Posted on 08/31/2014 4:44:38 PM PDT by nickcarraway
‘The Giver’ to ‘The Great Gatsby’: How the movie adaptations stack up to the books that inspired them
During a panel moderated by The Washington Post’s film critic Anne Hornaday — Great Books to Great Movies on Saturday, Aug. 30 at 8 p.m. during the National Book Festival — authors E.L. Doctorow, Alice McDermott, Paul Auster and Lisa See, whose books were made into movies, will discuss and present in a multimedia exhibit clips from films based on their writing.
But what happens when really good books fail to live up to people’s expectations in really bad movie adaptations? Or, the other way around, when not-so-good literature becomes a box office smash? Here you have a few books-turned-movies that our critics reviewed. They shared their thoughts on when the movie adaptation worked and when it didn’t.
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“The Great Gatsby”: Awesome book, not-so-great movie
The plot: “Teens will be surprised at how the excesses of the Jazz Age echo the excesses of today. The international cast may speak in unplaceable accents, but they get the emotions right, amid lavish decor and with a soundtrack that mixes 1920s jazz with new works by Jay-Z and other Billboard-toppers. Narrator Nick Carraway tells the story from a sanitarium where he’s in treatment for alcoholism. Nick rents a cottage in the toniest part of Long Island to spend the summer studying bond trading in hopes of landing a Wall Street job. In the towering mansion next door lives Jay Gatsby, a charming mystery man who throws huge parties. Gatsby befriends Nick because he hopes to reconnect with Nick’s high-born cousin Daisy, a former love who’s now married to Tom Buchanan. The Buchanans live across the bay. Nick arranges a meeting with Daisy,” Horwitz reported.
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(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
>>I’ve read The Scarlet Letter 4 times, and no movie adaptation could ever live up to the book. I tried watching one once and didn’t make it all the way through.
I’ve taught the book at least in 6 or so high school classes, and I (even as a cigar chomping, beer drinking guy) am completely in love with the book. You are so correct in saying that a “Scarlet Letter” movie can never match it’s glory. My students tried watching them and had internalized the book so much they instantly remarked “PEARL WOULDN’T DO THAT!” “THAT’S NOT LIKE DIMMESDALE!” etc.
It always makes my students laugh when we finish the book and I reveal that Hawthorne read the book to his wife, and when he finished, she ran to bed weeping loudly.
I got so bored with it that I resorted to Sparknotes. I also got an A. :P
I tried several years ago to red “The Scarlett Letter” but I couldn’t get into it. I’ll try again eventually.
I don’t like the HP movies. I suppose they did what they could with all the regulations placed upon them, but still...
Twilight is a disgusting series. I don’t understand how it can be so popular.
Sadly, the first movie version of The Great Gatsby, from 1926, is lost, as are so many films from the early twentieth century. But if a copy is ever discovered, I'll run out and see it.
Although the story is set in 1922, the 2913 film version featured disco music and dancing and cars from the latter part of the decade. Anachronisms always turn me off.
Even as someone who read the book, I appreciated the film adaptation. There’s just literally tons of material in the book, and only so much to cover in say 2-4 hours. In terms of how much it covered, and what it was able to put on the screen, I will honestly say i was impressed. Saw the film in 2000, and felt it was a decent adaptation. If you really wanted to be so detail perfect to the original, then it would probably be a 5-7 hour film with parts.
I finally got around to reading The Great Gatsby last week.
I thought it one of the most superbly written novels I have read. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
A coworker recommended the movie to me but I haven’t seen it, yet. I don’t expect it to be anywhere near as good as the book, so, with my expectations low, I may actually enjoy it.
A surprise, I will say, the one I recognize is the one from I believe 1974 with Robert Redford as Gatsby. It really made the 2013 one not feel as good to me.
The Ender’s Game / Shadow series totally blows a lot of recent novels away. The film was better than I expected. Considering that part of the book was originally a 1977 short story, and a. Published novel series in the 1980s the books were way ahead of their time in terms of social commentary.
I thought the Redford one was pretty good. Not great but good.
I have read a biography of F. Scot and Zelda and there is quite a bit of both in Gatsby. A Southern girl with an American officer is almost autobiographical.
F. Scot was stationed at Montgomery’s Maxwell Field in WWI and Zelda was from Montgomery. Her Father was chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.
The Wizard of Oz and Who Framed Roger Rabbit movies were both improvements over the books upon which they were based. Roger Rabbit was a *major* improvement.
My husband didn’t like the way the Harry Potter films turned out. I never read the Twilight books but heard they were rather bad, and the movie I saw when she’s pregnant was weird. It wasn’t even logical.
Give “The Scarlet Letter” another try! The first time I read it was in HS, and it took me about half way through to start enjoying it. Now I list it as an “all time” favorite!
I like Stephen King’s writing but inevitably I want to rewrite his endings, book or movie!
Then you have “To Kill a Mockingbird,” which was an awful book turned into a steaming pile of PC tripe.
Also in the running for that dubious distinction, Bonfire of the Vanities, superbly-written by Tom Wolfe featuring in-depth characterization and a compelling storyline. The film was horrid beyond description.
“WORST movie adaptation EVER, “The Fountainhead”.”
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Nope,”Bonfire of the Vanities”. I refused to see the movie because of the cast-——and it bombed.
I loved the book.
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I thought the Giver was a hohum children’s book.
The film was much better.
I was thinking Jaws but I read the book as a kid and didn’t remember it all. The movie stood on it’s own merits, and you’re exactly right, when they realize the two mediums (print and film) are a different beast and approach them as such both can be good... Just not The Scarlet Letter and a few others IMO. The characters are just to complex.
“The Postman” w/Kevin Costner should be in the Top 10 worst adaptations as well. The David Brin book was excellent…the movie was a waste.
The 1925 version of The Wizard of Oz might have been an improvement over the book, but the 1939 version was not.
I agree about Who Framed Roger Rabbit (RIP Bob Hoskins). Note my longtime tagline!
With all the details Rowling put into the HP books it would have been impossible to film. I am a devotee of Alan Rickman and Snape — only because the last book was in two parts did they include the Prince’s Tale that explains why he was as he was (according to the director). There’s a list online of very key book plot points that filmviewers don’t know if they haven’t read the books, and it’s lengthy.
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