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.

2007: No Country for Old Men

Screenplay by Joel & Ethan Coen
Adapted from the novel No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

When he stumbles upon the aftermath of a drug deal gone wrong, Llewelyn Moss can't resist the temptation of taking the millions of dollars in cash he finds. But the people who own that cash want it back, and the man they send to retrieve it, Anton Chigurh, is a force to be reckoned with. The county sheriff does all he can to either catch Chigurh or find Moss before it's too late.

I know this movie is very highly acclaimed and a lot of people really like it, but it's just not my cup of tea. It's too violent, and nothing good happens, and it doesn't help to know that this whole thing could have been prevented if Moss had just walked away. But while I personally don't happen to like this movie, I will say that it is a very good adaptation of the novel (which, unsurprisingly, I also didn't particularly care for).

A few details were changed here and there, and obviously some things were cut out, but overall I think the Coen brothers did a good job of deciding what to keep and what to change. Chigurh is described in the book as looking nothing like Javier Bardem, but I don't think it would have been possible to play that character better than he did, so his appearance was fairly irrelevant. The book does have a lot more about the sheriff in it: he introduces every chapter, so we get a lot more of his backstory, but I think it was a good choice to focus less on him and more on Moss. The main storyline is quite consistent with the book until toward the climax. In both versions, Moss is with a woman, but who she is and why they're together is completely different, and she's way more important in the book. But again, for the sake of simplifying and focusing the story, I think they made the right decision there as well.

I wondered going into this if reading the book and re-watching the movie so many years later would make me like it more than I did during my Best Picture project. While I still don't like the story at all, this time I was able to recognize that it's very well done, for what it is. It's definitely one of the better novel-to-screen adaptations I've seen. But I think if I decide in the future to tackle another category that this movie won, I might have to skip it, because I'm not sure I can sit through it again.

Next up is yet another Best Picture Winner: Slumdog Millionaire, based on the novel by Vikas Swarup

2006: The Departed

Screenplay by William Monahan
Adapted from the film Infernal Affairs, screenplay by Felix Chong and Alan Mak

This is the story of two moles: a cop undercover as a mobster, and a mobster undercover as a cop. Each finds out that the other exists, and must now discover the other's identity before he himself is exposed.

Infernal Affairs is the English language title of a Cantonese film made and set in Hong Kong. The Departed moves the setting to Boston. As one might expect, several cultural changes accompany this change in setting. Several details regarding both the police force and the mob were altered, but the overall story remained fairly consistent. The American version is about a half hour longer and much cruder. One of the main things I noticed when I watched The Departed for my Best Picture project was all the profanity, so I was surprised that there was hardly any in Infernal Affairs. The mob boss is also significantly more perverted in the remake, in so many ways. I'm not positive that these particular changes were necessarily to reflect cultural differences, but it makes me sad to think that the defining traits of American culture are profanity and objectification of women.

Both stories are mostly centered around male characters, but Infernal Affairs has three relatively important female characters: the undercover mobster's fiancee, the psychiatrist that the undercover cop is required to see after getting out of jail, and an ex-girlfriend of the undercover cop who has a child that is implied to be his. All three of these women are combined into one character in the remake: the undercover mobster becomes engaged to the undercover cop's psychiatrist, who reveals she is pregnant after having a one-night stand with the undercover cop. I have mixed feelings about this change: on the one hand, none of the three women in the original had a very well developed personality, so combining them into one person gave more opportunities to flesh out her character. On the other hand, that meant the remake had literally one important female character, apart from the women the mob boss slept with, which is kind of irritating. But since both moles were living essentially the same lives in reverse, it was interesting to have them both attracted to the same woman.

The other major changes are pretty spoilery, so I don't want to go into too much detail, since both films are well worth watching, despite their poor female representation. I will say that The Departed has a significantly higher body count, which should surprise no one. Also it seemed to me that the characters in Infernal Affairs had basically good intentions, but circumstances often turned them into bad people, whereas in The Departed, the characters seemed to have basically selfish intentions, which occasionally led them to do good things. The mobster who's undercover in the police force in particular does pretty much the same actions in both versions, but in the original it's at least partly because he's trying to turn over a new leaf and actually become a good cop, whereas in the remake it's entirely out of self-preservation. Fascinatingly, his story ends up completely differently, mostly because of a character who was added to the remake.

I liked The Departed better with this viewing than when I watched it for my Best Picture blog, but I definitely think Infernal Affairs is a better movie. I'm glad that this project gave me an excuse to watch a very good Hong Kong-made film that I probably wouldn't have otherwise heard of. Apparently there's a trilogy, and I'm kind of tempted to track down the sequels, although the first one is a pretty good stand-alone story.

After the first, and so far only, remake of a feature film to win this award, I'm headed back to movies based on novels, starting with No Country for Old Men, a movie that I notoriously loathed when I did my Best Picture project. I'm interested to see if reading the novel changes my opinion, although I've started reading it, and so far, not so much.

2005: Brokeback Mountain

Screenplay by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana
Adapted from the short story Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx

In the summer of 1963, Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist get a job tending sheep on Brokeback Mountain. To their surprise, they find that they have developed romantic feelings for each other, and begin a passionate love affair. When the summer, and consequently the job, ends, the two go their separate ways and attempt to move on with their lives apart, but their feelings are not so easily repressed.

