Hi everyone!
Last weekend I was in Iceland, for Iceland Noir, a wonderful celebration of all things crime fiction. I was honoured to have been invited over to talk on a panel entitled Screen vs Book, with fellow authors Kevin Wignall and Ann Cleeves, plus actor Íris Tanja Flygenring, moderated by Þóra Karítas Árnadóttir.
In general people talk about the book being better than the film, and while I’d agree in many cases (biased as I am!), I’ve been thinking about examples in which I don’t think that’s true. Or not wholly, anyway.
And here they are…
1. FIGHT CLUB
I love David Fincher’s Fight Club so much that it was almost inevitable that when I eventually read the book, by Chuck Palahniuk, it would slightly disappoint. Tyler Durden, as played by Brad Pitt, just seemed so much more charismatic, and onscreen he has a political agenda that feels much more satisfying. In retrospect, though, I now see that I was biased. When I read the book I already knew about the twist, and had I read it first I’d have probably preferred the book. Palahniuk’s irreverent style is never more in evidence, plus we not only learn more about Marla (one of my favourite characters ever, in any movie) but he gives us a brilliant ending which, dare I say it, is better than in the film.
2. PSYCHO
Hitchcock’s film is so iconic that it’s easy to forget it was based on a book at all. But Robert Bloch’s novel (to which Hitchcock was remarkably faithful) is, if anything, even better. It allows us a real, chilling understanding Norman Bates, and even a little bit of sympathy, plus we get some of the backstory of him and his mother and even learned what happened to her in the end. A brilliant book that became one of the most famous movies ever made.
3. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
Here Fincher does another brilliant job of transferring a book to the screen, though in fact the original Swedish film (directed by Niels Arden Oplev) is just as good. The story here is so gripping, and Lisbeth Salander such a gift of a character, that it’s easy to think it’d be impossible to make a bad movie of the book. For me it’s a rare example of a film surpassing the source material; I find Stieg Larrsson’s novel overly long, with too much superfluous material to be really enjoyable. Boiled down to a two and half hour movie, though, it’s almost perfect.
4. THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
Thomas Harris published his novel , a sequel, in 1988, but in 1991 Jonathan Demme took it and turned it into an Oscar winning movie. He largely retained the plot, with a few changes (implicating Chilton in Lecter’s escape, for example, plus, inevitably, the ending), but it was the stellar performances of Jodie Foster and, particularly, Anthony Hopkins, that lifted the film onto another level. Though much parodied, Hopkins portrayal of Lecter was truly chilling, and it was this that made the character one of the iconic villains of today.
5. UNDER THE SKIN
A film that’s divided people, because it’s so damn weird, but I love it and think it’s a great example of what a truly visionary filmmaker can do with a book. Jonathan Glazer has stripped Michel Faber’s stunning novel back so far that what remains can be summed up in a single sentence. The plot, certainly, has all but gone. However he’s retained the spirit of the novel, and the film he’s created is his own unique vision. We now have two works of art, a book and film that are different yet complimentary, and both brilliant.
So what do you think? Do you tend to prefer the book or the movie? Any examples of when one or the other has surprised you?
LOVE the “Under The Skin” film! As for other instances of the film being as good as (if not better), maybe Jack Clayton’s “The Innocents”? Sorry, Henry James.
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