Turning fact and fiction into film

You’ve read the book. It was visual, cinematic. The characters were compelling, the story involving, the style entertaining. But the film didn’t work. Why?

You loved the play. It seemed like a sure thing for a film. Millions had seen it in the theatres, but audiences stayed away from the film. What went wrong?

Why is it that the worst failures and the greatest successes so often are adaptations? Why do some work and others don’t? Is it that the writers and producers don’t know their jobs? Or is there something intrinsic to the adaptation process that spells trouble?

In spite of what we may think, there is no such thing as an easy adaptation. We’ve probably all heard people say, “All you have to do is film the book”. Francis Ford Coppola tried that with the 1974 version of The Great Gatsby, and it failed. Others say, “This was immensely popular, it’s bound to be a blockbuster.” Bonfire of the Vanities was a best-seller, but the film was panned. Many writers and producers have undertaken a project that seemed to be a sure thing, only to fail after thousands—or millions—of dollars had been spent.

By its very nature, adaptation is a transition, a conversion, from one medium to another. All original material will put up a bit of a fight, almost as if it were saying, Take me as I am. Yet adapting implies change. It implies a process that demands rethinking, reconceptualizing, and understanding how the nature of drama is intrinsically different from the nature of all other literature.

The adaptor is much like the sculptor Michelangelo, who, when asked how he was able to carve such a beautiful angel, replied, “The angel is caught inside the stone. I simply carve out everything that isn’t the angel”. The adaptor is sculpting out everything that isn’t drama, so the intrinsic drama contained within another medium remains.

What do you need to do to make an adaptation work? What does the process include?

Very few original sources will be equal to a two-hour film. The six-hundred-page novel will be too long, the short story or newspaper article will be too short. The first job of the adaptor will be to figure out how to fit the original material into different time parameters.

Rarely does a film story begin and end where the book does. True, there are notable exceptions. The film GONE WITH THE WIND begins with the first scene of the book and ends with the last scene of the book. More often, though, beginnings and endings are found within the body of the story. The book The Color Purple begins with the first incident of incest between Celie and her father, several years before the point in time when the film begins. The film STAND BY ME ends eleven pages before the end of the novella.

The nature of condensing involves losing material. Condensing often includes losing subplots, combining or cutting characters, leaving out several of the many themes that might be contained in a long novel, and finding within the material the beginning, middle, and end of a dramatic story line. These choices can be frustrating, since writers sometimes need to give up scenes and characters they love in order to make the film work.

Cutting and combining characters helps condense an unwieldy novel into a workable form. In the film GONE WITH THE WIND, you know the characters of Scarlett O’Hara, Rhett Butler, Melanie, Ashley, Aunt Pittypat, Dr. Meade, Prissy, and Mammy. If you read the book, you would be introduced to several other important characters, such as Archie, Will, and the governor. In the book, Scarlett’s mother, Ellen, was a very important figure whose values and kindnesses and images of what it meant to be a Southern lady served as both an example to Scarlett and as a reason for her considerable guilt about much of her behavior. Yet Ellen was rarely seen in the film. She needed to be sacrificed because of the length of the novel.

The work of adapting the short story demands adding rather than subtracting. Usually, a short story has fewer characters than a novel, and they are in a simple situation, sometimes one without a beginning, middle, and end. In many short stories there are few, or no, subplots to complicate the action. Working with the short story demands adding subplots, adding characters, and expanding scenes and story lines.

Many of our best-known and best-loved films come from short stories. These include STAGECOACH, IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, ALL ABOUT EVE, IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, and HIGH NOON. One of my favorite musicals, SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS, came from the very charming short story The Sobbin’ Women by Stephen Vincent Benét.

The Greatest Gift, a short story by Philip Van Doren Stern that became the film IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, revolves around a single incident: George wants to kill himself and an angel takes him back to see how life would be without him. The screenwriter used this incident but expanded on George’s backstory and relationships. In The Tin Star by John M. Cunningham, which became HIGH NOON, the main character dies at the end. For the film, relationships and a victorious ending were added.

For other film adaptations of short stories new scenes and situations were added to round out and develop characters and story line. In Stage to Lordsburg by Ernest Haycox (STAGECOACH), the role of Ringo became a focus of the story, expanding the role for John Wayne. In the adaptation of Night Bus by Samuel Hopkins Adams (IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT), subplots were strengthened and filled out with detail.

These decisions help craft the script into a workable dramatic story line. But the adaptor also has to translate the story into a commercially viable film.

For many writers, commercial is a dirty word. It implies compromising, losing the integrity of one’s project, adding a car chase and a sex scene as a lowest common denominator to draw audiences.

It is true that for many producers and executives commercial is a very limited concept. Many studios look to the last blockbuster to define it, to DIE HARD 2, not to DRIVING MISS DAISY, which has already grossed over $100,000,000 in business. They define it by TOTAL RECALL, not by MY LEFT FOOT, a low-budget film that has made a respectable profit. They define it by the bottom line, not by the top line—quality.

But it’s important to remember that entertainment is show plus business, and producers need to be reasonably sure that they can make a profit on their investment. There is a fine line between taking reasonable risks so that original projects get made and making cautious decisions by assessing what has drawn audiences in the past.

This fine line becomes particularly important when deciding what to adapt. There are many novels, plays, and true-life stories that are simply not commercially viable. They are too difficult to adapt and will resist any changes to make them adaptable. The adaptor and the producers need to make a reasonable assessment about what will work and what will be too difficult and not worth the investment.

A best-selling book might be read by a million readers, or perhaps four to eight million if it’s one of the biggest sellers. A successful Broadway play might be seen by one to eight million people, but if only five million people go to see a film, it will be considered a failure. If only ten million people watch a television series, it will be cancelled. Films and television shows need to satisfy the masses to make a profit. Novels and plays have a more select audience, so they can cater to a more elite market: they can be thematic; they can deal with esoteric issues, or work with abstract styles. But the transition to film requires that the material be accessible to the general public.

From the introduction to

Linda Seger, The Art of Adaptation: Turning Fact and Fiction into Film.