No doubt I am not alone in my
apprehension of any good read being brought to life on the big
screen. Many times over the past five or six years I have been left
with a feeling of utter disappointment when my much-loved book has been hacked
to death and adversely altered by script writers and producers for the
entertainment of movie goers.
Let us take for example
Vikas Swarup’s Slum Dog Millionaire. Was the immediate likeable factor of the book not the inseparable and protective relationship between Ram Mohammed Thomas and his best friend? And what ever happened
to Henry’s feet in Audrey Niffenegger’s début novel The Time TravellersWife? It was the amputation of his feet that made the finale of this book
such genius and so loved for me. I am not ignorant to the fact that some details
need to be removed in order to comply with time limitations and that some relationships
and smaller sub plots needs to be altered to suit both age restrictions and
cinematic experience, but sometimes I feel they just get it so wrong.
I have found the only way to get
around the disappointment of book to film adaptation, is to watch the film and
then read the book. I have done this twice thus far, the first with
Bernhard Schlink’s 1995 German novel The Reader and the second with
Stephanie Meyer’s fantasy teen romance quartet The Twilight Saga. Both have wowed me on the big screen, and impressed me further on
paper. The expectation of fulfilment declines significantly because
however much you loved the film, you know the book will be better.
I query how much control a writer has
over the adaptation of their own book to screen? I know I
wouldn’t blink at the idea of my novel one day being the talk of
Hollywood, swooning around with the likes of Robert Pattinson and Kate
Winslet, but I question exactly how I would feel seeing my years of hard work
ultimately cut and pasted to almost unrecognisable levels?
How much of a part does money versus
sentimentality play in it all? Could I give up, for example,
Romania for Barbados for £1m? The answer is yes I probably could,
but fundamentally I’d have to live with the aftermath of knowing
that that wasn't really what I wrote about at all. And
that could be the hefty price involved when agreeing to see your
print on the big screen.
By Charlotte Andrews
I guess with book to film adaptations some things don't transfer too well.My friends in the industry tell me that plus budget allowances and more importantly the directors take on things is what decides.Still I would be happy for my book to be adapted for the big screen
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that adaptations rarely live up to the book version. However, I don't like watching the film first either, because then all I can see is the actors and the chosen setting when I'm reading the book, instead of forming those characters and settings for myself. What to do?!
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