The reason a great book turns into a lackluster film is quite simple: Directors have no respect for writers. Instead, they think THEY are authors and that a book is just an outline to play with.

At the risk of sounding excessively simplistic, books are books and films are films. They are different things, different means of representation. A novel that is adapted into a movie, is a whole new thing when it is a movie. A film works under different narrative rules and codes. That is why people usually get disappointed when they watch a movie based on a novel – they expect it live up to it. And it doesn't, naturally.

To get to the core of the issue, look at the two Lolita films, adaptations of an "unfilmable" novel, due to its rich narration, which can't be translated to a film. While the later film followed the novel's plot closely and therefore would appear to be a more "faithful" adaptation, it is bland and has very little acclaim. Kubrick's "looser" adaptation manages, through other techniques than the novel's, to convey the same atmosphere, and as such is a great success.
For instance, in the novel Lolita is quite ugly, but the protagonist is attracted to her and conveys this to the reader through his narration. In Kubrick's film, he chose an attractive actress to play Lolita, despite this being a departure from the plot, so as to maintain the audience's empathy with the characters.
A film adaptation of a great novel is not merely a translation of the plot. It requires creativity on the writer's part, a term many modern writers are unfamiliar with.
Another good example of the same principle: William Goldman's adaptation of his own novel "the princess bride".

There are a lot of novels that have been developed into masterpieces of film, the most recent being the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Some times the films become more recognized and appreciated than the source material. When most people hear the title "The Godfather," they think of Francis Ford Coppola's exceptional adaptation rather than the original book. When P. T. Anderson's film There Will Be Blood comes up in conversation, people don't usually mention Upton Sinclair's book Oil, the book the movie was inspired by. This list can go on and on (Sideways, Million Dollar Baby, No Country for Old Men, etc). And then there are those books that beg to be turned into a film, like Jurassic Park and the Batman revamps.

It really depends on the quality of the filmmaker and their appreciation of the source material, just like it does with original screenplays.

It does work out well sometimes.... Or even perfect, see "The Shawshank Redemption", from Stephen King's novella.

Translation always implies adaptation. Adaptations are not always well received by the audience. If people expect films to be like the books, then they should read. The two media are different, and the way they represent events is different. Books leave a lot to the imagination of the reader. Movies are more defining.

Dr. Zhivago...great in both novel and film. Would we expect less of Pasternak and Lean?

One of the best book adaptations I've seen is Umberto Eco's novel "The name of the rose." Whenever I think of a great book and a very good film adaptation, this one comes to my mind.

Well, they should be making a 12-hour film to live up with the novel's faithful adaptation, A good 2 hours is not enough.

Brokeback Mountain is a good translation from print to page. Maybe shorter books or stories are better. I think one of the main reasons films are often a disappointment is that when you read a book, you imagine the characters – their appearance, their voices. The director's image of that person might be quite different and you may feel disappointed. A notable exception to this is Gregory Peck's Atticus Finch – what a man!

Books and films are very different media, requiring different treatments. A great example is "Sense and Sensibility": Emma Thompson allowed herself considerable freedom in the script: omitting less important characters, cutting out episodes, and making two characters (Edward and Margarette) much more interesting. While it would seem like sacrilige to tinker with Jane Austin, It made for a great movie. Another point – when reading a book, we often imagine what the characters and places look like, and "fill in" the dynamics. If we are not willing to relinquish our conception and enter the conception of the movie crafters, it would be better to stick with the book.

The problem is that they always have to change the story line in some way.

A film would hardly capture a novel in its entirety. When you read a book everything is laid out. By this I mean you are able to "get into the minds" of the characters. This might be a little more difficult with a film.

it's very difficult to translate a book to the screen.. Generally it's better to read a book than to see the movie because the descriptions,the explanations of the author help us to understand the story and the characters. Anyway there were good examples: Gone with the wind,For whom the bell tolls,Nights in Rodanthe. It depends on the producer. Generally he shortens the story. it's impossible to make a movie just exactly as the book was written.

And sometimes the movies are a lot better then the books. James Bond is a good example.
Thing is that the movies are great medium for entertainment/action. Books can be great to make you think/dream/reflect etc. They both have their own function. Just like poetry or music for instance.

