1976: All the President's Men

Screenplay by William Goldman
Adapted from the book All the President's Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward

When five men are caught breaking into Democratic National headquarters at Watergate, the Washington Post assigns Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward to cover the story. The two notice fairly early on that there seems to be more to this than meets the eye, especially since everyone they try to interview is extremely reluctant to talk to them, but they have no idea what they're about to uncover.

This book was originally published two months before Nixon resigned, and the movie came out two years later, so the intended audience presumably knew a lot more about Watergate than I do, as someone who was not born at the time. However, as both point out, the American public in general didn't have a lot of interest in the story while it was unfolding, so much is explained, and apart from not being very familiar with many of the people mentioned, I didn't feel like I was missing too much. Since the book was written by the actual reporters who uncovered the story, I'm assuming it was fairly accurate, if slightly biased. The movie was a relatively faithful adaptation, though it did cut out some details. For the most part, this didn't detract from the story, but I think the end suffered. The book effectively portrays the noose tightening around members of the White House staff until they are ultimately brought to trial, while the movie skips straight from, "Oops, we aimed too high and our whole investigation is set back" to "Now they're all going to jail". I would have liked to see a little more in between there. It kind of seemed like the filmmakers thought the movie was getting too long and they needed to end it.

On the other hand, I really liked how the movie shifted focus slightly away from Bernstein and Woodward toward the events themselves. The reporters are still very much the main characters, but the book starts with them finding out about the break-in, whereas the movie starts by showing the break-in itself. I appreciated the way the film added actual footage throughout, reminding the audience that yes, this truly happened. Otherwise, apart from skipping through the denouement and omitting some of the interviews and other small details, the movie is very similar to the book, and I think overall it was a good adaptation.

I have to say that it was kind of weird to read and watch this now. I often found myself wondering what the big deal was, since many of the illicit activities that Watergate exposed seem very slight compared to what the current administration is being investigated for. Also, Nixon's men were constantly accusing the Washington Post of inventing stories to make them look bad, and while they didn't exactly use the term "fake news," that was essentially what they meant. I suppose before long we're going to get some award-winning books and movies about whatever this is, and then in 40 years some young person is going to read and watch them and wonder what the big deal is compared to what's going on then. And now I'm sad.

Anyway, next up is Julia, based on the book Pentimento by Lillian Hellman

P.S. I recently updated my Best Actress and Best Picture blogs with last year's winners, so check those out if you want.

1975: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Screenplay by Bo Goldman and Lawrence Hauben
Adapted from the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

Cold, calculating Nurse Ratched runs her mental ward with an iron fist. When rebellious, belligerent convict Randle McMurphy is committed, he effectively becomes a wrench in her perfectly-run machine, questioning rules and orders, and worst of all, stirring up the other patients. The power struggle between these two opposites grows and intensifies until it essentially becomes a full-blown war.

I had obviously seen this movie before, since I blogged about it for both Best Picture and Best Actress. However, I had never read the book. I think having seen the movie helped me follow the book better than I would have otherwise, but somehow reading the book also made me appreciate the movie way more than I had in previous viewings. I find it a little surprising that I feel this way because the novel and the film are actually quite different. The premise, most of the characters, and almost all of the major plot points are fairly consistent, but many of the details were significantly altered in the adaptation. For example, both versions feature a fishing trip organized by McMurphy, but in the book he plans it out in advance and even takes one of the institution's doctors with them, whereas in the movie he steals a bus to sneak out to the boat without the knowledge or approval of any of the staff.

