Movie Adaptations of Books: Some Thoughts

I saw two new movies last week: “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,” and “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.” During the previews, I saw the trailer for the upcoming movie adaptation of Veronica Roth’s DIVERGENT. While I know there are many who are thrilled at the prospect of seeing Tris and Four on the big screen, I confess to being a bit ambivalent. As writers and book lovers, we often talk about book-to-movie adaptations, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and in some cases, where the movie improved upon the book, so this is hardly a new topic. But as I analyzed my feelings of ambivalence toward the DIVERGENT movie, I found myself asking an interesting question: Why? Why turn a book into a movie? In what way did the book fall short that the screenwriter/director/producer felt it would be improved by making a movie out of it? And if it couldn’t be improved, why spend millions turning it into a movie? Let me share with you some thoughts I have on this, and let you chime in.

Novelists and playwrights (of both screen and stage) share the creative impulse to tell stories. The ways they go about telling those stories, however, are very different, especially in terms with how they interact with their audience. In his book ON WRITING, Stephen King suggests that writing novels is the closest we can come to true telepathy–across space and time… and without a TARDIS! He can sit in his office in the year 1997 and describe a table which the reader, however many years later, can picture in his or her mind. There is something magical about this interaction between the author and his audience, in the communication of stories and ideas by means of words that are then read and interpreted. And it’s up to the author how closely the reader’s interpretation will match his own. If King describes a six foot mahogany table covered with a red cloth, the reader is constrained to conjure that same table in his or her mind. On the other hand, if King simply says it’s a large table against the wall, the reader is free to use whatever kind of table he or she chooses, as long as it’s large. My point is this: with a novel, the reader invests herself in the novel. The writer gives the reader the plot, the characters, the dialog, and the descriptions, but the reader fills in all the gaps. With the novel, each reader is his own director, making the movie in his mind the way he sees it. And no two readers will make exactly the same movie.

The playwright’s job is different in this regard, because his or her script is not intended to be read as a novel. The script is a blueprint for a director to bring it to life on the stage or screen. Outside of academic settings, you don’t usually read Shakespeare as you would Jane Austen. You watch Shakespeare, and, indeed, Shakespeare wrote plays with the intention that they would be watched, not read. The same goes for Nora Ephron, Woody Allen, George Lucas, and any number of other play/screenplay writers: their works were written to be interpreted by a director and presented to the audience. When the director’s vision of the screenplay is enshrined on film, there’s no room for audience input. Our job is to watch and admire the work set before us. We can’t change the color of the costumes, the size of the castles, or the brightness of the explosions. We can disagree with the director’s vision, but we can’t alter it. I’m not saying this is good or bad, it is what it is: a different form of storytelling.

If novels and movies are different forms of storytelling, why make a movie out of a novel, especially a novel that has been a bestseller, and clearly is already loved and appreciated by millions? Perhaps it’s the fact that the movie is a different way of presenting the story, and I’m sure movie advocates would argue that many would see the movie that would never read the book. Why deprive people of the story just because they’re not readers? That’s a fair point, but I’m not entirely satisfied with it. And I think the reason why I’m not satisfied with this response runs a bit deeper into what’s going on in our culture at large.

It seems to me that we are becoming cognitively lazy as a society. As we are bombarded with more and more information, we look to sound-bites and synopses, tweets and 100-word blogs to help us quickly make sense of all the data whizzing past us every second. We spend less time absorbing and reflecting upon information because there’s so much information out there, and we’re in a hurry to collect as much as we can. Why spend hours thinking about the implications of some news story to our society, or thinking through the implications of some political or social idea when a late night comedian, or a blog, or a tweet, can sum it up for us with a witty one-liner? Why spend hours, or days, pouring over a book, when we can get the gist of the story in a two-and-a-half hour movie? The movie audience may know they’re missing out on that author-reader dialog, but perhaps they don’t care–perhaps all they want is to be entertained for a few hours without any personal investment beyond the price of the ticket?

Let me add quickly, my intention is not to denigrate movies. Movies can be thought-provoking and can cause people to reflect deeply on themselves and their culture. There are many excellent, mentally-stimulating movies out there. What I’m questioning is the motive behind making a movie out of a great novel, as opposed to being inspired by the novel to write an incredible original screenplay.

I daresay I’ll see the DIVERGENT movie, as I saw THE HOBBIT and THE HUNGER GAMES movies. And I may well enjoy it–as I enjoyed THE HOBBIT and THE HUNGER GAMES. But I’m still left asking the question: Why? These books didn’t need to be made into movies. There are certainly books that are more “screenplays-in-waiting”–that is, they work better as movies than novels–but these are few. Wouldn’t that money be better invested in original screenplays–works that were written to be movies?

One thing I’m not sorry about: with the DIVERGENT movie, Veronica Roth is set for life financially. As I understand it, she gets a percentage of the movie’s budget. According to Wikipedia, the budget for the movie was $80 million. Even 1% of that would be $800,000, and I’m sure her royalty cut is probably closer to the 10% mark. In any case, the fact that Veronica is now free to write full-time and not worry about money, is, to me, the best thing to come of the movie.

What do you think? Do you eagerly anticipate movie adaptations of your favorite novels, or do you tremble at the thought? Or perhaps you’re somewhere in between?