{Ed. Note: This is an article from guest contributor Robert D. Bailey. Mr. Bailey has had a long and successful career in the film industry, mostly in visual effects (including matte photography for Blade Runner and matte camera for Dances with Wolves, though also as a director, producer, writer and editor.}
Film and literature have had a long and often contentious relationship. Many classic films have been sourced from novels, plays and even journalism. Although the very earliest films were what would be considered today as documentaries (specifically early films by the Lumiere brothers and the Thomas Edison studios) these are today only appreciated for their archaeological importance. The earliest films of note which were inspired by literary sources were the French films of Georges Méliès, especially the Jules Verne-inspired A Trip to the Moon (1902). Although this film and his Robinson Crusoe were very loose adaptations (to say the least!), their success pointed the way for later filmmakers, and barely a decade after Méliès’ two-reel shorts (14-18 minute) came the first unquestionably important and successful film that attempted to faithfully retain the form and scope of the novel which inspired it, D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, based on Thomas Dixon’s novel The Clansmen.
It is virtually impossible these days to be objective about The Birth of a Nation; it’s racist aspects can’t be ignored, although the director denied intending to make a racist statement. There is no doubt, however, that it was a landmark in the history of cinema, and influenced every film that came later in its technique and in its scope. At three hours in length, it almost single-handedly lifted motion pictures from a novelty to an art form, and made possible the growth and development of an industry which has had an almost incalculable effect on society. As Mary Pickford, one of the greatest stars of the silent film pronounced, “The Birth of a Nation, was the first picture that really made people take the motion picture industry seriously.”
One of its influences was that it opened the vast mine of world literature as source material for films. The reasons for this should be obvious: as the industry grew with astonishing celerity, and as audiences had shown they were eager for full-length features, there was an insatiable demand for material. Original stories took longer to script and had no author-recognition value. While the names of certain film stars alone guaranteed audiences would come (Mary Pickford, Charles Chaplin and Doug Fairbanks, for example), how better to attract a crowd to a feature film and expect them to pay a premium price to see it than to base it on a classic or popular work of literature? Thus many of the silent era’s biggest successes were based upon novels—Vicente Blasco Ibáñez’s The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, Lew Wallace’s Ben-Hur, Victor Hugo’s Notre Dame de Paris (filmed as Lon Chaney’s huge success The Hunchback of Notre Dame), Laurence Stalling’s Plumes (King Vidor’s The Big Parade with John Gilbert), or popular plays such as Lottie Blair Parker’s Way Down East (Griffith’s film version with Lillian Gish).
Still, the art of the silent film, was so dependent on techniques of photography, editing and pantomime, that just as many or more of what we term today as “blockbusters,” were original works developed for the screen with little or no reference to literary works: Chaplin’s features The Kid, The Gold Rush and The Circus, Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last and The Freshman, Buster Keaton’s The General and The Navigator, Fairbanks’ The Mark of Zorro, Robin Hood and The Black Pirate, Rudolph Valentino’s The Sheik and The Son of the Sheik, and, in Europe, Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, Abel Gance’s Napoleon and Giovanni Pastrone’s Cabiria. For many critics, these represent the true art of the motion picture more than films which were literary adaptations.
But what was obvious to the studios, who came to dominate the production of motion pictures, was that more money was to be made, and more control was to be retained, by producing films that did not rely primarily on the draw of a popular star such as Valentino nor a man of cinematic genius such as Eisenstein, who could at most turn out one or two features a year. The appetite of the film-going public, who went to the theaters far more frequently than it has since the advent of television and other competitive entertainments, needed to be satisfied with ever more product. Soon, the major studios began cultivating relationships with East Coast publishers, often purchasing the motion picture rights to novels before they were published (and getting them at a lower price than they could if those books became huge successes). The smaller studios and the few independents would more often draw upon works in the public domain.