This was a much more faithful adaptation than the previous winner. Almost everything from the short story made it into the movie, and all the things that were added were perfectly consistent. Adapting a short story, rather than a novel, into a feature film allows the story to be expanded rather than edited, but what I've noticed with some of the other winners based on short stories is sometimes so much is added that it's barely recognizable as the same story. That was certainly not the case here. Most of the additions consisted of showing more details of events that were briefly touched on in the story, and further developing some of the characters, particularly Ennis's daughter. The adaptation is unquestionably telling the same story as the original, just in a slightly different way to suit the change of medium. In other words, it's a very good adaptation.

This win is a refreshing departure from the typical straight-washing that many winning adapted screenplays have been guilty of. The most noticeable offender was probably A Beautiful Mind, but several other original stories had LGBT+ characters who were either eliminated or portrayed as straight, or at the very least their sexuality was not mentioned. Granted, since this entire story is about a homosexual romance, it would have been very difficult to erase the LGBT+ element completely, but I could see the movie downplaying it, or making it seem like one of them was a predator while the other was really a well-behaved straight boy, or ruining it some other way. But surprisingly, Ennis and Jack's romance is portrayed on screen almost exactly as it unfolded in the short story. The movie doesn't show quite as much sex as the book describes, but it's all implied. Both men do marry women in the movie, but that's consistent with the original, and with the time in which it's set. Overall, I'm impressed. Is it the best adaptation ever? No. But is it a lot better than one would have come to expect, given the subject matter? Absolutely.

Coming up is another stretch of Best Picture winners, starting with The Departed, which was the first remake of a feature film to win this award

2004: Sideways

Screenplay by Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor
Adapted from the novel Sideways by Rex Pickett

Unsuccessful writer Miles takes his actor friend Jack on a wine tasting tour as a last hurrah before Jack's wedding. Miles is mostly focused on the wine, but Jack wants to have one last fling (or more) before settling down, and is also determined to help Miles get over his recent divorce.

I'm just going to say this up front: I strongly disliked this book, and I thought the movie was even worse. I think it might have helped if I knew or cared anything about wine, but since I don't, this story has essentially nothing to recommend itself to me. The main characters are a pretentious wine snob who complains about everything and a smarmy playboy who objectifies women. Pretty much all they do is get drunk and pursue women. To be fair, I must point out that at least Miles was opposed to Jack cheating on his fiancée, but he was too busy being obnoxious to do anything about it.

The book was bad enough, but the movie changed or eliminated most of the few things I didn't dislike about it. There's a whole scene in the book where this guy offers to take Miles and Jack boar hunting, but then starts shooting at them, which is very weird and rather out of place in the story (I assume that's why it was cut), but it was one of the few times when the book held my interest, so I was sad it wasn't in the movie. This elimination also means that Jack's girlfriend doesn't get to have a gun when she confronts him after finding out about his engagement, since in the book she used the one they took from the boar hunter. But this fits in with the theme of most of the changes from page to screen: the movie takes away pretty much all of what little power the book gave its female characters.

One thing that surprised me about the book, given that it was written by a man from a man's perspective, was how much it emphasized women's sexual pleasure. I was disappointed but not surprised that all of that was cut from the movie. For some reason Hollywood is okay with men being crude about sex, but draws a line at men talking about how much they like to satisfy women. This isn't news, but it was particularly evident in this adaptation, and I found certain offensive lines of Jack's even more offensive when compared with what he actually said in the book. In a similar vein, Jack's fiancée (whose name is Babs in the book and Christine in the movie) is way more aware of what's going on, telling Miles at the wedding that if Jack slept with anyone during their trip, they were even, which definitely does not happen in the movie. I also thought it was weird that the movie cut out the whole Jack paying Maya to sleep with Miles thing that led to Miles punching Jack in the face and one of Jack's many trips to the ER (all but one of which were eliminated from the movie), since that was pretty crucial to the story in the novel, and the entire remainder of the story suffers from the elimination of that scene.

The point I'm trying to make is it would be one thing if this just wasn't my kind of story. I wouldn't be happy about having to read and watch it, but I could go with that. But the thing is, I felt like this was a terrible adaptation. Almost all of the interesting parts of the book were eliminated or changed to make them less interesting, and the story barely holds together. Apparently, I'm in the minority here, since this movie has 7.5/10 on IMDb and 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, but I think this might be my least favorite winner of this award so far.

Coming up next: Brokeback Mountain, based on the short story by Annie Proulx

2003: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Screenplay by Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson, and Fran Walsh
Adapted from the novel The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien, and also technically from the novels The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers by Tolkien, and the screenplays The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers by Boyens, Jackson, Walsh, and Stephen Sinclair

This is the third installment of Frodo Baggins the hobbit's quest to destroy the One Ring and save Middle Earth from the darkness. Frodo ventures into Mordor with Sam and Gollum, while the other remaining members of the Fellowship rush to defend Gondor.

For the most part, this is a remarkably faithful adaptation, given the length and complexity of the source material. The story is very much the same, although it unfolds quite differently. The first half of the book is entirely from the perspectives of pretty much everyone except Frodo, Sam, and Gollum, and then the second half picks up with those three where their story left off at the end of the second book. The movie, on the other hand, switches back and forth between different characters' stories much more frequently, which works well in the film. The way the book does it works on the page, but I think it would have been annoying to have to wonder what Frodo's up to for the entire first half of the movie. I did find it interesting that the last three chapters of The Two Towers were not in the Two Towers movie, and instead are incorporated into this movie. I'm not entirely sure why they did that, since this movie certainly did not need to be any longer than it already would have been, but I think it probably has to do with the way the story was restructured. Frodo's section of the Return of the King book is much shorter than the section about everyone else, so adding some of his Two Towers story into this movie helped the switching back and forth feel more balanced.

