Hood Today

Since the beginning of cinema , writers and directors have seized upon literature as an inspiration for film ideas. Whether it is a short story being adapted to a television movie or a classic novel being played out by Hollywood actors, the transition from the page to the screen is usually risky and occasionally, but rarely, successful.

I recently finished reading "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy, which was a dark, poetic, and altogether breath-taking portrayal of a post-apocalyptic landscape. A nameless man and his young son walk along the desolate wasteland, constantly on the search for food and threatened by cannibals. However, it was not the plot so much as it was McCarthy's stark imagery and haunting language that made "The Road" so brilliant.
Soon after finishing the novel, I stumbled upon a movie trailer for "The Road." After watching it, my low expectations were struck down even further. The trailer was the typical, generic, end-of-the-world movie that has become so popular these days: enormous ocean waves crashing over cities, skyscrapers crumbling to the ground, the Coliseum going up in flames - completed, of course, by the cliché nuclear family whose father will soon become a hero.

The trailer for "The Road" provided glimpses into all the plotlines that will ensue in the film: the reason for the worldwide disaster (never revealed in the book), the actions of the mother (whom we never meet in the book), and all the adventure and explosions that will bring in the money.

McCarthy's previous novel, "No Country for Old Men," was also made into a film two years ago. In my opinion, that adaptation was infinitely better than "The Road" appears to be. The film version of "No Country" captured the dark tone of the novel, the poetry and deep atmosphere of the story. There was no closure, no explanation, no fluff: it was simply the novel, depicted in a different artistic form.

The adaptation of "The Road," however, appears to do exactly what the movie "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" did to Fitzgerald's short story. Instead of portraying the story the way it was depicted by its author, which very possibly will include ambiguity, the film adds in classical Hollywood plot lines so that viewers won't actually have to think about anything.

Fitzgerald's short story of "Benjamin Button" contained absolutely nothing about Hurricane Katrina (obviously), nothing about a painfully cliché mother-daughter relationship, and no corny themes about time and love. If the film were truly aiming to be based upon the book, it would follow the style and intent of the story. It would simply tell Fitzgerald's story of this man who ages backwards in the creative, mysteriously compelling way it was written, instead of injecting it with cheesy subplots and vapid "messages."

In this same way, the adaptation of "The Road" is clearly adding in all these explanations about the family and the apocalypse to give the viewer a comfortable, linear plot to follow. McCarthy's novel begins with the man and his son walking in the wasteland, and it simply tells their story as it happens each day. Our clues to what happened are given through sporadic, cryptic flashbacks. We are reading about the experiences of these characters as they are happening. McCarthy molds their story with deep language, telling imagery, and an established atmosphere. A valid film adaptation would hold true to this style in the way that "No Country" did - by translating the tone of the novel to the screen.

That, I believe, is the key to successfully depicting a book onscreen: by knowing and understanding the intent of the author and by respecting the artistic, subtle ways in which the author represented his ideas. Obviously, many movies are made to make money, but I find it extremely offensive when literature is misrepresented and therefore disrespected onscreen.

When "Revolutionary Road" was made into a film, for example, I was very skeptical at first. Richard Yates's novel about the destructive lives of a suburban 1950s couple is beautifully written and deeply disturbing, due almost entirely to the fact that Yates himself led a very sad and emotional life.

The film adaptation was actually not bad at all; in fact, it was very good as a movie in itself. But I could almost visibly see the onscreen struggle to do justice to the novel. Both the director and the actors did a fantastic job, but it was almost as if they knew they hadn't gotten all the way there. There was something deeply personal and tragic in Yates's writing that could never be translated into anything else, no matter how skilled and perceptive the attempt could be.

Therefore, what has to be done, in my opinion, is to look at novels, movies, and plays all as distinctly different forms of art. When a book is created into a movie, it is no longer what it was originally: the movie is something completely different, and it has to be viewed that way. I don't even think a novel and its film adaptation can be justly compared, for they are made by different people with different intentions.

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