Films that are better than the books that they are are based on

As many Cinephiles already know too-well, there are endless number of average or really bad films that are based on really amazing books… This got me thinking about the examples for the opposite of this. Are there any movies that you really like that are based on books that you didn’t like much or, at least, weren’t as good as its movie?

In my personal opinion, I thought Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting was an unbelievable movie that added a lot to me. I also read the book by Irvine Welsh, which was also an incredibly good book. However, I must say that I definitly preferred the movie. Perhaps it is because of the film’s out-of-this world good glam-rock soundtrack. Or perhaps it is due to the visual power of the films scenery and its visually stylish misfit protagonists that reminded me of myself in highschool… Or more importantly, maybe just because, in addition to everything, I thought the movie presented a lot of interesting and timely dilemmas that weren’t that much present in the book, such as the main one about the commodification of everything in our so-called Modern Society. I also thought Boyle did an incredible job in terms of mood of the movie, which is a lot lighter and energetic compared to the book, which in a lot more serious and explicit way deal with political issues like rape, AIDS, and unemployment.

Another movie that I liked better than it’s book is “Fight Club.” Even though, just like its the case with "Trainspotting"’s book, the book of “Fight Club” by Chuck Palahniuk was also an incredibly well-written and original book, however I still did enjoyed the movie better. Perhaps it is due to the ending of the movie, which is one of my all time favorite endings (SPOILERS AHEAD: where we see Helena Bonham Carter’s character holding hands with Edward Norton on the top of a skyscraper, as all the buildings around them start to collapse, they watch this catastrophe peacefully while “Where is my mind?” by The Pixies starts playing…) All I can say is: What an ending!!!…

I haven’t read Children of Men, but it’d be hard-pressed to equal the film.
There are many examples from the days of noir, if you ask me, but perhaps it’s just that I’m not as in love with the literary antecedents of noir as I am with the films that result.

“Crash” by David Cronenberg is one of my favorite films. The Ballard’s book is just… cheap literature.

Geronimo, I vehemently disagree with with you about Crash. The film can stand on it’s own as a Cronenberg joint, that’s fine: the book however is an innerspace epic. With Crash, Ballard approached the horizon of Burroughs. Having abandoned his own experiments with cut-up literature, Ballard push deeper into his psyche than most writers would dare to even imagine, let alone live the process and put it on paper. The result is an intense examination of his own shadow: upturning dark stones in his very human, open sexuality and juxtaposing it against the zeitgeist of a corrupted, mechanical, capitalist society where consciousness functions as automata. The book has a lot to do with Marshall McLuhan’s work “The Medium is the Message”. Cronenberg, although proficient in many ways at taking these ideas and translating them to film (Videodrome), fails to embody either the inverted poetic sensibility of Ballard’s Crash, or his machine rhythms of psychobiology-gone-bad. I might refer you to Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch, also not a good book-to-screen adaptation if you care about the writing itself. You cannot take these kind of films and compare them to the literature from which they sprang: because the books do things that only books can do, and they exist in part as a reflex/reflective statement on the history of published literature. I felt the same about Gilliam’s Hunter S Thompson trip Fear and Loathing: Gilliam doesn’t really touch the veins of cynicism and bloated ironic self-hatred that coarse through and within HST’s words. But I digress: I seriously object to anyone calling Ballard’s work “cheap” without giving some reason or argument. (Although I did do the same thing to Salo once here in the forum, so I can’t really complain.)

Oh, and Halim, while I’m here: I didn’t like Trainspotting (film) for exactly the same reasons you stated: Boyle sanitized the story. How to make heroin addiction, rape, unemployment, dead end working class nihilism, prostitution and an AIDS epidemic hip? take the weight out of it: speed up the action, move it along with a popular soundtrack. Although Underworld is a great song.

This topic is a minefield of subjectivity.
But then again, what isn’t?

True, T. I didn’t see the things you say in the Ballard book. Perhaps “cheap” was the wrong word… I prefer Burroughs and his imaginery.

Burroughs is the wrecking ball of modern language, standing on the shoulders of Joyce. Of all the Beats, he beat it down hardest. So yeah, I completely agree: but as far as Ballard goes: he lives in the suburbs just outside London, in a tiny concrete hamlet called Ashford. And his visions are drawn almost exclusively from meditation on this space: hence the ‘innerspace’ tag that was coined to describe his work. It’s very English, his work: he pierces a crust of socially repressed desires and eviscerates the meat much like an African holy man reading entrails. You can’t really read his stuff in a conventional sense: like Burroughs and like Joyce, you have to let the words/rhythms/meaning (or absence of it) wash into you. Admittedly, Crash isn’t an easy book to like. And in its time was condemned as foul and gratuitous. But like many books that get this tag (American Psycho, Naked Lunch, Soft Machine, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, everything by De Sade, to name a few), time reveals/redeems them as criticisms of the society that birthed them, and we are better off for someone having upturned the stone than left it as monument to human fear of humanity itself.