The story departments of all the studios were primarily involved in adaptations, and would often hire the best contemporary writers to rework the burgeoning library of literary “properties”—though seldom did it permit them to adapt their own novels! Thus you have William Faulkner adapting Ernest Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not and Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep (but not his own Sanctuary or Intruder in the Dust) and Raymond Chandler adapting James Cain’s Double Indemnity and Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train (but none of his own Philip Marlowe stories). F. Scott Fitzgerald toiled for years in the studios as a staff writer, adapting Erich Maria Remarque’s Three Comrades and working on many other projects for MGM, but never received sole screenplay credit. (Fitzgerald, in an ironical payback, mined his Hollywood experiences for some of his own literary efforts: The Pat Hobby stories and the unfinished The Last Tycoon.)
For almost a century after The Birth of a Nation, many still considered the most artistic and cinematic films to be the ones which were developed originally as motion pictures and not as adaptations of literary works. This attitude was encapsulated by America’s most influential film critic in the first half of the 20th century, James Agee, when, in writing about David Lean’s film version of Great Expectations, noted “it seems to me primarily unimportant how well or ill someone else’s classic is brought to film.” He considered in that same 1948 review, that every movie since Jean Vigo’s Zéro de Conduite (1933) and Chaplin’s Modern Times (1936) was “so much child’s play,” save Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux. Those three films were not derived from literary sources. (It should be noted that one film in that period, originally developed as a film and not adapted, Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, was underrated by Agee for reasons that might derive from jealousy, but that despite Agee’s dismissal, Citizen Kane perennially tops many critics’ lists as the greatest film of all time.)
The motion picture industry in the last decade or so has seen a resurgence in movies originally developed as movies without literary antecedents. At the same time, Hollywood in particular has been feeding on itself, remaking many classic (and some not-so-classic) films. All this has taken place as the movie-going public has shrunk, and as that public seems to be less well-read than it was in the motion picture’s first century. The recent remake (at least the third such) of Lew Wallace’s Ben-Hur landed in US theaters, not so much with a thud, but a shrug. The biggest commercial successes have been based on comic books (or their more-respectable cousins, “graphic novels” which generally feature comic book characters) or fantasy works such as Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings.
Without coming down on either side of the argument about which is truer to the Art of Cinema, I would like to mention four categories of literature-to-film adaptations which seem representative of the ways the movies have treated literary works. For reasons of brevity, and because I am not familiar with the cinema of the past quarter century, I will restrict the examples to films made prior to 1980. I will also not include any films made from literary sources which are not considered as classics in their own right, as too many mediocre novels were made into respectable (or better) motion pictures. I should add it is a highly personal selection.
- Films which, though classics in their own right, fall short of greatness when considered as adaptations: David Lean’s two films based on Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, mentioned above, and the even better Oliver Twist; the 1939 Wuthering Heights and the 1943 Jane Eyre (later versions of both done in England may be more faithful, but fall short of the classic status of the older versions), 1939’s Gone With The Wind, 1940s Pride and Prejudice, Richard Brook’s In Cold Blood (1967), Orson Welles’ version of Franz Kafka’s The Trial, and Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard.
- Films which were equally as classic as their literary parents and remarkably faithful to the source: the 1938 film of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, René Clair’s 1945 version of Agatha Christie’s novel and play And Then There Were None, John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon (1941), the 1951 A Christmas Carol (Scrooge), Robert Mulligan’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), and John Huston’s adaptation of Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood.
- The most controversial of my categories is that including films which seemed to me to improve on their undisputedly classic literary origins to achieve an even greater artistic synthesis: Lewis Milestone’s All Quiet on the Western Front, MGM’s The Wizard of Oz, John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath, Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity (though there are those who might feel James Cain’s novel doesn’t merit “classic” status), Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita, Peter Brook’s Lord of the Flies (1963), and Francis Coppola’s The Godfather.
