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| As The Great Gatsby opens, what makes a good book adaptation, anyway? | As The Great Gatsby opens, what makes a good book adaptation, anyway? |
| (about 3 hours later) | |
| Gatsby fever won't break until Baz Luhrmann's new adaptation opens this week, but this fifth film version of F Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel raises an interesting question: what makes a good adaptation, anyway? Why does Stanley Kubrick's The Shining merit documentaries in its own right, and Stephen King's The Shining end up forgotten among the made-for-TV mini-series? What should we hope for – or fear – from Luhrmann's take? | Gatsby fever won't break until Baz Luhrmann's new adaptation opens this week, but this fifth film version of F Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel raises an interesting question: what makes a good adaptation, anyway? Why does Stanley Kubrick's The Shining merit documentaries in its own right, and Stephen King's The Shining end up forgotten among the made-for-TV mini-series? What should we hope for – or fear – from Luhrmann's take? |
| Adapting a novel or short story into film is a lot translation – turning words on a page into the language of movies: angles, actors and images. Filmmakers, like translators, are stuck in the middle between the original and the audience, and have to balance three elements: story, style and ambition. | Adapting a novel or short story into film is a lot translation – turning words on a page into the language of movies: angles, actors and images. Filmmakers, like translators, are stuck in the middle between the original and the audience, and have to balance three elements: story, style and ambition. |
| Story might seem obvious, but a good story lives in its details, and filmmakers can make two mistakes here. First, inventing material usually spells disaster – few things are more despised in an adaptation than adding new characters, scenes and subplots. But when a filmmaker refuses to change anything, they risk becoming forgettable. Countless BBC and PBS adaptations of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens have fallen into the trap of fidelity; they're well acted, well produced and constantly remind you that you should be reading the original instead. These are literal translations, made leaden by detail – costumes, accents and affectations – full of footnotes for the scholars and superfans. | Story might seem obvious, but a good story lives in its details, and filmmakers can make two mistakes here. First, inventing material usually spells disaster – few things are more despised in an adaptation than adding new characters, scenes and subplots. But when a filmmaker refuses to change anything, they risk becoming forgettable. Countless BBC and PBS adaptations of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens have fallen into the trap of fidelity; they're well acted, well produced and constantly remind you that you should be reading the original instead. These are literal translations, made leaden by detail – costumes, accents and affectations – full of footnotes for the scholars and superfans. |
| Peter Jackson faced this dilemma with The Lord of the Rings, but managed to make his vision of middle-earth open to both the casual viewer and the Elvish-as-a-second-language citizen alike. Because Jackson understands Tolkien's work well enough that he was able to create an ornate yet accessible trilogy. For Luhrmann, a movie about Jay Gatz needs to feature more than just the man at West Egg and Daisy and Tom Buchanan. Without Eckleburg's billboard eyes and the valley of ash, it's just another love triangle between rich people, fit for daytime TV. | |
| Which is not to say he can't be creative; directors can make major changes while being faithful to the story. Stanley Kubrick's Lolita, for instance, starts at the end of Vladimir Nabokov's novel, does away with the narration, and makes a subtle character very prominent. The movie succeeds because Kubrick rearranges the details – a scene moved here, an actor there – and because he and his star, Peter Sellers, were able to match Nabokov's versatile voice and black wit – his style – in spades. | Which is not to say he can't be creative; directors can make major changes while being faithful to the story. Stanley Kubrick's Lolita, for instance, starts at the end of Vladimir Nabokov's novel, does away with the narration, and makes a subtle character very prominent. The movie succeeds because Kubrick rearranges the details – a scene moved here, an actor there – and because he and his star, Peter Sellers, were able to match Nabokov's versatile voice and black wit – his style – in spades. |
| Going by Luhrmann's CV, full of flash and bombast, he clearly holds style in high regard; the question is whether he knows enough about Fitzgerald's. He risks the same risk as the translator who's anxious to show off: he could miss the point entirely. Tim Burton, for instance, has become this type of ham-handed translator. Rather than complement the dark whimsy of Lewis Carroll and Roald Dahl, he squashed Alice in Wonderland and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory into plastic cartoons of his own mold. In contrast, the Coen brothers' adjusted their style to fit No Country for Old Men, mixing long, distant shots with tense and brutal sequences. It fit Cormac McCarthy's prose so well that the Academy awarded them the Oscars for best adapted screenplay, direction and picture. | Going by Luhrmann's CV, full of flash and bombast, he clearly holds style in high regard; the question is whether he knows enough about Fitzgerald's. He risks the same risk as the translator who's anxious to show off: he could miss the point entirely. Tim Burton, for instance, has become this type of ham-handed translator. Rather than complement the dark whimsy of Lewis Carroll and Roald Dahl, he squashed Alice in Wonderland and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory into plastic cartoons of his own mold. In contrast, the Coen brothers' adjusted their style to fit No Country for Old Men, mixing long, distant shots with tense and brutal sequences. It fit Cormac McCarthy's prose so well that the Academy awarded them the Oscars for best adapted screenplay, direction and picture. |