Beyond this, and some omissions and simplifications as are always required when adapting a novel into a feature film, the main difference I noticed is that the movie makes things a lot more obvious than the book. It's clearer what certain characters' motivations are in the movie much earlier than in the book, which I think is partly a timing thing (again, the movie is plenty long without having every character reveal their intentions gradually), but also it's harder to keep the audience in suspense when you're showing things to them rather than describing them. For example, when Éowyn rides to battle in disguise, in the book Merry doesn't recognize her, and the reader doesn't find out that it's her until much later, whereas in the movie Merry does recognize her, and the audience knows it's her the whole time. It would have been difficult to disguise her enough to hide her identity from the audience while still allowing her to reveal herself quickly when she needs to, so this change made a lot of sense. Most of the other changes were similar to this.

When I blogged about this movie for my Best Picture project, I was annoyed at its departures from the novel. This time, however, I was impressed by how well the story was adapted to the screen. I think this project has changed my perspective on film adaptations. Back then, the Harry Potter movies were still coming out, and I was still being constantly disappointed by them, so I think I felt that epic books like these were sacred, and trying to put them on screen was akin to tearing them apart and burning them. But having read and watched so many page-to-screen adaptations recently, I now feel I have a better understanding of what is reasonable to expect from a film adaptation of a novel. Obviously things need to be omitted and changed, it's just a question of which things to omit and change. Yes, there are parts of The Return of the King the book that I would have liked to see in the movie that were cut out, but I think overall this movie does a relatively good job of keeping the heart of the story intact, and for a story like this, that's really the most important thing.

I'm glad I had an excuse to re-read and -watch The Lord of the Rings, but I'm also glad to finally be done with that so I can move on with this project. Next up is a movie I've never seen before based on a book I've never read before: Sideways, based on the novel by Rex Pickett.

2002: The Pianist

Screenplay by Ronald Harwood
Adapted from the memoir The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945 by Władysław Szpilman

Władysław Szpilman was a Jewish pianist in Warsaw when World War II broke out. Although his parents and siblings were murdered, he managed to survive, and soon after the end of the war, he wrote down everything that had happened to him. His book was originally published in Poland 1946, but was suppressed by the Communist government and was not republished until 1999, the year before his death.

For the most part, this is a remarkably faithful adaptation. Most of the incidents in the book are portrayed in the film almost exactly as Szpilman described them. Some of the people were combined, omitted, or added, and some periods of waiting in hideouts were significantly shortened, but these alterations merely served to make the story flow better without detracting from its overall message or feel. Szpilman seems to have written this as a journal to help himself process what happened, so occasionally he mentions people without really explaining who they were. The movie does a great job of tying things together by further developing some of the other people involved in Szpilman's story.

There was one change that I don't really understand, and that's in Szpilman's interactions with the German soldier. The gist of what happens is consistent, but most of what they say to each other was changed. When they part, in the book, Szpilman offers his name without being asked and tells the soldier to use it if he is in trouble after the war. In the movie, the German soldier asks for his name so that he can listen for him on the radio. Ultimately the outcome is the same, but the book makes it more clear that Szpilman always intended to help the soldier who had helped him, and I'm not sure why the movie chose to modify that. Otherwise, though, the movie is very consistent with the book, and I think this is one of the best adaptations to win this award.

Next up is The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. As I have not read the books or watched the movies since May of 2011 when I was blogging about Best Picture Winners, and as all sequels are by definition adaptations, I have decided to read and watch the entire trilogy and not just the third one. According to that blog post, apparently I was not a huge fan of the way it was adapted when I first watched it, but maybe my opinion will be different eight years later. I'm excited to find out. These book aren't exactly short so you might not hear from me for a while, but I promise I will be back.

2001: A Beautiful Mind

Screenplay by Akiva Goldsman
Adapted from the book A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar

Brilliant mathematician John Nash came up with some theorems that ultimately completely changed modern economics, but also suffered from schizophrenia.

I really can't summarize any better than that because the book and the movie are so completely different. If it weren't for the name John Nash and a few of the specific mathematical theorems, it wouldn't be immediately apparent that they were about the same man. The book is a fairly comprehensive biography. The author seems to have interviewed nearly everyone who ever knew Nash in order to include their observations and insights into his life. The movie, on the other hand, is mostly from Nash's perspective. Readers of the book see his illness the way people who knew Nash observed its affects on him; viewers of the movie experience it with him.

When I blogged about this movie during my Best Picture project (here), I didn't even want to mention his schizophrenia because it's such a plot twist. His delusions are presented as factual until suddenly he's in a mental hospital and surprise! A bunch of the characters aren't even real. In the book, though, from the very beginning allusions are made to his forthcoming psychotic breaks, so it definitely doesn't seem like a spoiler anymore. The movie makes his delusions much more coherent than they were described in the book. Although the things movie Nash says don't really make sense because the people he's talking about aren't really there, they still remain logical and easy to follow. In the book, he isn't described as having visual hallucinations at all; he does hear voices, but mostly he just has these feelings and ideas that he needs to do things like give up his passport or write letters to important people or go to Europe. The way they adapted this is a great example of making changes to suit a different medium. Trying to demonstrate what actually happened to Nash on screen would have been nearly impossible. Visual hallucinations, however, work very well in movies, and by showing things from his perspective, what could have been a dry biopic becomes a suspense thriller. So while this makes for a completely inaccurate portrayal of Nash's experiences, it also makes for a fascinating movie.

