“If there’s one thing I hate, it’s the movies. Don’t even mention them to me.” (The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger)
Last week I wrote about the daggers that rip through an author’s heart when an actor perceived as all wrong is cast in the movie version of their book. But as much as it hurts to see a beloved character misrepresented, it may hurt even more when changes to tone and plot produce a movie the author feels buries (or even loses) the original intent of the work.
Below are several authors who would rather you read their book than watch the movie:
Daphne du Maurier thoroughly disliked Alfred Hitchcock’s film version of her short story “The Birds,” despite the fact that the director had adapted two previous films from her work (Jamaica Inn and Rebecca). In her mind, Hitchcock’s decision to set the film in northern California instead of the wild, isolated Cornish coast she wrote about tamed the stark elemental tone of her work, warming it beyond effectiveness.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Stephen King hated Stanley Kubrick’s take on The Shining, because he found the film’s tone too emotionally cold. He also felt that the movie downplayed the novel’s supernatural elements to focus instead on domestic tragedy, which had never been his intent. He later described the film as “a fancy car without an engine.”
Ernest Hemingway detested the film version of A Farewell to Arms, claiming that it put too much emphasis on the romantic elements of the novel and not enough on the depiction of wartime brutality.
Winston Groom found the film version of Forrest Gump overly sentimental and depoliticized. Much to his displeasure, plot points from the book were omitted, and some language and sex scenes were sanitized.
Ken Kesey (One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest) wanted the film to be narrated from Chief Bromden’s perspective, as it is in the book, and was upset when told that a movie which focused on the point of view of a deaf, mute Indigenous American would be impossible to sell to any studio. Although Kesey could not bring himself to watch the movie for a very long time because of this change, he eventually conceded that he was glad the film had been made.
Sometimes a film adaptation inspires more of a reaction from an author than mere loathing. It’s one thing to disagree with a movie interpretation of your work, quite another to carry the remorse Anthony Burgess felt regarding the film adaptation of A Clockwork Orange. The film’s gratuitous violence angered Burgess, as did the fact that the book’s redemptive ending was changed. He regretted that “[his book] became known as the raw material for a film which seemed to glorify sex and violence.” In Burgess’s case, the film did more than dismay him: it made him wish that he’d never written the book at all.
Sometimes a bad experience with screen rights has a lasting impact on an author’s future choices. Back in the 1940s, J.D. Salinger was eager to sell Samuel Goldwyn the film rights to his short story “Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut.” Salinger changed his mind when the movie, retitled My Foolish Heart, debuted to scathing reviews. Worse, his story had been turned into a melodrama that bore little resemblance to what he’d written. Salinger never again permitted film adaptations of his works, despite repeated overtures by various producers. (His bestseller The Catcher in the Rye has been called the “holy grail of screen rights.”)
P.L. Travers (Mary Poppins), too, was so upset by the sugary movie that replaced her darker book that she refused to allow any future screen adaptations of her work. Her displeasure spilled into other versions as well: when British producer Sir Cameron Mackintosh spoke to her about a staged musical of Mary Poppins, Travers initially refused. She did not agree to the project until Mackintosh promised that no one connected with the film version–in fact, no Americans at all–would be involved in the development phase of the stage production.
It’s possible that authors can never be satisfied with any interpretation of their book other than their own. Can anyone ever love and know our characters, our stories, our plots as completely as we do? I have no idea how well I’d handle suggestions regarding film adaptations of my work.
But I’d love the chance to find out.
My test-case is The Lord of the Rings. In the wake of Amazon Prime’s calamitous attempts to vampirise Tolkien’s concepts, many critics have harked back to the Peter Jackson trilogy as the quintessence of powerful and respectful film adaptation. Jackson himself said he wanted nothing in his films that didn’t sort with Tolkien’s original vision.
Really? I’ll grant Jackson gave it a go, but his chosen genre’s addiction to mindless spectacle and low-ball bums-on-seats appeals to a mass audience completely bulldozed both the story Tolkien wanted to tell and the questions he wanted to ask. ‘Faithful’? Only when viewed alongside Bezos’s ludicrous Rings of Power parody.
Whew! Nothing like indulging your cranky old inner geezer!🙂
Geezer away, Bob.
Your comments also remind me that no matter how authors envision both their characters and their stories, there’s no control over how a reader might perceive them. Who knows how many “versions” of the same character are out there in readers’ imaginations? The ability to meet your reader/viewer wherever they are is part of storytelling, too (and admittedly different from someone hoping to make money off of an original concept).
Tough call. Good films have sometimes done a better job of communicating the original author’s intentions than the authors themselves, but they’re a little few and far between. Effective authors play a tight balancing act between trying to appeal to an audience (which at its most extreme descends to mere populist pandering) and challenging expectations (which at its far end leads to pretension and preciousness).
Waddya gonna do, huh?
Except write poetry? Which some days feels like the equivalent of shouting ‘Game called on account of earthquake!’ and sweeping all your pieces off the board . . .
I have enjoyed the adaptations of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels on HBO. I believe she was involved in some way. The actors brought a depth to the characters and although some of the narrative was lost the rich storytelling remained true to the source material
I haven’t read Elena Ferrante’s books, although I know that at least one of them is at the top of the NY Times compilation of best summer books. I need to start a new list of books to read!