I’m still trying to think of a book that was ‘worse’ than the film. Although I haven’t ever been able to track it down, apparently ‘Elevator to the Gallows’ was just pulp when Louis Malle read it and saw its potential: and he had to completely invent Jeanne Moreau’s character, because she just wasn’t present as anything more than a sexist device in the original text.

So many of my favorites – from “Gatsby” to “The Tin Drum” and “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” to “In Cold Blood” – have been served reasonably well by the films that followed, even with the compromise inherent in the move off the shelf. But movies that clearly outshone their source material? I’ll go with “Jaws” and “The Godfather,” popular entertainment on the page, certainly, but instantly iconic once they hit the screen.

‘The Godfather’ translated well into celluloid. Then again, give a director like Francis Ford Coppola any book and he’d be able to create a film out of it that’s nothing short of a masterpiece.

T^ I completely understand why you felt like Boyle sanitize serious political issues such as “heroin addiction, rape, unemployment, dead end working class nihilism, prostitution and an AIDS epidemic”in the movie. Before I say anything else, I should first say again that I thought the book of “Trainspotting” was fantastic… It was one of rare books that I couldn’t stop reading for hours and hours and hours. That being said. To clarify why I like the movie “Trainspotting” better; firstly and most importantly, it has a lot to with a strong and lasting feeling that the movie and/or the protagonist Mark injected – to use the correct phrase- to me, that the book failed to do so.

For me, ‘Trainspotting’ is the quintessential coming-of-age movie that precisely captures the feeling of coming-of-age in the late 20th century. Through the movie a lot of horrible things happen around Mark and to him, starting with the pressure from his clueless parents, his bullying and junky friends, his emotionally abusive girlfriend, his terrifying heroine addiction, and his best friends death from AIDS. Though what ever happens, Mark always moves (or tries to move forward) and that’s why at the end of the movie it is indicated that there is still hope for Mark and finally he is taking control over his life if it is possible in our world, where we are defined by only through the commodities that we use. For instance, I thought this was an incredibly interesting way of looking at our consumerist way of life, and this motif was constantly brought up in the movie,(most famously in the opening lines of the movie, where Mark gives a speech that goes like “Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a starter home. Choose dental insurance, leisure wear a…” This was most one of the motifs that I thought was missing from the book, or wasn’t done illuminated as much it was in the movie.

Many film critics criticized the movie for aestheticizing heroin addiction and the junky-way-of-live. Though, My reading of it was completely differently. I thought Boyle showed us both the ups and downs of addiction. I think if the movie glorified and aestheticize one thing, that is the care-free feeling of the youth and, the powerful moment that you decide, regardless of all the horrible things that are going on around you, to move forward and you have control over your life. Even though, at the end it’s felt unclear whatever Mark will leave Heroin and go clean, he is most definitely still not the same person that he was in the beginning of the film. At the end of the movie, Mark ends up clearly with more options, experience, money and a lot less binding-ties such as his clingy friends and family, i.e. more freedom to start over his life… With this ending, I thought That’s Boyle chose not to victimize the protagonist, but tried highlight coming-0f-age is possible even in the most harsh and terrifting conditions. That’s I thought through various techniques ( the witty dialogues, the good-looking-hip characters, and a ‘mostly’ upbeat soundtrack) Boyle kept the movie’s mood a bit lighter, compared to the one of the book. Thus, in my opinion, the movie “Trainspotting” is more about coming-of-age than drug addiction or political commentary on the various live conditions of living in UK/Scotland; it is about dealing( or trying deal) with the harsh realities of life and trying to come of age in that surrounding. That is why I love this movie and think it is one of best coming-of-age movies. Each time I watch it, takes me into a gloomy and equally glamorous territory, where the world is unclear and you swim to find a voice to claim yours, in this purgatory that is between childhood and adulthood. At then end, as it unclear, whether Mark will really choose life as he claims, but one thing is clear that he finally found his voice and came of age, whatever that means for him. And, there are a few reasons why I ‘chose’ the movie over the book. Though, I must also say that I am bias in my opinions, since the movie with its characters, music and atmosphere, brought back my own coming-of-age to my mind, which took place relatively the same time as the movie with similar characters dominating my life… Though, just like Mark at the end of the movie, now I have matured enough to look back at my life and say ’I chose life," just not the one that was commodified and forced on me by the society…

Halim this is very true. On reflection, I realize that I don’t dislike the film: nor do I think it’s better than the book. I kind of see them as separate entities. I get kind of edgy about discussion of British cinema generally, mainly because it seems to be de rigeur to cleanse it of home truth to get an international market distribution. But your point about it being a coming of age tale is very true. I just remember though how quickly heroin became super-chic in London after the film came out.

