With recent book to film adaptations including Wuthering Heights (if you can call it that) and Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein meeting polarised responses, the medium is facing an odd period.
Varying success is expected; book fans will always find some disappointment in some avenues, but some manage to emphatically hammer home the source material, while some fall impressively flat.
Film News Blitz writer Freddie Thomas-Neher takes a look at one of the worst and a couple of the best.
‘All the Pretty Horses’ – pale and unconvincing
Cormac McCarthy’s slow, atmospheric Western, All the Pretty Horses, following the journey of John Grady Cole across the Mexican border, was the first of his books to be adapted to the screen, with Billy Bob Thornton taking the directorial reins for a spectacular misfire.
To begin with, adapting McCarthy’s work is never going to be easy, nor is it really possible in some cases.
Known for his long, meandering style that holds a degree of tenacity atmospherically, but causes understandable indifference for some, translating the style visually is a pretty tall order.
However, Thornton’s 2001 shot at translating the 1992 American classic novel to the big screen is about as limp-wristed as it’s possible to get.
The film stars Matt Damon as the brooding, decisive John Grady opposite Penelope Cruz, the daughter of a young aristocrat and Henry Thomas as Cole’s best friend Lacey Rawlins.
The love story between Damon and Cruz is, for lack of a better word, awful.
Damon manages to flip the book’s version of the protagonist (strong, quiet, and assured) into someone who comes across as a bit thick, effectively removing all depth from his character and leaving him a wide-eyed ranch hand.
As well, his relationship with Cruz’s Alejandra is so excruciatingly devoid of chemistry that it makes you wonder how bad the outtakes were.
Thornton’s direction and cinematographic choices epitomise the issues with book adaptations; he simply leaves out large, important parts (including really butchering the ending) and is wholly uninspired visually, reducing one of the most viscerally descriptive books of its time to a dull, bland echo of its source material.
‘No Country for Old Men’ – Menacing and atmospheric
Lying in a dramatic contrast to the aforementioned adaptation, the Coen brothers’ take on McCarthy’s 2005 novel, No Country for Old Men, was a roaring success, and deservedly so.
A winner of best picture, best director, best supporting actor and best adapted screenplay at the Oscars, the storming interpretation of one of the writer’s seminal works was a home run, correctly bringing an abstract indifference to such an intense film.
Javier Bardem’s portrayal of the spine-chilling Anton Chigurh is widely recognised as one of the best performances of the 21st century, famously responsible for the quietly frightening coin toss scene, a breathtaking achievement in scriptwriting.
The film is an unusually accurate adaptation, released just two years after the book, with only minor changes that allow for a more faithful translation.
An accurate depiction of the uneasy atmosphere that the novel lays down is quite the task (Thornton’s failure to translate in 2000 is almost understandable in context).
Still, the Coens’ masterful approach to an intense yet almost tranquil story gives the film a truly unique uneasiness.
One of the most impressive best picture winners of the 2000s, No Country for Old Men is a truly baffling triumph in film adaptations that will leave a fan of the book almost confused by how tight it really is.
‘Apocalypse Now’ – A worthy evolution of legendary source material
Some may not realisethat Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 classic Apocalypse Now is an adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s 1899 offering Heart of Darkness, and that the documentary about the film’s production difficulties shares a name with the source material.
More of an evolution of its inspirations, Apocalypse Now brings the novel’s attitudes to the cultural and ethical intrigue of the Vietnam War.
The book focuses on the European colonialism of Africa in the 19th century, but the main point of comparison is the preceding reputation of Brando’s Kurtz figure, an ivory trader/demigod in the book and a Colonel/demigod in the film.
Brando’s impossible nature during filming almost unintentionally led to him giving one of the most intimidating and impressive performances of all time; the back end of the film is a visually stunning tone shift that lives up to the prior two hours’ anticipation of the righteous yet insane Kurtz.
The late Robert Duvall gives a standout performance as the surf-obsessed Colonel Bill Kilgore, but the best of the film is the portrayal of the Vietnam War as quite simply hell on earth.
A thought-provoking, meandering study of a key point in history, Apocalypse Now proves that a good book adaptation doesn’t have to be the most accurate, but does need to have something to say.
READ NEXT – Film opinion: The finest sequels and prequels
