1983: Terms of Endearment

Screenplay by James L. Brooks
Adapted from the novel Terms of Endearment by Larry McMurtry

Aurora Greenway is a widow whose life mainly consists of two things: toying with her various suitors, and criticizing her adult daughter, Emma, for her life choices. Emma does her best to please her mother, and everyone else in her life, though success is essentially impossible.

Speaking of essentially impossible, that's how I'd describe trying to summarize this story after reading the book and watching the movie. They are so incredibly different that if it weren't for the character names and the picture of Shirley MacLaine and Debra Winger on the cover, I would have thought I was reading the wrong book. This is certainly one of the least faithful adaptations to win this Oscar. I can't decide whether I liked the book or the movie better. Some changes were definite improvements, but others I have strong objections to.

One thing I noted when I blogged about Shirley MacLaine's Best Actress win was that it seemed like Debra Winger (Emma) was in more of the movie than MacLaine (Aurora). Aurora is an important part of the movie, but Emma is clearly the protagonist. The novel is the opposite, or, more accurately, beyond the opposite. Aurora is decidedly the main focus of the book, and for most of it, Emma isn't even that important. The novel is split into two sections: Book I, called "Emma's Mother, 1962", which occupies pages 3 through 324; and Book II, "Mrs. Greenway's Daughter, 1971-1976", pages 327-371. Almost nothing from Book I made it into the film. The events of Book II start about 20 minutes in, and not even all of the first 20 minutes were from Book I, since the film starts earlier than the novel. Notwithstanding a few changes in the order and details of certain events, and an added trip to New York, Emma's story in the film is actually pretty consistent with Book II of the novel, but its importance is so altered that it feels inconsistent. To the novel, this story is almost an epilogue, showing that despite Aurora's best efforts to control everything and everyone in her life, bad things still happen to people she loves. The movie basically turns the epilogue into the main storyline. For the most part, I actually like this change. While the novel was obviously trying to emphasize that Emma always felt overshadowed by her mother by giving her a much smaller section, I think the mother/daughter dynamic was more intriguing than the widow/suitor dynamic, so I can't really fault the filmmakers for choosing to focus more on that. Also, by focusing more on Emma throughout, the movie makes the ending more devastating and personal, which works well from a dramatic standpoint. Book I of the novel goes off on a lot of tangents that really detract from the story. Aurora's maid, Rosie, has a lot of issues with her husband in the book that drag on and on. Rosie's barely in the movie, and her husband is only mentioned once, and I think these were wise omissions.

While I appreciate sacrificing some of the details of Aurora's, her suitors', and her maid's stories in favor of mother/daughter relationship development, I am almost appalled at what the filmmakers did to Aurora. Granted, Shirley MacLaine plays her to perfection. When I was reading the book, I could picture MacLaine doing and saying everything she did and said, even the things that weren't in the movie. But in the book, Aurora has all of her suitors wrapped around her finger. They're all terrified of her and try their best to woo her, but she's so willful and unpredictable that they always fail unless she wants them to succeed. When she finally picks the retired Army General, she is still clearly the dominant personality in their relationship. And now it's time for me to address the astronaut in the room: Jack Nicholson may have won an Oscar for this role, but his character isn't even in the book. I guess he's kind of a combination of a couple of the suitors, including the general, but there definitely was no retired astronaut in the book, much less a character named Garrett Breedlove. But the movie changed so many things that the name, profession, and even personality of the man Aurora ends up with are relatively minor. That's not what I object to. It's the nature of their relationship that I can't stand. I didn't like it the first two times I watched this movie, but after reading the book, it kind of disgusts me. Not only is Garrett the dominant personality in their relationship; she essentially swoons over him while he seems practically indifferent to her. And then there's the whole sex aspect. While Aurora's marriage to Emma's father wasn't particularly romantic, the book details several passionate affairs in Aurora's past. The movie treats Aurora's relationship with Garrett as a kind of sexual awakening for her, and she ends up almost worshiping him, whereas in her romantic relationships in the book, she is always the one who is worshiped. This is crucial to her character, and I can't help resenting the filmmakers' apparent need to "tame" her with Garrett. I don't mind the fact that they changed her, but this change almost ruined her, and I think probably would have done so in the hands of a lesser actress. So not only did Shirley MacLaine thoroughly earn her Oscar, I think she also partly earned James L. Brooks his.

