From Bookcase to Screen: The Adaptations I’ve Watched Again and Again, Part 1

Multiverses, time-travelling, and fancy editing can’t replace a great story and compelling characters.

When I was a kid it was Cherry Ames (all 27) and Little Women. In high school, The Group (All girls! And wow. One gets fitted for a diaphragm. Another one has trouble breast-feeding. And one is a stylish lesbian!) Goodbye Columbus (Not just Newark, not just Jews, but the author actually went to my high school) Lady Chatterley’s Lover (penis descriptions, and she takes it in her hand!) My first miserable year in college, every existing James Bond. The books I read for pleasure—not for school, not to impress the boys, not for edification.

Pleasure. That was my main criterion in selecting movies for this piece. The second was it had to be based on, adapted from, or inspired by a book. Not necessarily a great book, sometimes a pretty crappy book, but one I’ve read and enjoyed. And—to pare the list down further—I had to have seen it roughly as many times as I’d read Little Women.

Putting the list together, I’m amazed at how many of them there are. And how few of them involve alternative universes, car-chases, or left me wondering what time we’re in now or who’s doing what to whom. If I’m going to see something more than once, I don’t want it to be just in order to figure out what’s going on.

I’ve discovered (or had reinforced) some things while putting this together:

One: Some of the greatest movies were made from fairly crappy but enjoyable novels.

Two: Letting the author of the book write the screenplay is sometimes—but not always—a great idea.

Three: My favorite versions of classics were not always faithful to the original, but for a reason.

Four: I really like movies about women and girls.

Five: Writers Matter.

Six: Even paring my list down drastically, I need two posts. So this will be part one. Part two coming up later.

The Godfather and Jaws

Predictable but unavoidable choices. And with some things in common: Both made from best-sellers with very little (if any) “literary” value. Both made by relatively inexperienced directors who didn’t know what they were getting into. Both ran into a boatload of problems which almost de-railed production; it’s virtually a miracle they each got made.

Jaws (1975)

[Directed bySteven Spielberg, Screenplay byPeter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb. Based onJaws by Peter Benchley. Produced by Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown. Starring Roy Scheide, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary]

If ever there was a movie that proves writing matters, it’s Jaws. In 1973 producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown read the novel and enlisted author Peter Benchley to write the screenplay. Benchley did 3 drafts, none of which satisfied Stephen Spielberg, because Benchley (no doubt feeling attached to his book) included numerous subplots that detracted from what Spielberg, with his movie-making instincts honed from childhood, wanted to focus on: the shark and the men pursuing it. So next it was given to esteemed Playwright Howard Sackler (Pulitzer Prize for “The Great White Hope” and not related to “those” Sacklers, the weird and corrupt ones currently the subject of Netflix ‘s “Painkiller”) But Sackler’s draft turned out to be too dark for Spielberg and the main characters weren’t relatable or likeable. So Spielberg asked comedy writer and friend Carl Gottlieb to add some playfulness and humor. Gottlieb wound up rewriting the entire script in collaboration with Spielberg. So if you’ve wondered how Jaws managed to be terrifying, funny, and warmly human all at the same time, there you have it.

Trivia that some of you may know: There were huge problems getting the mechanical shark—named Bruce—to work. And Bruce was kind of an essential character. So Spielberg, asking himself “what would Hitchcock do?,” made what was one of the smartest decisions for the movie. Except for a few (gruesome) scenes the shark would be an unseen predator, whose approaching presence would be signaled by the escalating ”dun dun dun dun” of John William’s score. Tell me you weren’t on the edge of your seat when that music of dread alerted you that something horrible was about to happen (or almost happen) to some unsuspecting swimmer.

