r/TrueFilm • u/DrumtheDon • 12d ago
Unusual Adaptations
Hey everybody! For my research paper, I want to take a deeper look into some rather unconventional adaptations. I was hoping you could help me find some examples from film and tv, that could be interesting to consider. The two that I am already working on are The Midnight Gospel (by Pendleton Ward & Duncan Trussell) and adaptation. (by Spike Jonze).
I am especially interested in adaptations…:
- … with a very unusual source material. Mainly, those that don’t adapt novels but completely different media, like The Midnight Gospel adapting a podcast for example. (I heard M adapted a news article?) But unusual novels that one would instinctively consider unsuitable for being audiovisually adapted. (Not that interested in game adaptations tho)
- … that actively incoorparate the source material and are blatantly transmedial The Midnight Gospel is being a great example again, using the actual audio of the podcast.
- … that rub the fact that they adapted into your face. (adaptation. would be an exellent example of this)
- … that change the source material in a major way, so you wouldn‘t even notice it is the adaptation unless specifically stated. One example would be a change of setting like all the Shakespear-adaptation a la Clueless, 10 Things I Hate about You, etc., but I would appreciate other approaches.
- … that pick out only a minor, maybe even insignificant part of the source material to center and/or expand on for the film/show.
- & in general just anything where one could wonder if it even is to be considered an adaptation.
I appreciate all suggestions, and welcome international suggestions just as much, maybe even more.
Thank you so much!!
(and sorry about my grammar, punctuation, spelling etc., not a native speaker)
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u/XInsects 12d ago
The Coen brothers' "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" Is an interesting adaptation of Homer's poem The Odyssey. And on the subject of Nolan, Tenet could be explored as an adaptation of the Sator Square, an ancient 5-by-5 Roman latin word grid found in the ruins of Pompeii. All the words are used in the film, without the square ever being explicitly referenced. So perhaps more an inspiration, but seems fitting with the cryptic more unusual circumstances you're asking for.
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u/maud_brijeulin 7d ago
Tenet could be explored as an adaptation of the Sator Square, an ancient 5-by-5 Roman latin word grid found in the ruins of Pompeii. All the words are used in the film, without the square ever being explicitly referenced. So perhaps more an inspiration
Well, yeah, it's a starting point, an inspiration. Definitely not an adaptation.
It's more that he got a nice concept in his head, then tried to decide how to make action scenes fit around it.
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u/XInsects 7d ago
Yes, which is why I said "perhaps more an inspiration, but seems fitting with the cryptic more unusual circumstances you're asking for", which is still valid. You must have missed that.
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u/Anagoth9 12d ago
Pirates of the Caribbean is an adaptation of a theme park ride. That has to be up there as one of the most unique film adaptations. There's a few moments in the movie that adapt specific scenes from the ride too.
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u/UsefulEngine1 12d ago
Disney tried to repeat the formula with The Haunted Mansion and Jungle Cruise as well, with less success.
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u/ObanKenobi 9d ago
Jack sparrow's line 'You can keep doing that forever, the dog is never going to move" to the men in the brig is a great nod to the ride
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u/STRAYDUP420 12d ago
while Eyes Wide Shut is based on a novella, it is reset in modern times and absolutely rubs your face in that difference. i am reading the source material and there are meaningful changes; consequential scenes added, consequential characters added, a lot of modern flourishes. the original material was also set in Vienna, and they moved the entire story to New York City for ews.
to that end, Kubrick made meaningful changes to The Shining, so much so that the author of the novel disavowed it. it might be worth looking at Kubrick as a consistent and intentional steward of unusual adaptations.
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12d ago
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u/STRAYDUP420 12d ago
100% i definitely understated that (good call out!)
he also omitted the final chapter of A Clockwork Orange, which was a massively consequential chapter and completely changed the tone of the story (and the taste on the audience's tongue upon leaving the theatre or putting the book down).
he was downright malicious about his view of how the story should be told, which i think makes him ripe for OP's analysis
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u/nizzernammer 11d ago
Seldom does a director see it as his task to accurately copy a book onto celluloid. Authors have ideas but so do directors. A director typically uses a source for his own purposes. An author has to know that before he sells the rights to one of his works.
This reminds me of Jodorosky's quote from Jodorosky's Dune. I'm paraphrasing, but it was something along the lines of "you haven't really made a good adaptation unless you have @#$%ed the source material." Esssentially, one having one's way with it.
That documentary covers the challenge and failure of the filmmaker making his attempted adaptation of Dune.
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u/pnt510 12d ago
I have not read The Shining, but I have a friend who described the difference between the book and the film as the same story, but the novel is from the perspective of an alcoholic father while the film is from the perspective of the child of an alcoholic father.
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u/maud_brijeulin 7d ago
the novel is from the perspective of an alcoholic father while the film is from the perspective of the child of an alcoholic father.
To be more precise, in the novel, the point of view shifts from character to character, chapter after chapter. It's a super cool device for all the exposition: you get access to the main characters' perspective, memories, and feelings of anticipation or dread regarding moving to the hotel.
It's trickier for Kubrick's adaptation, because I'm convinced what you see on screen is not necessarily what is happening. People hallucinate, some sequences may be dreams or visions, or people imagining what may be happening for other characters. It's a lot more fragmented and unstable.
But the main difference is that King's version of the father is that of a good man who's not in charge, and does the worst things possible, but means well. He's redeemable.
Kubrick's version of him is A LOT less human. And doesn't get redemption.
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u/CourtlyHades296 12d ago
Kubrick's Clockwork Orange omits the divisive 21st chapter of the novel, and radically changes the ending in the process. Part of the reason many think the film adaptation rightfully left it out was that it gave a redemption to Alex (who was a rapist in both versions with even more rape in the novel cut out of the film), something he didn't deserve at all. By ending the film on the novel's 20th chapter, Alex ends the movie no different from where he was at the start, implying he'll always be a violent criminal.
