What books are poorly represented on screen? there are plenty of films which don't do their source material justice, to start off, we'll discuss Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. all other films/books or whatever are welcome, regardless of language.
see ya soon :=
I am not too experienced with reading Chrichton, but I do know this...That guy does his research. He is so scientifically specific in his books that it is very hard to fathom at times...this is the key in the translation from book to movie....the movie focused more of an action, fast paced thriller while the book had a bit of a slower pace (at least to me) Also put in that the plot was very different and the whole line of events, changed.
Lord of the Rings?
You're right, I read the book at christmas last year and I was shocked to find that the film had very little resemblence to the book at all, in fact, they could pass as different stories altogether as, first of all, most of the charachters were different, There were at least three T-rexes and a baby, there is at least a whole chapter on Alan Grant and the kids escaping the t-rex on a raft ride through a storm water aqueduct. The film, when compared to the book is tedious and would have been much better to follow the book more closely, but then again that's David Koepp's fault isn't it? ::)
It's very easy to whine about poorly represented books on screen, but it's important to remember that just because a film is crummy doesn't destroy the book it was based on. They're not going to stop publishing the origional book and only publish the screenplay from now on. Nothing gets LOST except the oppertunity to make THAT film differently.
I thought it was impressive that the writer of the origional "Queer as Folk" (which was a highly acclaimed british drama which suffered in many members of the publics eyes because of it's explicit gay content) said that he didn't mind the subsequent American version being totally different because it DIDN'T take away from his origional work.
If someone who's had massive liberties taken with his stories like that can be sanguine on the matter, what possible justification can audience members have for not being?
Jurassic Park book was impossible to be taken to the screen in the period it was made... Some of the scenes can be seen in the second and third park (The girl bitten by the procompsongátidus, the attack of the beat by the Rex and the chapter with the pterodáctils) thanks to the improvements of the digital technology. Also, the bla-bla-bla chapters of the books are not commercial for cinemas, whereas they were the strong point to the book. The investigation of people bitten by dinosaurs in Islands before knowing there are dinosaurs in a park was also fanstastic, but it finally ends (if I remember well) concluding that the attacks haven't been made by procompsognátidus, but another nowadays lizard who is going out of the jungle by deforestation. That investigation had no place in the film. What I mean is that we're in front of a difficult book, and Spielberg made a nice work. Let's remember Chrichton used things of the film to write JP2 and revived Alan, who is a library rat is the book, writing a character with Jeff Goldbum (sp?) in mind.
Alse, let's remember that Chrichton worked originally for the screen version, but he gave up recognising he was not able to do it.
And... what's wrong with the Lord of the Rings? Tom Bombadil is not there, but I think 99% hated that tedious part (except some very particular member here, hehehe...). The elvish songs and all that stuff was not there, but, I remember I posted something like "It's just me or TLOTR has lots of tedious chapters?" and many people agreed. The film is so long that many people feel that some parts spare, so, imagine putting all the stuff that is not there... Imo, another nice work. Not for winning 11 oscars for the last part, but maybe 11 all the trilogy...
*EDIT FOR CAPTAIN MOSTLY'S POST* Yeah, whining about "crappy films" is very cool and easy!
well my only complaint is the fact that people go and watch a movie expecting it to be worse than the book...why waste your money?
I never really said jurassic park was bad, I simply said it differed greatly from the book.. I enjoyed it still the same. What I feel is needed if you wish to translate a book to movie is do it the chronicles of riddick way when they made escape from butcher bay. Make a movie that takes place in the world, seperate from the books, but still adds to it's mythology in a way that is enlightening and enjoyable. But that's just me.
Farlander, omissions aren't the only problem with the LotR films. I like them a lot, but if I were to get into all the things large and small that bothered me, I'd still be typing tomorrow.
(Bombadil isn't one of them. I like that part of the book, but it's not crucial and there's no way it could have possibly worked in a movie.)
I think Dune is a good example of how they completely left the plot, the characters and the whole atmosphere behind on their way to the screen.
Then again, the movie turned out so incomprehensible, weird and obscure it was actually cool.
But it doesn't resemble the book one bit
Dune rocks. I don't care if it has Sting in a speedo.