- Lastly there are films I would call “magnificent failures”– still classics, despite not achieving their creators’ goals either because of studio meddling or because they strived for something that was, perhaps, unattainable. Chief examples of the former are Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons (magnificent despite severe pruning and the too- sunny ending tacked on by studio heads), and John Huston’s film of The Red Badge of Courage (whose studio butchering is detailed in Lillian Ross’s fascinating book Picture). Among those films whose makers’ reach “exceeded their grasp” by tackling literary works which defy adaptation, but who still achieved remarkable results are Sergei Bondarchuk’s 1966-67 adaptation of War and Peace, and virtually every adaptation of Shakespeare, the most successful of which, in my opinion, are Sir Laurence Olivier’s Henry V and Richard III, and Orson Welles’ Chimes at Midnight.
Again, a highly personal list of classic films and literary sources. My criteria for determining these works as classics is based upon my judgement of what is readable, watchable, and influential. I’m sure many will disagree with some of my selections, and I hasten to say this list makes no claims to comprehensiveness. Rather consider it as a prelude to further discussion. I have chosen primarily movie posters for illustrations as I find it interesting to see how the motion picture industry has chosen to publicize these adaptations, and the amount of space given to the original author. Notice that John Steinbeck and Truman Capote get their names above the title in rather bold type, whereas you need good eyesight to spot the names of Emily Bronte and Harper Lee, and Welles omits the Bard’s name altogether.
If there is sufficient interest on the part of the readers, and sufficient forbearance on the part of Chris, I would like to examine another work, not mentioned here, in greater detail at a future date. {Ed. Note: I think you will join me in the sincere hope that Mr. Bailey will contribute similar articles whenever he would like!}
2001: A Space Odyssey is one of the comparatively rare examples of a respected book being adapted from a classic movie. Probably the most famous and well-regarded instance of this was Carol Reed’s “The Third Man,” which was adapted by the screenwriter, Graham Greene, from his original, unpublished screen treatment (which he refers to as a “novella”).
A classic movie that inspired a book afterward is Kubrick and Clarkes’ 2001: A Space Odyssey. By contrast, a classic movie that is much better than the book it was drawn from is Ronald Colman’s Random Harvest.
Fascinating and most welcome article, combining two of my favorite forms of entertainment – reading great novels and watching classic cinema. I heartily concur with Robert – the most controversial category, and the one most difficult for a film director to successfully pull off, is to create a film that improves upon an established literary classic. Or, perhaps, one that encourages the viewer to see and think about a literary classic in a novel way.
A question for Robert:
One of the most frustrating cinematic experiences is to sit through Orson Welles’ masterpiece ‘The Magnificent Ambersons’ and suffer through the saccharine, ‘smiley-face’ ending that the Hollywood moguls tacked on to the film’s ending, despite his vehement protests. Does anyone in the film industry know what the true ending of the film was or should have been, i.e., the ending Orson Welles scripted and directed before it was butchered beyond recognition?
Much of what we know about the ending Welles shot comes from Peter Bogdanovich, Henry Jaglom and others who were satellites of Welles in his later years, and who never saw the original ending themselves, and from Robert L. Carringer’s book “The Magnificent Ambersons: A Reconstruction,” which uses a cutting continuity from the version Welles put together with Robert Wise before he left for his ill-fated Brazilian project “It’s All True.” In this version, after Eugene visits the injured George Minafer in the hospital, he goes to the cheap boarding house where Fanny and George had moved. As the old friends try to talk about the past “magnificence” of the Ambersons and how everything had changed, they keep getting interrupted by eavesdroppers who form sort of a Greek chorus–in an echo of the opening scenes when townspeople comment on the Ambersons, and Eugene’s drunkeness which resulted in the breakup of his engagement, and Isabel’s subsequent marriage to the effete Wilbur Minafer and how that loveless marriage spoiled the fruit of the union, George.