I could go on a lot longer about all the changes, but I think I've pretty much covered the main ones, so I'll leave it there. Stay tuned for yet another Best Picture winner, Amadeus, based on the play by Peter Shaffer.

1982: Missing

Screenplay by Costa-Gavras and Donald E. Stewart
Adapted from the book The Execution of Charles Horman: An American Sacrifice (aka Missing) by Thomas Hauser

In the aftermath of the Chilean military coup of 1973, American Charles Horman disappears. Several neighbors claim to have seen him arrested by soldiers. His wife and friend enlist the help of people at the American Embassy and Consulate, who are remarkably, even suspiciously, unhelpful. After weeks of little progress, Charles's father travels to Chile to aid in the search. Before long, Ed Horman begins to share his daughter-in-law's growing suspicions that the American government had a lot to do not only with the coup, but also with Charles's disappearance.

I'm glad I read the book before seeing the movie, because I'm not sure I would have fully understood all the implications of the story by just watching it. The book gives a lot of historical background of the events leading up to the coup, whereas the movie focuses mostly on Charles Horman's story. I understand why they made the movie this way, as I think it would have been difficult to show a lot of the other information presented in the book, but as someone extremely unfamiliar with Chilean history or politics, I found the additional context quite helpful. Overall, though, I thought the film did a pretty good job of conveying the political and social turmoil without going into all the specifics. It presents a few examples of the kinds of things that were going on through the eyes of the main characters, rather than deviating from their story as the book does, which I think worked well.

The change that kind of annoyed me, although I can still see why they did it, was the added conflict between Charles's wife and father. His wife is completely different, even down to her name (it was Joyce in the book and Beth in the film). She's significantly more blunt and sassy in the movie. In both versions, she's upset and determined to find her husband, but in the book she's not quite as angry and anti-establishment as she's portrayed onscreen. Charles's father is named Ed in both versions, but he's a lot meaner to Charles's wife in the movie. The book mentions that Charles and Ed didn't always get along or agree, but their relationship was in a pretty good place when Charles disappeared. In the book, Ed makes it clear that he didn't think much of his son's life choices, and is very rude to Beth about it. I don't remember book Ed ever being deliberately mean to Joyce, but film Ed makes it clear to Beth that he thinks she and Charles brought this on themselves, at least initially. He repeatedly calls her out for being "paranoid" when she expresses suspicion of the Ambassador and Consul, which is something else I don't remember from the book. Of course, I get why the screenwriters added this, since the tension between Beth and Ed makes for a more interesting, dramatic story, and their eventual reconciliation offsets some of the tragedy of what they eventually learn. I was just kind of annoyed because it seems a little insulting to imply that Charles's loved ones spent more time fighting with each other than trying to find him. I noticed that the film also changed the names of most of the American officials they encountered in Chile, which I assumed was because they're portrayed in a fairly uncomplimentary light. I thought maybe Charles's wife's name was changed to protect her privacy, but it could also be partly because they changed her character so much, and not for the better, that they wanted to emphasize that it wasn't really her.

We may never know the full story of what happened to Charles Horman. Most of the evidence remains classified for "national security reasons". This, along with everything his father and wife went through to find out where he was, seems to support the tragic theory that his execution was ordered, or at least approved, by the American government because he "knew too much" about America's involvement in the Chilean coup. The one consolation is that this story is allowed to be told. I don't think enough people have heard this story, but the fact that in the U.S. people are allowed to publish books and make movies accusing their own government of war crimes is, in my opinion, one of the best things about this country. If only we would stop supporting and even bringing about governments in other countries who arrest, torture, and kill people for owning the "wrong" books (which is what happened in Chile), that would be great.

Up next: Terms of Endearment, which will be the 25th film on both this and my Best Picture blog, the 10th to win both Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Actress, and the 5th to make it on all three of my Oscar blogs.

1981: On Golden Pond

Screenplay by Ernest Thompson
Adapted from the play On Golden Pond by Ernest Thompson

Norman and Ethel Thayer plan to spend another quiet, uneventful season at their summer home on Golden Pond, until their estranged daughter, Chelsea, turns up with a new boyfriend and asks them to watch his 13-year-old son for a month. Grumpy, prickly 80-year-old Norman forms a surprising bond with the young boy, who helps him regain an appreciation for what he has in life.