| In one way, Luhrmann ought to be able to match Fitzgerald's style quite well: whether with the socialites or the poor, Gatsby's New York is always colorful. But Fitzgerald also throws stark metaphors in the mix, like Daisy's voice "full of money". In three words, Fitzgerald neatly expresses charm, vitality and fickleness, and while the metaphor is not particularly subtle, the phrase defies any actress or director to be so elegant. That a character, Nick Carraway, narrates the book is another headache entirely. How to account for Nick's opinions, which shade the story throughout? He's involved in all the intrigue – what if his account is unreliable? For this problem, especially, Luhrmann needs the last magic ingredient: ambition. | In one way, Luhrmann ought to be able to match Fitzgerald's style quite well: whether with the socialites or the poor, Gatsby's New York is always colorful. But Fitzgerald also throws stark metaphors in the mix, like Daisy's voice "full of money". In three words, Fitzgerald neatly expresses charm, vitality and fickleness, and while the metaphor is not particularly subtle, the phrase defies any actress or director to be so elegant. That a character, Nick Carraway, narrates the book is another headache entirely. How to account for Nick's opinions, which shade the story throughout? He's involved in all the intrigue – what if his account is unreliable? For this problem, especially, Luhrmann needs the last magic ingredient: ambition. |
| In his review of Joe Wright's Anna Karenina, AO Scott re-adapted Tolstoy's words to make this point: | In his review of Joe Wright's Anna Karenina, AO Scott re-adapted Tolstoy's words to make this point: |
| Bad literary adaptations are all alike, but every successful literary adaptation succeeds in its own way. The bad ones … are undone by humility, by anxious obeisance to the cultural prestige of literature. The good ones succeed through hubris, through the arrogant assumption that a great novel is not a sacred artifact but rather a lump of interesting material to be shaped according to the filmmaker's will. | Bad literary adaptations are all alike, but every successful literary adaptation succeeds in its own way. The bad ones … are undone by humility, by anxious obeisance to the cultural prestige of literature. The good ones succeed through hubris, through the arrogant assumption that a great novel is not a sacred artifact but rather a lump of interesting material to be shaped according to the filmmaker's will. |
| The loosest of adaptations are sometimes the best. Kubrick treated The Shining as that interesting lump and carved a horror classic that portrays the murky symbols of insanity so well that its fans see everything from the Holocaust to the moon landings in it. With Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola transplants Heart of Darkness into the 20th century, making themes of colonialism and corruption visible through the prism of Vietnam. There Will Be Blood – originally Paul Thomas Anderson's adaptation of the novel Oil! – is a meditation on the American dream equal to Fitzgerald's, using the symbols of the west, family and faith where Gatsby had New York, romance and money. In each of these cases, a director reshaped a book to be about something relevant and important that wasn't necessarily in the original. They didn't so much remake the classics as invent something entirely new. | The loosest of adaptations are sometimes the best. Kubrick treated The Shining as that interesting lump and carved a horror classic that portrays the murky symbols of insanity so well that its fans see everything from the Holocaust to the moon landings in it. With Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola transplants Heart of Darkness into the 20th century, making themes of colonialism and corruption visible through the prism of Vietnam. There Will Be Blood – originally Paul Thomas Anderson's adaptation of the novel Oil! – is a meditation on the American dream equal to Fitzgerald's, using the symbols of the west, family and faith where Gatsby had New York, romance and money. In each of these cases, a director reshaped a book to be about something relevant and important that wasn't necessarily in the original. They didn't so much remake the classics as invent something entirely new. |
| Of course, ambition creates more failure than success, but at least ambitious failures are interesting failures. David Lynch disowned his version of Dune, and Roland Joffé's The Scarlet Letter is truly atrocious, but they're both fascinating in their terrible, unique ways. Luhrmann's Gatsby coincides with an era of ostentatious wealth and hard times in America, meaning it could have great potential to reflect Fitzgerald's themes. It certainly looks ambitious, but most of us won't know until Friday whether his vision is suited to a certain green light or just a whole lot of glitter. | Of course, ambition creates more failure than success, but at least ambitious failures are interesting failures. David Lynch disowned his version of Dune, and Roland Joffé's The Scarlet Letter is truly atrocious, but they're both fascinating in their terrible, unique ways. Luhrmann's Gatsby coincides with an era of ostentatious wealth and hard times in America, meaning it could have great potential to reflect Fitzgerald's themes. It certainly looks ambitious, but most of us won't know until Friday whether his vision is suited to a certain green light or just a whole lot of glitter. |
| What do you think makes a good adaptation? | What do you think makes a good adaptation? |
| I've aimed for big criteria, but surely there are plenty of more. The Guardian asked readers for their favorites back in 2006, so that's seven years more of adaptations to choose from. What have I missed? | I've aimed for big criteria, but surely there are plenty of more. The Guardian asked readers for their favorites back in 2006, so that's seven years more of adaptations to choose from. What have I missed? |