2014: The Imitation Game

Screenplay by Graham Moore
Adapted from the book Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges

Brilliant mathematician and social misfit Alan Turing helps win WWII by developing a machine to decrypt German radio transmissions.

This is a difficult adaptation to analyze because the book is so long. If the movie had tried to include everything in the book, it would probably take an entire day to watch. The book encompasses most of Alan Turing's life; the movie mainly focuses on his work during the war, with a few scenes of him as a schoolboy and a few more when he's being investigated in 1951. Changing the focus like this was, in and of itself, a very good idea, and moving from the chronological presentation of the book to jumping around in time helped tie everything together well. But overall, the movie is almost laughably inconsistent with the book.

The movie uses Turing's arrest in 1951 for gross indecency as a framing device, showing him revealing the story of his wartime work to a police detective. While I understand why the filmmakers would have wanted to use him as a narrator, it kind of ruins the premise that he's good with secrets if we're seeing him reveal all this highly classified information. With all of the straight-washing I've noticed in these adaptations, it was tempting to be impressed that the film even bothered to address the reason he was arrested in the first place, but that didn't quite make up for all the emphasis that was placed on Turing's relationship with Joan Clarke. She is literally mentioned on fewer than 20 of the 664 pages of the book, but she's in a significant portion of the movie. Normally I'm all for expanding female roles, and I didn't necessarily object to the way the film exaggerated her contributions to the project, but when you're making a movie about an openly gay man, maybe don't focus quite so much on his very brief, failed engagement to a woman.

I don't mean to imply that all the changes were bad. The book mentions way too many people that I had a hard time keeping track of, so I thought the movie was right to combine or eliminate most of them; this made the story much easier to follow. Many events seemed far more dramatic on screen than they were described in the book, but this is fairly typical for adaptations, so I can't fault the movie for that. All in all, however, I found this to be one of the more disappointing adaptations to win this award. It's a fine movie, but it could have been so much better.

Coming up next: The Big Short, based on the book by Michael Lewis

2013: 12 Years a Slave

Screenplay by John Ridley
Adapted from the memoir Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup

Solomon Northup lived as a free black man in the state of New York until the year 1841, when he was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Louisiana. Twelve years later, when he was finally freed again, he wrote a memoir detailing the atrocities he had witnessed and experienced, in an attempt to convince northerners that slavery needed to be abolished.

Both the book and the movie effectively portray the horrors of slavery, but in very different ways. Often on this blog I've written about adaptations making alterations to the story to suit the change of medium, but in this case, they seem to mostly suit the change of intended audience. Northup wrote his memoir for people living before the American Civil War, when slavery was still legal; the film was made for people living 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Consequently, the book has a lot of disclaimers. Northup clearly doesn't want to be too confrontational or use generalizations, so he frequently points out that he's only speaking from his own experiences, he doesn't know how things are in other slave states, etc. He's also aware that his book will be denied and many attempts will be made to discredit him, so he presents as many dates and specific verifiable facts as possible. Most of these are omitted from the movie, which makes sense because I doubt anyone in 2013 would have bothered to go to a courthouse to verify transcripts from the 1850s, although it was helpful that the book kept mentioning dates; the movie makes it rather difficult to gauge how much time is passing. The book also makes it very clear that some slaveholders were mostly good people, like his first master, Ford. The movie makes Ford a little less likable by adding a moment where Northup starts to tell him that he's actually a free man, and Ford cuts him off, saying he can do nothing to help him. This was not in the book, and Northup actually speculates that Ford might have helped him if he hadn't been too afraid to talk to him.

Though the book describes many disturbing scenes in great detail, the movie is more explicit in a lot of ways that reflect the changing times, particularly with regards to profanity and sex. What little swearing there is in the book is censored, but not so in the movie, probably because the words "damn" and "hell" are significantly less shocking now than they were 160 years ago. Similarly, sex has become somewhat less taboo. I don't really understand why the movie adds that weird sex scene at the beginning, especially because I'm not sure who the woman even was, but nothing like that happens in the book. Masters raping their slaves is certainly implied and hinted at in the book, while it is much less vague in the movie. That change I do think was necessary and important. I don't think the book was intending to tiptoe around the subject, but I think if the movie hadn't shown it, critics probably would have accused the filmmakers of doing so.