It's not just the details of his illness and the way it's conveyed to the audience that the movie changed; most of the other aspects of his life are completely different as well. Movie Nash is portrayed as very socially awkward, particularly around women, although he desperately wants to sleep with them. The author of the book, on the other hand, implies that Nash was really more attracted to men than to women, describing several homosexual romances. He also fathered a child with a woman whom he said he intended to marry but never did, choosing instead to marry Alicia - his only romantic interest in the movie. The film also neglects to mention that John and Alicia got divorced when he kept refusing treatment and became violent toward her and their son (who later also developed schizophrenia, another fact not mentioned in the film). Once Nash started behaving more rationally, he did move back in with Alicia, but at the time the book was published, they had not gotten remarried. Interestingly, they did remarry in 2001, and I have to wonder how much the movie coming out had to do with that. Anyway, obviously one wouldn't expect a feature film to go into all the sordid details of someone's life, but it was strange to go from a book about a man who pursued other men, and occasionally women, to a movie about a man who is very into women but clueless about how to find a mate. Hollywood straight-washing at its finest.

Coming up next: The Pianist, based on the memoir by Władysław Szpilman

2000: Traffic

Screenplay by Stephen Gaghan
Adapted from the teleplay Traffik by Simon Moore

Several different aspects of drug trafficking are explored through the stories of the sellers and buyers perpetuating it as well as the law enforcement and politicians trying to stop it.

Traffik is a 6-hour British mini-series that focuses on smuggling drugs from Pakistan into Germany and the UK, whereas Traffic is a 2-and-a-half-hour American movie that focuses on smuggling drugs from Mexico into the US. So while for the most part the storylines were fairly comparable, many of the details were altered to facilitate the change in location, or simplified to facilitate the change in length. Overall, the stories about the politician waging a war on drugs with a daughter who's an addict, about the drug lord disguising as a legitimate businessman whose wife struggles to take over for him when he's arrested, and about the police obsessed with catching the wife, are quite similar in both versions. However, both versions also have another storyline that is barely recognizable as equivalent, and what the movie did with it kind of bothered me.

The mini-series focuses quite a bit on Pakistan, and how easy it is for poor farmers to make a lot of money growing opium there. It follows one farmer in particular, who is forced to find other work when his opium fields are burned, and ends up working for a heroin manufacturer/distributor who deals with the businessman who was arrested. I thought it was very interesting how the mini-series, while mostly portraying the horrors of heroin, also pointed out that trying to get at the root of the problem by going after poor farmers is both counter-productive and cruel. The movie's equivalent storyline is about police in Mexico who find out that the head of the army, who is professedly cracking down on the drug cartels, is really in league with one of them, and is just helping them wipe out the competition. It seemed to me that the movie missed an opportunity to explore the earlier stages of the drug trade and how those people were affected by changes in policy, as the mini-series did so effectively. The movie doesn't really ever show where the drugs originally come from, which was a huge part of the source material. So I was a little disappointed in that.

Otherwise, though, I thought this was a pretty good adaptation. It was fascinating to note the things that had to be modified, and the things that could stay the same, given the change from Europe and the Middle East to North America. I liked how the mini-series went more in-depth, but I also liked how the movie kept the story moving (it certainly didn't feel as long as it was). So both versions work.

And now my respite from movies I've blogged about before must come to an end with Best Picture winner A Beautiful Mind, based on the book by Sylvia Nasar. So stay tuned for that.

1999: The Cider House Rules

Screenplay by John Irving
Adapted from the novel The Cider House Rules by John Irving

The only significant business left in the former milling town of St. Cloud's, Maine is the orphanage, run by Dr. Larch. In addition to being a place for unwanted children to wait for adoption, it is also one of the few places for women to have safe (though illegal) abortions. Homer Wells was born in the orphanage, and after multiple failed adoptions it becomes clear that he is meant to stay. Dr. Larch begins to train Homer as his assistant, but Homer refuses to perform abortions. When a beautiful young woman shows up with her boyfriend to have an abortion, the smitten Homer decides it's finally time to leave, and he joins them to work at the boyfriend's apple orchard.

Of the winning screenplays that were written by the author of the source material, this is probably the least faithful. The novel is quite long, and rich with intriguing characters and intricate storylines, so all of it would have been way too much for a feature film. Major cuts had to be made. Irving must have realized this and decided that he would rather control what was omitted than let someone else do it. Going straight from reading the novel to watching the film was hard for me because a lot of my favorite aspects of the book didn't make it into the movie, but to one who hasn't just read the book, the movie doesn't feel like anything's missing. Any holes or gaps left by missing characters and plotlines were carefully filled and smoothed over with various modifications. The aspects that were essential to the heart of the story remained, even while the details surrounding them were significantly altered. It's really quite remarkably well done, all things considered.

Apart from the omission of Melony, who was possibly my favorite character in the book (although I kind of get why they cut her out), the only change that really bothered me was the passage of time. In the book, Homer leaves St. Cloud's before World War II starts, and doesn't return for about 20 years. In the movie, he leaves during the war, and returns about two years later. While condensing the timeline like this helped facilitate the removal of several characters and events, it just made everything in the movie seem a little too abrupt. Homer spends a lot of the book sort of treading water before he comes to his senses, and obviously the movie didn't need to show all of that, but it could have kept a little more of the "waiting and seeing". He just seems to completely change his personality a little too quickly to be believable. But for the most part, it works, and I think, while I like the book better, the adaptation was as good as it could possibly be given the constraints of a feature film. I think if I had written this novel I would never have been able to part with so much of the story to write a screenplay, but I guess that's why John Irving has an Oscar and I don't.

