Balls and Walnuts
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Better than the book
I have a confession: I never finished reading the graphic novel, V for Vendetta. The novel loses steam after Evey’s imprisonment, so I suspect some other book from my TBR pile snagged my attention, and V went unfinished.
After seeing the movie, though, my curiosity got the better of me. I had to see why Alan Moore was so tweaked by the screenplay that he refused to have his name associated with the movie. By the end of the novel, I had gnashed my teeth to bloody stumps —
Okay, that’s hyperbole. Still, V for Vendetta (the graphic novel) made me think about the few times where the movie improves upon the book.
The Godfather (Parts I and II) provides the clearest example of this rare phenomenon. Mario Puzo’s prose needed a strict editing hand, and Coppola, who co-wrote the screenplay with Puzo, provided it. Start with a bang-up screenplay (sorry!) and add spotless performances by some of our best actors, and you have the finest, most important movie on family values ever produced.
Roman Polanski’s The Ninth Gate, based upon Arturo Perez-Reverte’s The Club Dumas, features Johnny Depp as the vulpine rare book dealer Dean Corso. Frank Langella, Lena Olin, and Emmanuelle Seigner each shine in their roles. This is my favorite supernatural movie, thanks to the smart screenplay, great acting, and the avoidance of the usual horror/supernatural tropes: gore and shocks. It gathers momentum and tension from the story itself — no cheap tricks.
The movie outperforms the book once again thanks to wise editing. Without revealing too much, let’s just say the movie omits what has to be the biggest whopper of a red herring* ever included in a mystery novel.
In Angel Heart, written and directed by Alan Parker, Mickey Rourke gives one of the best performances of his career. Private detective Harry Angel is likable, if not downright lovable, which makes his fall from grace all the more tragic. Robert De Niro gives a thoroughly creepy performance, and Lisa Bonet, Charlotte Rampling, and Stocker Fontelieu round out a great cast. Angel Heart is also my favorite soundtrack CD (music by Trevor Jones).
I’m cheating here, because I haven’t read William Hjortsberg’s Falling Angel. Karen read it, though, and gave it such a lukewarm review that I’ve never felt tempted.
And what about V for Vendetta? What, you ask, is the source of suckage in the graphic novel? If I remember correctly, V for Vendetta was Alan Moore’s first graphic novel, and the first novel blues certainly shows. One major character is drawn in such a way that I was certain he had to be V (he has the same leering smile as V’s mask). Several major characters are introduced late in the novel. The fate of one major character (Almond’s wife) is left hanging at the end. Several characters are drawn so similarly that it was a challenge to keep people straight. And what is that one guy’s accent towards the end — Welsh? I couldn’t make head nor tail of it.
More problematic still is the ending, which had a hopeful note in the movie, yet was so grim in the novel that I felt the ending undermined V’s message. Maybe that was Moore’s intention, and maybe I’m wrong to think Moore espouses the same political desires as V. The graphic novel’s final images are of chaos, violence, and isolation. While life in an authoritarian regime seems desolate, it’s hard to see anything good coming out of the world V has wrought.
Don’t get me wrong: the novel has its merits. Evey’s incarceration and her reading of the actress’s memoir — written, on toilet paper, with a stub of pencil — moved me deeply. I think the Wachowskis culled the best elements from the novel, preserved the essential message, and created something more powerful than the original work.
If anyone has a different take on these works, let me know. Also, can you think of any other examples where the movie surpasses the book?
*Over the years, I have received many blank stares when I use this expression. Here’s the definition (from dictionary.com):
Red herring
Something that draws attention away from the central issue, as in Talking about the new plant is a red herring to keep us from learning about downsizing plans. The herring in this expression is red and strong-smelling from being preserved by smoking. The idiom alludes to dragging a smoked herring across a trail to cover up the scent and throw off tracking dogs. [Late 1800s]
“The security of this nation depends upon complete and total compliance,” Sutler says, and we’re urged to hiss.
Such words speak much louder than violent actions in V for Vendetta. This is a film about ideas, not entirely popular ones, that could topple a government faster than bombs if enough people took them to heart. The finale of McTeigue’s movie, when V’s vendetta spreads to the masses, is so revolutionary that I wondered how this movie ever got made, much less distributed by a major studio (in this case, Warner Bros.).
Does it endorse terrorism? Not as much as it decries politicians using fear to rule. More semantics. The future, the film loudly declares, is now.