There’s a lot I could say about the varied pleasures of Jaws, but it would be a post in itself. For me—and lots of others—the most unforgettable scene was the extraordinary Robert Shaw, as Quint the shark hunter (Shaw also made the best Henry VIII I’ve ever seen, in A Man For All Seasons) telling the tale (most of it roughly accurate) of what happened to the men on the USS Indianapolis:

If you’re interested in a great documentary about the making of Jaws:

The Godfather (1972) [ Directed byFrancis Ford Coppola. Screenplay by Mario Puzo And Francis Ford Coppola. Based onThe Godfatherby Mario Puzo. Produced byAlbert S. Ruddy. Starring Marlon Brando, Al Pacino,James Caan, Richard Castellano,Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton]

There’s not much that I can add that hasn’t already been written—except, perhaps, that if you’re going to make a movie about Italians, hire an Italian to do it. Robert Evans, Paramount’s innovative and brilliant studio head, insisted on it—and that’s why if you want to make a great “gravy” for your pasta, you can follow Clemenza’s instructions.

At first, Francis Ford Coppola dismissed Mario Puzo’s bestseller as “pretty cheap stuff.” Which it is. But it provided the basic characters and plot scaffolding for a masterpiece of a (ultimately a three-part) family saga that altered the genre of “gangster movie” forever. There’s no “Sopranos” without The Godfather.

Some real gangsters turned out to be a help, too. Like Bruce the under-performing shark, they began as an obstacle, upset that the film would feed into Italian-American stereotypes. As producer Albert Ruddy tells it, the window of his car was shot out, and a note left on the dashboard that read “Shut down the movie—or else.” But Ruddy reassured them that the movie was going to be about a warm and close Italian family, not a bunch of thugs. And although that had been Coppola’s conception from the start, the fact that the mob was looking over his shoulder undoubtedly reinforced his commitment. (Besides, Coppola was more interested in creating a metaphor for American capitalism than the abuses of the mafia.) The script (a collaboration of Puzo and Coppola, with genius editing by Robert Towne) was purged (at the insistence of Joseph Columbo, head the Italian-American Civil Rights League) of a few references to “mafia” and replaced with other terms and the league gave its support for the script.

My choice of clip is another famous monologue. (I’ve often wondered how he could stand having his jaw pushed out that way—but it was perfect.)

And if you want to see an entertaining, but probably not entirely accurate, fictionalized series on the making of the film, told from Ruddy’s point of view, check out The Offer.

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

[Directed byRoman Polanski. Screenplay byRoman Polanski.Based onRosemary's Baby by Ira Levin. Produced byWilliam Castle Starring Mia Farrow,John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer, Maurice Evans, Ralph Bellamy]

Another inspired project of Robert Evans¹, Rosemary’s Baby was written and directed by Roman Polanski, based on Ira Levin's 1967 novel of the same name. Evans became interested even before the book, which was to become a best-seller, was published (low-budget horror-film maker William Castle had given him the galleys) and Pulanski was Evans’ choice (supposedly—as Trufault tells it anyway, after Hitchcock turned it down.)

Pulanski’s genius—which many others have emulated since—was to “evoke menace and sheer terror in familiar routines” and settings. No haunted houses, no grotesque monsters. The coven of witches who engineer the Satanic rape and oversee Rosemary’s pregnancy—“it’s just some fresh herbs and vitamins, dontcha know”—seem just like any pestering old couple who live down the hall. Rosemary and her ambitious husband Guy (who has struck a deal with the devil) hang wall-paper, make fondu, browse NYC bookstores, and have parties just like any ordinary over-privileged yuppie couple. Rosemary has nice girlfriends who cluck over her when she’s getting too thin and pale (even for Mia Farrow in her most waif-like role.) And Charles Grodin (as the young, modern-minded obstetrician whose aid she seeks when she realizes what’s going on) looks like such a nice, pleasant guy that viewers are as shocked as Rosemary when he (unwittingly) hands her over to the coven. Nothing portends evil as in the typical horror movie. The music is a “lalala” lullaby (sung in the soundtrack by Farrow) that only sounds creepy because we know she’s not going to be rocking a darling Gerber baby. Those “health” shakes Minnie Castevet (Ruth Gordon, whose jangling jewelry enters every room before her) are not really “packed with vitamins” and that baby has the strangest eyes:

Trivia: Outside shots of the fictional Upper West Side apartment building—called “The Branford” in the movie—were of The Dakota, where John Lennon lived and near the front door of which he was shot.