Well, A Star Is Born didn't win, but Blackkklansman did, which is what I was hoping would win Best Picture, so I'm excited to have an excuse to read that book in the near future. But I still have 18 more winners before I get to that one, starting with Traffic, which was the first winner based on a miniseries.

1998: Gods and Monsters

Screenplay by Bill Condon
Adapted from the novel Father of Frankenstein by Christopher Bram

Upon returning home from the hospital after a stroke, James Whale, a retired director best remembered for his monster films including Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, finds himself losing his grasp on reality and haunted by memories of his carefully buried past. One of the few things keeping him in the present is Clay Boone, a former marine now working as Whale's gardener. The two very different men develop a strange and unlikely relationship.

For the most part, this was a very consistent adaptation. Most of the dialogue was taken directly from the book, and the characters all behaved almost exactly as they were described. Whale has more and longer flashbacks in the book, but the movie keeps enough of them to get the point across. In the book, a flashback generally took an entire chapter, whereas in the movie they're often just a few seconds, but if done right a few seconds of film can be just as powerful as several pages of novel, and that was definitely the case here. James and Clay reveal quite a bit about themselves to each other in the book, but they reveal even more in the movie because there wasn't really any other way to convey their thoughts to the audience. For example, in the book, the narrator tells us fairly early on that Clay's appendix burst while he was still at Camp Pendleton, resulting in a medical discharge from the marines before he really had time to serve. Book Clay never tells Whale this, allowing the former director to believe that he fought in Korea, but movie Clay does tell him toward the end, because the audience had no way of knowing this otherwise.

While I feel like most changes were necessary due to the change in medium, there were two major unnecessary changes I noticed, one of which I really liked, and the other of which I really didn't. The change I liked was the epilogue that the movie added, showing Clay several years later. That was sweet, and emphasized how much the events of the story impacted Clay's future. But what I didn't like was that the movie changed Whale's housekeeper from a Mexican woman named Maria into a European woman named Hanna. Beyond the change of race and nationality, the two women had pretty much the exact same lines and exact same attitude, but this change bothered me because there was literally no reason to take the one character of color and make her white, but they did it anyway. If this was an isolated incident it wouldn't be a big deal, but seeing this right after watching what L.A. Confidential did to Inez Soto, and knowing that Hollywood whitewashing still happens all the time, just made me angry. Overall, though, I'd categorize this as a faithful adaptation of a story that I didn't love, but am not sorry I had the excuse to read and watch.

The Oscars are tomorrow, and even though I haven't seen it I'm low-key rooting for A Star Is Born to win in this category because I think it would be fun to watch all four versions back to back and blog about them. But I think I'll be fine with whatever wins, unlike last year (NOT looking forward to Call Me By Your Name). I still have a little ways to go before I'm caught up, but I should definitely make it before next year's ceremony, so that's exciting. Thank you to all 5 of you who have stuck with me through my longest blogging project yet. My next step is to finish off the 1990s with The Cider House Rules, based on the novel by John Irving.

1997: L.A. Confidential

Screenplay by Curtis Hanson & Brian Helgeland
Adapted from the novel L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy

Three cops in 1950s Los Angeles - brainy, ambitious Ed Exley; brawny, vengeful Bud White; and flashy, glory-driven Jack Vincennes - each separately become entangled in a web of seemingly unrelated crimes. Despite their differences and rivalries, these three must work together to figure out exactly what's happening and how to stop it.

This must have been a very tricky adaptation to pull off. The novel is so long and its plot is so complex that any movie encompassing the entirety of it would have to be about eight hours long. Obviously, some of the story had to be omitted. However, everything is so carefully woven together in the novel that if anything was simply removed, the story would no longer make sense. Each elimination required modification in the remaining scenes to accommodate it. Since I had never seen this movie before, at first I kept yelling at the screen things like, "Wait, what?! That's not who was supposed to die then! What happened to this other character?" But after a while, I figured out what they were doing, and I kind of got on board with it. The novel does have an awful lot of characters, and I'm still not sure I fully understand exactly how all of them tied into what was going on, and I kept getting people mixed up. The movie has way fewer characters, so some of the people who stayed had to take on additional roles. For example, in the novel, some random ex-cop was murdered in the Nite Owl Massacre, which was changed to Bud's former partner in the movie. Both versions include a Nite Owl victim having murdered someone else soon before being murdered himself, but in the book this is someone who was not a cop, whereas in the movie it's once again Bud's former partner. By modifying the story in this way, the movie is like the book in that everything is tied together, but the movie's web is much smaller and tighter than the novel's.

While for the most part, the film is consistent with, though not quite the same as, the book, there were a few changes that significantly altered things in a way that bothered me. The thing that I'm most annoyed about is what the movie did to Inez Soto. In the book, Inez Soto is super important. She has affairs with both Ed and Bud, she rebuilds her life despite suffering major trauma, and is one of the few characters you can actually consistently root for. In the movie, she's in two scenes and has like three lines. I don't even remember if they ever say her name; she's mostly just referred to as "the rape victim". Now, to be fair, since the movie killed off Ed's dad, and much of Inez's story is tied to Ed's dad's story in the book, a lot of what she does became unnecessary and irrelevant. I just couldn't help noticing that the woman of color's role was drastically reduced, while Lynn, the Veronica Lake look-alike, got to do almost everything on screen that she did on the page. Typical Hollywood.