As usual, a few scenes from the book didn't make it into the movie, including one very interesting section when Northup runs away into the bayou, but overall the film does a decent job of capturing the story. The book is a fascinating read, particularly from a historical perspective, and I feel like it should be required reading in American history classes. Since it isn't, or at least wasn't when I was in school, I'm glad this project gave me an excuse to read it.

Next up: The Imitation Game, based on a very long biography of Alan Turing by Andrew Hodges. I know last year I assumed I would be all caught up by the next Oscars ceremony, but considering how much I've slowed down and how early the Oscars are this year, it's looking like that probably won't happen. But we'll see.

2012: Argo

Screenplay by Chris Terrio
Adapted from the book The Master of Disguise by Antonio J Mendez and Malcolm McConnell

CIA agent Tony Mendez helps six Americans escape from Iran during the hostage crisis by pretending they are part of a Canadian film crew on a location scout.

Tony Mendez's book is a relatively comprehensive account of most of his life, and as much of his career in the CIA as he was authorized to disclose. Consequently, only one of its ten chapters focuses on the Argo mission. I'm not sad that I read the whole book because it was fascinating, but that also makes this an unusual adaptation to analyze, since the movie focused solely on Argo. The aspects of Mendez's life outside of the mission that are shown in the film are mostly very different from what was described in the book. The movie gives him only one son and has him separated from his wife, while according to the book, he actually had three children and had a relatively good relationship with his wife, despite his work often separating them.

The changes to the mission itself and how it transpired are similar to the changes to Mendez's personal life: they make the movie far more dramatic. The actual real-life mission, at least as described in the book, was already very high-stakes, but the movie adds several instances of them almost getting caught to drastically increase the tension. Ordinarily, this would bother me, but I think the movie does it so well that I can't really fault it. In a way, it's very meta for a movie about how fake the movie industry is to have dramatically exaggerated the true story it's based on. Whether or not this was intentional, I enjoy this aspect.

There was really only one change that I didn't quite understand: the movie chose not to show any sort of disguise being used to help them escape. Most of Tony Mendez's career in the CIA was spent working on revolutionary new physical disguise techniques, which was the main reason he went on this mission in the first place. The book talks about how some of the people he was helping escape were relatively well-known diplomats who could be easily recognized, so he had to alter their appearances to help them escape. The movie did not disguise them at all, which I guess also added to the tension because there was a greater likelihood of them being stopped, but it would have been nice to see a little bit of his disguise work reflected in the film after reading a whole book about it. The book also mentions another CIA agent who was also there helping them escape, and he doesn't make it into the movie at all. I'm not sure whether this had to do with either the CIA or that other person himself not wanting to draw attention to him, or if the movie just wanted to focus on one major hero, but that was just something else I noticed.

I just read over my Best Picture post for Argo and apparently at the time I felt the need to defend it from haters, whereas now I don't feel like people have very strong opinions about this movie one way or the other. That's one of the most interesting things about revisiting Oscar movies: the way a movie is perceived when it first comes out is often quite different from how it is perceived even just a few years later, let alone several decades later. So I feel like my analysis of earlier winners is always different than it would have been if I'd been watching the movies closer to when they came out.

Following this will be 12 Years a Slave, another Best Picture Winner based on a memoir, albeit a completely different type of story.

2011: The Descendants

Screenplay by Nat Faxon, Alexander Payne, and Jim Rash
Adapted from the novel The Descendants by Kaui Hart Hemmings

The time has come for Matt King, a descendant of Hawaiian royalty, to make a decision regarding the land that he and his cousins have inherited. However, Matt is rather distracted from this important matter when his wife has a boating accident that puts her in a coma and leaves him with the responsibility of caring for their two daughters.

For the most part, this movie follows the book very closely. The characters and major events are all very consistent, with the minor exception of the wife's name being changed from Joanie to Elizabeth. As always in adaptations from novels, a few things had to be cut, but this is one of the rare times when I think they made the right choices as far as what to keep and what to omit. The book gives a better idea of what the wife was like before her coma, but the movie gives enough for us to understand the story while letting the audience wonder about who she really was, which I kind of liked. The book is written in first person from Matt's perspective, so he spends quite a bit more time reflecting on his marriage there than we see on screen, but again, we are shown enough to get a good idea of what's going on. The younger daughter, Scottie, acts out more in the book; for example, she keeps injuring herself so she'll have a good story to tell her thrill-seeking mom. This was fascinating in the book, but I wasn't particularly disappointed not to see it in the film, mostly because I didn't really want to see a child getting stung by man o' wars, but also because it helped keep the woman in the coma more of an enigma to the audience.