Bt
the only book i've read which is also a movie is The Silence of The Lambs, i read it before seeing the movie and i have to say, the book is much better.
i've read books which i thought would make good movies, such as The House That Jack Built and The Sleepless, both written by Graham Masterton, but the thing with a book is that it takes longer to read than it does to watch a movie (for me anyway, as i only usually read while taking a dump).
not many people would sit through a movie that long, so they have to miss out a lot of the story and just put key parts in, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
Fuzz, please do! I read the book like 4 years before... As for me, the only major mistake has been saving Eowin (I think she is killed in the book, correct), whereas in the movie, if I remember well, she finally falls in love with Eaomer (or Faramir?). It is like saying... well, let's save this girl and make her forget Aragorn, we can make a fouth part with that nice new couple!
And don't hesitate to correct me, my ideas of the book may be bad due to long time of not re-reading.
Maybe later. But concerning Éowyn: in the book, as in the movie, she survives and ends up getting together with Faramir (definitely not Éomer, who is her brother).
;D
Incest!!!
So... Is there a queen/important woman warrior who is killed in the last book? ??? May I invented all that part in my mind?
Nope. Théoden (King of Rohan and Éowyn's uncle) dies, though.
Weird... :-\
As Fuzzpilz said, it's not the big 'omissions' that are the problem with the films, it's mainly the unnecessary changes they made to things that don't impact the main story arc but completely mis-represents situations in Tolkien's works. It's like because it's a big, epic, grand story they had to go and take the subtle things and make them BIG and LOUD and IN YOUR FACE! Case in point, the skeleton and the well in Moria. Galadriel's ooga-booga scene in Lothlorien. The eye of Sauron being everywhere and acting like a damn spotlight. Saruman controlling the weather on Caradhras. Legolass doing a 'Fred Flintstone' silly action sequence. I do love the films, but there are so many annoyances that could have been avoided had Peter and the script writers discarded that annoying Hollywood mentality.
Also additions of some bloody awful lines: If you want him come and claim him!
I'm sure the books didn't have that vile soundtrack either....
Books make my eyes hurt. Who wants to read all those sentences anyway? I mean, like books are totally bogus. My teacher made me, like, read those.
Ooooh...... Navy Seals. Now there's a movie that was WAY better than the book!
Bt
I've seen a cartoon version of Terry Pratchett's "Soul Music" Discworld novel. You'd think it'd be wonderful, wouldn't you? I mean, reading a Discworld novel is practially seeing a film inside your head - more so than when you read any other book. Terry Pratchett has the most visual and vivid prose I've ever seen. The books are practically screenplays all by themselves.
I have no idea what failed in the conversion, but the film is crap. C-R-A-P. Horrible to the point of pain. The Discworld games are much, much better conceived... and THEY aren't adaptations, they're originals. Go figure.
Band of brothers, although not a film, was much better then the book by ambrose. You can feel the mening until you see the grusome recreation.
Yeah, Soul Music was a horrible adaptation. It didn't transfer well to cartoon :)
Charlie and the chocolate factory (original) is the best book to movie conversion, ever.
(http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Chemistry/MOTM/silly/oompa.gif)
Concerning Bombadil, I think it's not one of the crucial chapters in the story, but there you learn a lot of things [some important, some not]. By the way, I prefer him not to be included in the film...
I like the movies, but just like movies. I think it's a horrible "conversion" to a movie. Call me purist, but I think a movie of LotR should have never been done.
Apart from that there are a lot of points in the movies that I hate. Take for examples:
- Where's Glorfindel?
- Gimli, the clown.
- Aragorn & Eowyn?
If you've seen the 3rd movie:
Spoiler
- In the Haven's scene, the hobbits entering the ship, they look clearly like kids! All that money inverted in that movie and they cannot get that better?
- ...
Just to add another Crichton movie: Timeline. I found it horrible! I enjoyed the book a lot and they made that "adaptation"...
Time to go... I'll post something more tomorrow...
Captain Custard: Um... you're joking right? Oompa Loompas are supposed to be pygmies, the geese should be squirels, and the whole Everlasting gobstopper subplot? What was that and where did it come from? It's a good movie in it's own right, but it's only very loosely related to the book.
On a similar note, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is nothing like L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz. Where's Dainty China Country? Or the Green Goggles? Or the Queen of the Mice? Or the charm in the golden cap? These are some of my favourite parts of the book, but they're nowhere to be seen in the movie. I recall being very put out when I realized they were different.
Come on, people. If you're going to mention terrible movies made from Crichton's books, at least mention Congo or The 13th Warrior!
My favorite book to movie conversion:
"The Princess Bride" by S. Morge- Errr, William Goldman. Seriously, I love the movie just as much as I love the book. Hmmm, could it be because the book and the screenplay were written by the same person?
