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.