Thursday, February 26, 2009
The Book Was Good, The Movie Sucked
How many times have you heard that? It’s true, too. Almost always, the film adaptation of a book is a let-down. There are all kinds of reasons.
It turns out that good plots and an epic dimension translate well from page to screen. But the attempt to scale this model by making midsize movies from literary novels has been an ugly disaster. In our post-The Reader world, I can safely say that I’d rather personally digitize back issues of Talk magazine than see another movie based on Harvey Weinstein’s favorite book. Scott Rudin can fuck off, too.
Heh ...
I think that much of the problem lies in the fact that even the most mundane of novels not only requires, but also expects at least a modicum of intellectual effort, whereas the goal of the average Hollywood film is to make it as intellectually vapid as possible in a misguided attempt to appeal to a wider demographic. I’m not saying this is all bad all the time. Often times, some of the best films are the ones requiring little more than simply sitting along for the joyous ride.
All of this being said, I can think of some very good film adaptations of novels, though:
The Godfather, No Country For Old Men, and Lonesome Dove quickly come to mind.