...Probably.
The Godfather the novel and it's screen counterpart are both excellent.
In fact, the screenplay for The Godfather is a great example of an adaptation.
As for LotR.... the movies rock. The books rock. If I want to watch the film, I'll watch it. If I want to read the books, I'll read them. No one says I have to pick one.
As for Timeline: great book. Movie, horrible film. Even if it wasn't based off of a book, it still would have sucked octopus cock.
Bt
Question: Have there been any GOOD adaptations of Michael Crichton books? Some of his original screen and television stuff has been okay, such as Twister and ER (neither is OMGWTFBBQ great, but they're okay). But every adaptation of his books I've seen has been somewhere between blah and yuck.
Discuss.
Oh yeah- and Princess Bride is my favourite movie of all time, and one of my many favourite books. I was quite surprised when I found out there was no S. Morgenstern, though.
I like looking at Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Bladerunner.
The film takes many many liberties, but you can see it as simply a different take on a concept. They're very thematically different, but I like both of them. Unlike most films based on Dick, which take the concept and end up becoming sub par action films.
I wouldn't expect a film based on a Dick book to ever be thematically faithful, I dont think his writing would work very well in the film medium.
Quote from: Las Naranjas on Wed 19/01/2005 06:40:19
The film takes many many liberties, but you can see it as simply a different take on a concept. They're very thematically different, but I like both of them. Unlike most films based on Dick, which take the concept and end up becoming sub par action films.
As was the case with Asimov this year.
I can still hear his corpse going, "Stop raping me! Stop raping me!"
It's strange but I see a lot of debate on book-to-film adaptations, but how come I haven't read much on film-to-book adaptations? And also books based on films and TV shows but with new plots? For example, have a look at how many Star Trek and Star Wars novels there are. Sure, I haven't read any, but there's sqillions of them.
The only film-to-book adaptations I've read are Super Mario Brothers and Beethoven's 2nd. I didn't think much of the Super Mario Bros film, so I didn't have much hope for the book. I did think the Beethoven's 2nd book was better than the movie because it was able to tell you what all the dogs were thinking. It's hard to convey what people (and in this case, animals) are thinking in a film, which is why you have to manifest the subtext symbolically into a physical object. With books, you can just state what the characters are thinking. And this actually improved my understanding of Beethoven. On screen, he was just a big, slobbery St Bernard -- they didn't even bother to capture his thoughts. In the book, I felt he was a lonely soul searching for a mate. And that why I think the book captured his portrait better than the film did.
Bad Stephen King adaptations:
Dreamcatcher
Hearts in Atlantis
The Tommyknockers
Good Stephen King adaptations:
Dolores Claiborne
Misery
Christine
Carrie
Secret Window
The Langoliers
The Green Mile
The Shawshank Redemption
Thinner
Apt Pupil
The Shining (not Kubrick's)
The Dark Half
The Stand
Films I've yet to see so as to speak of them:
Kubrick's Shining
Salem's Lot
Needful Things
Firestarter
The Dead Zone
It
Silver Bullet
Stand by Me
Children of the Corn
DO I have a point? Not really... just enumerating, 's all.
I, Robot took little more from the book then the name, and the 3 laws.
While it was a mildly entertaing action movie with some really nifty camera moves, it 's a bummer to think that a real movie based on the Robot books wont ever be made now.
I've read several books recently that would make AWSOME movies provided they had a budget or roughly 1 billion dollars and people would sit through a movie that was 12+ hours long.
what books you ask?
The Revelation Space Triology By Alastair Reynolds... go read them now.
C.
I add The Dark Tower to The Revelation Space Trilogy. MANY hours... VERY awsome!
DragonRose: Sarcasm.
Custard : Sarcasm : Imperial : Dogma
Foundation Saga, by the old Isaac!
I agree that book to film adaptations often fail, but I'm glad that the Lord of the Rings Trilogy has proven that books aren't necessarily better than films.
I believe trilogy is an excellent series of films, but I find Tolkien's writing is impenetrably dull.
I thought the Lemony Snicket film was quite effective as well.
What a weird topic....
There are a lot of films that have done well, considering or not considering the books they were based off. There are also a lot of films that have done badly, considering or not considering the books they were based off.
These movies range from those that just took inspiration from the book, to those that followed the book to the letter. The amount of "sticking to the story" does not automatically qualify the movie to be good or bad.
There are waaaay too many factors to make a generalisation on whether book to movie conversions are good or bad, compared or not compared to the books they were based off.
