How many times have you said or heard people say “the book was better than the film”? Certainly, book to film adaptations can be treacherous given reading a book is an activity which takes place entirely within the confines of one’s own mind. Readers interpret or visualise things differently, and seeing it on-screen through the lens (and limitations) of film can be very different to expectations. Yet sometimes we see an adaptation of a book that we should be conceptualising as its own story inspired by the source material rather than a bad retelling or a different interpretation of a single scene.
So let’s start with perhaps the biggest example of the divergence between books and films being so significant that we might be better to simply view them as distinct entities: Disney. Almost all Disney movies are remakes of classic stories, many of which are very different to the original versions.
While the fairy tales themselves have several versions—sometimes even the same author would rewrite them multiple times. This was the case with the Brothers Grimm who rewrote their stories in order to incorporate elements which were in keeping with fashions of the times. But the versions that were immortalised by Disney are very different to their initial incarnation.
A version of the Sleeping Beauty folk tale, published by Charles Perrault, then collected by the Brothers Grimm, sees the prince stumbling across the princess. He finds her so entrancing that he has sex with her while she is still asleep (given when this was written, instead of being rapey, it’s considered romantic) and she subsequently bears him twins. Clearly then, the version of Sleeping Beauty where the Prince and Aurora dance in the clouds singing to each other is a significant deviation from the original story, as is the fact that Maleficent transforms into a dragon and is valiantly defeated by the Prince. In one version she is an ogre who demands the twins be served to her by a cook who substitutes the children with lamb and goat…sound familiar, Disney’s Snow White?
Hans Christian Andersen’s version of The Little Mermaid sees her feel as though she’s walking on knives in order to actually get her legs and the prince views her as a pet rather than a person. Then, the Prince doesn’t actually choose her, he marries someone else and the condition of her becoming a human aside from the agony of walking is that she must be married of she will die, she must kill the Prince.
Moreover, the happy ending in which the princess is not only alive, but gets her man and her throne is a total deviation from the manner in which these stories originally ended. I suppose in Cinderella she does indeed get the Prince, but the eyes of her stepsisters are gruesomely pecked out by birds, which to me at least ruins the wholesomeness of the ending. As such, while the films themselves indisputably draw heavy inspiration from the original folk tales, it is compelling to suggest we should view them as distinct products and stories rather than a simple translation of a story.
Equally, Howl’s Moving Castle is a great example of a film which takes many of the original story’s elements but is not constrained by them. Arguably, there are sufficient differences that the book and film take on lives of their own. Miyakazi’s introduction of the war plot, and the different treatment of the Witch of the Waste are significant deviations from the book, but they contribute to the story that Miyazaki tells—one in which kindness and a gentle heart are the attributes which ultimately resolve the significant problems of the plot.
Indeed, this article discusses the arguably significant deviation between the two versions in noting “One difference is in its attitudes to evil. Miyazaki doesn’t do incorrigible villainy, and Howl the movie lifts that burden from the shoulders of Jones’s Witch of the Waste, sharing it out among a number of warmongers and miscreants.” In the words of Jones herself: “My philosophy would say that they would go to the bad for some other reason, if they didn’t have that one. I really do believe there are some people who are just irredeemable. But yes, Miyazaki is much more genial about the human race than I am.”
This therefore suggests that the divergences between the two creative forces of each version are grounded in fundamental differences of outlook and philosophy, leading to the creation of two very different stories. As a result, the film and book may be better viewed as two separate stories which happen to have several elements in common.
Less severe could be The Hunger Games films. The first film was reasonably faithful to the story barring the included scenes between President Snow and the Gamesmaster where the nature of power and control is teased out, giving us the audience greater insight into the kind of calculated control that President Snow extends across Panem. Is this sufficient to say that the book and film are two separate entities? Probably not, but the medium of the film enabled these scenes to take place whereas the first-person narration of the book limits its capacity to cut away to the Capital in such a fashion. It’s a great example of how films can move beyond the limitations of books in a way that augments the story.
Of course, there are then example of films that are clear in the adherence to the book, but deviate slightly in the telling. Baz Luhrmann’s version of The Great Gatsby offers a specific vision of the film that is both faithful to the book and moves away from it. The soundtrack is a really great example of this. It features rap, hip hop, and RnB songs, none of which existed in the roaring ‘20s. Luhrmann in an interview noted that he wanted to pay homage to the fact that F. Scott Fitzgerald was a modernist, as he was “in the moment, and the music of the moment was African-American street music called Jazz, and when he put Jazz music in Gatsby, everyone was like ‘What are you crazy? It’s a fad.”
As such, the movie Luhrmann created could be considered distinct from the original piece due to its inclusion of elements which simply did not exist when Fitzgerald wrote the book. Yet he was building upon and within the framework Fitzgerald’s legacy within the parameters of his own distinct style.
This article beautifully surmises: “Using technology, music, and the sheer emptiness of raw spectacle, he translates the exuberant spirit of the Jazz Age for an audience raised on Jay Z [who was the executive producer of the soundtrack], and wedges a wide enough rift between style and substance for Gatsby himself to fit comfortably inside.”
It goes on to note some of Lurhmann’s other works, and mentions his adaptation of Romeo and Juliet where; “he thread Shakespearean iambic pentameter through an explicitly 90s milieu, combining the feisty tribalism of Verona with the florid style of Venice Beach in order restore the present tense to a tragedy that feels like it predates all of civilisation”.
Interestingly, this leads into a quick discussion on adaptations. Ten Things I Hate About You may just be the greatest 90s teen film of all time (fight me if you disagree). It is a fabulous retelling of The Taming of the Shrew, updating the gossipy, jock-esque behaviour that Shakespeare captures so perfectly within his society by transposing it into a high school. Similar comments can be made about Bridget Jones’ Diary as both a book and film as a retelling of Pride and Prejudice, and Clueless as an adaptation that I would argue is better than the book of Emma.
Now of course, these are adaptations and very clearly re-interpretations, not faithful translations, but they themselves offer us the question of where the line exists between a retelling of the same story but in a different medium, and a distinct and new story, exists. There is also a somewhat compelling argument that The Lion King is based on Hamlet. If you happen to be well acquainted with the play, you too can sit glass of wine in hand and obnoxiously comment on the departures from the play throughout this children’s movie while also militantly skipping Mufasa’s death scene because you were too traumatised by it when you were four… or you could just read this article.
Ultimately, when books are made into movies, things are going to be different. If you imagined Dumbledore to be really tall and really thin, Michael Gambon was going to disappoint you. Sometimes the changes movies make are small deviations, or simply retellings of the story within the context of the modern world (like Gatsby). Sometimes the movies simply change things that happen, or place such a significant emphasis on certain parts of the plot, that the original message and original story has become transfigured. When this happens, perhaps it is best not to use the reductive phrase “the book was better than the film”, but instead to view them as distinct stories that happen to have similar elements.
But sometimes interpretations of books and the need to alter the specifics of the story in translating from page to screen can go awry. I ask you to look no further than the below evidence, which obviously arises from a distinct vision, but has perplexed some of the best minds of our generation:
