From Books to Film

by Himadri Chatterjee

Why bother reading the book when you can just wait for the film?

I have heard this sort of thing often. Strange that I’ve never heard the other way round: nobody ever asks why bother to watch the film when one can read the book. The implicit assumption seems to be that watching the film is not merely less work than reading the book, but also, almost by definition, more fun. And having fun is what really matters.

And there is also the further assumption that all that matters is the plot, and that if one knows the plot from the film, the book becomes superfluous. Of course, this is nonsense: there is far more to any work of literature – or, for that matter, to any film of quality – than the mere plot. It is how the plot is communicated that gives it significance, and invests it with any aesthetic value it may have. This is why even the most detailed retelling of the plot of a Shakespeare play will lack the literary qualities of the play itself: the plot is merely a starting point, either for a book or a film.

What one essentially does in transferring a book to the screen is to translate the literary qualities of the book into cinematic qualities. As with anything else, this may be done well, or done badly. If done badly, all we have is another bad film: no harm in that, I guess – unless the book was of a high quality, and the audience is foolish enough to judge the book by the film. And if done well, the film becomes a fine work in its own right, and is to be judged on its own terms. For instance, John Ford’s film “The Grapes of Wrath” is a cinematic masterpiece, and we do not need to refer back to Steinbeck’s novel to appraise the qualities of the film.

Film-makers always have the right to depart from the original material if they think that is correct in the context of the film. I have, for instance, heard the late Anthony Burgess say regretfully about the film “A Clockwork Orange” that director Stanley Kubrick “misunderstood [his] novel”. But this is unfair: the book, no doubt, communicates Burgess’ vision; but the film communicates Kubrick’s: Kubrick was never under any obligation to convey what Burgess had intended.

Of course, creating works based on existing material is hardly new. Artists of the past have long based works on existing material: the Greek tragedians took their plots from existing mythology; Shakespeare adapted his plays from all sorts of other sources; Verdi composed operas based on a wide range of plays, including some of Shakespeare’s; and so on. The originality, in each case, comes not from the plot, but from the way the plot is presented, the vision the artist communicates through the plot, and from the mastery the artist has over the medium. And if the finished product is of a high quality, it stands up by itself. Thus, it does not matter how closely Shakespeare stuck to Cinthio’s story in his dramatic masterpiece “Othello”; and neither does it matter how closely Verdi and his librettist Boito stuck to Shakespeare’s play in their operatic masterpiece “Otello”. At this level, the artistry involved is much more than that of a mere translator, translating the work from one medium to another: it is of that of an original artist, who takes existing material as a starting point to create something entirely new and original.

Just as Verdi and Boito took Shakespeare’s “Othello” as a starting point to create “Otello”, so, in much the same way, Japanese film director Akira Kurasawa took Shakespeare’s “King Lear” as a starting point, and created “Ran”. And both “Otello” and “Ran” stand as masterpieces in their respective media. That’s all very well. But it is fair to say, I think, that the operatic genius of a Verdi and the cinematic genius of a Kurasawa are exceptions rather than the rule. In most cases, adaptation from one medium to another is no more than mere translation. And this naturally leads us to question to what extent such translation is possible.

It depends to a great extent on the quality of the original material. If the book being adapted has little to offer other than the plot, then a skilled film-maker should be able not merely to present that plot, but, perhaps, even add something to it: for instance, Francis Ford Coppola’s first two “Godfather” films have far more substance than the novel upon which they were based. But if we’re talking about adapting great works of literature, then the challenge is to find cinematic equivalents for the book’s literary effects. But even in cases where this challenge is met, watching the film is still not equivalent to reading the book – at least, not if one has any regard at all for literary values.

To take a good example of a successful translation from book to film, Jack Clayton’s film “The Innocents”, based on “The Turn of the Screw”, seems to me superb in every way: it is frightening and genuinely unsettling, and it keeps close both to the letter and to the spirit of the original, keeping intact the various ambiguities and equivocations of James’ narrative. Nonetheless, what we experience is cinematic, and not literary, brilliance. And cinema, unlike the theatre, is not essentially a literary medium.

Perhaps this is why there are so relatively few successful film adaptations of great books: the challenge to find equivalents for literary effects in so non-literary a medium frequently proves too great. And one also suspects that, in many cases, the attempt to film a classic novel is motivated neither by a desire to create a new and original work of art, nor out of respect for the original work, but because the “classics” are seen as, somehow, “classy”. Filmed adaptations of classics can flatter audiences into thinking that they are partaking of high culture without asking from them the effort that such culture usually requires. This may seem a rather harsh judgment, but there seems no other way to explain the popularity of various recent film adaptations of classic novels that do no more than present pretty actresses and pretty actors in pretty period costume, and substitute for the depth of vision of the originals an eye-pleasing but merely vapid decorousness.

