Adaptations

Everyone has a book that they liked that was made into a movie. People are always saying, “The book was better than the movie.” Very often directors, and screenwriters will change something when adapting a book into a film. Sometimes they may even change the entire ending. Often this causes fans that read the books to become angry with the directors of the movies. People often argue about how faithful movie adaptations should be to the books they come from. Novels, and films are two different art forms so it is difficult to decide how fidelity works between the two. Some people feel that the film must be extremely faithful to the book to achieve the same effect, but others feel that film can change things and still leave an impact on the viewer.
Novels, and films are two totally separate mediums, but they are very closely tied together. They both tell a story, but are written in different ways. William Luhr says “Similar elements exist between film and novel, but their artistic configurations differ massively, so massively as to make ontological comparison aesthetically impossible.” (Griffith 29). The basic story from a novel can be adapted into film, but the visual content can not (Griffith 29). When turning a novel into a movie some thing will always have to be changed because we’re changing mediums. “That's the usual objection to literary adaptations--that they trivialize the original, water down its ideas, thin out its characters, savage its spirit,” says Steve Vinberg (Vinberg). In some cases this can be true. In a novel the author often writes from a certain character’s perspective. They allow us to go into a character’s mind, and really pick up on their point of view. Films are purely visual, and sound. In a film the audience, in most circumstances, will not be put into the character’s mind. This causes the directors, and writers to have to change something so that the readers will understand the film. This can cause readers get one feeling as they read the book, and then sometimes when they see the film, they get a different feeling. They feel that the director did not do a good enough job to evoke the same feeling as the original author intended.
Some people believe that the novel is a much deeper medium, and can express much more than a film can. Pauline Kael states that, “Movies are good at action; they’re not good at reflective thought or conceptual thinking.” (Naremore 59). Kael believes that cinema “lacks depth and dignity of literature.” (Naremore 59). Others believe quite the opposite. James Naramore states “The novel has a single material of expression, the written word, whereas the film has at least five tracks: moving photographic image, phonetic sound, music, noises, and written materials. In this sense, the cinema has not lesser, but rather greater resources for expression than the novel.” (59) Film makers can use these resources to their advantage to give the viewers a greater feeling than what they would have felt otherwise.
Screenwriters have the difficult task of changing a book into a film. One of the hardest issues they have to deal with is how faithful to be to the book. This can often cause varying opinions of the movie. For example Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone, having a huge fan base already as a book, was written extremely true to the book. Richard Krevolin, a screenwriter, found this movie to be a little too faithful to the book, but also realizes that had it not been faithful to the book, the movie would have flopped at the box office (52-53). If a book has a strong following, changing something in the screenplay could cause them to bad-mouth the movie, and the movie could be ruined. Brian McFarlane states “Fidelity criticism depends on a notion of the text as having and rendering up to the (intelligent) reader of a single, correct ‘meaning’ which the filmmaker has either adhered to or in some sense violated or tampered with.” (8) People sometimes get different meanings out of books, and when a film does not give them the same feeling they got when reading, they may criticize it.
Another problem Screenwriters face is deciding which parts of a book to keep, and which to take out. Most of the novels turned into film are longer than what the screenwriter can depict in the time span of a movie. So this requires the screenwriters to condense the book into a smaller amount. Krevolin suggests “Seek out scenes that can be removed without having a domino effect on the rest of the story.” (54). Some of the less important scenes may add to the novel, but only add more time to the film, which may be unnecessary (Krevolin 54). The screenwriter must be able to fully tell the important parts of the story, keep it short, and interesting enough so that the viewers will not get tired. Books can easily be picked up, and read over days, whereas movies can only be seen in a few hours.
The job of an adaptation is to give the audience the same feeling they had when they read the book. Quoting Martin C. Battestin believes that people who have read a novel will have already, in a way, created a movie of it in their minds. So if the film adaptation does not meet the readers’ expectations they may have a preference for the book. Battestin says “A preference to the book may actually be an allegiance to our own imaginative re-creation.” (Griffith 34). The issue the directors must face when adapting a book to film is taking a fictional character, and making them into a real person. Readers visualize the characters, and settings when they read the book, so the director must find a cast of people who look close to the descriptions of the people in the book. They also must find, or build locations that are similar to those described in the book. The reader will always compare what they visualize to what the film produces (McFarlane 14). If the director does not produce a similar image to what the reader imagined, then the film could be criticized. This could cause many problems because different readers could interpret the book in different ways, which could cause a clash of opinions on the movie.
Novels have the ease of having a narrative voice that tells a story. Some writers will delve deep into a character’s mind, and let the reader know what that character is thinking. Since film is solely visual, and audio, the audience is unable to see into a character’s mind. The only way to get into a character’s mind in film, is to use a voiceover, which some believe can take away from a film. Bernard Dick claims that voiceovers are only an easy solution for unimaginative filmmakers who can not think of another way to express the information (Tibbets XVI). Others believe that using a voiceover can convey the novelist’s voice in a film. Using a voiceover gives the film the ability to go into a character’s mind, but it can also give an unrealistic feel to the film.
Some adaptations have changed major parts of the original story, and sometimes, even change the meaning of the story. My Sister’s Keeper was a book recently adapted into a film. In the film the entire ending was changed. Even author of My Sister’s Keeper, Jodi Picoult was not too thrilled about the director’s decision to change the ending. "Having the ending changed would certainly not have been my choice. I wrote the ending very intentionally because I wanted to leave the reader with a certain message. And changing that ending changes that message. However, I am excited to see the movie and to judge it on its strengths,” she stated (Donahue). Nick Cassavetes, the director of My Sister’s Keeper, said that he decided to change the ending because he tried to think of it more realistically, and what would he do in this situation (Roberts). The movie was so entirely different than the book that many fans were outraged.
Sometimes though, the director, and screenwriters change the film, but the changes do not damage the story. Good adaptations from novels are translated and effectively transformed into a film (Tibbets XIX). A good example of a film that was changed, is The Wizard Of Oz. The movie kept the original message given by the novel, but formed it into a more focused narrative. The story was simplified, and made easier to understand. The film may have simplified the story, but it also added many complex factors. The film turned Dorothy’s adventure to Oz into a dream, whereas in the novel she really traveled to Oz. The film also depicts the reason for Dororthy’s wish to return home, but the book never makes that clear (Tibbets 467). The film is considered by many people to be a great film.
Novels, and films are two totally different mediums, but are closely linked to each other. Both must be written in different ways, but both tell a story. When novels are adapted to films, some changes will always be made. Sometimes these changes can be huge, or sometimes they can be minute. The director of a film sets out to give viewers a feeling from the story. Directors often want to leave viewers feeling what they felt at the end of the novel. Sometimes the film can make the feeling clearer to the audience than the book. Sometimes the film will evoke a totally different feeling. It all rests in the mind of the viewer; they decide if the movie is good, or if they’d rather read the book.