Sense and Sensibility (1995) and Clueless (1995)

[Sense and Sensibility directed byAng LeeScreenplay byEmma ThompsonBased onSense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. Starring Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant]

[Clueless directed byAmy Heckerling. Written byAmy Heckerling. Produced byScott Rudin and Robert Lawrence. StarringAlicia Silverstone, Paul Rudd, Stacey Dash.]

There are many terrific films based on Jane Austen’s novels, but these two—yes, if you didn’t know it before, Clueless is a modernized version of Emma—are my favorites.

Ang Lee’s movies have never disappointed me (The Ice Storm is on my longer list.) But what makes this Sense and Sensibility a repeat watch for me (rivaled perhaps by the BBC Pride and Prejudice with the Colin Firth swimming scene) is Emmas Thompson, both for her performance as Elinor Dashwood, and for her screenplay (which won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.)

It was Thompson’s first screenplay, she spent five years drafting numerous revisions in between various acting jobs, and the studio was really nervous about the fact her name was not associated with script-writing. They hoped Ang Lee as director would compensate with distributors.

Like Greta Gerwig, whose Little Women I’ll discuss in my next post, coming later this week, Thompson managed to be both inventive—adding scenes and details not in the original—and faithful to Austen. It’s a kind of alchemy that focuses on personality rather than exact reproduction, and in making the characters more “readable” to a modern audience, brings them to life in a way that, for me at least, is as delicately delicious as reading the novel. My favorite example is a scene that made me gasp the first time I saw it. Elinor doesn’t react in the novel the way Thompson writes and portrays her here (actually, I’d never seen the emotions of any character, in any movie, break through quite like that.) But what Thompson does exquisitely conveys all that Elinor has held back until that moment. It’s a visceral expression of what Austen has conveyed about Elinor throughout the novel, and it’s why the classically comedic ending seems earned rather than hokey.

(Thompson does something similar, although her tears aren’t happy, in Love Actually, when, having discovered that the Christmas present she thought was a necklace for her turns out to be a Joni Mitchell album and the necklace meant for someone else. She’s a genius at eruptions of the heart.)

I can’t leave this movie without a little emotion-eruption of my own for Alan Rickman, who plays the husband in Love Actually and Colonel Brandon, Marianne’s suitor in Sense and Sensibility. I’m not one to react very strongly to the death of most celebrities, but Rickman’s death got me in the feels.

As for Clueness, this iconic clip should be sufficient (watch the whole thing, including the hilarious classroom scene.)

And for all of you who are irritated with me for choosing Sense and Sensibility over Pride and Prejudice (1995) here’s “that” scene:

The Age of Innocence (1993)

[Director: Martin Scorsese. Screenplay by Martin Scorsese and Jay Cocks. Adapted from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, Starring Michelle Feiffer, Daniel Day-Lewis, Winona Ryder.]

After Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Goodfellas (all of which I’ve seen many times) I wasn’t expecting a romantic drama from Martin Scorsese. It turns out, though, that he’d been wanting to do one. And in Scorsese on Scorsese he describes why his friend (and co-screenwriter) Jay Cocks thought Edith Wharton’s novel would be the one for him to adapt, as it “deals with a period of New York history that has been neglected….code and ritual, and love that's not unrequited but unconsummated—which pretty much covers all the themes I usually deal with."

This isn’t a movie that turns up on many “best films” lists, but it’s one I love. And I couldn’t do better than Tyler Aquilina’s blurb, so I won’t try:

“Edith Wharton's Pulitzer-winning novel sings on the page, the author's deliciously wry prose painting the world of late-1800s, upper-class New York in vivid detail. In Martin Scorsese's hands, the remarkably faithful 1993 adaptation sings on screen as well, with those vivid details coming to life through sumptuous production design, costumes, and cinematography. Oh, and there's the story, of course: high-society lawyer Newland Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis) finds himself irresistibly drawn to his fiancée's cousin Ellen (Michelle Pfeiffer), a free-spirited opposite to Archer's bride-to-be (Winona Ryder). Their forbidden, simmering romance anchors an enveloping portrait of a bygone era and a caste as vicious, in its own way, as any of the Mafia clans in Scorsese's crime movies.”

