Film Adaptations That Surpass Their Novels

To say that a film adaptation is better than the novel of which the story came from is, put simply, high praise, and it would be the standard to assume that book will always be better than its adaptation. But with that in mind, there are a handful of films which I personally feel surpass their written word precursors. I will obviously only highlight films that are relatively known to be adaptations and not just throw out films that people didn’t even know where adaptations, like The Godfather.

First off, I’m going to address the obvious two which are The Shining and Shawshank Redemption. Both were originally pieces of writing from Stephen King but were, in my opinion, brought to new heights in their cinematic forms. The Shining was originally more of a ghost story and made no qualms about making that clear. Kubrick in his adaptation brought out a more eerie feel to the story, and ultimately it felt more natural. Then there is Shawshank Redemption which was initially just a short story which only had echoes of the storytelling that was achieved in the film.

Another film that I believe built upon the original novel is Fight Club. For those of you that haven’t read the novel, it follows quite closely to the events of the film, but the reason I feel the film surpasses it is due to the way in which cinema lends itself to this physiological approach. As with The Shining, the ability to visually represent psychosis is a lot more endearing and accessible than it is on paper.

Finally, the last film that immediately came to mind is The Silence of the Lambs. This choice is because of many things – the direction, the story, the acting, but the thing that makes the film better than the novel is the fact that it brought Hannibal Lector to life in a big way. Anthony Hopkins’ performance really made Lector into something that could never shine through in the novels. Furthermore, if you also consider the fact that Hopkins improvised a lot of the more memorable lines, we can see that The Silence of the Lambs succeeded in doing what all adaptations should aim to do which is make the story its own.

SO WHO CARES IF THE FILM IS BETTER OR NOT!?

Conor M.