Act One of the play is almost exactly the same as the movie. A few lines here and there were slightly changed, eliminated, or added, and there were a couple more scene changes, but overall, from the beginning until Chelsea and Bill leave for Europe, the adaptation is quite consistent. I did note that probably the most famous line in the movie, when Ethel calls Norman her "knight in shining armor," wasn't actually in the play, but the lines leading up to it were. However, Act Two was changed significantly for the screen. Given that the playwright wrote the screenplay, I was rather surprised by just how different the two versions ended up. Granted, several of the lines from the second half of the play do make their way into the film, and the general message is the same, but the film made some major additions that I think greatly enhanced the story.

The character of the boy, Billy, is much better developed in the movie. He doesn't really do that much in the play after he's left with the Thayers, but in the film he pouts for a while and makes it clear that he doesn't want to be there. Eventually, however, Norman starts growing on him just as he starts growing on Norman. The movie adds a whole storyline about a giant trout that Norman has been trying to catch for years. Billy gets really into helping Norman look for this fish, and it contributes significantly to the development of their relationship. It's such a big part of the film that, since I had seen it before, I could hardly believe that nothing about this was even mentioned in the play. I guess it helped that they could actually film on the water, whereas in the play they could only talk about fishing after the fact, so the movie lent itself to more happening on their fishing trips. Still, this addition, and others that similarly contributed to the Billy/Norman relationship, definitely improved the story.

I'm not saying that the play was bad, but the movie was unquestionably better. It kind of reminded me of 1955's winner, Marty, in that the adaptation felt like a later draft of the original script. In this screenplay, Ernest Thompson strengthened the main weakness of his play: namely, Billy was underdeveloped as a character and underutilized in the story. And the result was definitely Oscar-worthy.

Coming up next: Missing, based on a book by Thomas Hauser that was originally called The Execution of Charles Horman: An American Sacrifice, but the title was later changed to Missing.

1980: Ordinary People

Screenplay by Alvin Sargent
Adapted from the novel Ordinary People by Judith Guest

The Jarretts were once a relatively ordinary, if privileged, family, but not anymore. First, the older son drowned in a boating accident. Then, racked with guilt, surviving son Conrad attempted to take his own life. Now, Conrad has returned from the mental hospital and is back in school, trying to pretend everything is okay and that he isn't depressed anymore so his father doesn't have to worry about him. But Calvin Jarrett does worry about his son, and tries everything he can think of to relieve his pain. His wife Beth, on the other hand, tries to pretend that nothing has happened, but treats her son with cold civility. With the help of a psychiatrist, Conrad begins to emerge from his haze of suppressed feelings and remember what it feels like to be a person again.

I think this adaptation is probably one of the best to win this award. The characters are completely consistent with the novel's descriptions. Several details of the story were altered, but none of the changes ruined the tone or the big picture. The novel switches back and forth between Calvin and Conrad's perspectives more than the film, which is mostly focused on Conrad, but the film's audience is never in any doubt about how Calvin feels or what his role in the family is. Pretty much the only real changes that made significant differences have to do with Conrad's relationship with Jeannine, which progresses a lot further in the book than in the movie, but the story is really about Conrad's family rather than his love life, so I feel like the decision to sacrifice some of the romance to focus more on the family drama was a wise one.

One wouldn't think that the book would lend itself to a movie very well, since so much of it consists of descriptions of characters' thoughts, but this movie does a brilliant job of showing and telling these thoughts to the audience. Conrad has more conversations with his psychiatrist in the movie than the book, but most of the added ones are about things that Conrad thought and did in the book when he was alone. In this way, the extra therapy sessions weren't really additions so much as a different way of conveying the same information that was better suited to the medium of film. Most adaptations do this to a certain extent, but rarely is it done this well.

This doesn't really have anything to do with the adapted screenplay, but I have to add that the acting in this movie is incredible. As good as the script is, so much of it is about people fighting for control over their emotions that the acting is crucial to whether it works or not. And everybody nailed it. Seriously. I would have given all four of the main actors Oscars. As it was, only Timothy Hutton won, which, if only one of them could have, was the right decision, although how anybody could call his role "supporting" I don't understand. I guess it was just because he was so young. Anyway, there's not a lot of action in this movie, but it's one of the most genuine, raw stories about pain and depression I've ever seen, and certainly one of the best film adaptations of a book I've read.

Next up: On Golden Pond, for which Katharine Hepburn won her fourth and final Best Actress Oscar, based on the play by Ernest Thompson