The main problem lies in translating the languages and the subtleties of those languages.... It is fairly easy to translate from English to Italian but from Italian to English is almost impossible. The innuendo and subtleties ARE LOST IN TRANSLATION ...

Great novels are often credited to writer´s style, not by its plots. The filmmaker can adapt plots but never styles and the result depends on the style he (filmmaker) develops by its own.; that will be viewed by the audience and certainly flaws happens when there´s no style beyond the attempt to copy the novel literary into a film.

books, like people, can be extremely complex and detailed and subtle, and can take a dozen hours to get through, even if you read fast. you have time to take in personalities, settings, and ideas.

actors and movies are almost always hit you over the head obvious, and have to wrap up in an hour and a half with a nice little moral or guy gets girl/saves the world ending. they can be visually stunning, which many movies take advantage of, and they can be aurally fascinating, which some movies do well, but having tim robbins or drew barrymore or some other tin headed caricature of a person delivering deep ideas that they obviously don't even understand, makes for a horrible movie.

also, a good book might be 100 years ahead of its time. a movie is rarely ahead of its time(it's just too much of a gamble to spend $30 million on a movie that people might not get).

I think the matter is as simple as that novels are verbal and long, and movies are sensory and relatively short. A good writer makes every possible use of their medium, and so if good narration is adapted visually a lot is lost. (Someone mentioned that Kubrick's Lolita was faithful– I wholeheartedly disagree. About 70% of Nabokov's novel is description of colors and visuals - imagine my disappointment when I see that Kubrick's movie is in black and white.) Someone said that translation is treachery but that's how is it. Something must be lost. A good writer/director knows what to cut out and what to leave in. Good novels tend to have a balance throughout their content so that if something is left out the whole work seems off balance (for me that was the problem with 'Atonement', a movie I thought was totally unlike in feeling to the book). Good novels also tend to play off of subtlety which can be interesting when read because of the narration, but is often very boring on screen (as are adaptations about mundane and real events). Some novels like Catcher in the Rye, though immensely popular, are not directly visual and have narrative form that cannot be faithfully adapted to the screen (well, maybe with a voice over...). Novels that are visual, however, like Lord of the Rings, tend to adapt quite well. One HUGE disappointment was the His Dark Materials book. I mean...the director of American Pie? Seriously? Fantasy novels tend to hold quite well under adaptation because they are usually highly visual and exciting, but Golden Compass was just a plain bad movie. It was all flash and no feeling.
Anyways.

Some of the most successful and unforgetable movies are not necessarily a great novel turned into a 2 hour film. The close work, trust and appreciation of each other's talent, sharing the same goal ,having that same dream with a positive attitude between writer/director without a doubt turn into a blockbuster lingering in peolple mind for a long time.

The Thorn Birds. Maybe a mini-series is a better vehicle than the big screen to more fully explore the complexities of a good novel.

Quote from Linda DC: "One of the best book adaptations I’ve seen is Umberto Eco’s novel “The name of the rose.” Whenever I think of a great book and a very good film adaptation, this one comes to my mind."

I had a discussion about movie adaptations from books just a few weeks ago, and someone mentioned "The name of the rose" as well. She thought it was a horrible movie when she saw it. It just goes to show that there's not only a creative differences between authors, script writers and directors, but also a matter of personal opinion between those who view (and hopefully enjoy) the movies based on books.

Personally I'm not too picky. I can understand the changes script writers have to make in order to bring a hundred-paged book back to a two hour movie (in most cases.) I myself enjoyed both the book "Little Children" (by Tom Perrotta) and the movie (by Todd Field) based on it immensly. But there's no doubt there will be others who will simply not like it, because it does not live up to their imagination.

In the end, it will be hard to please everyone. But knowing that a creative team of people try their best to transform written words in moving images is something I can appreciate.

Sometimes the movie is actually better than the book. Godfather would be in this category.