There were definitely aspects of both the book and the movie that I strongly disliked, but for the most part I found them interesting to read and watch. Despite being set over 60 years ago, the story is still disgustingly relevant. Much of it centers around policy brutality, particularly directed toward people of color, which is obviously still a major problem, and instead of trying to fix it, the powers that be insist on pretending they think the issue is about the national anthem. Then there's the character of the actor who, at least in the book, molests teenage boys, and everyone kind of knows about it but keeps it quiet. This isn't in the movie, but a certain actor who was recently exposed for doing that is, and I'm still cringing.

Next up: Gods and Monsters, based on the novel by Christopher Bram

1996: Sling Blade

Screenplay by Billy Bob Thornton
Adapted from the short film Some Folks Call It a Sling Blade written by Billy Bob Thornton

Abused, developmentally disabled Karl Childers has been in a psychiatric hospital since he was about 12, when he killed his mother and her lover. Now, he is set to be released, whether he's ready or not.

A couple of earlier winners were based on TV movies, but this is the first, and so far only, time when a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar winner was based on a short film. As such, it shouldn't be surprising that the nature of this adaptation is completely different from any I've seen so far. The plot of the short was adapted into the first 20 minutes or so of the feature film, functioning as a prologue, and the remaining two hours of the movie reveal what comes after the short ends. The movie's opening credits don't even start until after the events of the short. A viewer could almost jump straight from the short to 20 minutes into the feature without even realizing it wasn't a continuous movie. The only differences that would really prevent this are that the short is in black and white while the feature is in color, and the director of the hospital, who comes back later in the feature, is played by a different actor. Billy Bob Thornton and J. T. Walsh play the only other two characters who come back in the feature in both versions.

The short leaves viewers with two main questions: Can Karl make it in the outside world? and Will he kill again? The feature answers both those questions in a way that is both fascinating and perfectly reasonable given the way his character was established in the short. It feels as though Thornton knew exactly where he wanted to go with Karl Childers before he even wrote the short, and just needed a slightly larger budget to pull it off. So even though this movie contains about two hours of content that wasn't in the original at all, it's still one of the more faithful adaptations to win this award.

This is the second year in a row when the screenwriter who won this award also starred in the film they wrote, which is particularly interesting because I think those are the only two times that's ever happened. This is certainly the only time when someone has written both the original and the adaptation and also starred in both. Well done, Billy Bob Thornton.

Coming up next: L.A. Confidential, based on the novel by James Ellroy

1995: Sense and Sensibility

Screenplay by Emma Thompson
Adapted from the novel Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

When Mr. Dashwood dies, his estate passes on to his son from his first marriage, leaving his second wife and three daughters essentially destitute. Soon afterward, the elder two daughters, practical Elinor and passionate Marianne, each fall in love, but their lack of fortune and a few other twists of fate place several obstacles in their paths to marriage.

As always when a novel is adapted into a feature film, several details had to be omitted. A few characters were completely eliminated, most notably Lady Middleton, whose husband is said to be a widower in the film, although she is very much alive in the book, and all of her children, as well as the elder Miss Steele, whose existence is never mentioned in the movie; Lucy is assumed to be an only child. Although their inclusion in the novel greatly enhanced its comedic value, they didn't really enhance the plot much, and the few ways in which they did were flawlessly transferred to other characters in the film. There were a couple of significant events in the book which did not take place in the movie, but a few other events were slightly altered to make them no longer necessary, which I thought was well done. For example (spoiler alert), in the book Willoughby shows up when Marianne is ill to explain himself to Elinor, whereas in the movie he doesn't, but earlier when Colonel Brandon tells her more details of Willoughby's villainy, the movie has him include some of Willoughby's justification, thereby eliminating the need for Willoughby's return.

The movie also added some things that weren't in the book that I appreciated. The third daughter, Margaret, is relatively unimportant in the novel, but the movie gives her more of a personality. Similarly, though the book makes it clear that Elinor likes Edward Ferrars at the beginning, it doesn't show why, at least to the extent that the movie does. The novel briefly describes his personality, but the film adds specific incidents to show what he's like, all of which are perfectly in line with the book's description. I find it particularly interesting that he is shown to interact with Margaret so much, since they were both somewhat underdeveloped in the novel. Furthermore, in the movie Edward is on the point of telling Elinor his secret before she moves away, whereas in the book Elinor doesn't have any idea until Lucy Steele springs it on her.

Overall, though the two versions have many differences, the characters and the heart of the story remain consistent, making this, in my opinion, definitely one of the better adaptations to have won this award. The eliminations didn't significantly detract from the story, and the additions enhanced it. Why can't all adaptations be this good?

Next up: Sling Blade, the first, and so far only, Best Adapted Screenplay winner that was based on a short film

1994: Forrest Gump

Screenplay by Eric Roth
Adapted from the novel Forrest Gump by Winston Groom

Forrest Gump, a man with a low IQ, has many adventures in the mid-20th century, many of which impact the world in ways that he doesn't understand or care about. His main concern is his love for his childhood sweetheart, Jenny.