Quote from: Ali on Wed 19/01/2005 13:10:11
I agree that book to film adaptations often fail, but I'm glad that the Lord of the Rings Trilogy has proven that books aren't necessarily better than films.
I believe trilogy is an excellent series of films, but I find Tolkien's writing is impenetrably dull.
All that proves is that you have no taste. ;)
But seriously, no, books aren't necessarily better than films, but in my view this is because there is no reasonable general definition of "better". When is a work of narrative art better than another? Is it if a greater portion of the people acquainted with it enjoy it? If it more clearly conveys the creator's ideas? If the Pope prefers it?
I must add, though, that so far whenever I saw a movie based on a book and knew the book, whether I read it before or after watching the movie, I found the book superior (subjectively, of course).
Well, let's put it like this: books turned into films generate hype, and it so often turns out that the readers who liked the book DIDN't like the film that films have this stigmata attached.
But what about FILMS turned into BOOKS? There aren't many, but there are a few. I never heard anyone say anything about that.
I guess it's all a matter of hype. Readers of the books quickly comdemn the movies, and have been doing it for so long that any film based on a book is quickly eyed with a lot of suspicion before anything else. After all, the books of the films usually aren't that great. For instance, the X-Files book, which I read, sure paled in comparison to the Fight the Truth movie (not considering the actual quality of said movie, which I don't want to discuss).
I tend to think (unless a movie adaptation strays too far from the original source) that the books and movies are just part of the same canon, with neither better than the other.
For example, one of my favourite book/movie(/TV show) combos is MASH. I don't think any are significantly better than the others. I enjoy all three in various ways. Thus, I regard them as part of the same canon.
Meanwhile, for I, Robot, I thought the film strayed a little too far from the original source. (Who am I kidding? Too far? More like booted out of the fucking field!) Therefore, I don't really consider the I, Robot movie as part of the Asimov canon.
Indeed, DG, that seems the best way to handle it... after all, a movie need not necessarily be a "graphical version" of a book, only an adaptation. And adaptations can go ANYwhere...
Whoah!, I just saw the amount of replies, jesus h christ there's a load of them for a day-old thread, but anyway back to the subject at hand,
Since Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was mentioned, I think the most pertinant mistake is that charlie is an all -American boy, correct me if i'm wrong, but I think he was a Brit. ( I read the book when I was about 9 so I could be wrong)
Oompa Loompas are far too creepy in the film, I think the gruesome illustrations by the genius Quentin Blake are better. If you want good adaptations of Dahl's stuff, try The Witches (yeah the boy is american, let's just forget that) and James and the Giant Peach, probably one of the most underrated animated films of the last century. the film is just what I imagined it to be when I was 8.
The best of dahl's charachters ever recreated on screen was the trunchbull, she made me crap my pants, God I love powerful women!
I'll join my voice to those who think the LOTR movies are nowhere near as good as the books. Clearly, that whole question is quite controversial.
I think it's generally agreed that Fight Club was a better movie than the book. (As in, Chuck Pahlaniuk admitted as much.)
Dahl did write the screenplay, so however much he may have distanced himself, he was accessory during the fact.
Although this may be true naranjas, Many authors of source material for a film (like Stan Lee) write the screenplays for films based on their book or whatever, but the producers usually screw them over in some way or other. Gene Roddenberry wrote loads of scripts for Star Trek films but everyone thought they were shite, sadly in his case TV didn't convert well to cinema and in Dahl's case, maybe his bookwriting skills didn't do too well either when he sat down to write the script, either way the story remained the same, just distorted somewhat, and quite decidedly 70's (shudder here ) themed.
Dahl wrote the ORIGINAL screenplay, but afterwards it was almost completely rewritten by David Seltzer. So he was an accessory before the fact. IMDB doesn't even credit him with having written the screenplay- just the book it was based on.
And Dahl was actually quite a good screenplay writer- he wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and You Only Live Twice. Coincidently, those are both adaptations of Ian Flemming books.
And the only thing Chitty Chitty Bang Bang the book and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang the movie have in common is the father is an inventor and he rebuilds an old car.
You know, for the longest time I thought this post was actually about what is really better... books or movies, but I guess I should have clicked on the topic.
Anyway, I hated the adaptation of Hamlet (by Keneth Graham, Director's cut) because I think it kind of missed the point about movies, which is movies are a totally different deal... they're most fast-paced and more visual than dialog, at least the good movies.
