Films adaptions better than the book

[BenG]

Originally Posted by markbot

Movies were better:
Breakfast at Tiffany's (close one, could be because I saw the movie first)

For me Mickey Rooney as the Japanese gentleman upstairs tips the balance strongly toward the book.

[Fozzybear]

Originally Posted by BenG

For me Mickey Rooney as the Japanese gentleman upstairs tips the balance strongly toward the book.

But... it was such an authentic performance.

"Mish Gorightry! I musht protest!"

[waggy27]

The Day of the Jackal always stands out for me as a case where the film is better than the book. I hasten to add that I mean the 70's adaptation with Edward Fox, rather than the 90's version with Bruce Willis which is about something completely different!

[Prestidigitweeze]

The Shining (in every possible way)

The Manuscript Found in Saragossa (formally)

The Third Man could be better in some ways than the Graham Greene novel, but, like most adaptations, it's really an entirely different object.

Huston's Maltese Falcon is brilliant, but it's seen through a far more distorted lens than the book and approaches sardonic noir expressionism, whereas, for me, Hammett's angular visual prose has more in common with the modernist portraits of Wyndham Lewis.

Have to disagree on Bladerunner: The film is good, but in a completely different way from Do Androids Dream. It's more like an adaptation of Neuromancer. Besides which, at his worst, P.K. Dick is on a different level conceptually than that film. You can't really make a film out of Dick and get the texture (though Through a Scanner Darkly comes close).

Truthfully, I'd feel more comfortable contributing to a thread about films which were as or almost as good as the books but in completely different ways, making the relationship between film and literature complimentary but almost never equivalent.

Jan Kolski's adaptation of the Gombrowicz novel Pornografia falls into this category. It misses the amoral tone entirely, and isn't as great a work of art, but captures Gombrowicz's texture of paranoid coincidence and synesthesia like no other film I've seen.

[astrodad]

Not that the entire movie is better than the book, but Alfonso Cuarón's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was more succinct than J.K. Rowling's story and it added certain plot variations that made more sense to me.

[Barty]

It's not so much that Godfather the movie is better than Godfather the book (although it is), but that Godfather the movie is considered one of the greatest movies ever made, whereas the book is considered mostly a good potboiler. The movie puts the director into the pantheon and is still a perennial favorite on cable (and I check it out whenever I stumble across it). Who reads the book any more?

[Duiker]

Bourne Identity. Book was sooooooo dull and cheesy.

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by Duiker

Bourne Identity. Book was sooooooo dull and cheesy.

Everyone keeps saying this...I think I'll have to take this series off my TBR.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by Barty

It's not so much that Godfather the movie is better than Godfather the book (although it is), but that Godfather the movie is considered one of the greatest movies ever made, whereas the book is considered mostly a good potboiler. The movie puts the director into the pantheon and is still a perennial favorite on cable (and I check it out whenever I stumble across it). Who reads the book any more?

I'd add "The Godfather Part II" (TGP2) to the list along with the original "The Godfather." I enjoyed the original novel and the two movies, together, cover everything in the novel. TGP2 is a sequel which is just as good as the first movie, and I found both movie more involving than the novel.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by BenG

For me Mickey Rooney as the Japanese gentleman upstairs tips the balance strongly toward the book.

That and the fact the movie completely whitewashes the narrator's homosexuality and Golightly's fruit fly aspect. Blake Edwards' rather literal-minded political incorrectness can be wearily amusing in a Pink Panther flick, but Tiffany's demanded a lighter touch and Edwards bludgeons his way to the ethereal. The only reason we think he accomplished the task is because Audrey Hepburn made it work.

Besides which, Capote's a gorgeous stylist when he's at his best, and Tiffany's and Music for Chameleons are probably his best.

And I can see Barty's point about The Godfather in theory, but I can't sign off on Puzo's supposed mediocrity because I've never been interested in reading him.

It doesn't matter what others say about a book. What matters is the empirical.

Another example of that is Jules Dassin's Rififi (a classic jewel heist flick that deserves a place alongside Melville's Le Cercle Rouge), which is a completely rewritten film based on a garish novel by an equally garish gangster known for his conspicuous lack of literary talent. For all I know, even that novel might be good.

[Bookpossum]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

Another example of that is Jules Dassin's Rififi (a classic jewel heist flick that deserves a place alongside Melville's Le Cercle Rouge), which is a completely rewritten film based on a garish novel by an equally garish gangster known for his conspicuous lack of literary talent. For all I know, even that novel might be good.

I hadn't picked up that Rififi was originally a novel, but I believe it is one of the great films. I watched it on television some years ago and am still haunted by it. Utterly brilliant.

[markbot]

I would like to see the new John Carter film, which is based on A Princess of Mars. The director is pretty good so I think it could be a good flick.

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

I'd add "The Godfather Part II" (TGP2) to the list along with the original "The Godfather." I enjoyed the original novel and the two movies, together, cover everything in the novel. TGP2 is a sequel which is just as good as the first movie, and I found both movie more involving than the novel.

The difference between the TGF and TGP2, is that the main plot of the TGF is the major part of the novel. In the TGP2, a subplot from the novel (i.e., how Vito got started) was made a subplot in a movie that otherwise contained new material. As a result, I am not sure TGP2 can be considered an adaptation.

--
Bill

[Penforhire]

Don't take the Bourne Identity off your reading list! I'm one of those who say the movie was much worse than the book (from one of my all-time favorite authors). Matt Damon played an unexpectedly fine action-hero role but it was shallow, full of sound-bite condensations, compared with the novel. The movie's pacing is more modern "go, go, go" but the book has its own charms.