Apart from this basic premise and some of the character names, the novel and film versions of Forrest Gump are barely recognizable as the same story. Most of the events of the book are not in the movie, and vice versa. In the book, Forrest saves Chairman Mao from drowning, travels to outer space, becomes a professional wrestler, and acts in a movie with Raquel Welch, among other things that aren't in the movie. In the film, Forrest had to have braces on his legs as a child, instigates the Watergate scandal, and runs across the country multiple times. Granted, there are a few similarities. In both versions, Forrest plays college football, is wounded in the Vietnam war (which leads him to become a famous ping pong player), and later starts a shrimping business to carry out the dream of his fallen war buddy, Bubba. However, the details are so different that even the events the two stories have in common seem different. In the book, Forrest flunks out of college after one term, whereas in the movie he graduates after five years. In the movie, Forrest saves Lieutenant Dan's life against his will; in the book, he doesn't meet Lieutenant Dan until they're both in the hospital. And book Forrest doesn't get around to starting his shrimping business until toward the end, while movie Forrest does so toward the middle. Interestingly, in the movie, the only person we see working with Forrest is Lieutenant Dan, but in the book, Forrest hires almost everyone he's encountered throughout his adventures except Lieutenant Dan.

It's not just the events that were changed; the characters themselves are completely different, especially Forrest Gump. The book is written in first person from his perspective, and he's constantly referring to himself as an idiot, while movie Forrest doesn't think of himself as stupid. Book Forrest is crude and vulgar, and his narration is full of swearing, racial slurs, and toilet humor. Movie Forrest exudes a childlike innocence that makes him seem oblivious but almost charming, which is a word that could never be used to describe book Forrest. Similarly, the character of Jenny is very different. In the book she seems pretty normal, but in the movie she has a messed up childhood which leads to a messed up adulthood. Unsurprisingly, since the characters are so different, the nature of their relationship is also very different. In the book, they spend some time living together, then they break up for a while, then get back together until he refuses to stop wrestling, at which point she leaves for good. In the movie, they're mostly just friends, but they do spend one night together, after which she runs away. In both versions (spoiler alert) Forrest finds out later that Jenny has a son and he's the father, but in the movie Forrest marries her when he finds out, and in the book Jenny has already married someone else. Also movie Jenny has contracted some sort of "mysterious virus" (i.e. AIDS), so she dies, which does not happen in the book.

Overall, the book is over-the-top ridiculous, while the movie is more serious, for the most part. Personally, I greatly prefer the movie, since it's a much sweeter story, but I can see how the book would appeal to other people.

Coming up: Six movies in a row I haven't blogged about before, beginning with Sense and Sensibility, based on the novel by Jane Austen.

1993: Schindler's List

Screenplay by Steven Zaillian
Adapted from the novel Schindler's Ark (aka Schindler's List) by Thomas Keneally

Oskar Schindler uses money, charisma, and influence over fellow Nazis to save 1,200 Jewish people from the Holocaust.

This book is considered a novel, but it's practically non-fiction. While it generally follows the narrative structure of a novel, it consists mainly of anecdotes that were related to the author by survivors. Keneally is quick to point out when different people's stories conflict, and often omits quotation marks from conversations to illustrate that no one really knows or remembers exactly what was said. When compared with the movie, the book seems even less like a novel, as the movie shows a much clearer picture of Schindler's character journey, while the book keeps his motives more ambiguous, since no one can be quite sure exactly what he was thinking when. Thus, the film feels more like a novel than the book does.

Many of the more powerful stories from the book are incorporated into the movie, although often the order and the details were changed. Sometimes, several similar incidents were combined into one, or things that happened to a couple different people were shown all happening to the same person, to make the story more concise. For the most part, what happened to the Jewish people was, while not exactly the same, quite consistent. The biggest changes were in the Nazis, especially Schindler and Amon Goeth. The beginning of the movie makes it seem like Schindler didn't particularly care what happened to the Jews as long as he was making money, which helps his speech at the end about how he wished he had sold more of his stuff so he could have saved more people become even more moving and powerful. In the book, he doesn't even make that speech at the end, and it seemed like he came around to the idea of trying to save lives much sooner. The movie attributes most of the earlier work to Itzhak Stern, whereas the book made it seem like Schindler was involved in decisions that the film showed him unhappy about. Also, according to the book, Schindler was arrested and imprisoned several times during the war, while the film only shows this happening once. While this was probably to keep the movie from becoming even longer, multiple arrests helped demonstrate just how much he was risking in a way that the film doesn't convey quite as clearly. In the same way that the movie reduces Schindler's arrests, it doesn't show that Amon Goeth was imprisoned by the SS before the end of the war, which I thought was very interesting. There's also a whole thing in the movie about Schindler telling Goeth that he would be more powerful if he pardoned prisoners and Goeth trying it for about a day, which I don't remember from the book.

If you've only seen the movie, I would recommend reading the book, because it includes several moving episodes, particularly at Brinnlitz toward the end of the war, that the movie kind of skips. However, I don't think the movie could have adapted the book much better. I've always thought showing the color of the little girl's coat in red while the rest of the movie was black and white was very powerful, but I wasn't expecting that girl, and the fact that she loved the color red, to feature so prominently in the book. After having read that, the use of that one color in the film seems more than just a beautiful touch to the film; it seems like it would have been wrong if they hadn't done it that way. I also noticed several other small details that I hadn't remembered from the movie, since they were described more thoroughly in the book. That's actually something I've noticed in several other cases during this project when I'd seen the movie before but never read the book. I'll be reading and think, This wasn't in the movie, and then I'll watch it and see that it actually was, just much more subtly than the book. So while I was a little disappointed when I realized just how many Best Adapted Screenplay winners I'd already blogged about, in a way I'm glad that I was already somewhat familiar with many of these stories.