I think you mean Kenneth Branagh. Of course, Hamlet isn't a book in the first place, it's a play.
But the point is sort of valid in a way.
Shakespere wrote his plays understanding there was limited things you could do on stage, and that much of the audience would be in the pit, and unable to see, only hear dialogue, and the plays are designed for that.
But alot of film adaptations don't realise they don't have to be held by the same restraints as 16th century theatre [usually films made by theatrical people, like Branagh, and not film people]. The way they adapt plays, you'd expect them to adapt a book by making a film where the text of the book scrolls down the screen.
Well, they ARE brits, and they ARE using plays of the greatest-renowned brit playwright. It's natural that they'll want to abide by some rules. However, I can't help but disagree... having seen Branagh's Othello, Derek Jacobi's Hamlet, Neil Williamson's Macbeth, DiCaprio's Romeo and Juliet (which I loathed, not because of the adaptation - which was SUPERB - but because of that insipid Juliet), Branagh's Henry V and Charles Gray's Juilius Caesar... so far I haven't been than astounded of them, as movies. Or as plays in film. Or whatever. The story was there, told in all its glory and brilliance. And not at all as boring and heavy as your last comment implies, Las Naranjas. Well - not to me, at least. This is all a personal opinion, after all.
ALso, there's something else to remember - it's just about part of every actor's schooling to do Shakespeare at one time or another. And always abiding it's "rules", so that later he may break them if they will KNOWING what they are doing and breaking. Let's put it this way - it takes a man much more distanced from the theatre to really make something bold. Although I quite enjoyed Branagh's Othello, actually.
We must also remember that the LANGUAGE and sheer amount of "solilóquios" (however that is spelt in English) is a big obstacle for a more "traditional" movie. Either the director really knows his stuff, like the gui who made DiCaprio's Romeu and Juliet, and that is a rare case indeed (it's not about breaking and remaking rules, it's redesigning them to this new era, and THAT is amazing), or he'll stick to the actors for making the movie come alive.
...I'll shut up now - I've reached the point at which, should I continue, I'll only spout gibberish.
Quote from: Rui "Puss in Boots" Pires on Fri 21/01/2005 08:48:08
We must also remember that the LANGUAGE and sheer amount of "solilóquios" (however that is spelt in English) is a big obstacle for a more "traditional" movie.
It's "soliloquies", and I agree it is something of an obstacle in adapting plays for film. I think Brannagh's
"My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth" in
Hamlet worked incredibly well though, with that terrific tracking shot. It just wasn't in the style of run-of-the-mill films.
Clockwork Orange is another interesting adaptation. I find the film and book to be so terrifically distinct that I can't compare them. Such are the nature of the media I suppose.
Funny someone mentioned Kubrick, I was just watching the shining for like the bazillionth time on tv ( for any Irish out there it was on TG4, but then again it usually is) I'm always impressed by the sense of isolation and how the size of the hotel makes the cast look like kids in a haunted house, and the shots behind the tricycle are so reflective of what it would have looked like to be a child in such a huge building, it was great. Funnily enough, I haven't read that book, I'll try to find it in the library some day (unless it's shite, if so please warn me) :=
Branagh's Hamlet was terrible. The whole thing felt like they were saying the soemtimes hard-toget-as-its-in-16th-centure-English dialogue as quickly as possible to stop the film being 8 hours long. I agree that if they'd taken advantage of cinemtic technique more they could have made a picture worth 1000 words, even if the words were those of the bard.
On the other hand, Branagh's Much Ado was a great adaptation. Esepcially when you consider how rubbish most Shakespearian comedy comes out on film (e.g. Midsummer Night's dream, Tweflth Night). The taming of the Shrew is probably the only other Sheky comedy I can think of thats been done well. But then when the comedy relies on such things as a woman (originally played by a man) disguised as a man, you're in trouble no matter how good your adpatation is...
Interestingly, there are plenty of films that put Romeo and Juliet, Shrew and Othello in a modern setting, perhaps becuase everyone lieks a good love story, but there's not many modernised adaptations of the other stories. Perhaps becuase its hard to find an equivalent to the affairs of kings which feature in so many Shakey plays. Gandalf's Richard III solved the problem by making him a Nazi dictator figure.
And Stephen King books tend to lend themselves to rubbish adaptations, somehow. There's been a few good ones, mainly where the directors have focussed on the characters rather than the supernatural elements
Oo! I thought of another one! Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH vs. The Secret of NIMH. The book is a powerful story with a strong messages about man interfering with nature, about conservation and about scienctific ethics. A group of city rats are given steroids and are genetically modified so they have human intelligence. They create a city for themselves under a farmer's rosebush, and are clearly smarter than any other creature, but are still clearly rats.
