Interviews
Interview
What is the book and adaptation?
Book - Don Quixote by Cervantes (1615)
Film - The Man Who Killed Don Quixote by Terry Gilliam (2018)
What did you get to first?
The book, then watched a documentary about Terry Gilliam’s first attempt to make the film before watching the film itself.
What did you prefer and why?
Felt the book was untouchable but admired the director’s 29-year persistence to complete his version.
Was there anything you think was adapted badly in the film?
Felt the adaptation suffered due to the addition of a contemporary subplot involving Russian gangsters.
Was there anything you think was adapted well?
The set selection, especially the windmills and trip to the moon.
Interview
What is the book and adaptation?
Book - The Help by Kathryn Stockett (2009)
Film - The Help by Tate Taylor (2011)
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What did you get to first?
The book.
What did you prefer and why?
The book. The level of detail and depth of characters in the book was much greater than in the film.
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Was there anything you think was adapted badly in the film?
The film was a good adaptation of the book but it lacked detail. I don’t think a person seeing the film, without reading the book, would have enjoyed it as much.
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Was there anything you think was adapted well?
Race relations (or lack of them) in 1960’s southern America was really well demonstrated, particularly the inability of intelligent black women to speak out without fear of losing their jobs and the double standards held by white women of the time. There is a key point in the book and the film where the black housekeeper gets her own back, without any of the white women really being aware, that was well portrayed in both the book and the film.
Interview
What is the book and adaptation?
Book – Northern Lights by Phillip Pullman (2000)
Film - The Golden Compass by Chris Weitz (2007)
What did you get to first?
The book.
What did you prefer and why?
I loved the books but did not enjoy the film. I didn’t like the casting; the main characters did not match those I had imagined. The Dæmons appeared unrealistic in the film, again, not as I had imagined them. The scenery was also not as I had imagined and the story was but a summary of the content of the book. I believe the book was far too detailed and otherworldly to adapt into film although if I had seen the film first I may have enjoyed it more.
Was there anything you think was adapted badly in the film?
Lorek, the bear and the Dæmons, did not appear true to life in the film. In fact, they put me off the film more than anything.
Was there anything you think was adapted well?
The Gyptian families and their location on the canals was well adapted and true to the book.
Comments
A common theme throughout all of the interviews I conducted was that the book was preferred to the screen adaptation. In all three of the interviews the interviewee had first read the book and then seen the screen adaptation. It would have perhaps been interesting to get the perspective of someone who had experienced the screen adaptation and the book the other way round but ultimately due to the fact that the book has to come before the subsequent screen adaptation this is much less likely. Each interview revealed different problems that readers have with enjoying screen adaptations of a book they have read.
One issue that came up was the difference between how a character or scene had been depicted in the screen adaptation and that not matching up with how the reader had imagined it. This ultimately comes down to the subjective experience of reading a book and the mental images that arise from this, it is of course impossible to appease every reader’s individual imagining of how characters or scenes look.
Another problem that was mentioned was the addition of a sub-plot which was not present in the book. This is more about faithfulness to the original book.
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It was also suggested in one case that the story of the film lacked detail and the audience member would need to read the book to get a fuller understanding of the film. This is about expectation of
the audience and whether the screen adaptation exists as complimentary to the book rather than a substitute for it.
Ultimately as a guide to prospective audience members watching a screen adaptation of a book they know and love it is important to try and enjoy the film as an art form in its own right. To compare the two is completely unfair as they are completely different mediums. There is no sense in going into a film expecting it to completely live up to your own imagined story world as you will surely be disappointed. We need to move away from the idea of determining whether a screen adaptation of a book is better or worse than the original text but rather to ‘consider the unique attributes of both literary genres’¹ and not ‘to judge adaptations on the basis of an impressionistic fidelity criterion’².
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1 Hall, A. L. “Writing about Film Adaptations: An Introduction“ [On-line]. http://www1.chapman.edu/~lhall/webpage/index.html (accessed 2/5/2023). 2 Aragay, M. (2005) Books in motion adaptation, intertextuality, authorship. Amsterdam: Rodopi
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