Wednesday, February 16, 2011
From the Written Word to the Big Screen
In honor of GBF featured authors who will soon see their words hit the big screen -- such as Mary Downing Hahn whose book "‘Wait Till Helen Comes" will mark actress Jennifer Love Hewitt's directorial debut -- we thought we'd ask a question of our readers: What do you think are the best movies based on books? And, if you're feeling generous, why do you think a particular book-based movie was so successful?
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John Irving's Cider House Rules, which he adapted himself. The movie received several academy award nominations and Irving won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay.
ReplyDeleteSo many that are great for so many different reasons. Here are just a few that come to mind:
ReplyDelete- "Apocalypse Now", which took from Heart of Darkness in terms of theme and character names, but changed the story to be more contemporary.
- "Adaptation", which is an adaptation of a book, and an allegory about the process of adapting books. Pure genius.
- "The Godfather", perhaps the greatest movie of all time!
- "Lord of the Rings", for its ambitious scope and successful fidelity to the books.
- "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"
- "A Time to Kill", which, along with some other Grisham titles actually worked better on screen for me than on the page.
- "Jaws", another which I actually thought was better than the book.
There are others, I'm sure!
It's sooo hard for Hollywood to get it right when it comes to adapting a a book, which makes it even more amazing that Peter Jackson was able to make such incredible and accurate films of the Lord of Rings trilogy. I'm still angry to this day that they were not nominated for more Academy Awards. Love or hate the books and/or movies you can't deny they were breathtaking to watch. But what is truly a testament to their greatness is that even though they were very long (178, 179 and 201 minutes respectively) you left the theatre wanting more!!!
ReplyDeleteYou know, Jaws is my favorite movie of all time (fantastic dialogue on the boat btw the three male leads), but i've never read the book. It's on my shelf, will have to find it and read.
I love the 5-hour A&E adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. It's true to Austen's characters, dialog and settings. Watching the DVD extras makes it clear how much research went into each decision on clothing, furniture, hairstyles, food, etc. Just captivating!
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, the 2005 version (with Keira Knightly) is not as enjoyable an adaptation. With a running time of just over two hours, too many critical scenes had to be skipped. And the characters speak too quickly - as if trying to cram in as much of the book as possible in 127 minutes.