The movie, on the other hand, has a group of city rats given injections so they have human intelligence. They then proceed to create a quasi-medival civilization, but it's only different from the other field animals because they do magic. ???
As to the Branagh debate, the main problem with his adaption of Hamlet was that he didn't cut the text at all. When Zepherelli filmed Romeo and Juliet, he only used 35% of the original text. We don't really need someone to describe the ghost of King Hamlet as see through and floating. On film, that's completely visable. But on stage this must be mentioned in dialogue, because otherwise the audience won't know.
Branahgh - I didn't see his Hamlet, sadly.
Shakesperare's comedies - I did once see an episode of Moonlightning where they did the taming of the Shrew. Honest! And it was greeeeeat stuff! It was true to the play - mostly - and yet so marvellously well made... it was a great parody.
Other stories in modern setting - WOuldn'0t I LOVE Macbeth in a modern setting... hmmm... maybe I wouldn't. It's my all-time favorite Shakesperean tale, and it might lose some of it's misticism...
Stephen King - Weeeeeelllllllll... I made a list up there, and funniliy enough, despite the first thing that srpings to mind, there have been many more good adaptations than bad. And I'm with you 100& on the "character" aspect. Only people who have never read SK or seen a good film of his can think he's all about horror. No, he's about characters and tense moments and suspense and human drama. And also human comedy, as well. His books are real, even though what happens in them is not. Directors that realize that make masterpieces.
Secret of NIMH - Nevertheless, like "The Last Unicorn", it remains one of the best animated films ever. It's one of those times where, regardless of the original content, the end product had EXTREMELY GOOD quality.
I quite enjoyed Brannagh's Hamlet, myself. The fact that it did the entire play verbatim was one of the main attractions: it's a great play, and I don't really think any of it is superfluous.
I didn't much care for Secret of NIMH, on the other hand. Though I didn't see it as a kid, I only caught it a few months ago. Unlike more recent animation films, it's pretty much "kids only" in appeal, I think.
A great adaptation of Macbeth is Akira Kurosawa's 'Throne of Blood', relocated to feudal Japan.
That man adores adapting things, doesn't he? Magnificent Seven, Macbeth... and I'm ACHING to see each and every one of those!
Also, I believe Derek Jacobi's Hamlet is also the whole thing. I just saw it again... man, it's brilliant.
Seven Samurai isn't a remake of The Magnificent Seven, it's the other way around. :P
Oh? I really had NO idea. I always heard it was a remake of Magnificent Seven...
...one more reason for me to try and see it. Sadly, there's not much in the way of Kurosawa's films here in Portugal...
Similarly, Sergio Leone's 'A Fistful of Dollars' is a remake of Kurosawa's 'Yojimbo'.
In both cases, the original film is better. :)
Huh? That film is on my "to-see list", as I love Leone's westerns!
Whoa! What a day of revelations!
Macbeth doesn't suffer much in film adaptations since it's a very tight play. There's not much that becomes superfluous in the film medium.
Adaptations of King Lear often suffer. Alot of the dialogue and soliliquising is needed in the theatre to communicate something that can easily be communicated by the language of film, but some adaptations seem to retain it, and when you do that it comes at the expense of the brilliant writing that is still necessary.
I like the adaptation of Richard III based in the 1930's.
Quote from: Las Naranjas on Sat 22/01/2005 01:05:38
Adaptations of King Lear often suffer. Alot of the dialogue and soliliquising is needed in the theatre to communicate something that can easily be communicated by the language of film, but some adaptations seem to retain it, and when you do that it comes at the expense of the brilliant writing that is still necessary.
Did you think Kurosawa's Ran suffered in this respect? I thought it kept a fine balance between the cinematics and Kurosawa's dialogue while still retaining this overall feel of the original play.
KUROSAWA??? ANIME AGAIN??? :P
Kurosawa makes anime?
Bleh. I'm really out of it.
/me bangs his head very hard against a large, headache-causing brick wall!
Eeeeeer... Rui...
Are you fooling me, or you really haven't realised I was joking? Ã, ???
:D
Ah.
Sorry, DG. I takje responsibility for fractural damage to the wall.
When, in year 12, we watched about 10 billion versions of Lear for the sake of comparison, Ran was the only one on the list we didn't watch.