Pretty much the only changes I didn't agree with involved the older daughter's friend, Sid. I didn't think the movie quite did him justice. He had an interesting backstory that was oversimplified in the movie, and a couple of things he did in the book were attributed to someone else. But overall, this is a very good adaptation. Both the book and the movie tell the same story very well, in only slightly different ways.

I was a little shocked to learn that Alexander Payne, the director and co-screenwriter of this movie, also directed and co-wrote the 2004 winner, Sideways, since, as you may recall, I thought that was a terrible adaptation. He's one of only seven people (so far) to have won this award twice, and he won for one of the worst adaptations and one of the best adaptations, so I guess on average he's right in the middle. Interesting.

Up next: Best Picture Winner Argo, based on a book by Tony Mendez

2010: The Social Network

Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin
Adapted from the book The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich

This is the true-ish story of how a Harvard undergrad came up with an idea that completely revolutionized the way people interact with each other online, and what he and others did to turn that idea into the multi-billion-dollar company it ultimately became.

It was very interesting reading this book and watching this movie roughly a decade after they came out. Facebook was still THE social media site then. I mean, Twitter and Tumblr and stuff were around, but I feel like people didn't really use them that much yet. Whereas now, yeah, people still use Facebook, but it's definitely not nearly as hot as it once was. Although I just looked up Mark Zuckerberg's net worth and it's nearly $70 billion, so the fact that most young people think of Facebook as their parents' social media site doesn't seem to be hurting him much. But I digress.

I want to know how someone could read this book about an anti-social young genius of very few words and think, Ah, yes, Aaron Sorkin, a screenwriter known for excessive dialogue, should adapt this story. Seriously, Mark Zuckerberg says more in the first scene of the movie than in the entire book. That first scene of the movie, by the way, when his girlfriend, Erica, breaks up with him using a devastating line about how he's wrong about why girls don't like him, was completely new to the movie. Erica is not in the book at all. Mark does seem to be upset with a girl for rejecting him when he starts Face Mash in the book, but no specifics are given about this. He doesn't go into nearly as much detail insulting her on his blog as he does in the movie, and he certainly doesn't pine for her the way he does in the movie. The film seems to imply that Mark was heavily motivated throughout the Facebook process to prove himself to those that had rejected him: specifically Erica and the Final Clubs that he desperately wanted to get into. The film also indicates that Mark's jealousy of Eduardo for getting into a club led to that betrayal later, while in the book, Eduardo is the one who's obsessed with the Final Clubs and Mark doesn't seem to care.

Basically, the biggest difference between the book and the movie is the character of Mark. The film re-frames most of the story with depositions that aren't in the book, but that facilitates the necessary exposition without really changing much. For the most part, the events of the book and the movie are the same. Mark's clothing, fascination with hacking, and ambition are fairly consistent as well. But his personality and attitude are so altered that he's barely recognizable. In the book, people get the impression that Mark doesn't like them because he's so closed off and unreadable. But in the movie, people get the impression that he doesn't like them because he's so snarky and condescending toward them. Again, this is definitely Sorkin's style, and it makes for an intriguing movie, but it drastically changes the tone of the story. I noticed that a lot of earlier Best Adapted Screenplay winners had characters that were significantly more likable than their original counterparts. This one does the opposite: Mark is significantly less likable in the movie than in the book. His actions seem so much more calculated and intentional in the movie; in the book he just kind of lets things play out. The movie works well like this, don't get me wrong, but now I'm wondering which version of Mark Zuckerberg is closer to the truth. I'm sure I'll never know, but it's kind of fun to speculate about.

Next up: The Descendants, adapted from the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings

2009: Precious (based on the novel Push by Sapphire)

Screenplay by Geoffrey S. Fletcher
Adapted from the novel Push by Sapphire

Precious is sixteen years old and pregnant with her second child by her father. Molested and abused by both her parents and unable to read, Precious is used to no one caring about her. Then she's sent to an alternative school, where she feels seen for the first time.

