I would have assumed that this part of an essay by Stanley Kubrick was in reference to the Hitchcock/Truffaut interview, imagine my surprise when it turns out to be from 6 years earlier
It’s sometimes said that a great novel makes a less promising basis for a film than a novel which is merely good. I don’t think that adapting great novels presents any special problems which are not involved in adapting good novels or mediocre novels; except that you will be more heavily criticised if the film is bad, and you may be even if it’s good. I think almost any novel can be successfully adapted, provided it is not one whose aesthetic integrity is lost along with its length. For example, the kind of novel in which a great deal and variety of action is absolutely essential to the story, so that it loses much of its point when you subtract heavily from the number of events or their development.
Earlier on in the essay Kubrick suggests the best novels for cinematic adaption are:
....not the novel of action but, on the contrary, the novel which is mainly concerned with the inner life of its characters.
That suggestion reflects the context of Tom Ford’s debut film, A Simple Man (which I think is an excellent film). Ford said in an interview about adapting the book to screen:
The book is beautiful, but you’re held captive by George’s thoughts. [in the book] there’s no plot, nothing happens in it. In the book, there are scenes. There’s no plot, but there are scenes. They just don’t correspond at all to what George is thinking. He’s doing the most mundane things, but his thoughts are what is interesting. He’s thinking about other things, not what he’s going through. I had to construct a plot and break it down into three acts, structure it, etc.
I find that last sentence very telling: “I had to construct a plot”. Cinematography is the writing of movement, in the most pedantic etymological sense, pensiveness isn’t very kinetic.
I could go on with a word salad of “show don’t tell” “character is action” yadda yadda
I would have assumed that this part of an essay by Stanley Kubrick was in reference to the Hitchcock/Truffaut interview, imagine my surprise when it turns out to be from 6 years earlier
Earlier on in the essay Kubrick suggests the best novels for cinematic adaption are:
That suggestion reflects the context of Tom Ford’s debut film, A Simple Man (which I think is an excellent film). Ford said in an interview about adapting the book to screen:
I find that last sentence very telling: “I had to construct a plot”. Cinematography is the writing of movement, in the most pedantic etymological sense, pensiveness isn’t very kinetic.
I could go on with a word salad of “show don’t tell” “character is action” yadda yadda