Movies very loosely 'based' on novels...

You're spot on setanta, that is exactly what happened, I tried not to complicate the truth too much, no deception intended.

D'artagnan, you are right, who cares about the truth when there is money to be made?

I don't care if it won an Oscar, The English Patient was a boring, predictable Hollywood version of what was originally a very complex book. Ditto for The Sheltering Sky...I barely recognized the novel in the film, aside from the basics.

I do really enjoy the Lord of The Rings movies that have come out so far but iam dissapointed that they left so much out. I do realise that it would infact be impossible to fully capture Tolkiens books on film, that is why good books will never go away. One Movie which actually angered me was U-571, that was just a complete defilement of all history books.

"U-571" in concentrating entirely on the, I believe, third capture of an Enigma machine and committing the "sin of omission" that the British did it first was barely passable. It was important only in that the Enigma machine had been improved and they needed a newer machine to crack the code. Artistic license is often stretched out beyond limits. Novels are fiction, of course, historical novels contain a lot of invention even if trying to stick mainly to the facts (and the "facts" are often not that clear so are open to speculation). Gore Vidal does this with the most finesse (loved his version of Teddy Roosevelt and William Randolph Hearst's meeting).

"The Lord of the Rings" depended so much on it's descriptive passags and was sparse on dialogue. A movie of this sort has to be dialogue driven and the story has to maintain momentum. The longer versions of the films are better than the theatrical (although I haven't, of course, seen the extended "Two Towers.)"

But we should also include here some movies that were as good if not better than the book:

"Vertigo."

The Virgin Suicides was very faithful to the book, and the movie did it justice.

What was the one with Richard Gere and Ed Norton, where Norton was the killer with MPD who murdeed the Bishop of Chicago? That was actually better than the book, although the plot differed greatly. Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider were also good. The Spencer for Hire TV show was one of my favourite examples of bringing a character to life.

That was "Primal Fear" and you're not the first one who said it was better than the book. Best Sellers are often written to be major motion pictures and it is more often than not that the film measures up.

It's those novels which the producers and directors don't recognize as unfimmable and try anyway that are possibly the worst offenders. The best of recent years was "The Wings of the Dove."

I'm not sure about the worst in the last five years as the adaptations usually are at least passable -- it's the original film material that more often sucks.

i saw this movie "murder in texas" with farah fawcett and sam elliott. it was great.

then i got the book that it was based on. they are so different. and this movie is supposed to be based on a true story!

good thing i saw the movie first. if i read the book first i would dislike the movie. i don't know why, but since i DID see the movie first i still like it. and of course the book is better. am not finished reading it yet.

it s by thom thompson who wrote serpentine. a great book. they should make a mini series from THAT one!

oh but then there was "the shawshank redemption. based on steven king's novella in "different seasons".

the novella was about 90 pages or LESS. it was originally called rita hayworth and the shawshank redemption.

i betcha king is annoyed at himself the he never mad it a full fledged novel.

THAT movie was MUCH better than the story--but it WAS a good story.

Excellent Shakespeare:
Hamlet (Branagh)
Hevry V (Branagh)
Midsummernight's Dream (Callista Flockhart, Kevin Kline, et al)
Richard III ( Ian McKellan)

Good Shakespeare:
Much Ado About Nothing (Branagh, again)
Othello (Branagh, sensing a pattern here)
The Tempest (Peter Fonda)
Romeo and Juliet (the 1969 version, with Olivia Hussey...va va va voom!)

Horrible Shakespeare
Romeo and Juliet (1990s rock video with Claire Danes and that annoying Leonardo chap)
Love's Labours Lost (Branagh...Shakespear as a musical?)
Taming of the Shrew (liz taylor, et al!)
Midsummernights Dream, 1969 version (Do we really need to see Judy Dench nude? Granted, she was a hottie then, but the mental flash forward is unsettling!)

Best Shakespeare I wish I could find on screen:
A version of teh Taming of the Shrew that toured the country in 1997, staged as a Rat Pack movie, complete with bad "Joisey accents"! Oh what fun!

Vertigo is a fine example of a movie that's waayy better than the book, LW. But Hitchock was a master at this type of stuff. He would take a promising book or short story and change it around so that it maintained no more than the major premise of the original. The Birds retains the premise of the original Daphne duMurier short story but that's about all. To Catch a Thief places the whole thing in an entirely different context from the pot-boiler from which it was taken. In fact, about the only two Hitchcock movies I can think of which stuck close to their original sources are Rebecca and Psycho.

The Laurence Olivier "Hamlet" was also excellent as well as his more traditional "Richard III." But I did love the Ian McKellan -- one of the most successful updatings of a classic.

As far a "musicalizing" Shakespeare, I'd rather see the stage revival of the Cole Porter musical based on "The Taming of the Shrew," "Kiss Me Kate." It's now on DVD and I did buy it, just haven't had time to watch it again. It was originally broadcast on PBS. The "Brush Up Your Shakespeare" number is worth the whole show.

I reacll a version of Middleton and Rowley's "The Changeling" on A&E a few yeras ago, with Bob Hoskins and The stressed out psycho woman from "Fight Club" that was quite good.
Speaking of which, Fight Club was better in screen than on the page.
I'm eagerly awaiting "Prozac Nation," and who can forget "Cold Comfort Farm?"
the A&E versions of Jeeves, with Stephen Frye are also fantastic.

I agree with hobitbob on the excellence of Branagh's Henry V and McKellan's Richard III. Because I was in Detroit during the riots of 68 and knew what a tank sounds like, that movie grabbed me from the first scene.

Speaking of that movie, Kirsten Scott Thomas was excellent in it and in other movies with the exception of The English Patient.

My daughter thoroughly hates the Burton-Taylor Taming of the Shrew and almost refused to see American Repertory Theatre's suberb version a ffew years back, blaming the play and not the "actress." Loved the version John Cleese appeared in on television as well.

John Huston's filming of James Joyce's The Dead was wonderful with the exception of his daughter's sobbing.

I thought the Meryl Streep-Roseanne version of that horrible book by Fay Weldon was a giant step forward.

Branagh's Henry V is on my top 10 list of all-time favorite movies. I liked The Dead as well, but concur with the sobbing thing.

Another fine adaptation is the recent "Nicholas Nickleby" (just remembered it as it was an ideal link in the neverending link movie thread).

Circle of Friends is an example of a movie script improving a book. Maeve Binchy's ending was a bit wishy-washy while the movie was stronger. I think the actor who played the creep who was out to marry the heroine Benny (nickname for Bernadette) in order to get her family's business also played a Russian computer whiz in one of the Pierce Brosnan James Bond movies.


Anyway, there is a great scene in which the creep, attempting to ingratiate himself to Benny, takes her to a movie. While they watch the film, he puts his arm around her neck, reaches down and fondles her breast. Benny, played by Minnie Driver, jumps up and the next scene shows them walking home, with Driver rubbing her breast with her jacket. Only a woman would have thought to include a scene like that!