By Heidi Simmons
Over the last several years, books have become more fully actualized on screen than in the past. Today, filmmaking techniques and technology are so sophisticated they can render anything imagined on the big screen. Where once only the pages in a book could take you to another world, now the wizards of cinema can bring it to a fully rendered, three-dimensional life form.
Over the last few years, there have been a myriad of high-profile books made into movies. The Great Gatsby, The Hunger Games, The Hobbit and Life of Pi are but a few that quickly come to mind. It seems most book adaptations are highly anticipated, but often disappointing.
We love books because it is a personal and intimate experience. It is an engaging, one-to-one relationship that speaks directly to the reader. It is the opposite with film. Movies are a shared, collective experience that can speak to a large audience. Yet both can move us in ways we didn’t anticipate. One medium is not better than the other, they are simply different venues.
It is certainly a challenge to translate the narrative of a beloved book into the visual language of film. We pray that the filmmaker understands the nature of the material and gets it right. If you love books and movies, there is nothing more exciting than when these two worlds come together and satisfy our high expectations.
Here are a few popular books that are set for adaptation and production this year:
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn is the story of a couple that move back to the husband’s hometown to make a new start after losing work in New York. On their wedding anniversary, the wife disappears and the investigation points to the husband as the primary suspect.
The challenge of this best seller is that the narrative is constructed through journal entries. Like all good suspense stories, things are not what they seem and the complications are delicious. The most fascinating element in the novel is the portrayal of the hungry media mob that shapes consensus, making the husband a monster. The beauty of the story is that he’s not the monster — she is.
Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James was not a great read or an original story idea. But the popularity of the trilogy will forever be an example of how fan fiction, mommy porn and e-readers collided into phenomenal sales.
In the story, a young, awkward and beautiful college graduate, Anastasia, gets caught-up in a relationship with a sadomasochist billionaire, Grey, who grooms her to be his pet. This story should not be a difficult transition to the big screen. The only problem is making the movie serious enough to overlook the vulgar use of wealth, the abusive sex and the demoralization of women. Maybe that can work for the movie version. The real question is, can Anastasia be respected and can Grey be empathetic?
The story of the biblical Noah will be released this year. It could be very exciting. Certainly the movie effects should make the experience visceral. It is a story the entire world is familiar with – a man and his family must save the world from a cataclysm taking every living thing that will come along with them on a boat.
As long as the movie captures the doom, danger and the dilemma — and doesn’t preach a message — it should be thrilling. After all, it’s not so much a story about religion, but rather survival, loss and a new beginning.
Graphic Novels are a blast to read, and are practically already movies. Frank Miller’s Sin City: A Dame to Kill For is a noir tale with a fantastic femme fatal who uses sex to get what she wants and the sad sack, sympathetic man who succumbs to her scheme.
This should translate nicely to film as long as the actors deliver performances that make us squirm and cringe.
The Giver by Lois Lowry may finally make it to the screen this year. Published in 1993, this young adult favorite is about a “utopian” society that controls the population’s knowledge and memories. As the society seeks “sameness,” Jonas, the young protagonist, must decide if he should reveal the dark truth.
There are many great themes in this book. It has ideas, wisdom and maturity that rival other great works of literature like 1984, Brave New World and Animal Farm. This book will make a provocative and intense movie as long as the character of Jonas is fully actualized and his challenge clearly defined. What the book lacks in action, it makes up for in intelligence.
The beautiful thing about books is that no matter how it’s interpreted or translated to film, the book does not change; it will always remain intact. History has shown us that books can be reinterpreted again and again. One of the most beautiful things about good stories is the best ones can be told and retold.
