by Owen Carter

Created on: November 19, 2009

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a film adapted from a novel must be inferior to its literary predecessor. Austen-butchering aside, though, it would be fair to say that most films singularly fail to capture the magic, tension, and pacing of the book they are based on. This is not, however, due to the innate superiority of one medium over the other; it is rather the inevitable result of the way in which Hollywood adaptations are approached, and the difficulties inherent in carrying over the sentiment that makes a given book great to a format vastly different in nature.

As most would acknowledge, a great deal of mainstream cinema is based around financial considerations, rather than artistic integrity. It is only natural, then, that a director will follow the most commercially viable path. Such a simplistic stance, however, where the nuances of finely crafted literature are displaced merely by a blind fixation on profit often results in a mockery of the original book. Populist eye-catching such as with gratuitous sex and violence will inevitably take precedence over pacing and dramatic interplay.

This is not to say that all films based upon books are doomed to failure. Nevertheless stellar classics such as Fight Club and The Godfather as seminal as they may be are noticed all the more simply because of their rarity in such an intellectually and culturally moribund field. It is not merely the avarice of Hollywood that contributes to an adaptation's failure, however, as attempts from smaller studios can also fail to capture the magic of the written word. This can only be explained in terms of abstract incompatibilities, rather than blindly conflating failure with profit hunting.

The difficulty in transferring material between the two media is inherent the crux of the matter can be found in the very characteristics that differentiate film from literature. As a result of its very nature, film must make the ambiguous concrete; characters may only have one face, events must occur in one way, and a great deal that could be left as suggestion in a novel may not be done so in a film. As a film is generally made after the success of a novel, it is inevitable that some degree of disappointment will ensue upon viewing a cinematic conversion. The myriad of responses that any given title garners, the massively varying range of interpretations, and the different schools of thought underpinning any artistic creation ensure that one given vision can never truly be concordant with one's own. The genius of a good book relies upon allowing that space for the imagination to fill in, and the more direct, visceral approach that film takes may not always be appropriate the mantra for writers is imply, not tell for a reason.

The potential pitfalls, then, are manifold. It would not be advised to retreat into snobbish intellectual elitism, or to write off any efforts as doomed to failure merely on the grounds that they are based upon a book. History has taught us that this would be foolish. What is incumbent upon those in a position to influence this is to ensure that adaptations are made for the right reasons, bred from a real belief that a conversion can add to a subject, rather than detract from it. Certainly, such conversions should not be inevitable. It's time to take a stand.

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