Far and away the biggest difference is the perspective from which the story is told. The novel is written in first person from the point of view of Chief Bromden. The film mostly presents the story from McMurphy's perspective, until towards the end. This means that readers of the book know from the very beginning that Chief can in fact hear and speak and is merely pretending otherwise, while the movie's audience spends nearly an hour and a half assuming, along with McMurphy and the other characters, that he cannot. It also means that the readers of the book experience the ward through the eyes of a longtime patient, whereas viewers of the film see it through the eyes of a newcomer who really has no business being there in the first place. Bromden sees the ward and everyone in it as machines literally controlled by "the Big Nurse" (as he refers to Nurse Ratched), and it was fascinating, especially for someone already familiar with the story, to see it unfold through his sometimes hallucinating but always incredibly perceptive eyes. After having read the book, I sympathized with the other patients a lot more, which helped me more fully comprehend their motives in the movie than I had when I'd watched it before. However, I must say that I feel like the movie missed a tremendous opportunity to be even more disturbing and intriguing by not showing Chief Bromden's perspective as the book did. Of course, the movie's great as it is, but now I kind of want to see a remake that includes voice-over narration of some of Chief's more profound observations from the book and shows the machines and fog that he describes. Granted, no one will be able to play McMurphy and Ratched like Nicholson and Fletcher, but we can't have everything.

Up next: All the President's Men, based on the book by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward

1974: The Godfather Part II

Screenplay by Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo
Adapted from the novel The Godfather by Mario Puzo

This is both a sequel and a prequel to The Godfather. Part of the movie focuses on Michael Corleone's rise to power; the rest on his father Vito's, decades earlier.

When I blogged about The Godfather, I mentioned that most of the book was already covered by Part I, so I didn't see what more was left for Part II. However, the book does include one section (Book III, i.e. Chapter 14) that gives some of Vito's backstory, and most of Vito's scenes in this movie are taken from that part of the novel. The Michael scenes are all new. I'm not sure how much of Michael's story in Part II was in Mario Puzo's mind when he was writing the book and how much of it was Francis Ford Coppola's addition, but the book pretty much ends where the first movie ends.

Personally, I much prefer Vito's story to Michael's, so I think the adapted material was far superior to the additions. The novel and the first movie both imply that Michael has stepped into his father's shoes as The Godfather, and will hold that position with perhaps even more ruthlessness, and honestly, that's enough for me. I don't need to see what happens next; I get the gist. To me, for both these men, it's more interesting to see how they became the way they were than to see them acting the way they turned out. Part I does that for Michael; Part II does that for Vito. Anyway, the adapted part was quite consistent with that section of the novel, and the additions seemed fairly consistent with the characters portrayed in the novel, so overall I'd call it a decent adaptation, but definitely inferior to Part I.

The main thing I remembered from watching this movie for my Best Picture project, lo those many years ago, was that it was very confusing. So I was not surprised that I wasn't entirely sure what was going on when I started this movie. I felt like I'd missed something, but I was still kind of following it, so I was waiting for it to take us back in time and explain what had happened. Until I went to change the DVD and realized I had been watching Disc 2 instead of Disc 1. So then I watched the first half of the movie, and shockingly enough, it made a LOT more sense. I think if I watch it a third time, in the right order, I might finally fully understand this film, but I don't think I'm up for trying that anytime soon. I know this is widely considered one of the best sequels ever made, but most of it seems superfluous to me. There are some great scenes, to be sure, but there is absolutely no reason for this movie to be three and a half hours long.

Next up: Best Picture and Best Actress winner One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, based on the novel by Ken Kesey

1973: The Exorcist

Screenplay by William Peter Blatty
Adapted from the novel The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty

Actress Chris MacNeil is wrapping up a film in Washington, D.C. when her 12-year-old daughter Regan begins behaving rather strangely. And then very strangely. And then extraordinarily strangely. After consulting many doctors and psychiatrists, all of whom are baffled by Regan's negative test results in the face of her worsening condition, non-religious Chris begins to wonder if her daughter might be possessed by a demon, and seeks out a priest to perform an exorcism.

I'm not generally into horror films, but I knew that this one was very highly acclaimed, so I was glad when I noticed that this project was giving me an excuse to watch it, since I kind of wanted to see it but wasn't going to go out of my way to watch something that sounded so terrifying. Honestly, it wasn't as scary as I was anticipating, although it was plenty disturbing. I feel like I sort of did this wrong, though, because I ended up reading the 40th anniversary edition of the book and watching the extended director's cut of the film, so I didn't have quite the same experience as the Academy voters would have. Although I seriously doubt that most people who vote on the Best Adapted Screenplay winner have actually read the source material for all the nominees. But I digress.

