We asked The Atlantic’s writers and editors: What’s a film adaptation that’s better than the book?
The article explains why they consider the movies Jurassic Park, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Devil Wears Prada, The Social Network, and Clear and Present Danger each to be better than their source material.
@memfree I am going to make angry a lot of people but here I go. The Shinning by Kubrick of course. I personally dont care for Stephen King Literary work I think in the whole context of human literature is absolute TRASH. But in the History of world Cinema Kubrick is up there in the mount Olympus of the Best of the best. The fact that Stephen king cannot understand a medium like Cinema made me choose this one even more. PLUS the fact that Stephen King Made a TV series because he didn’t like Kubrick version and is ABSOLUTE FORGETTABLE TRASH is the cherry on top. Im not sure if Kubrick did the same with Eyes Wide Shut… that is debatable.
Well, if you’re going to go there, then A Clockwork Orange and 2001: A Space Odyssey. One can easily complain that Anthony Burgess wrote a better book filled with imagery and politics (and a glossary!) which Kubrick failed to capture, so that one might be arguable. On the other hand, while Arthur C. Clarke wrote a good book that Kubrick largely ignored, the result was one of the most innovative films in history. The film brought space to life in a way that printed words could not. Sure, Kubrick’s work can now be easily CGI-ed up, but he thought to do all of it and he did it the hard way before we had computers.
As far as Eyes Wide Shut goes… I kinda hated it because it felt like the default daydream of old men fantasizing about what they wish they’d done back when they couild still get it up. I read an article years ago about how for years Kubrick had script readers who would read hundreds of books and scripts to give him recommendations for what to make into his his next movie and they were all terrified of recommending something beneath The Master, and then he didn’t like the things he did see, and this went on and on, and I feel like he was stuck with material that a concensus would find acceptable/interesting rather than anything that was more avant garde.
2001 wasn’t based on the book. The book and movie were written in parallel.
I wasn’t gonna split that hair because it was based on some of Clarke’s shorter works that were optioned for the basis of the film. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_(novel)
Sure, maybe it is a tad hair-splitty, but is it? Clarke was hired to write an original screenplay; it wasn’t meant to be based on another story. And the book wasn’t even meant to exist, initially. My understanding is that it does exist only because Clarke found script writing clunky and unnatural.
Although — even if the movie was based on a book — Kubrick would have done his own thing, and he wouldn’t have been wrong to take those liberties. Why faithfully remake a book? I can read a book. Give me something new.
@memfree
Burgess is a TITAN of literature, Stephen King wished he was half as good as Burgess.
Having said that I don’t think Kubrick made a better film but god dam his film is so good.