Personally, the tentative stroking of a gloved hand (especially if it’s Daniel Day-Lewis doing the stroking) gets me hotter than writhing naked bodies. So I was tempted to post one of the scenes in which Archer and Ellen get closer…and closer…and closer….but then…oh God, he’s going to leave the carriage! Or in her ‘receiving’ room: His mouth is on her neck, then her foot, and he kisses her. But now she’s breaking away from him, reminded of his engagement. Which the society strangling them is also constantly reminding them of—subtly, politely, but unmistakably—which this scene captures (narrator is Joanne Woodward.)

Gone Girl (2014)

[Director: David Fincher. Screenplay by David Fincher and Gillian Flynn, Adapted from: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. Starring, Rosamund Pike, Ben Affleck, Carrie Coons, Neil Patrick Harris]

At one point many years ago, I took a writing course from an author who’d had a recent best-seller. I was thinking about writing a novel, loosely based on a period in my own life and alternating between the viewpoints of three characters. My teacher praised my writing but advised me to adopt one viewpoint. Not unique to her, that advice was given in every writing handbook she assigned—and they were “state of the art.”

If that ever really was the “rule”—my writing friends nowadays are astonished to hear it—Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl did away with that.Told in alternating points of view, the novel chronicles the relationship between Amy and Nick Dunne, whose relationship begins in strong mutual appreciation and attraction, but begins to deteriorate after Nick loses his job and they relocate from New York to Missouri. Then, one day, Amy disappears. Up until roughly halfway through the book, Nick’s search for Amy, interspersed with reflections on their marriage, his resentments, and his eventual affair comprise his section, while Amy’s is a diary that shows her to have been giddily in love with a husband who neglects her when she isn’t the cool girl he’s expecting her to be. Then, halfway through the book, Flynn employs what has since become known as the “Gone Girl twist.” It’s revealed that Amy has concocted the diary, staged her own disappearance and faked her death, with the goal of framing Nick for it.

It’s a spellbinding, mind-twisting, tremendously entertaining read, and I’ve only given away so much because I’m pretty sure you’ve read it. Everyone has, haven’t they? Certainly almost every writer of thrillers since then has tried to imitate it in one way or another. And then there’s the movie, directed by David Fincher and starring Rosamund Pike as gone girl and Ben Affleck as her husband Nick.

Flynn was hired to write the screenplay, something that had her feeling “at sea a lot of times,” Then a first-time screenwriter, Flynn later admitted that she was “kind of finding my way through,” but—although it was virtually unprecedented for an author to continue on after the first draft—Fincher worked with Flynn for all the re-drafting: "... he [Fincher] responded to the first draft and we have kind of similar sensibilities. We liked the same things about the book, and we wanted the same thing out of the movie." I’m convinced that keeping Flynn as co-writer throughout the production contributed to the success of the movie, which was mentioned many times when I asked my Facebook friends for their favorite film adapted from a book. (I’ll post the whole list in my next piece.)

When asked why the book was so successful (and so widely imitated, encouraging a whole raft of female characters venting their rage), Flynn has said: “I certainly think that the acknowledgment of female anger as a viable emotion, as something that should be dealt with and acknowledged and appreciated and women feeling that way was one of the reasons that so many people connected to Gone Girl.” Especially true of the iconic “cool girl” speech, truncated for the movie but still pretty damned effective:

PART TWO COMING SOON:

HEARTBURN, THE HOURS, YENTL, MALCOM X, MEAN GIRLS, LITTLE WOMEN, ARE YOU THERE, GOD? IT’S ME, MARGARET.

PLUS THE ENTIRE LIST OF FAVORITES THAT I DIDN’T HAVE SPACE TO DISCUSS. PLUS THE FAVORITES OF MY FACEBOOK FRIENDS.

PLUS: CURRENTLY STREAMING

1. For entertaining autobiography of Robert Eveans and even more entertaining screen adaption, see The Kid Stays in the Picture.