Book Adaptations
Lili’s Pick: Apocalypse Now!
Lanie’s Pick: The Big Sleep
Books, or acoustic movies, have brought some of the most iconic and memorable stories into existence. The films that then attempt to bring those stories into the cinematic landscape have an onerous task to complete—to turn a story into a visual manifestation. Words on a page are fluid, up for interpretation, and can only go as far as the imagination of the person reading them. But a film places these words into a more easily-imagined format, where these words become concrete and fully realized. It’s damn near impossible to get it right, and if you’re even a casual reader you’ll know that many many film adaptations of books are forced to make so many cuts and edits that they become unrecognizable—but sometimes these changes are necessary. For The Big Sleep, it was not, for Apocalypse Now!, or rather, its original story Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, it was incredibly necessary. Raymond Chandler’s novel The Big Sleep has all of the makings of a perfect murder mystery, complete with a twist that even the biggest crime fiction fan couldn’t see coming—so why, then, would its film adaptation go to such great lengths to melodramatize an already melodramatic story, and ultimately rob it of its shocking ending? In Apocalypse Now!’s case, the major plot changes to the original story felt very much needed, as the Vietnam War was far more relevant and interesting of a backdrop than whatever old-ass war the original book was centered around. When these negotiations were made around what I’d imagine is a very large dark wooden table in a Hollywood office, I can picture movie executives just looking at these two books and saying: “This is great, but let’s keep none of it.” I am by no means a purist, and I objectively hated reading Heart of Darkness (the longest short book ever), but I will say that every film or television show adapted from a book that I’ve read or seen, mostly succeeds when it stays true to the original text. You can capture the interiority, emotion, and subtext of a narrative without watering it down for the masses. Just have faith that your audience will be able to read between the lines.
