In 1995, director Danny Boyle, writer John Hodge, and producer Andrew MacDonald made Trainspotting, one of the best film adaptations of all time. Then, five years later, they made The Beach.
Sigh.
Here’s the deal: the other day, I read Alex Garland’s The Beach. Yep—cover to cover, in a day, because it’s just that good. When it was released in 1997, it was hailed as the “first great novel” for Generation X. The book is intelligent and curious, ambiguous and compelling, and even though I’m a little late in the day, I won’t hesitate to recommend it.
I mentioned this to Reznik when I saw him that same night, and, true to form, he dug out his copy of the DVD. He had seen it a bunch of times, whereas I never had, but I was psyched to watch another film adaptation of another terrific, unconventional book by the crack team of Boyle, Hodge, and MacDonald.
Then I asked, “Who plays Jed?”
Reznik said, “Jed?”
Things went downhill from there.
Then I asked, “Who plays Jed?”
Reznik said, “Jed?”
Things went downhill from there.
The movie isn’t terrible. It’s just kind of a let-down if you liked what I liked about the book. Jed, one of the most interesting characters in the novel, gets absorbed into Keaty, Etienne, and Sal (pretty effectively, but still). The love triangle set up for Richard (now American), Francoise, and Etienne becomes an excuse to have the trailer-friendly sex-in-the-ocean scene, which I guess is to be expected in any movie named for a beach. My biggest beef had to do with Robert Carlyle. Why go to the trouble of casting someone so utterly perfect as Daffy Duck if he’s only going to end up in three scenes?
Granted, some of the adaptation decisions were pretty good. The ending, while different, was generally satisfying (apart from the internet cafe). The video game bit was pretty choice, and the compromises, which were likely budgetary (such as Christo’s rescue, downplayed significantly from the novel), were well handled. The trouble is that somewhere between the decisions I didn’t agree with and the ones I thought were rather slick, the impetus of the novel got lost. When the story was pared down to a plot, with overblown characters (for the sake of conflict) and a time limit, it wasn’t half as interesting. Stylish, yes. A thinker? Hardly.
Don’t get me wrong. I know that adapting a novel for the screen isn’t easy. Narration and visual storytelling are separate beasts. I get that. But it is possible, because there are some terrific adaptations out there. Most of them have a few things in common. Reznik and I talked about the phenomenon at length, and here’s what (I think) we came up with:
Top Tips for Adapting a Book for the Screen Without Screwing It Up
1. If the theme of your movie and the theme of the book it’s based upon aren’t the same, do another rewrite or change the title. Tom Perrotta’s Election is a really clever study of a group of characters tied together by a student election. The movie Election is a pretty fun movie, but it’s a lousy adaptation. It robs the characters of any trace of humanity for the sake of slapsticky stereotyping being passed off as cutting edge. (Exception: Chris Klein’s performance during the campaign speech is priceless.) If Mr. M. doesn’t instantly regret his decision to dispose of two votes, as he does in the book, he’s just a caricature. Caricatures are great in four-minute SNL sketches, but when you’ve already got the rights to a rich, funny story about what makes people people, why waste it?
2. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Psst. Makers of Troy. Are you sure you haven’t forgotten anything? Like, the gods who play a pivotal role in the outcome of the story? OK, I actually liked Troy. But it does take some nerve to tinker with Homer. The same goes for Beowulf and Grendel—a potentially strong adaptation with Sarah Polley (Toronto accent and all) shoehorned in as the previously-(ie. in the last 1000 years) unheard- of Selma. I absolutely don’t mean that you have to be strictly loyal to the source material (although that can work—see Joe Wright’s Atonement). For example, Nick Hamm’s The Hole, based on After the Hole by Guy Burt, tells the story in an entirely new way while staying true to the questions originally raised in the novel. Just don’t, you know, graft on a stupid, sexy subplot for the sake of the trailer.
3. Do what you gotta do—but don’t do things “just because.” Don’t oversimplify your characters. They’re going to carry you through all the parts you have to cut out to stick to your running time, so don’t mess with them. Collapse them into one another, trim them back, heighten their drama, make them play better on screen. It’s cool. We can take it. But don’t make them predictable, and for pity’s sake, don’t make them wooden. Antoine Fuqua’s King Arthur takes no end of liberties with characters (and, some might argue, logic), but Fuqua says that’s what he’s doing up front. Ray Winstone’s Bors isn’t who you thought he was going to be, but he’s still terrific.
4. Casting, casting, casting. Was anyone else horrified to learn that Stuart Townsend could have played Aragorn instead of Viggo Mortensen? Can you imagine Angela Lansbury as Nurse Ratchett? Or Rock Hudson as Atticus Finch? Many of the most successful screen adaptations owe a great deal to their casting directors. If an existing character is written well for the screen, and the right actor plays the part, it’s an easy sell. I’m thinking here of the entire Harry Potter franchise. From Alan Rickman as Snape to Julie Walters as Mrs. Weasley to Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge, this is casting at its best. (Related note: Leonardo DiCaprio was nominated for a Razzie for his performance in The Beach. I like DiCaprio. I’m just saying.)
5. Try to have at least some reverence for the source material. Die-hard fans are likely to be the biggest champions of a film adaptation—or its worst nightmare. The key to adapting something people already love is having a little respect. We know it hurt Peter Jackson more than it hurt us to leave out Tom Bombadil in The Lord of the Rings. Emma Thompson’s adaptation of Sense & Sensibility works because the characters, which had already lived in the heads of readers for 180 years, are just exactly as we expected them to be. And don’t even get me started on how good The Watchmen is. (Bonus—if you get it mostly right, we’ll forgive you for liberties like, ahem, changing the ending.) The writers and directors who really want to make a good adaptation, and not just a good movie, are usually the ones who get it right. (NB: if you’re adapting Dan Brown, forget reverence. No one cares what you do with that tripe.)
Editor’s Note:
Adaptations are a double-edged sword. How do you change and evolve the source material to make it work in an entirely different medium, and yet still maintain the integral aspects and the reverence of the original source? Do you pare it down by leaving out parts of the story or combining weaker characters to make it fit? Or do you change vital elements entirely, like character dynamics, conflicts, and key events, to try and make it work? The former usually ends up feeling rushed or choppy and upsetting fans with obvious omissions, while the latter will almost always change not just surface elements, but deeper facets of the story (like, oh… I don’t know…. maybe the entire ending).
Alan Moore once said that movie adaptations of his works are an impossibility, simply because what one mind dreams up and commits to paper can’t be passed along and worked on by literally hundreds of people and still retain its original essence. This is also where motives come into play, as it’s usually obvious when a fan of the source material’s vision for the story on a different platform differentiates itself from a studio’s desire for a fresh new idea to exploit. Sam Raimi is quite obviously a huge Spider-fan, while it’s clear that Michael Bay has absolutely no idea what a Transformer actually is.
Ideally, since they are different media, an adaptation should be just that, adapted. You should be able to enjoy in different ways entirely, utilizing the strengths of the medium rather than trying to overcome its shortcomings. With omnipotence, the book is able to provide deep insight into how the character evolves; subtle nuances of thoughts and ideas. The movie should be a sensationalized version, with more emphasis on visual appeal and action that can’t be defined on the page.
Perhaps one of my favourite adaptations is, appropriately, Adaptation. One man’s struggle to adapt a book becomes an entirely different beast altogether, blurring the line between not only source and result, but questioning exactly where we draw the line between fact and fiction. The end result is two entirely distinct entities—one for the printed page, and one intended for celluloid.
– Reznik
What’s your favourite adaptation? What’s the worst one you’ve seen?
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