3 Great Movies Adapted From Books (Pt.3)

When on my M.A for film and writing, I developed a way of looking at adaptations that made it possible to rate how effective the adaptation from the book was. Here are the three maxims if you will, that I developed:

• The same/similar atmosphere
• Speech reflecting the ideas and themes of the novel
• Characters which have similarities to the characters in the book

Through this, there is really no way that the director or screenwriter could change the basic premise of the source material to suit the movie. If you take the same atmosphere of the source material and have the speech of the characters reflecting the same themes of the book then you need to link it into a plot-line and the only way to do that effectively would be to use the storyline from the source material. When it comes to the characters, the adaptation needs to be aware that the book itself may be plot-driven and descriptive, the movie is going to be character-driven whether they like it or not. The characters are going to carry the story unless, like Quentin Tarantino, you can afford to push in a narrator and make it work. But be careful because it does not work all of the time.

Let's have a look at three great movies that were effective adaptations from books. Also, don't worry if you don't see your favourites. My email is in my bio so get in touch if you want to seriously see something soon, but I will do my best to include more different types of adaptations in further parts to this series.

If you want to have a look at part one and part two to the series, click on the links.

Part One

Part Two

American Psycho

‘American Psycho’ is a brilliant example of a book changed ever so slightly in order to fit the cinema audience. I would state that the book is a lot darker than the film but, for the film, the atmosphere needed to be changed in order to aim at a bigger audience so that there would not be too many restrictions on it. The speech definitely reflects the time in which the book is set and therefore, when we get this big-time Wall Street culture, we can understand where it comes in because of the items that are used such as very old cellphones etc. And finally, there is definitely massive similarities between Christian Bale and the character of Patrick Bateman in the book, he really embodies the craziness of the character who suppresses his thoughts and feelings under the guise of a businessman.

Anatomy of a Murder

When looking at “Anatomy of a Murder” we need to look at how the characters interact with each other. If you read the book, you will note that there is a hell of a lot of dialogue and honestly, this is a plus for the movie because the screenwriter does not have to imagine situations too much of the time. After this, we have the atmosphere that is built up. When you read the book, you get this feeling of uncertainty, something is twisted, there is something being hidden from the reader. When we watch the film, we get the very same emotion from the way the victim and the lawyer are interacting with each other - there is always something being hidden. This makes for a brilliant adaptation.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

I may be a little biased because this is one of my favourite movies ever. But when we read the book, we get this episodical look at Jesse James and Robert Ford’s partnership and in the film, we get a very similar thing. But when it comes to the narration, it is even more brilliant because of the fact the narration matches up to certain parts of the book absolutely. The screenwriter definitely took into account the way in which the characters interacted within a story-like setting. The narration, the episodes - especially the one where they take Jesse James’ dead body to display it, and then the characters and how they present themselves as outlaws in a non-stereotypical sense are all amazing. But my favourite thing will always be the flawed nature of Jesse James. He is not just a myth, he is incredibly and painfully human and he is actually a terrible person. The film makes no cover-up effort whatsoever.