Novel to Film: 10 Seamless Adaptations

Novels have been made into movies since the birth of cinema. The book is always better is one cliché; another cliché is that B Novels make A movies. Like all clichés, these words of wisdom contain some truth, but only some. More often than not, the filmmakers screw up the book. I try to judge a film one its own terms, not how well the original source material has been realized.

I love film, but I love literature more. I almost always prefer the book, and some adaptations are simply detestable, others are off the mark, yet still enjoyable films. Many films I’ve enjoyed yet have no desire to read the book.

Then there are the novel adaptation to films that make up this list. I consider the adaptation seamless. I love the novel, I love the film. It’s not just that the original story remains intact, which it does, or the characters, setting and feel of the book are rendered faithfully, which they are.

This list are of novels and films that if you have enjoyed in one form, you will certainly enjoy the other form. By seamless I mean in my mind. When I recollect the story, I can’t distinguish the film from the book.

While some of these books I read before seeing the film, I’ve re-read them all after seeing the film, and I see the film in my mind’s eye when I re-read the book. That’s another aspect of their seamlessness. I consider all these novels and films worth experiencing more than once.


So think of these as not the best of films based on novels, but seamless adaptations, where both mediums compliment each other and the original source material survives not just intact, but enhanced.



Novel: Theatre by Somerset Maugham

Film: Being Julia directed by István Szabó

I almost included Painted Veil on this list, but I didn’t want two Somerset Maugham entries and while both that film and that novel are superb, the film wraps things up a little too tightly, undermining the criteria of seamless adaptation that is my starting premise. Being Julia, the film version of Theatre, can also be accused of lacking seamlessness, but I would argue that in adapting the novel they cleverly overcame an inherent problem—the aging of the main character. The novel begins in her youth, mainly when she becomes an acting student. This foreshadows her determination to be relevant as she enters middle-age and navigates an affair with a shallow cad of a younger man, which is the core of the story. Instead of CGI (notice the absence of Benjamin Button on this list) or the latest in make-up, her acting teacher returns as ghost, a figment of her imagination. The apparition delivers the same lines the character says in the first half the novel, essentially providing the early chapters of the book. The device works superbly. When I’ve re-read the novel, I think of the first half in those terms. Otherwise, this film follows the novel, although the Christopher Greenwood character is a composite with whom the director makes an admirable pro-gay rights statement, which is anachronistic yet an acceptable acknowledgement of Maugham’s closeted homosexuality. The last scene, the last shot implies that Julia has let go of the distant and recent past—she no longer acknowledges the ghost. She becomes more herself, which is not exactly in the book but is totally believable to the character. Essentially, Maugham wrote a character study of an actress who matures as both a woman and an artist. The final scene in the film concludes with this wonderful shot of Annette Benning, one of our greatest actresses, letting the viewer reveal in her natural beauty as well as the strength, and confidence that is ultimately Julia. The novel is a realistic account of the world of theater; the reader feels what it is like to be in the theater at the turn of the century. The film, which moves the story to the 20s, which I also am able to overlook, informs us what it feels like to be that woman. The adaptation may be less seamless than others on this list in terms of exactness of story telling, but in terms of theme and character, it might be the most fully realized translation from prose to cinema.

Novel: Heaven’s Prisoners by James Lee Burke

Film: Heaven’s Prisoners directed by Philip Joanou

James Lee Burke has written books other than his David Robicheaux series, including a rather well done collection of non-detective short stories, Jesus Washed Away. Heaven’s Prisoners one of the best of the series was turned into a thrilling feature, directed by Philip Joanou (State of Grace), led by Alec Baldwin in one of the best of his dramatic performances, who reportedly sunk some of his own dough so this beautiful neo-noir could be completed. Saw the film, bought the book, loved the book, read the entire series and now buy them in hardcover within a week of their release (he publishes a Robicheaux about every other year). I always see Baldwin as Dave “Streak” Robicheaux when I read Burke. I rented the film several times before finally buying the DVD, watched it several times. I even picked “Electric Mist,” a fine film of another novel in the series with Tommy Lee Jones. Baldwin is a better Dave. Heaven’s Prisoners is also a better story. Terri Hatcher, sultry, bisexual wife of gangster Eric Roberts, is really calling all the shots. Filmed in New Orleans, filled with swampy mythos that Burke captures so well in his detailed and florid prose. The only thing jettisoned is Robicheaux Vietnam Veteran past, which was not germane to this Robicheaux yarn. The Catholic spirituality, the Alcohol Anonymous ethos, the Cajun value system, that this series is known for are presented and accounted for. His remarkable sentences are brought to visual life. If you love the books, get this movie, if you love the movie, get the books. If you don’t love the movie, you probably have not seen it or you have no appreciation for thrillers set in the bayou where all crimes begin as sins committed in the French Quarter.

