We’ve been slack on the Weekend Discussion since comments came back, but because of the news about The Road I want to get a topic out to people. There were a lot of comments on that article (which was great) and many from people who’ve read the book, recognized a lot of what was in the screening report as straight from the book, and defended what they envision as the cut of the film based on that. Also great.
The broad topic is: what are your primary criteria for novel adaptations? There’s a lot to be said for exactly transferring material from page to celluloid, but is that enough? Is the feel of a book contained just within the events it depicts? What about an ineffable quality — essentially the soul of a book — that can fall between the edits of a movie, even if scenes in the film correspond exactly to what’s on the page? While the cut of The Road that is being described sounds right in many ways, I can see the film missing the boat on the feel of the book entirely.
Zack Snyder’s Watchmen is a good counter-point argument against some of what people have commented here with respect to The Road. Even having seen only the couple minutes shown at Comic Con, I feel like Snyder has nailed the look of the film. He appears to have taken what Moore and Gibbons put on the page, and transferred it to the screen. But many of you (and me) have been justifiably cautious in embracing the adaptation without seeing more. Sure, he’s got the look, but does he have the spirit? Will it sound and feel right?
And background on my own take, which has hopefully come across on the site before: My baseline preference is for an adaptation that takes liberties with the source. I can be convinced by great, literal approaches, obviously. No Country For Old Men is nearly word-for-word in many ways, and the filmic result can’t be argued. The example I ceaselessly cite as a preference is Naked Lunch, where David Cronenberg took great liberties with the material, but managed to capture the spirit of Burroughs in a way a literal adaptation might easily have missed. Jonze and Kaufman’s Adaptation appropriately works as a good example of taking extreme liberties as well.
That being the case, a final question: how do you envision reacting to The Road and Watchmen if, much like Adaptation, the films work on their own, but have a wholly different spirit from the source material? With these properties, is that even possible?
Have at it in the comment section below, or check out the message board thread on the topic.
12 comments
I wouldn't compare Naked Lunch and Adaptation to other book-to-film adaptations. Naked Lunch was more of a Burroughs mix tape–with 'routines', as he called them, taken from a whole range of his books.
As for the Road and Watchmen, I'm more skeptical of the latter. Hillcoat proved tonal mastery with the Proposition, and that's really what the Road calls for. Kabong's description sounded faithful to the book–but a straight adaptation has limited commercial appeal–I imagine many would just find it boring.
Snyder's film certainly looks like Watchmen but, if done right, it should have the heft of a true crime epic, like the Godfather or Heat. I don't know if Snyder has that in him–it worked on the page because of the sophisticated back stories and great character development, with only a few big action sequences.
To me, as someone who tries to write novels, it depends on the book. Some books are more action or episode driven than others, and The Road is certainly not one of these. Yes, there are startling images and frightening scenes that will lend themselves to the screen, but the true horror here – as is usually the case with McCarthy – is invented inbetween the lines by the atmosphere the author creates. It isn't what the characters do or what they say in McCarthy novels that make them scary or evil, it's the way they are, it is their person, something McCarthy creates through a million subtle glances or gestures, conveyances of thought or emotion, something that, even if writen into a script and carried out by an actor, isn't immediately recognizable to a viewing audience and therefore seems absent. A good adaptation understands atmosphere becomes its author, it's omniscient narrator, and is not something to be ignored for invented action or superfluous dialogue. My guess is the screenwriter here tried to fill in too much of the silence, or the quiet of this world, because that's not an appelaing movie. But it's in those silences McCarthy says the most.
One possible way… by not having Fabfunk torpedo films with bad and questionable reviews, which is the sort of thing I thought I would only see on AICN?
Yeah I am not too excited for The Road, I love the book and I just dont think it will be able to top it. I love WATCHMEN too and I am really excited for it but I also am preparing myself to be a little dissapointed because they wont be able to fit alot of Watchmen into a 2 and 40 minute movie. I think the DIRECTOR'S CUT will be amazing though.
what about fincher's version of fight club? again, it left out a ton of the book, but it left out parts that deserved to be left out.. i think any adaptation comes down to the skill of the screenwriter and director. im looking forward to the watchmen, i can't wait. i'll see the road just becuz the book is a fucking masterpiece and i love viggo. he worked with cronenberg, that makes him money money. and… fuck lord of the rings. forever.