If so, this was Welles’ most radical departure from Tarkington’s novel, which actually has an ending closer to the film’s present ending. In the novel, Eugene has an weird experience with a medium to whom he goes after hearing of George’s accident. Eugene is wondering if he can communicate with Isabel’s spirit to find solace, and when the medium seems to indicate that Isabel is sending him a message to be kind, he doesn’t know whether to believe it or not, but finally goes to visit George. George tells him “you must have thought my mother would have wanted you to come, so that I could ask you to–to forgive me.” The novel ends with almost the exact words Eugene speaks in the movie about being at last true to his own true love.
You should definitely see Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of Henry V. To my uneducated eyes, it’s the best film adaptation of Shakespeare ever made.
Doug, I have seen it, twice, in fact, and though it has many excellences (chief among them being the remarkable supporting cast, especially Brian Blessed, Ian Holm and Paul Scofield), I am not altogether convinced by Branagh’s Henry V, and in trying for a more “realistic” approach to filming, his version lacks the pageantry and royal splendor I feel Shakespeare intended as an essential element of the play.
I also think Branagh’s direction and conception lack the daring and resourcefulness of Olivier’s older version, with its attempt to show the play as originally produced, and as it must have fulfilled the Chorus’ admonition that the play should “on your imaginary forces work…[and] piece out our imperfections with your thoughts.”
I like and respect Branagh’s version, and have found it to be the most successful of his Shakespeare adaptations, but as a “magnificent failure,” I personally find it to be less magnificent than Olivier’s version.
Robert
I’d add Grigori Kozintsev’s 1964 Hamlet (though not,of course, in the ‘improved on the original’ category!), with its wonderful prowling camera work – rightly black & white, like Olivier’s -, an intense, riveting Hamlet from Innokenty Smoktunovsky, and Shostakovich’s magnificent score. It’s almost the same length as Olivier’s version but the two directors choose to concentrate on different aspects of the play, making it interesting to see both.
My own favourite Branagh adaptation is Much Ado About Nothing in which he manages to pull together a diversity of acting styles (Michael Keaton, Imelda Staunton, Denzil Washington, Keanu Reeves and the blesséd Brian [may he live for ever]) and come up with a swift, good to look at movie.
I think there was a lot to admire, too, in Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s Julius Caesar.
(Since you – rightly I think – grant classic status to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None you may be interested to know that Branagh is directing another eclectic cast in another of her classics, Murder on the Orient Express; for starters he’ll have his hands full with Johnny Depp and Judy Dench!)
“Notice that John Steinbeck and Truman Capote get their names above the title in rather bold type, whereas you need good eyesight to spot the names of Emily Bronte and Harper Lee, and Welles omits the Bard’s name altogether.”
Shades of the fine press entrepreneurs! George Macy’s advertisements for his Brown House edition of Salammbô majored on Alexander King – photograph and name writ large in the heading and another 5 mentions below; Flaubert mentioned once, which is one more than Melville got in Random House’s initial publicity for their trade edition of Rockwell Kent’s Moby Dick.
Did you by the way consider including any children’s classics and their movie derivatives?
Jack, I agree about Kozintsev’s “Hamlet,” which easily manages to be the best film version despite the fact that the greatest glory of the play, Shakespeare’s language, is missing. Smoktunovsky easily outperforms any actor I’ve seen do the role, and comes the closest to matching what must have been the greatest 20th century Hamlet, John Barrymore (whose greatness comes through in the poorly recorded and heavily cut “O what a rogue and peasant slave am I.”)
The Branagh “Much Ado” is also very fine, and yes, it is a triumph in its mixture of acting styles (Reeves being the one weakness for me). And Mankiewicz’s “Julius Caesar” coulda been a contender. Gielgud, Mason and Edmond O’Brien are singularly good, and Louis Calhern really made me realize why the play is called “Julius Caesar” and not “Brutus and Cassius.” Even Brando, an actor who is as frustrating as he could be brilliant does well as Antony. I like Mankiewicz, but I don’t think he was a good choice to direct this; I wonder how it could have turned out with William Wyler at the helm. Or Sir Carol Reed.
I didn’t include children’s classics, but there are a few wonderful examples: Clarence Brown’s film of “The Yearling” in particular comes to mind.