Novel: Damage by Josephine Hart

Film Damage directed by Louis Malle

One of Louis Malle’s best and most overlooked films, Damage is a masterpiece he made late in his career. This loyal adaptation of a fascinating, somewhat tawdry and erotic minimalist by Josephine Hart, is about a father having an obsessive affair with his son’s fiancé. The gal you see, slept with her younger brother, who committed suicide. She’s damaged, so is capable of any sexual transgression and is above right and wrong as regular society knows it. This gnarly sexual melodrama evolves into a something akin to Greek tragedy. A man, British politician played by Jeremy Irons, throws away his life for desire and after the consequences, lives an exile, worshipping the damaged femme fatale, the stunningly beautiful and sexy Juliette Binoche. Hart’s sentences are sparse, and it’s a marvel how Malle richly creates the entire world of upper class British politics the book only infers in addition to devising a focused character study of borderline deviance without straying from the brilliant writing of the source material.

Novel: Leaving Las Vegas by John O’Brien

Film: Leaving Las Vegas directed by Mike Figgis

I’m not a fan of Nicholas Cage, but he is great in this film, his finest acting moment. The director also lensed Internal Affairs, the great neo-noir. John O’Brien, who wrote this slim, powerful, committed suicide sometime before the film was released. This translation from prose to celluloid is one of the most seamless in the history of adaptation. A difficult task, for this first person, present-tense novel about an alcoholic’s deliberate demise. The ultimate ballad of slow suicide, while tragic and maudlin, can be said to have a happy ending. The film’s additions, including a slight expansion of background, turning the narrator into a screen writer, are respectful and unobtrusive. A drunk goes to Las Vegas to drink himself to death, falls in love with a prostitute. The whore has a heart of gold, the drunk is a romantic. Sounds like pulp fantasy but O’Brien makes us believe these people, they are real examples of the times in which we live; they are relevant manifestations of the self destructive nature residing in all of us. Yet, even at our lowest, even in the face of inevitable damnation, we still have the capacity for love. Their biggest fear is the one of being shunned. Bartenders constantly ask the drunks to leave; in turn all they request is if they be allowed to finish their drinks. They only want to hold on to their rapidly dwindling dignity. The movie is so good that it over shadows one of a great contemporary American novels; the reason the film succeeds is how faithfully the director followed the text.

Novel: To Kill A Mocking Bird by Harper Lee

Film: To Kill A Mocking Bird directed by Robert Mulligan

For some reason or another, To Kill A Mocking Bird was not assigned to me in high school. About five years ago, the girlfriend, a school teacher, got me to read it. It was one of those cases where I read the book within days of seeing the film, which also until then had not fallen within my purview. I recently saw the film on the big screen, and returned to the book a few years after first reading it. Both are remarkable. One of the controversies about the novel is that it was ghost written by Truman Capote. I don’t think so, but I sense at least his editorial hand in the first half; but his hand or not, the novel’s single, very small yet notable flaw is that it is a bifurcated read. The first half, about the child world of Scout, and the second half—the court room civil rights drama—read like two separate works. Maybe that, and the fact Harper Lee never published anything else, fueled the Capote as ghost writer rumor. The civil rights saga and the surreal child world are better blended in the cinema than in the original source material of literature. What remains in both is the love of daughter and father, and the daughter’s realization that her father is a great man because he stands up for goodness in an evil world. And by that realization, she sees goodness in Boo Reilly. It’s hard to say anything new about this film and novel, both of which continue to receive tons and tons of well deserved praised. One aspect gets overshadowed: Its one of the best screen adaptations of a novel in the history of film.

Novel: No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

Film: No Country for Old Men directed by the Cohen Brothers

People forget, not just Sanctuary, but Knight’s Gambit, a collection of detective short stories by Faulkner, and those are only his most overt pieces of noir. No Country for Old Men is more in keeping with the brilliant oeuvre by Cormac McCarthy than the one off Tough Guys Don’t Dance by Norman Mailer. I consider it one of his best novels. I think the critics who claim it is a lesser work do so only because, unlike other McCarthy novels, a dictionary wasn’t required. I never had a problem accepting noir as literature. This gnarly story concerns the relentlessness of evil and the inability of good to stop it. Enter the Cohen Brothers, well-versed in noir, doing their own take on Southwestern noir; a sub-genre probably began by Jim Thompson. The good guy has flawed motives that become meaningless as only survival, not morality and much less ideals, is what matters. Cohen’s capture the hard boiled language of McCarthy brilliantly. Never before has McCarthy been rendered so accurately in film—the dialog is almost a direct transcript.. The Cohen brothers rarely adapt anything. They don’t leave a lot of fingerprints on this one—in fact, their usual ensemble of actors is notably absent—and yet the touches they do add, such as the killer checking his the soles of his shoes for blood after a murder, only enhance.

Novel: The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett

Film; The Maltese Falcon directed by John Houston

After you have read The Maltese Falcon at least three times and seen the film about the same number, try reading and watching the film at the same time. I’m talking the Houston version, not the 1931 original, the first adaptation of the book. When Houston remade the film, he went back to the original novel. Houston always had a keen eye for literature and one of the few directors of his generation to recognize the literary merits of noir fiction. Those in the know knew Dashiell Hammett wrote literature. Both the film and novel are so classic, and so old, we kind of have to over come 70 some odd years of hype to see their true value. About the only difference is that due to the mores of Hollywood of the time, Sam Spade takes the word of the femme fatale in the film, in the novel he makes her strip to her underwear to prove she didn’t steal the money. Otherwise, the dingus and the greed it inspires is the same in both medium, as is Sam Spade’s eternal code of honor. My favorite Hammett, by the far the best Houston, who adapted Melville and O’Connor with results far less satisfying results. Hammett innovations in story telling probably had as much influence oh American filmmaking as he did on American Literature, mainly due to this seamless adaptation by a director at the height of his powers.