Any great work of art can not be divorced from its medium. A great painting can not be made into a great sculpture-they are vastly different expressions. When a work is good the medium is integrally part of its elegance and clarity of expression. Therefore to expect the same result or rather artistic satisfaction from two mediums treating the same subject will inevitably cause some disappointment if one of them is a great work. Imagine how difficult it would be to write a great book from the Godfather? A case in which the film treatment reated the superior work.

That said there are adaptations that are successful because they take great liberties being conscious of the limitations and advantages of their medium. The French Lieutenants Woman is an example of such liberties (though not a great movie). The best adaptation I have seen was Tess of the Durbevilles.

I think one needs to enjoy each for what they are- one should not expect to "see" the book, neither should the director try to "show" it.

When I read "The Beach" by Alex Garland, I kept visualizing it as a film, and yet when the film was made it was really limp compared to the book. Just goes to show that even plot driven pulp fiction can not always be adapted. But in general I think there's no rule – some films work and others fail, whether based on books or not...

Personally I think movie makers should stay away from filming books. It's impossible to squeez a +300 pages book into a 2 hours movie. That's why film adaptions are always a dissapointment. There are a few exceptions out there who came very close to the book. The LOTR movies is one of them.

I think it comes down to the interpretation. I would again cite Cronenberg. The Naked Lunch (William S Burroughs) was always considered to be unfilmable due to it's nature, both in content and Burroughs' odd way of presenting his texts and dialogue. Cronenberg bravely took the project on and made a very interesting movie but it is one man's interpretation of a difficult literary work. It didn't look familiar to anyone who has read the book and it never would. Hats off to Cronenberg for tackling such difficult projects.

A great example of a good book turned into a good movie is Alan Parker's 'Angel Heart', an adaptation of Hortjesbourg's 'Fallen (or Falling) Angel, starring Robert De Niro and Mickey Rourke. Given such a well drawn story and plot, the film plays out beautifully to anyone who has had the pleasure of reading the novel first.

I thought the film, Stand By Me from Stephen King's novel, "The Body" was an excellent adaptation. The trick, I think, is to fully develop the characters. Many film adaptations fail to do this and so much is lost.

In a book the narrative voice can fill a void that the dialogue just can't. Many films suffer from being over-expository. They don't give enough credit to the audience to figure certain things out and books tap the imagination of the individual reader. How many times have you heard a person complain about their own imagination? We're seldom unhappy with images that are born from or live in our on minds.

I would have never thought Fight Club could be made into a coherent film but I thought it was an excellent adaptation.

I thought Legends of the Fall was a pretty good adaptation as well (my main complaint was that there wasn't enough of Tristan's travels around the world when he left home); but that was a novella, so probably a lot easier to adapt than a full length novel.

The mini-series Shogun was well done as well. There are a lot more intricacies and political intrigue in the book of course, but I thought they did a nice job of cutting to the chase and keeping the overall feel of the novel intact. This one worked for the opposite reason Legends of the Fall worked; they made a 10-hour series out of a full novel.

One of my biggest disappointments was All The Pretty Horses – great, great book; horrible movie.

it's useless to compare the book to the movie. They are two different medias. A book is the project of one author, the mindset of one person (ok, editors touch the final copy a bit, but still...). A movie is different, so many people are involved in the process, not only directors, but the producers who bring the money in, the writers who penn the script, the actors who give the interpretations, and all the engineers, from sound, lighting, editing... One thing goes bad and the movie loses something.
Then there's the fact that we have different standards in which we judge each medias. Jurassic Park, if you omit the book, is a great movie when you compare it to others of its kind. But compare it to the book and it pales. A great book will be a great book no matter the movie; a great movie will be a great movie no matter the book. Stephen King's novella "sawshank redemption" is mediocre at best compared to everything he's done, and compared to litterature in general. The movie is considered a classic in cinema. But how can you compare the two, saying one is better than the other? They're not in the same group to be compared. All you can compare are the emotions you felt when you experienced both. I was moved and felt glad I had seen the movie: the book left me indifferent and thus disappointed because I usually enjoy Stephen King.
I thought Alice Sebold's "Lovely Bones" was a touching book, and think it's a great piece of modern litterature. Peter Jackson is now adapting it to the big screen. I highly anticipate it because I think he's a good director and I liked the book, thus I like the story of the movie. However, if the movie is bad, I will feel disappointed. It won't mean it's a failed adaptation from a book, it will mean it's a failed movie.