Speaking of which, the next winner is yet another Best Picture Winner, Forrest Gump, based on the novel by Winston Groom. But after that will be six movies in a row that I haven't blogged about before, which is the longest such stretch so far.

1992: Howards End

Screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
Adapted from the novel Howards End by E. M. Forster

This is the story of the middle-class Schlegel sisters and their dealings with two families: the upper-class Wilcoxes, who own a house called Howards End, and the lower-class Basts.

This book was longer and a bit more dense than the last E. M. Forster story I blogged about (A Room with a View). It's still a good book, but I could have done with fewer philosophical tangents. The movie, while it does omit a few of these, is still longer than one would expect compared to the length of the novel, mostly because the book is mostly from Margaret Schlegel's perspective, with a few notable exceptions, whereas the film shows us certain events that she didn't witness, which are only briefly described later in the book when she learns of them. This allows for more explicit foreshadowing in the film. In the novel, several developments seem to come almost out of nowhere; since Margaret had no way to predict them, neither did the reader. These same events in the film come as much less of a surprise to the viewer, since we've been shown more of what led up to them.

For the most part, everything that happens in the book also happens in the film, although some of the details are changed. For example, in both versions, Helen Schlegel meets Leonard Bast after inadvertently stealing his umbrella when they were both listening to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. In the book, they were at a concert, and Margaret, Aunt Juley, and a German cousin were all with Helen. In the film, they were at a lecture, and Helen was alone. This mostly helps simplify the incident, but it also changes the dynamic between Helen and Leonard for the entire story, and again, helps with the foreshadowing. There are several other similar alterations that all help achieve this. I wouldn't call the book disjointed, but the movie is definitely more cohesive.

In short, I think it would be difficult, if not nearly impossible, to adapt this story into a feature film better than was done here. The characters are perfectly brought to life, and the events are all relatively, if not exactly, consistent with the book. The few changes there are make the story flow better and easier to follow. I don't love the story - I think Henry Wilcox is a despicable human being and cannot for the life of me figure out what Margaret sees in him - but it's one of the best novel-to-film adaptations I've seen. And I've seen a lot of them by now.

I just realized that this movie is currently the most recent Best Adapted Screenplay winner that also won Best Actress. And it's also the only time so far (that we know of) when a person has won a Best Actress Oscar who would later go on to win a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar. But before I get to Emma Thompson's adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, I will be revisiting two more Best Picture Winners, beginning with Schindler's List, based on the novel by Thomas Keneally, which was based on a true story.

1991: The Silence of the Lambs

Screenplay by Ted Tally
Adapted from the novel The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris

FBI trainee Clarice Starling is sent to interview a notorious cannibalistic former psychiatrist named Hannibal Lecter, who, it transpires, possesses vital information regarding an active investigation into a serial killer nicknamed Buffalo Bill. Lecter offers to help Starling in exchange for information about her personal background. Meanwhile, catching Buffalo Bill becomes an even higher priority when he kidnaps the daughter of a senator.

Some books are better suited to film adaptations than others, and this is one that was crying out to be made into a movie. The novel almost reads like a film; a good portion of the narration is basically stage directions. The story is extremely suspenseful and dramatic, and the suspense and drama unfolds much more effectively on screen than on the page. I don't mean to imply that the book doesn't work; it does, but I think the movie works much better. For example (spoiler alert), one the most well-done scenes in the film is when the FBI thinks they've found Buffalo Bill, but Clarice is too far away to join them, so she continues her investigation where she is, and unwittingly stumbles upon Buffalo Bill alone. I love the way they show the FBI guy ringing the doorbell, then the killer reacting to the doorbell, back and forth several times until he opens the door. The first time I watched this movie, I think my heart actually stopped when Clarice was standing there. The book kind of does the same thing - one chapter ends with the FBI at the door, then the next chapter is from the killer's perspective and has him hear the doorbell - but it's not nearly as intense, so the adaptation of that scene was a vast improvement.

As always, there were a few things cut from the book that I would have liked to see. Clarice's roommate, Ardelia, is more important in the book, and her frequent sassy remarks provide welcome comedic relief to break the tension, so I missed her in the movie. She's still there, but barely. Jack Crawford, the agent in charge of the Buffalo Bill investigation, has a wife dying of cancer who isn't mentioned in the film. I can see why the filmmakers would find this unnecessary, but I like the way it adds to his stress level and raises the stakes for him. Similarly, toward the end book Clarice is repeatedly told that she'll almost certainly be kicked out of school if she doesn't direct her focus away from the investigation and back to her studies, so her choices make it very clear that this case is more important to her than her own future. This is only vaguely hinted at in the movie, and I think it could have been a little more effective if it was emphasized more. But overall, I think the few other changes that were made actually improved the story, and consequently this is one of the best adaptations to win this award. It's consistent with the book, but not confined by it, and the story unfolds much more smoothly onscreen. Though I'm getting a little tired of having to watch this movie over and over again for these Oscar projects, at least I can say that all of its awards were very well-deserved.

As I mentioned in my last post, this is currently the most recent winner of Best Picture, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay. However, many of the Adapted Screenplay winners since Silence of the Lambs have also won one or the other of the categories I previously blogged about, just not both. Case in point: the next winner is Howards End, which did not win Best Picture, but Emma Thompson won Best Actress for her performance in it. It was also the second time Ruth Prawer Jhabvala won this award for adapting a novel of E. M. Forster's (the first being 1986's A Room with a View). So stay tuned for that.