This is a heart-wrenching, thoroughly upsetting story, but honestly, I wish more Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar-winners were like this. The movie changes some things around, omits a few details, adds a few characters, but keeps the heart of the original story, and doesn't shy away from dealing with the harsher aspects of the novel. Not every instance of abuse described in the book is directly translated to the screen, but the movie shows enough to give a good impression of what Precious's life has been like without glossing over anything, but also without focusing too heavily on what happened to her and losing the character herself, which I found impressive. In short, this is an adaptation that successfully remains true to its source material without becoming confined to it, which is what I'm always hoping for and only rarely find.

While the movie does an outstanding job of adapting Precious's story, it could have done better in its portrayal of the other girls in her class at the alternative school. The film made them seem significantly meaner and cattier than the book did. The novel ends with excerpts from the book in which the whole class wrote their stories, so readers get to learn more about several of these characters, while none of that was in the movie. I get that the film wanted to focus mainly on the protagonist, and it does hint at the stories of the other girls. However, in the book they're mostly encouraging each other, and in the movie they're constantly insulting each other, so this combined with the elimination of their stories reduces them to stereotypes, while I feel like part of the point of the book is that they each had their own individual struggles that they were overcoming. Perhaps the movie was trying to show that they were only putting on a tough exterior to hide their pain, but I don't feel like it quite got there, which I found disappointing. But overall, the movie is very well done, and I think it's one of the best adaptations to win this award.

Coming up next: The Social Network, based on a book by Ben Mezrich

2008: Slumdog Millionaire

Screenplay by Simon Beaufoy
Adapted from the novel Q & A by Vikas Swarup

A young, poor Indian man becomes a contestant on a quiz show, where he does so well that the show-runners are convinced he must be cheating. To prove otherwise, he is forced to recount various events from his past that explain how he came to know the answers to the questions he was asked.

Aside from this basic premise, this movie barely resembles its source material at all. The details of the story are completely different, right down to the protagonist's name (Ram Mohammad Thomas versus Jamal Malik), the name of the quiz show ("Who Will Win a Billion?" versus "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?"), the total prize (one billion rupees versus 20 million rupees), and all of the questions except one (the only question he's asked in both versions is Who invented the revolver?, but the reason he knows the answer is completely different). In the book, he tells his story to a friendly lawyer, but in the movie he tells it to the hostile police. Also, the reason he's on the quiz show in the first place is completely different, but I don't really want to spoil that.

To be fair, a few of the details of the quiz show contestant's life remain consistent. In both versions there's a character named Salim who is very important to the protagonist, though their relationship and his entire personality are very different. In both versions, Salim and Ram/Jamal manage to escape as they're about to be turned into more effective beggars by being maimed (although, again, the details of this are quite different). The protagonist is also a guide at the Taj Mahal for a while in both the book and the movie. But overall, apart from winning a lot of money on a quiz show by getting asked all the right questions, Ram Mohammad Thomas and Jamal Malik are completely different characters with completely different lives. And from that perspective, this is a terrible adaptation.

I don't want to imply that Slumdog Millionaire is a bad movie; it's quite good, and I still like it. But after having read Q & A, I want another movie, one that actually follows the book, preferably made by Bollywood rather than Hollywood. There are so many fascinating incidents in the novel that I would be very interested to see in a film, like when he works for the Australians or the has-been actress. The movie doesn't do the protagonist justice, but at least it keeps him likable; however, it totally ruins the character of Salim (who is Ram's friend but Jamal's brother) and I think they should have changed his name too. It's an insult to the Salim of the book to equate him with the Salim of the movie. Book Salim is a sweet young boy who just wants to be an actor; movie Salim is spiteful and selfish and just wants to be a powerful gangster (and yes, he turns around at the end, but still).

It's funny, I feel almost the exact opposite about this win as I did about the previous win. I strongly dislike the movie No Country for Old Men, but I thought it was a good adaptation, whereas I like the movie Slumdog Millionaire but think it's a terrible adaptation. I'm curious how I'll feel about the next winner, which I've never seen before: Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire, which, shockingly, was based on the novel Push by Sapphire.