Saturday, June 03, 2006

Adaptation (cont'd.) ...

Maxine sends along a link to the Guardian's readers' choice of the top 50 film adaptations: The Big 50.

Plenty to disagree with here: The Teasure of the Sierra Madre is a better adaptation than any of those in the Top 10, to say nothing of a better movie. Had any of these people ever seen the screen version of Of Mice and Men, one wonders. Cuckoo's Nest is a pernicious film of a pernicious book: Seriously mental ill persons suffer grievously; they do not simply enjoy an alternative view of reality cramped by an authoritarian society - and this is something I have seen up close and personal. And what is Apocalypse, Now - in my view pretentious and over-rated - supposed to have been adapted from? I believe that Conrad isn't even listed in the credits, and as an adaptation of "Heart of Darkness," it's ridiculous.

4 comments:

  1. Yeah, I forgot about The Third Man. Sounds like a bunch of people who went to film school.

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  2. Frank, one of the good things about a "Best ..." list, is that it's a great way to get a discussion - even a good-natured argument - started ...

    There's always going to be someone, like myself, asking, "What about ...?"

    Melville's suggestion of "The Third Man" is a good one.

    Titles I would have added to the list include "Like Water for Chocolate" (1993, directed by Alfonso Arau), "Red Badge of Courage" (the 1951 version, directed by John Huston, with Audie Murphy as The Youth), and "The Andromeda Strain" (1971, directed by Robert Wise).

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  3. Completely agree with you about Apocalypse Now, what a dog's breakfast. I also agree that Cuckoo's Nest initiated (or popularised) this attitude about mentally ill people being fine if only they were better understood, as one sees in many films eg Jim Carey's -- all that you need is the right sympathetic carer, etc....
    I think Far From the Madding Crowd (Joseph Losey) was a good adaptation of a book. Little Dorrit (Christine Edzard or Ezzard), made in two films, was excellent, though made on a shoestring budget. Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources?

    I have this idea that in the 40s and 50s there was more of a tradition of making good films of good books, whether classics such as Dickins (David Lean) or Odd Man Out (Carol Reed again).

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  4. How could I have forgotten Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources? Or Odd Man Out, for that matter. And yes, Maxine, I think you are right about the '40s and '50s. Movies, in fact, are not better than ever - though I agree with Jeff about Badge and Andromeda: Those are good adaptations. I suspect the four of us could come up with a better list in no time. How about Robert Bresson's Diary of a Country Priest? And accuse me, if you want, of being cornball, but I think the adaptations of James Hilton's Lost Horizon, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, and Random Harvest are as good as they get.

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