How do you turn a ten sentence book into a 94 minute movie?

So, at this point I’m sure that many of you have checked out Spike Jonzes’ Where The Wild Things Are. While this film has certainly polarized audiences, I hope that at least one thing we can all agree on is that adapting a ten-sentence book into a feature length film would be incredibly hard. And while I think that the team of David Eggers and Spike Jones ultimately did a good job in preserving the feel of the original Where the Wild Things Are, their movie got me thinking about the challenges implicit in turning unconventional books into successful films. Here are, in my mind, some successful adaptations of incredibly challenging source material:

Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh, adapted by John Hodge

This is the first one I thought of. Trainspotting is an exuberantly dark and twisted novel that peeks into the lives of drug-obsessed maniacs floating around Leith in the 1980’s. The language is thick and impenetrable and there is no real hero or story to speak of, only the hilarious and depressing chaos of lives lived without consequences. Indeed, as John Hodge, the screenwriter who eventually adapted it, said 1) it is a collection of loosely related short stories about several different characters which only takes on distinctive narrative form towards the end and 2) the characters, each with a distinctive voice, are defined by internal monologue as much as anything, and the language is uncompromisingly specific to a time and place. The way that Mr. Hodge surmounted these challenges and turned this book into a screenplay is a great lesson to all screenwriters, and indeed all writers in general: He cut mercilessly. Many of the most memorable characters and moments in the book were ruthlessly slashed to whittle the sprawling work down into a cohesive plot.  When the vignettes still all didn’t connect, Mr. Hodge wasn’t afraid to write some original scenes of his own to ensure that everything flowed smoothly. The sardonic tone and grim energy of the book were still preserved, and the film had a logical, cohesive structure – if it had been a totally faithful transcription of the novel, it would be almost un-watchable.

American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis, adapted by Guinevere Turner

American Psycho was another formidable book to adapt. While there is a central character, Patrick Bateman, he is definitely an anti-hero, and a figure that most (normal) people would be unable to empathize with. Also, the incredibly graphic portrayal of violence in the book would land the movie a XXX rating if it was transcribed accurately. Perhaps even more problematic though is the same issue that plagued Trainspotting; there is only a vaguely defined journey that Patrick Bateman undergoes, and there is no strictly woven plot or concrete conclusion to his narrative. Again, screenwriter Guinevere Turner had to cut mercilessly (not unlike Bateman himself) at the book, preserving and stringing together isolated chapters to push the pace of the film forward. By doing this, Guinevere was able to preserve the corporate satire and introverted insanity of the novel, despite omitting some particularly memorable scenes.

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, adapted by Maxwell Anderson

I’m sorry that all of these films are such downers, by the way, but again, here is an example of original source material that is about as far from classic film structure as you can get. All Quiet on the Western Front is a survival account, as disparate and as confused as the war it chronicles. The film (which won the 1930 Best Picture Academy Award) again cuts and streamlines all of the book’s events and shapes a clearly defined narrative, even adding in events that are not mentioned in the novel (especially the ending). It channels the feel of the book, rather than painstakingly recreating every chapter. And this is why it works.

So, as the great screenwriting guru Robert McKee said, (featured, ironically in the context of this post, in Spike Jonze’s movie Adaptation) “When adapting for the screen, be willing to re-invent.” I completely agree with him. Having too much reverence for what you are adapting will ultimately ensure that you fuck it up.  Again, this is applicable not only to film, of course, but all aspects of writing – the best way to pay homage to work that you really admire is not to directly recreate it, but rather to try and evoke its tone in your own way.