Yes, I believe so. But first we need to understand that motion pictures/films and the literary prose are two completely different media. Often times, fans of some great novels confuse themselves with the notion that how they imagined things in the book should translate almost if not exactly the same on film. This obviously will not be the case, for the film adapatation of any novels or short stories are subject to a diffrent interpretation by the screen writers and the director and that the technical and artisitic merits of the film should never be overlooked.
Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" is one very good example of great novels beautifully translated into blockbuster and award-winning films. Peter Jackson's direction and his team's exeptional screen adapatation were successful in transforming literary pieces that once were deemed impossible to translate into another medium possible. Critics and the regular movie-goers like me were amazed by the genius of Tolkien's story-telling and by Jackson's artistic vision that revolutionized the world of cinema all together.
I think that in the end, it really takes not only great talent but tremendous amount of courage as well in attempting to recreate novels into films. The important thing is that readers are drawn to the magic of cinemas and that some films encourage movie-goers to read. Either way, both can bring about better things and new experiences.

'L.A. Confidential' as a movie was so much better than James Ellroy's book (and I say that as someone who normally loathes movie adaptations of books). The movie dropped an icky paedophilia narrative which was one of the primary threads in the book; the movie ended when it should have (rather than the decades of paedophilia nonsense in the book); and it drastically changed the female rape victim character's importance to the central characters. All were changes that made the movie a perfect gem in its own right, even if – no, definitely because – it did not stay faithful to the original story.

'Get Shorty' is my 2nd favourite movie adaptation. As dryly funny as Elmore Leonard can be in print, and indeed as the book is, the movie condensed, contracted, changed, and otherwise immeasurably improved the story to become one of the funniest satires of movie-making I've seen (whilst retaining Leonard's trademark mix of violent low-lifes along with redeemable characters (sometimes the same people).

translation of a novel into film means bridging a chasm of two entirely different mediums....a reader silently inhabits the universe of a book and inhabits his/her own world with the story in their own way, with their own inflections and language cadences, and a personal interpretation of the imagery...the moviegoer has this done for him with the scene provided full view, the imagination is that of the director and you accept their inner universe as your vision.....and make your judgements from there.
there is no correlation that a good book is a good predictor for a good movie...it may be that a simple, one-dimensional book makes for an easier translation to the screen...i for one thought "the road"...(mc carthy).....was a lightweight, superficial undeveloped book (with a very interesting, powerful premise) that may translate quite well, quite easily to the big screen.....complex, deep novels simply have too much range to fit into two hours..........it gets down to an apple/oranges comparisoncomparison....

First, the name of Saramago´s book is "Ensaio sobrE a cegueira", wich probably the writer hasn´t read in the original version... maybe that´s why he and other critics didn´t enjoy the film as much as portuguese speakers or Saramago himself, who loved the way the film was made. It is easy to put everything in the same bag just to blow empty critic in the web. There are as many examples of good film adaptations as there are bad, and each is particular to complexity of the original novels, see Harry Potter for example =)

Another great adaptation in my view was "The English Patient". The exquisite prose was translated beautifully into vivid imagery by Anthony Minghella.

Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands was a good adaptation. Although not as rich as the novel, it certainly captured the tragicomical spirit of the original.

A novel is the distilled product of a mind, that of the author. It is hence hard for someone else than the author to faithfully replicate all the complexities imbedded the novel and really do justice to it. This is just similar to translations which utlimately causes the source material to lose a bit of substance in its target incarnation.

simply:
the novel makes you use your mind to imagin the events how would appear like.
but the movie, you are limited to what you see nothing more.
actually, the human mind is miraculous thing .

