Rare Finds: movies accurate to the book

 I am here to show you the unicorn of movies - the ones that are accurate to the books! Yes, I know, I'm showing you long lost treasure. If anyone else is disappointed by films that don't reflect their source material read further and allow me to show you some hope.

Photo courtesy of In Their Own League

Most movies take some creative liberties and have budgets to deal with. It is also possible that insurance says no to some stunts. Taking a book from a novel to a screenplay is actually rather hard to do. You can't always do every scene from the book. After taking a scriptwriting class I found that out for myself when I took my own short story and had to pull it apart beyond belief to make it fit the play form. I give Hollywood some slack after that. I gave Hollywood even more slack after I took a film class at Malone University and couldn't use the places I wanted to make my documentary on my fiance, so yeah, we don't always get the locations we want. It is not easy to make a film or write a script. On top of those struggles, you can't always have the actors you want and some actors won't do certain things.

That being said, some people hit the nail on the head and did an awesome job of adapting novels into films. It took work, actors who read the book, and so many extra hours to make it so good and satisfying for us. We love it. Let's look at who put in the extra hours. 

Hercule Poirot  starring David Suchet

Photo courtesy of WNYC

I love Agatha Christie's novels and the Hercule Poirot series was spot on. Read the books, watch the Suchet series, and be prepared to listen for exact dialogue from the books. I am not joking. David Suchet learned to walk like Poirot by pinching a penny between his butt cheeks while walking. He read the books before filming. He became the Poirot from the books. I love it so much and my fiance got them all for me. No other Poirot I have ever watched has gotten it so exact. Check out this unicorn from your public library and read the book before you watch the corresponding                                                                                episode. Prepare to be amazed!

Little Women (2019)

I read the book after watching the movie. It stood up to the test, minus a few tiny, microscopic details

photo courtesy of MoMA

that only avid readers would notice (like the fact that Jo's husband was actually supposed to be 40 years old). It changed only a few tiny details that our time period may not entirely understand, but it kept the most important details and parts of the book other adaptations missed in the script. The book is long and a bit old English at parts, so filmmakers did cut some parts and extremely minor characters out, but they got the essence of everything important in the film and have verbatim dialogue written into the script. It is worth comparing to the book. 

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

photo courtesy of Offscreen

This movie, this was so perfect and so accurate that the only thing they omitted was a homosexual connection between two characters, and that wasn't truly important to the plotline (didn't make a difference in the storyline). They got it nearly completely correct. I was floored at how accurate this was. I read the book after the movie, even, and saw lines from the movie verbatim. Read, watch, compare, and let your jaw drop to the floor. It was like they wrote the script with the novel sitting beside the typewriter. Test this one for yourself.

The Big Sleep (1946)

This is the same actor as Maltese Falcom, yes, and his last wife as his costar. This one was close. I read

photo courtesy of Decider

this book first and I will say it is not exact, but they have the essence of it. It is close enough and there are two versions (the first being the most accurate) because apparently there wasn't enough Bacall in it. I have a DVD with both versions (one side original, one side the added scenes). I was particularly happy with this adaptation of a noir classic.

LOTR (Lord of the Rings)

photo courtesy of Taste of Cinema

This one was a large scale project and could in no way be completely accurate, for reasons of how fantastic the story itself is and how deep the meaning of it goes.  That aside, it is pretty darn close because LOTR fans are kind of obsessive over accuracy. Yes, a few characters were left out, but there is a limit on budget. Scriptwriting is not easy when you have a deep, complex novel that needs to become one movie. One movie can't last ten hours (though I know LOTR fans would actually watch it), but this fandom is unique because they will marathon the extended editions for a whole day and not lose attention span. This fandom will notice tiny, microscopic details, so the filmmakers have to pay attention and notice them, too. 

Conclusion

I know that filmmakers do deal with producers, actors, and everyone else while making these films. Like I said at the beginning, it isn't easy, but test these films out after reading the book. The film crews did the authors of these books a wonderful favor. 

Sources:

https://www.shortlist.com/lists/40-best-film-adaptations

https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Tolkien_vs._Jackson:_Differences_Between_Story_and_Screenplay