As one expects when the author if the source material also writes the screenplay, this movie is very similar to the novel. I'm pretty sure that everything that's in the movie is also in the book, although there are several aspects of the book that did not make it into the film, as is generally the case with adaptations of novels. Most of the changes didn't really surprise me. I know of at least one scene that I read that was added for the 40th anniversary edition, so obviously that wasn't going to be in the film. The novel also repeats essentially the same conversation over and over again between Chris and various doctors, and I think the movie did a good job of capturing the gist of that without including all of it. There were a few side stories that helped develop some of the secondary characters more that I was a little disappointed not to see in the film, but I get that it wanted to focus more on the main story. One change that I was not expecting was the movie's elimination of the book on witchcraft, devil worship, possession, etc. that ends up in Regan's room. In the novel, the doctors and even the priest infer that Regan's condition was mostly induced by her subconscious mind's use of her knowledge of the contents of this book, which is ultimately what convinces most of them that an exorcism will cure her. I'm not sure if this was another plot point that was added in the 40th anniversary edition, but it seemed significant enough to the story that I was surprised that the film didn't include it.

Mostly, though, I was surprised by how much of the novel did make it into the film. The book is incredibly vulgar and obscene, and while the film does omit some of the swearing and most of the details about black mass and the specific desecrations of the church, it included a lot more vulgarity than I was expecting. There were definitely things I read thinking, "Well that's not going to be in the film" that actually were in the film. I can see why it was such a shocking and controversial film when it came out because some of that stuff is shocking even by today's standards. Which I think is partly why it is still considered one of the greatest horror movies ever made. Since I'm not a horror fan, I didn't particularly like this story, but I can recognize and appreciate that both the novel and the film did an amazing job of telling it. I'm not sad that this project gave me an excuse to experience The Exorcist, but I have no desire to revisit it anytime soon.

After this rather bizarre supernatural hiatus, I will now return to the Corleone family with Best Picture Winner The Godfather Part II.

1972: The Godfather

Screenplay by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola
Adapted from the novel The Godfather by Mario Puzo

Ten years of relative peace between the Italian Mafia families of New York is brought to an end when Don Vito Corleone refuses to agree to use his considerable connections and resources to back a narcotics dealer. The ensuing war forces the Corleones to re-evaluate how their family business needs to be run, and who will be the best man to run it when the aging Don is no longer in charge.

This book contains an awful lot of sex and violence, and describes both in a little more detail than I would have liked. I find it rather interesting - although entirely unsurprising - that the movie cut out almost all of the sex and included almost all of the violence. That's Hollywood for you. But to be fair, the main storyline is mostly focused on the gang war, so the violence would have been difficult to remove without detracting from the story, whereas the love affairs are mostly incidental and involve minor characters who could easily be reduced or eliminated. Still, it's interesting to me how much more comfortable American audiences seem to always have been with violence onscreen than sex, but that's a discussion for another time. Back to this particular adaptation.

I noticed that several things that were included in both versions were rearranged in the film. Many of the important events in the novel are revealed from the point of view of a character who didn't witness them as he or she learns about it, at which point the book takes the reader back to show what led up to that point. The film mostly presents such events to the audience in the order they actually occurred. This is a perfect example of what I'm always looking for in an adaptation: following the source material without being confined by it. The novel's method works very well in book form, but if the movie had done it exactly that way, it wouldn't have made much sense dramatically. I thoroughly enjoyed noting these changes, and would therefore highly recommend reading the book and watching the movie close together, as I did.

Beyond these and a couple other minor alterations, the film follows the book relatively closely. In a way, I found this slightly confusing, knowing that The Godfather Part II would go on to win this award two years later with the same novel cited as its source material. There doesn't seem to be a lot of the book left to adapt into the sequel. Given that I haven't watched it since my Best Picture project over 7 years ago, it shouldn't be too surprising that I don't really remember what happens in Part II, but I'm interested to revisit it and note whether any of it is directly from the novel, or if it's merely considered an adaptation by virtue of being a sequel. Regardless, I will not be reading the book again for that, so I'll be getting to the movie in the very near future. Particularly since I've already finished reading and watching 1973's winner, The Exorcist, which I should be blogging about quite soon.