Viaggio in Italia by Rossellini. Based on Colette’s “Duo”

The only one I can think of is Jaws. But then, I haven’t read the book of Trainspotting.

I haven’t read Woman in the dunes but with the amazing score by Takemitsu who is making live the sand and the great photography of the movie I can’t imagine a book make me feel like when I’m watching the movie. But when you read a Kobo Abe’s novel’s the images and sounds comes by themselves. Teshigahara and Takemitsu probably didn’t had to search a lot to make this movie. they just interpreted what they saw and heard while reading. To resume, Movies based Kobo Abe’s novels are the only movies that have the same values of the book that they were based on that I saw…But here, I’m talking about adaptation. it’s different of based on I think. Because you can always take a bad novel containing a story with an interesting potential and base a great movie on this history but at this time it is useless to compare the book and the movie in my opinion….In this case, I would have named the topic: “Great movies that are based on bad books”…

(I know, my English probably look awful (It is 3am it may even be awesomely awful). I simply hope that you understood the same thing as what I wanted to say. :p)

2001: a space odyssey
No country for old men
salo
the shining
One Flew over the cuckoo’s nest (potentially. the book is pretty damn good)

SALO is better than De Sade’s original writing?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Whoa…. I can feel another Salo bomb dropping…

I agree with “The Godfather.” I didn’t think it was Puzo’s best work but obviously a great film.

I thought “The Hours” was better than the Cunningham book.

“Gangs of New York” was way better than the Asbury book though if I remember correctly, they didn’t relate very much to each other.

The Godfather
2001 a space odyssey
Goldfinger (yeah, I’m a Bond fan… so what)
Straw Dogs
Vertigo

2001 isn’t based on the book 2001, at least not really.

Moderated

Art—

Well, there are three Alice related movies in the making now. The American Mcgee-esque one (thank god Sarah Michelle Gellar dropped out), the Tim Burton one (Depp maybe to play Mad Hatter?) and “Phantasmagoria” (the Marilyn Manson one mainly about Lewis Carroll). I only have hope for the Burton version and even then, I’m skeptical. Though, to be fair, I’m also going to be difficult to please considering I was Alice for five total years of my childhood for Halloween.

I agree with you about the Disney version being the least disappointing. Sigh. Perhaps someone will get it right.

One of the best translations from book to screen (even though the book is still very good) is A clockwork orange. It stayed very close to the book and the changes that were made were very necessary and actually make the story flow better. Still a very interesting and entertaining read.

I remember as a kid watching a TV Series of “Alice in Wonderland” which actually haunted me and also mesmerized for a very long time… I am not sure who was the director, but I thought it was best adaptations of the book… Though I also am hopeful about the Tim Burton adaptation, it could be very interesting, to say the least…

Moderated

Let’s see, I think that Sideways was a mediocre novel and the adaptation has a screenplay that I love reading over and over again.

Fight Club is also a better movie than it is a book. That’s not saying much from this angle, still it’s better.

I actually found the 70s version of Slaughterhouse-Five to be as fun and great as the book while not surpassing it of course. I enjoy both of them and I get the same funny feeling.

I think Cuckoo’s Nest would’ve been better if it was from Chief’s point of view like the book. The Film was good, and I’ll admit…I cried at the end of the film when Chief escaped but damnit that only justified that it should’ve been seen through Chief’s eyes. Godfather is easily the best suggestion for an adaptation.

Mao- Guillermo Del Toro will be adapting Slaughterhouse-Five in the future from what Universal has said. After he finishes his Lord of The Rings Prequel and The Hobbit…and possibly sometime around he adapts Frankenstein or some other project. The man has essentially laid out his plans for the next 10 years with Universal. Here’s what Wikipedia says, “After The Hobbit and its follow-up, Del Toro is scheduled to direct four films for Universal; Frankenstein; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; a remake of Slaughterhouse-Five; and Drood, an adaptation of a Dan Simmons novel due for publication in February 2009. He still has his sights set on filming At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft. Drood is expected to be his first project after the two films set in Middle-earth. These projects will fill up his schedule until 2017.”

To Kill a Mockingbird, amazing novel by Harper Lee, the film directed by Robert Mulligan is just brilliant!
Being There, novel by Jerzy Kosinski directed by Hal Ashby
The 39 Steps, novel by John Buchan, directed by Alfred Hitchcock

they’re both based on comix, but the X-Men films & especially Oldboy are both vast improvements on already strong premises.

The Godfather. . .
Fight Club. . .
To Kill A Mockingbird. . .

I don’t how you can say that the three X-Men movies (one great, one okay, one terrible) are better than the decades of X-Men comics. Grant Morrison, Joss Whedon, and Claremont all had great runs on it.
Fight Club is the no brainer. It streamlined the book in a way that didn’t feel dumbed down. Plus it always gives me a laugh when I see someone wearing a Fight Club t-shirt.

A Brief History of Time…….
The Bible…….