Novel: Outside Providence by Peter Farrelly

Film: Outside Providence directed by Michael Corrente

Peter Farrelly, one half of the comedy directing brother team, wrote this coming of age dramadey, set in the 70s. A blue collar, pot head, gets kicked out of public high school and is sent to prep school, where he dates a wealthy preppy girl, and encounters the very un-groovy American system of class. Maybe we’ve seen before this plot before. Yet, the handicapped younger brother, their three legged dog, the widowed father and his group of poker buddies and the Rhode Island, working class environs add a memorable distinction to this gem of a novel, a tightly written, well observed piece of realism. The film features Alec Baldwin as the father, in a role that should have been nominated for best supporting actor. It makes the Ice Storm, novel and film, look like the pretentious claptrap that it is. The story may sound cliché, but it is anything but and while there was a lot of 70s nostalgia in the past two decades, Outside Providence feels the most genuine. Forget the comedies, forget the hip-ness of 70s nostalgia; book and/or film of Outside Providence will touch you.

Novel: L’Assomoir by Emile Zola

Film: Gervaise by Rene Clement

L’Assomoir, my favorite Zola, concerns the plight of Gervaise, a plucky woman who starts her own laundry business after her roofer husband injures himself falling from a ladder. The husband spirals into alcoholism, fueled further by feelings of emasculation seeing his wife succeed. This being 19th century France, do not expect a happy resolution. Gervaise is the film of this masterpiece, made in the 50s by Rene Clement, who seems to be a director linking Renoir to Truffaut. Considered a classic French Film, it is beautifully made. I first saw it at a special screening at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The film has a neo-realism style to it, while also accurately rendering mid-19th century Gaul—and considering the debauchery of the subject matter, remarkable for the 50s. But, it is also an adaptation of the highest order. Clement commits the film fully to Zola’s story, something the directors avoided in Germinal and La Bete Humane. The best film adaptation of a 19th century novel ever made, which might be more due to the cinematic writing of Zola than the flaws in directors ambitious enough to attempt Dickens, Melville or Tolstoy. I’ll leave the votes for the Bronte or Austen to those who care. The only novel on the list written before the advent of film, which just might say it all there

Novel: The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurty

Film: The Last Picture Show directed by Peter Bagdanovich

I remember liking the Last Picture Show when I first saw it. It was on television, I was in High School. I didn’t know anything about Larry McMurty and had never read him until a few years ago, when the girlfriend was reading Duane’s Depressed in first edition, it has just come out, snorting with laughter at the dialog. I had to read it and had the same reaction. This novel was the third in a series of five that that began with Last Picture. Last Picture is a coming of age novel, as the teenagers graduate high school in a small Texas oil town. The main character is Duane Jackson and the novels follow his life from teenager through adulthood. He died last year in Rhino Ranch. Last Picture, the small town teenagers discovering sex, love and the value of loyalty. The film is beautiful—one of the first of the “for the art” black and white movies. There is a sweetness to the realism that reminds one of Truffaut. Bagdonavich changes the name of the town and is more linear in the chronology of the story telling, the novel is fully realized. I’ve not only read the “Duane” series, but most of his other novels and one book of essays. A number of good films have been made from his books— Hud, Terms of Endearment and Lonesome Dove—but Last Picture Show is best, mainly because the fidelity of the adaptation. Jeff Bridges is Duane Jackson, a role he reprised in Texasville—a sequel that was also a novel first. Although the cinematography is gorgeous, Texasville is a kind of a dud of a film, and sort of a lackluster novel. Duane’s Depressed, probably the best in the series, was followed by two other novels, which are fun to read but lack vim. I would love to see The Dude take on the late middle age Duane as this Texas boy goes into therapy following the death of his wife. McMurty has a way of showing the joy and sadness of life, how there is hope in sorrow, and how our common humanity connects us all to each other and to the sadness of life. He has a breezy way of being profound. He universalizes the Texas landscape into anywhere USA. He’s a prolific writer, prone to writing sequels, which means some books are way better than others; but if you like a character of his you get to say a long goodbye. Ben Johnson won an academy award for his role of Sam the Lion, the older man who owns the town’s theater and pool hall. He mentors the boys as they become men and teaches them how to be gentlemen. I came back to this film after reading the novel and expanding my experience of film, such as digesting the entire Truffaut oeuvre; you know, a real gosh darn cine-phile. But maybe maturity had less to do with my enhanced enjoyment than the fact in the early 90s, Bagnaodvidch made a director’s cut that is closer to the novel. Maybe he restored the adaptation as much as he restored his original vision of the film.