When you capture the spirit of a writer and his book , then you can successfully adapt the novel into a film, surely anything can disclose it's secret to you if you love it enough. (author "The Rising Rosebud")

Blindness is one of the best movies I have ever seen. It is a brilliant and loyal adaptation of Saramango's great novel. Actually, Saramango has hesitated a lot before agreeing with the movie, and he was extremely pleased with the final result. Both Saramango and Fernando Meirelles wanted the film to be very close the to book....so explaning why the film brings all the complexities and difficult messages to scene. In my opinion, knowing the book, knowing Meirelles style, this film is very coherent to what was planned to be. It is complex, disturbing and dares to bring to scene unfilmable messages...until now!!!! That is where it lies the beauty of it....it is not an existing formula....it forces you to think about things you avoid to think. It makes you to think about what is really a good novel adaptation to a film....maybe Meirelles has just brought us all to a new level!

Often, The author of the book is not or cannot be consulted by the screenplay writer or the director of the movie in order to obtain the essence or ethereal emotional impact of the story.

It all comes down to: Story, script, casting, directing, and editing.

For a faithful film adaptation of a novel that works, see "The spy who came in from the cold".

I think it is important for Filmmakers to understand what the strengths and weaknesses are in there chosen medium (the film) and when they want to translate something from another art form (the novel) to that medium. They should let these strong features prevail and not try to take features that work in the novel and literally put it on film.
An example of an adaptation in which it works is 'The Virgin Suicides' by Sofia Coppola (based on a novel, by the same name, written by Jeffrey Eugenides), here she uses long montages consisting of a bewildering tree in front of the Lisbon house accompanied by the music of Air. where the novel captures the events, the love of the neighborhood boys to the Lisbon Girls, and the slowly disappearing joy out of there lives, in words. the movie gives it in images, music and the unspoken.
So to conclude: a novel should tell/show a story trough the merits of it's art as well as the movie (who might adapt the same story) who tells/shows the story trough the brilliance/merits of it's art from.

LJ Kessels, Amsterdam

A Clockwork Orange, Far From the Madding Crowd, A Room with a View, Zorba the Greek: there are many in which the translation is made by an equal artistry.

William Goldman, author of Marathon Man and Butch Cassidy, has written two great books on adapting books to screenplays. Anyone who thinks it's a straightforward thing, or that it would work if only they kept the story the same, should read his books.

It's definitely not straightforward, you usually CANNOT keep the story the same even if you want to, and it's just as creative an endeavor as writing an original screenplay.

A book cannot be truly be adpted into a film, rather it is the director's interpretation of the book that makes the adaptation a great film. Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter films clearly illustrate this point. However it is directors' attempts to 'rewrite' the book that result in adaptation failures.

The adaption of Memoirs of a Geisha to film fell short. The movie is beautiful–the cinematography is breathtaking and evocative, but as a whole the movie feels long and plodding. It story is very faithful, but the same material in the book is never boring. It's just another example of a film that would have been better with a more creative rather than faithful adaption.

Ayn Rands books will also be a great challenge to film. Much of the vigour in the books is in the ideology and great speeches that the protagonists give and as a reader you have the chance to re-read and fully grasp the gravity of each dialogue. The Fountain Head was made into a film, but it was hardly a match to the book. Atlas Shrugged remains to be explored. I would love to see how the idea of Atlas and John Galt are mysteriously explored, combatting all prior images in readers minds...

Sometimes creative compression of a sprawling novel can make for a very effective film. I think William Wyler's version of "Wuthering Heights" in 1939 is a good example. It covers only about half of the book, which is a multi-generational saga that's not nearly as compelling as what Wyler captured on screen. I agree that "The English Patient" is one of the great adaptations of what seems like an unfilmable novel. Ashame that Anthony Minghella didn't do as well by his subsequent films, "Cold Mountain" or "The Talented Mr. Ripley."

It is true that most of the time the book is better than the movie but sometimes the movie can be as good as the book, The Prince of Tides was one of my favorite books and I never thought it could be successfully made into a movie, but it was done very well. Ordinary People comes to mind as well. I thought the movie Cider House Rules was actually better than the book.

The original movie version of Frederick Forsythe's "The Day of the Jackal" (not that sorry Bruce Willis/Richard Gere remake) and John LeCarre's "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" were perfect adaptations of the books. However, the film version of Len Deighton's "Funeral in Berlin" was superior to the book. The movie version of Alastair Maclean's "Force 10 from Navarone"(a better book than "The Guns of Navarone'), however, was one of the worst adaptations of all time!!!