Last week, in my "sermon" on The Exorcist (and
I know how weird that phrasing sounds--perhaps that's why I wrote it
that way), I mentioned how faithful the film adaptation was to the
original novel. I gave full credit on this to William Peter Blatty who
wrote both the novel and the screenplay. My mother the librarian always
(well... almost always) believed that the book was better than
the movie. By and large, I think most people tend to agree with that
sentiment. By and large, so do I. But the more books I read and the
more films I watch, the more I realize that they are in fact two
different media--even two different art forms. The older I get, the
more I tend to look at the book and the movie as two distinct entities
and it may be unfair to compare the two.
I
probably should have come to this realization in college. I was taking
a class in media writing. We were tasked with writing a screenplay
based on an existing piece of literature. I chose a short story written by
Jimmy Buffett titled "I Wish Lunch Could Last Forever," perhaps my
favourite story from his book Tales From Margaritaville. In the
process of writing it, I discovered why the movie often differs from the
book. Oftentimes the written word doesn't translate easily into a
visual medium. It's sometimes necessary to make alterations in order to
make it work in a different format. For my short story adaptation, I
actually added a character of a journalist who is interviewing the main
character for a magazine article. She basically tells the story to
him. I seem to recall that I also tweaked the ending a bit--I didn't
change the ending or anything, I just enhanced it somewhat. I don't
know whether my professor ever read the original short story, but he
gave me a B on it (perhaps even a B+. It's been a few decades, I
honestly don't remember). I always thought of sending it to Buffett to
see what he thought of it, but I think I was just too embarrassed to do
so.
These
days, I find that one of the highest compliments that can be paid to a
film that is based on a book is to say it was faithful to the source
material. Obviously this is not a prerequisite for a film's
success--many of the Bond films, especially during the Roger Moore era,
were little to nothing like the Ian Fleming novels of the same name.
Sometimes endings get changed--such as it was in The Natural--just
because the audience would be disappointed. Sometimes details get
altered or omitted--such as it was with the 1941 adaptation of The Maltese Falcon--in order to avoid being labeled "indecent" (and, for the most part, that version of The Maltese Falcon was a faithful adaptation).
This
week's film has always puzzled me. I went to see it opening night in
2014 just because I was fond of the cast (and I have quite the crush on
Tina Fey). Until the opening credits rolled, I didn't realize it was
based on a novel. Honestly, I had forgotten that little detail until it
was released on DVD. I had enjoyed the film enough that I wanted to
own it. For some reason, I went through one of my temporary
"addictions" and found myself watching it many times over. I was
reminded of the fact that it was based on a book during those many
viewings, which prompted me to buy a copy of the book.
When
I read it, I was taken aback for a number of reasons. There were many
elements that were left out of the movie, which would have possibly made
it run over three hours in length. That's easy enough to overlook and
forgive. What caught me off guard was how unlikable the characters in
the book were. By the end of it, I understood why they were the way
they were and they actually became more likeable by that point. The
book was also very well written which made me want to finish it. But I
found I liked all the characters much more in the movie than in the
book. I can only assume this was due to the actors who played them.
When I watch the movie, I want everything to work out for the
characters. It's a lot harder to root for them in the book.
Under
normal circumstances, these differences wouldn't have concerned me at
all--different media and all that. The main reason I was thrown off by
this was the fact that Jonathan Tropper wrote the screenplay to the film
based on his own novel. Aside from the issue of not wanting to make a
three hour family drama, I can't understand why someone would alter
their own work that much in adapting it. He even changed the surname of
the family from Foxman to Altman. I've lost track of how many times
I've watched the movie over the last decade. I have, however, only read
the book once. While I can't say one is necessarily better than the
other, I think it's safe to say I do like one over the other.
The
film stars Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Adam Driver, Corey Stoll, Kathryn
Hahn, Connie Britton, Rose Byrne, Timothy Olyphant, Dax Shepard, Ben
Schwartzman, Debra Monk, and Jane Fonda--hard not to like that cast. Directed by
Shawn Levy, please enjoy This Is Where I Leave You.
Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.
Yours in peace, love, and rock 'n' roll!
The Reverend Will the Thrill
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