On the Treacherous Path from Book to Movie (and Perhaps Why We Shouldn't Be So Critical)
As a part of her blog tour in support of her latest release, Escaping Life, Michelle Muckley has joined me on the Accidental Author to talk about something very close to her heart: movie adaptations of books.I know that many of you book lovers also relish a cinematic experience when one of your favorite reads is translated to the silver screen. But we all know the crushing feeling when a great piece of literature is slaughtered on the altar of poor decision-making by producers, directors, and script-writers.
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I was
twelve years old when I first got my hands on the Thomas Harris book, The
Silence of the Lambs. It was my school speech day prize on account of being the
class nerd and I devoured it faster than Lecter would a meal served with a Fava
bean and Chianti accompaniment. I was to wait another year before I finally saw
the movie, after convincing my mother that it was safe to let me watch it since I had already read the book and knew what happened.
She however, had not.
Whilst remaining unconvinced, she relented as a holiday treat as I encouraged her with suggestions that "it wasn’t really that bad." As the film started I sat glued to a ten inch wall mounted television as we both sat propped up on our shared hotel room bed. I sat there watching the imprisonment and eventual escape of a man who visited my dreams for many of the following nights, and my mother sat there clearly wondering if she would ever be able to undo the irrevocable damage that she had unwittingly allowed to occur. I too was scared stiff, and considered an attempt to turn it off in a display of near-teenage disinterest. But I knew that I couldn’t muster such a credible performance and so instead sat there terrified to the end, possibly, but questionably, more so than my mother. Honestly, I had enjoyed every single flesh eating second of it.
She however, had not.
Whilst remaining unconvinced, she relented as a holiday treat as I encouraged her with suggestions that "it wasn’t really that bad." As the film started I sat glued to a ten inch wall mounted television as we both sat propped up on our shared hotel room bed. I sat there watching the imprisonment and eventual escape of a man who visited my dreams for many of the following nights, and my mother sat there clearly wondering if she would ever be able to undo the irrevocable damage that she had unwittingly allowed to occur. I too was scared stiff, and considered an attempt to turn it off in a display of near-teenage disinterest. But I knew that I couldn’t muster such a credible performance and so instead sat there terrified to the end, possibly, but questionably, more so than my mother. Honestly, I had enjoyed every single flesh eating second of it.
It was indeed a grand moment in my book to
screen adaptation education. One of the first screen adaptations that I ever watched
was lavished with not one, but five Academy Awards and remains regarded as one
of the best movies ever made. The book was celebrated. The movie was celebrated.
All round success. Yet Demme’s directorial interpretation was far from a carbon
copy of the novel. So why is it that whilst we consider this adaptation with
such high regard, another we will toss back into the bargain bin before the
credits have even had the chance to roll?
There is a
huge difference is creating an image through written words and description, and
creating something visual. The smallest of well written descriptions can result
in a whole scenario in the readers mind, and ultimately what is created is
something that the reader finds individually satisfying. You could take ten
readers of the same passage and ask them to draw out an interpretation, and
each would undoubtedly be different. Our own interpretation follows our own rules
because the image is internalized. Once this process is complete, the director
of any subsequent screen adaptation has to fight against the imaginary images
already created. An exception could perhaps be a work so detailed, such as that
by Tolkien where there are so many details that the reader and director have no
choice but to follow the same path.
The
director also has to decide on what details to leave out, or whether to include
everything. Whilst reading Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, I completed a whole
first chapter which concerned itself with no more than the extraction of a pea
from an ear. Chapters and chapters
passed by before I had even been introduced to the mysterious Corelli. But yet when
I sat down to watch the screen adaptation these characters from the beginning
of the novel make little or no appearance in the movie. Their importance is
whittled down to nothing more than a passing mention, or worse still, their
whole personality is changed.
So what is
a director to do? If they try to remain faithful to the original story it can
begin to feel like an exercise in ticking boxes and a two hour run through at
break-neck speed. Alternatively, the
film would be unbearably long and indeed, should this have been the approach of
John Madden in his attempt to direct Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, the movie
would have carried an advisory notice for those with a predisposition to the
development of DVT. Taking this same example, the drastically simplified plot
of the screen adaptation managed to reduce a series of complex and thoughtful
personalities into a cast of threadbare characters that I really didn’t care much
about. The central element regarding the love between Corelli and Pelagia was
so stripped of its depth and detail that the idea that she would have fallen in
love with him almost seemed ridiculous, to the point that when an alternative
and more emotionally agreeable happily ever after conclusion that I had hoped
for throughout the last quarter of the book actually happened, I really
couldn’t have cared less, and instead found myself wishing that she had turned
around and told him to hop back onto the nearest boat and head in the direction
of the Adriatic Sea.
So perhaps
if you read a book and love it, seeing the movie will be an inevitable disappointment
if you are looking for the same experience. Should we expect the same from a
two hour visual representation of a text that takes us at least four times that
to read? I for one should certainly have seen it coming when I eagerly sat down
to watch Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. So rather than reverting to the idea that
books shouldn’t be made into movies, or berating them when we see a less than
faithful adaptation of one of our favourite books, perhaps it is time to stop
making comparisons. Instead, we should open our eyes to the idea of enjoying
different media in the form it was intended, and judge each interpretation on its
own merits and failings rather than trying to force it to adhere to the rules of
another.
MICHELLE MUCKLEY, originally form Great Britain, has now settled in the Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus. Her dream to be a published writer of thrillers--once only a pipe dream--have become a reality in recent years. Still working as a part time scientist, she now writes feverishly on a daily basis. When she is not at the computer typing about the
darker side of life, you will find her hiking in the mountains, drinking
frappe at the beach, or talking to herself in the kitchen in the style of
an American celebrity chef (just think Ina Garten).
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