And, all too frequently, it has to be made “relevant”. Usually, this means no more than throwing in a few sex scenes, which, however erotic or arousing they may be, rarely if ever add anything to the film: after all, if anyone doesn’t know yet what lovers do in the privacy of the bedroom, one suspects that the cinema is not really the best place to find out. One doubts the extent to which seeing Emma Bovary or Anna Karenina involved in sex scenes enhances our understanding either of character or of situation.

But sometimes, this desperate attempt to tailor the work for a modern audience goes further then merely introducing a few sex scenes. All too often, the film-maker slants the work to address our current preoccupations. Of course, there is nothing at all surprising about each generation re-interpreting the great works of the past: thus, Olivier in the early 1940s made Shakespeare’s “Henry V” a patriotic flag-waver, whereas modern productions emphasize the darker and more ambiguous natures of both King Henry and of his military exploits. That is as it should be. But if we do not keep in some sort of check upon our tendency to draw from a work no more than what we currently happen to think important, we may end up presenting a very limited vision of the work. This has particularly been a problem in many modern stage productions of classic drama: if, for instance, we insist on seeing “Othello” as primarily about race, then we belittle and simplify the other themes of the play, and obscure its depths. Recently, a BBC adaptation of “Great Expectations” saw the work as primarily about class. Of course, there can be no doubt that class plays an important role in “Great Expectations”, but when this element is emphasized at the expense of just about everything else, the finished product can emerge as lacking in subtlety; and the BBC adaptation of “Great Expectations” had, I’m afraid, all the subtlety of a poke in the eye.

One may argue, of course, that focusing on issues that mean most to us now is preferable to excessive reverence whereby the work is metaphorically placed behind glass, and presented as a museum-piece. But nonetheless, one feels that there may be a more judicious middle course between these extremes. And, on top of everything else, one can’t help but wonder whether we really are as sophisticated an audience as we like to think ourselves. It is interesting, for instance, comparing modern classic adaptations by the BBC with some of the ones they made some twenty or thirty years ago. There is no doubt that the modern productions are slicker, look better, and have better production values: modern audiences are certainly too sophisticated for the crude sets and camerawork that may be seen in the earlier adaptations. And yet, these earlier adaptations often had scenes that would last for a good ten or fifteen minutes, or even longer: the modern versions, in contrast, rarely allow any scene to exceed its allotted span of two minutes, presumably on the assumption that the attention span of the sophisticated modern audience cannot last longer than that. As a consequence, not only does the pacing lack variety, but important elements – especially during the exposition – tend to be glossed over.

But despite all this, great literature can and has been transferred well to the screen. There are various BBC adaptations I remember with affection – all, I’m afraid, dating from the times when they put more care into the pacing of the drama than on mere production values. And there are various films as well adapted from quality novels – John Ford’s “The Grapes of Wrath”; Orson Welles’ “The Trial”; the Boulting Brothers’ film adaptation of “Brighton Rock”, or “The Innocents”. Jack Clayton’s adaptation of “The Turn of the Screw”; David Lean’s films of “Oliver Twist” and of “Great Expectations” (Lean does not, admittedly, probe into the depths of “Great Expectations”, but it remains a fine film); Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy; and so on. These do not replace the original books, of course; but in each case, the original material is so powerful and dramatic, that even if at least some of it gets across into the medium of cinema, we have the makings of a great film. And in some rare cases, as in Ford’s “The Grapes of Wrath” or Ray’s Apu Trilogy, the films may equal or even surpass the originals as works of art in their own right.

And on the other hand, there are all the bad adaptations – films such as “The Wings of the Dove”, where the director has so little respect for the original material that he is not even embarrassed to admit that he has not bothered reading the book. Well, as long as we don’t confuse such films with the books whose titles they bear, there’s not much harm done: Henry James’ novel will still be around for anyone interested in reading it.

So why bother to read the book when you can see the film? I guess if you need to ask, you ain’t going to know!

Himadri Chatterjee currently works as an operational research analyst for an airline, and lives near London, UK, with his wife and two children. What spare time he has apart from his day job and family commitments, he likes to spend reading, and listening to classical music. He also loves the theatre, good conversation, and good whisky (he is a long-standing member of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society).
Read More