The Voices of Reason: The Movie Was Better

The Voices of Reason: The Movie Was Better
by Various Authors

After seeing a movie that has been adapted from a work of literature, the most commonly spoken expression is, "It was ok, but the book was better." These Voices of Reason found another logic.

Question: What movie most exceeded the book it was based on?

Steve Finkelstein—Two examples come to mind: The Godfather Mario Puzo's 1970 novel was essentially a pulpy page turner. While very
entertaining, the book featured unnecessary trite sequences with the Johnny Fontaine character (a roman a clef takeoff on Sinatra ). The movie
barely featured him and was much better for it; they took away from the
central narrative in the book. Coppola wisely realized this when he
collaborated on the script with Puzo and turned the ensuing film into an
undisputed classic.

The other film is The French Lieutenant's Woman. Written by John
Fowles (who just died), the film is an engrossing depiction of an illicit
affair in Victorian England, that I found to be fatally overlong. The
screenplay for the 1981 film version (written by the brilliant playwright
Harold Pinter) edited the incidents down without lessening the impact
of the book. Pinter cleverly framed the story of this Victorian romance
as a movie within a movie; the remainder of the film dealt with the
relationships of the cast members shooting The French Lieutenant's
Woman. A very clever stunt that worked; this made the film, in my opinion, to be a superior experience to the book..

Bob Jensen—The reason most movies are exceeded by the book they are based on is that a standard novel can convey much more information than a standard 2 hour movie can. There are two simple ways to cheat this, start with a shorter book, or end with a longer movie. Actually I have
invented three categories for this question, so that I might list my three
favorite movie renditions of books.

Short book, regular length movie - Before I saw any of the movies,
based on them, I became interested in Stephen King's "non-horror" works. His novellas like "The Long Walk" and "The Body" (the basis of another good movie, Stand by Me) are very captivating. But few works have transformed from pages to film like that of "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" to The Shawshank Redemtion. Almost all of my favorite elements from the original work were shown on the screen. But, again, some might consider this cheating as the original story is fairly short, therefore easier to capture.

Regular length book, long movie - The screen version of Larry
McMurtry's Lonesome Dove is quite frankly one of the best screen portrayals of a book ever. If you have never seen this movie, go get a copy. Simply brilliant. Don't like Westerns? Doesn't matter. This is an excellent plot with fantastic characters, portrayed in an amazing manner. Robert Duvall's performance as Augustus McCrae might well be his opus. The only thing is that this was shot as a mini-series and to sit down and watch the whole thing will pretty much burn up an entire day.

Regular book, regular movie - The true answer to the question regarding
movie exceeding the book might be here. Without Anthony Hopkins'
portrayal as Hannibal Lecter, especially in Silence of the Lambs, it seems quite certain that Thomas Harris would have passed through this mortal coil in relative obscurity. Don't believe me? Then go rent a copy of the movie Manhunter, based on the book Red Dragon, but made pre-Hopkins as Lecter. It should help you realize how much Harris owes to Hopkins.

Dileep Rao—This question has manifold answers and they should be considered in two categories: first, films that exceeded the book they were based on by simply elevating pulpy material into art. It's rare that films become better than their source material but films do best, as adaptations, not from great literature but from much pulpier material. Film is inherently a more fluid, moving form and pulp lends itself very well to that sort of treatment. I will say in this first category I would list The Shining, Dr. Strangelove and Barry Lyndon. Yes, those are all Kubrick films, but he seemed to have an eye and ear for finding the art in books of passing fancy. Each film is arguably a piece of art but the sources are not.

Other films I would argue for under this rubric: Jaws, The Godfather, Schindler's List and Adaptation (which is a weird one).

The second category I would argue for would be films that simply capture the story better than did the original writer whose work is in of itself excellent. This is exceedingly rare, I can think of only a few examples. First, I must say that Shakespeare has to be set aside because he did not write "books," and plays are different in their formatting.

Those aside, I think Lawrence of Arabia is a masterpiece made from a piece of writing that is pretty fine on its own. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, made into a film by Martin Scorcese is excellent and more complex, in some ways, than the book. All Quiet on the Western Front is too as fine and maybe better than the book on which it is based. Malick's Thin Red Line is a greater, more meditative examination than James Jones's novel.

Also on this list: Dr. Zhivago, The Lord of the Rings, The Grapes of Wrath and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Ian Wigley—As a seasoned movie watcher, I can only think of one film
that bettered the book the movie was based on, namely Misery, the
Stephen King fandango. Rob Reiner did a fine job here, portraying Annie
Wilkes' (Kathy Bates) hatred towards Paul Sheldon (James Caan). Any time you ever speak to anyone about Misery, they always talk about the bit where Sheldon's ankles got trashed by Wilkes. Sweetride powerful...

Also ran - Francis Ford Coppola's take on Conrad's Heart of Darkness in
Apocalypse Now. Can't argue here that the film ain't better than the
book...

Vance Macdonald—I must admit to struggling with this one. I simply do not have the bandwidth, nor attention span, to read as much as I should. Accordingly, I am forced to go with an old standby, Blade Runner, which as most of you know was based on the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? This speaks primarily to the brilliance of the movie, and is not meant to detract from Dick's novel at all. In fact, the relatively short novel does have several interesting themes that do not make it into Blade Runner.

The reason I have to give the nod to the film here is because the visuals, scenery, mood, and even music were so groundbreaking and genre defining. And all the while, it manages to maintain the spirit and intelligence of Dick's novel. 2001: A Space Odyssey could also work here, for the same reasons, although "The Sentinel" (the Arthur C. Clarke work it is based on), is only a short story, so that might not be a fair comparison.

Jeff Lewis—My answer to this question is The Shawshank Redemption, although I haven't actually read the story. It can't possibly be more enjoyable than the movie, though, because it doesn't have a Morgan Freeman voiceover.

To be honest, I've never made it through an entire Stephen King
chapter. I began to read Christine, but on about page two or three, the narrator described the various areas from which blood flowed out of his dying cat. I'm allergic to cats.

Martell—I read a fair amount, so this should have been an easy one for me. But just like the rest of humanity, I nearly always think the book was better, even when the book isn't prize-winning literature. Even The Bone Collector? Yep. What about Jurassic Park? Definitely.

Interestingly, much like the other contributors, my first legitimate contenders came from the hand of Stephen King: Carrie, The Shining, and The Shawshank Redemption. I consider each of these to be excellent movies, but for some reason I wasn't comfortable choosing any of them. I guess I see each of these films as only equalling the books they were based on—though I do have to say that Shawshank was done pretty much perfectly. That was going to be my choice, unless I could think of something better.

Then I remembered another film that was done just as perfectly, but who's literary basis was not quite as good. It's from way back in 1987, and it's among only a handful of films that I've bothered to watch more than a couple of times. In fact, it's still one of the more quotable movies among folks of my generation, and just the thought of it still brings a smile to my face. Of course, I'm talking about The Princess Bride.

No offense to William Goldman, but if you've seen the film already, don't even bother reading the book. It'll take five times as long, and your imagination wouldn't be able to come up with anything better.

To submit a topic for The Voices of Reason, or to be added to the VoR Shout Out List, send an e-mail to martell@babblog.com.