D.
OK. I’ll vote for Horatio Hornblower.
Novel–dry and mucho-macho with stilted action. “We must fight for Britain!”
A&E adaptation–characters still have stilted motivations, but the acting and screenplay carries the dated sensibilites better than C.S. Forester’s prose did. Besides, Ioan Gruffudd. I mean, really.
Gregory Peck’s Horatio Hornblower wasn’t much improvement on the book, to my mind.
There was one other movie I was going to bring forward, but Ioan distracted me and now my brain isn’t functioning.
(Come see my one-day-late Smart Bitches Day rant if you want to know why my brain cells are less functional than usual. Got myself ALL worked up.)
I never read the original, but I did enjoy the A&E episodes. In that same vein, how about Last of the Mohicans? I never read it, but I have faith in Mark Twain’s poor opinion of James Fenimore Cooper.
Oh yes, “Last of the Mohicans.” I am torn about that one. I have a degree in Literature, so I have a natural bias. I almost always think the book is better than the movie….however, I do have to admit that in the case of this book, the movie is better. The only problem is that it is not the same story. The screenwriter/s changed important pieces of the plot and the main characters were unrecognizable. If they had changed the name of the movie and the names of the characters I would have enjoyed it more. I may have thought to myself “that is kind of like ‘Last of the Mohicans'” but I would not have thought James Fenomore Cooper had been robbed either.
Here’s my question, KariBelle. If someone had made a faithful film version of Last of the Mohicans, would it have been as good as the Daniel Day Lewis version?
I’d have to go with several movies made from Stephen King’s works, mostly his novellas, like “The Body” which became Stand By Me, or The Shawshank Redemption which came from a novella of a similar name, or even The Green Mile. And no disrespect to Steve; I’m a fan, and I read a lot of his stuff, and a good many of the movies suck in comparison, but a few stand out as being better than the book.
(Notice the use of the semi-colon up there? Hey, I went to college.)
Yes, IL, excellent semicolonage. I didn’t even notice it (which, of course, is a good thing).
In the Stephen King vein, I’d add The Shining, where the Kubrick movie spooked me far more than the book did. Especially that tricycle scene. I’ve got the jibblies just thinkin’ about it.
Doug,
No. A movie of “Last of the Mohicans” that was faithful to the book would have sucked donkey balls (notice the “k” in donkey, very funny.)
Actually, I suppose it would be more accurate to say that I would not have liked it and neither would most of the people who like the Daniel Day Lewis movie. Holy Crap!!! Was he HOT in that movie or what????!!!!
In all fairness, there are probably a lot of people, mostly men (yes, I know, very un-PC, but true), who would have liked a faithful version of the movie, but it would not have been a blockbuster. I am trying to think of a modern day author who would be the equivalent, but since that genre is not my cup of tea, I just can’t tell you. The closest would be to say that “Last of the Mohicans” was to early American Literature as “Rambo” is to late 20th century cinema, only much less exciting. Even that is a very flawed comparison, but I imagine you get the idea.
And with all due respect to Mark Twain, who was indeed the superior author, not everyone hated James Fenimore Cooper and his work. Books don’t get to be classics that way. Having said that, I look forward to reading “Tom Sawyer” and “Huckleberry Finn” with my children when they are a little older. I think I sold my copy of “Last of the Mohicans” for beer money as soon as my American Novel class was over.
Pat: The Shining, yes! Good example. The book bored me silly. Another fine Stephen King movie-better-than-story: Graveyard Shift — but that’s only because Brad Dourif gives one hell of a funny performance.
Thanks for the reply, KariBelle. My son read Tom Sawyer this year, btw, but I don’t think he’s quite old enough for Huck Finn (he’s 10). Maybe one of these days I’ll check Cooper out of the library and give him a look.
I disagree about The Shining (among other things, I missed the topiary animals from the book), but there’s another Kubrick movie that’s better than the original book: Dr. Strangelove. The book it was based on, Red Alert by Peter George, is a decent cold-war thriller. The movie, in addition to being brilliant, was different enough for there to be a novelization based on the screenplay which was based on Red Alert.
Another movie that’s better than the original book is Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. In the novel, Gary Wolf’s Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, still photographs of toons are used for newspaper comic strips. I don’t think there’s any mention of toons used as a substitute for film animation. The novel is very good — it’s one of the best SF mysteries I know of. But the movie re-imagines toons so well that it’s better than the book.