Excellent topic for discussion, Russ and one I've though about on my own in the past many times. I'm reminded now of how I felt after seeing Passion of the Christ for the first time. As a film it's obviously weak in that it doesn't really tell a full story, but as an attempt to capture the spirit (Holy spirit?) of the source material, it brought me right back to sunday school, a place I thought I'd forgotten as I grew older and less of a believer. Reading the crucifixion, I'd imagined all these things, the atmosphere, emotions, setting, and spirit, and I was now witnessing those vivid memories happen on screen. Some how there was a connection between what my mind's senses created and what I was watching. I think that's what makes an adaptation really have an impact above merely re-making it verbatim. Remember that childhood awe you once felt discovering new worlds and figure out some way to recapture it on film. In a way I think that's what most film makers are trying to achieve. Yes, emotional resonance is probably the best way to put it.
Well, it's easy to damn adaptations from a soapbox built by fanboys ( love ya Alan Moore, but…) but realistically speaking, writers need money, companies need money and creatively bankrupt times need material (argue all you want, 200 years of any artform can and will cover everything under the sun, like good ole Erasmus used to say). It's win-win for all parties and as a film maker/ writer (yeah I'm career-dropping, but only to further the point, I swear) I see the practical pluses of the situation. For every "Night Shift", you get a "Choke" so writers get some coffee change and audiences get their "parallel universe" where an adaptation is faithful, better, or egregiously turdier than the book. Fuck it, it beats rehashing the same old Hollywood formula and calling it new. I say adapt away and I will sit through your abominable alex garland adaptations to get to "youth without youth" (still believing it's a masterful film, all the more for its moments of complete lack of mastery).
I don't think 'spirit' is enough, I think spirit and some details are where it's at if you aren't doing a direct translation. Alot of people say that Spidey didn't translate exactly onto film but the spirit was there(this was when the first one was coming out) but you watch it and it doesn't feel right, it doesn't feel like the comic you read. But you watch Batman Begins and Dark Knight and you feel if they were drawn panels they'ed come straight out of a Detective comics arc. It captures that tone, look, feel and details. Details such as Batman stopping Dent from killing one of the joker's goons, and the way he talks to him and giving explanations on who he is just like the comics. Those little details can make all the difference.
I think more adaptations should use tits. Big large floppy tits. All over the place. Viggo explaining to his son why a big phat pair of jugs are rubbing him down with baby oil would make the adaptation of "The road" soooo much better.
Taking liberties or being literal depends on the book. Joe R. Lansdale, for instance, writes movie-friendly books (and why Hollywood hasn't picked up on this is beyond me) that would need little tinkering with the plotting or characters. But, then, look at The Road. In terms of what *happens*, its an extremely rudimentary book- The Man and The Boy wander, nearly starve, find some food, nearly have run-ins with crazies, escape, rinse and repeat. But it is McCarthy's language, the metaphysical musings, the style that drives it, and that is a tricky thing to translate. You wont get it across in terms of pure visuals or scoring. A voice over might be clunky and obvious. But leave it out, stick to the books action, and you've got a depressing, repetitive, and amateurish apocalypse tale. I'm curious to see how they tackled it because it doesn't have the same good vs evil, crime style plotting that made No Country For Old Men an adaptation that worked in terms of being an involving movie that captured the underlying spirit & message of the novel.
Adaptations are easy money for the entire production crew. However they can miss the character and quality of the book. Take L4yer Cake for example, the film barely covers what XXX motivation's are and the world he lives in. It's kinda like having a quick blow job (a mild-manner reporter BJ if you will); yeah you got head but you'd kinda hope for something with a bit more substance to it.
The film Elegy was a wonderful adaptation. I can't imagine a film capturing more about the spirit of love, life, and loss. Nicholas Meyer (who also wrote and directed Star Trek 2 the Wrath of Kahn!) adapted the screenplay from a Philip Roth book. See it and you'll cry.
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