypist]

13. All 7 Harry Potter films

Though I've read none of the books.

I've read all four Twilight books and loved, loved, loved the adaptations.

[sakabatou]

31. Movie #6 sucked

IMO

[travelingtypist]

42. I thought 6 was pretty good. It grew on me.

Goblet is the one I hate with a passion.

[Joe Fields]

14. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

[OmahaBlueDog]

17. "The Day of the Jackal" by Frederick Forsythe

[Initech]

19. Fight Club

"We are not your job. We are not your fucking khakis. We are the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world."

[Lindsey]

20. To Kill A Mockingbird and Grapes of Wrath. n/t

[WCGreen]

36. What Lindsey said....

[WCGreen]

37. What Lindsey said....

[ChoralScholar]

21. Jesus Christ Superstar.

[XemaSab]

23. The Haunting

which was an adaptation of "The Haunting of Hill House."

[Orrex]

26. jobycom casts his vote for Peter Jackson's LotR trilogy.

[NewJeffCT]

28. Lord of the Rings

though I know some will dispute that.

[Tikki]

29. Stephen King's IT! and/or Salem's Lot

Some say IT! is too over the top....maybe.
Salem's Lot and Carrie are classics...along with other
King adaptations.


Tikki

[kentauros]

33. Frank Herbert's "Dune"

Although I can only attest to having read the first twenty pages of the book, as that was the furthest I could get into it, even after several tries. So, I am very thankful for the David Lynch movie version and mini-series :)

I don't care how "faithful" or not the movie/mini-series was to the book, because they enabled me to know the story without boring myself to death with a truly difficult read :evilgrin:

[Name removed]

34. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Mike 03]

38. To my amazement, Cormac McCarthy's THE ROAD

I expected this adaptation to be a disaster, but shockingly the film was faithful to the book and even improved upon the novel.

[YankeyMCC]

40. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Swedish film. I've seen the film and only about half way through the book but so far it strikes me that the movie, which I thought was very good before ever picking up the book was good, is a very good visual retelling of the same story.

[Submariner]

41. Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot by Al Franken

If his appearances on film on Fox count?

Everything in the book is so apparent when the real thing is on TeeVee (or radio).

[BlueIris]

43. The English Patient, by Michael Ondaatje. nt

[Lionel Mandrake]

44. The last pair of unicorns - Charles Addams

[Pryderi]

45. 1982 or 2010?

[Lionel Mandrake]

46. Seriously: The African Queen

IMO the movie was better than the book, although less realistic.

[rbnyc]

47. The Dead Zone (nt)

[Orrex]

49. No Country For Old Men

You'll find no bigger fan of Cormac McCarthy anywhere, but the film is better than the novel.

And all of that crap that you've read about Chigurh being Death is just that: crap.