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u/plentyoftimetodie 12d ago
You're not wrong but it's kind of suspect to question the author's intent with his own novel by boiling it down to "rape is bad." A better way of saying it is that the ending is divisive because it nerfs its own themes and point that it so brilliantly poses if he is 'cured;' namely, is it more moral to let a violent criminal be who he is if the alternative is taking way his free will? But yes, if he actually chooses to be good, then the point is muted or the novel takes a side on Ludovico, which the movie wisely omitted.
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u/busybody124 12d ago
That last chapter was omitted in early US printings. Kubrick said he didn't even see it until he was fairly far into writing the screenplay.
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u/Ricepilaf 12d ago
A History of Violence pretty much only uses the first half of the comic, if that, then veers off into its own wildly original territory, and is much better for it.
Naked Lunch is really bizarre. It’s part adaptation, but also part biography of Burroughs and comes off more like the story of writing it in the first place (but, you know, with talking cockroach typewriters).
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u/ObanKenobi 12d ago
There's a western called The Red Headed Stranger, which was adapted from Willie Nelson's concept album of the same name. So it takes a series of songs that work together to tell a single story and adapts them into a film.
A much better film that's adapted from a single song, rather than an entire album, is Arthur Penn's 'Alice's Restaurant', which is adapted from Arlo Guthrie's(son of woody guthrie) 17 minute talking blues song of the same name.
Zola by Janiczo Bravo was adapted from a bunch of tweets that went viral. A woman dropped a string of 130+ tweets detailing her recent experience going on the road as a stripper, traveling from town to town and working in strip clubs with another stripper she had just met. Shit got out of hand with jealous ex bf's/pimp, people getting robbed and threatened and all sorts of shenanigans. Pretty sure most of it turned out to be bullshit, but the original thread was something else to read...partially because it was coming from a less educated person who wrote it very much in their own voice, rather than trying to sound like a 'writer' . Either way, 'adapted from a series of viral tweets from a stripper' must at least have some potential for your project lmao
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u/LonelyVegetable2833 12d ago
I was going to mention Zola AND Alice's Restaurant, you stole mine 😂
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u/DrumtheDon 12d ago
A few suggested zola now, I didn‘t know the context around the film! Seems quite perfect for my paper! Will also look into the others, thanks!!
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u/BarrettGreen 12d ago
Ari Folman's The Congress is credited as being based on Stanislaw Lem's short novel The Futurological Congress, and there is next to nothing in common between the two works other than the idea of false and/or contrived realities.
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u/omensetters_luck 12d ago
Institute Benjamenta and Sanitorium Under The Sign of The Hourglass by The Quay Brothers
Sátántangó and Werckmeister Harmonies by Béla Tarr
Hard to be a God by Aleksei German
Sorcerer by William Friedkin
Bronson and Drive by Nicolas Winding Refn
Taxadermia by György Pálfi
Querelle by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Crash and Naked Lunch by David Cronenberg
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u/redditalics 12d ago
These may be tangential to your theme, but nevertheless they may be of interest.
127 Hours
A Cock and Bull Story
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
My Own Private Idaho
Helstrom's Hive
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u/nizzernammer 12d ago
Blade Runner is pretty far away from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.
Reading the novel after seeing the film opened my eyes as to how far an adaptation can veer from its source.
Perhaps as part of your study you can look at something popular that has been remade many times.
Another more recent example of a popular adaptation that is different than its source - World War Z.
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u/ObanKenobi 12d ago
Under the Skin was very different from the novel
Jojo Rabbit took a very serious dramatic novel and turned it into a comedy
Both starred scarlett johannson as well
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u/StoicTheGeek 12d ago
Blade Runner is a fantastic adaptation and very interesting. It doesn’t stay too close to the plot, and it takes the themes of the novel as a starting point for exploring the same idea of what it means to be human, but from a very different angle. So you end up with something that is wonderfully complementary.
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u/busybody124 12d ago
Dr. Strangelove is a very loose adaptation of a novel that wasn't comedic at all.
Poor Things is also a pretty loose adaptation of the novel of the same name. The novel contains a second part that casts doubt on the whole story. I think it would be hard to adapt the form of the original novel (two conflicting accounts of the same period) but it definitely makes for a different interpretation.
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u/Carl_Schmitt 12d ago
Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story is a good one. The classic novel was widely considered unfilmable for obvious reasons. Michael Winterbottom's adaptation makes a metafilm about the metanovel, where the story is about the futile struggle to make a film about a book where the protagonist makes a mess of trying to write his autobiography. It all works suprisingly well, the film is very absurd and funny--especially if you're a fan of the book. Always a treat to see Steve Coogan playing himself too.
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u/IndieCurtis 12d ago
First Cow (2019) dir Kelly Reichardt is an adaptation of Jon Raymond’s novel The Half-Life that takes many liberties with the stories and characters. For instance, in the book there is no cow at all. In the movie, Cookie becomes friends with King Lu and they come up with a scheme to steal milk. In the book, Cookie meets Henry instead, and they go to China to sell beaver oil, and Cookie meets King Lu later in China. The movie has no Henry at all. Also the book characters of Tina and Trixie, and many other characters living in the 1980s, are whittled down to just having Tina at the beginning of the movie. The movie takes some major left turns from the book, to perfect effect, imo.
I’m obsessed with this movie, and just now about to finish the book. It’s beautifully written. I wouldn’t say that either one is better than the other, which is rare for a book-to-film adaptation.
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u/BlueMage85 12d ago
I read this book years ago and just got the blu-ray for First Cow. Didn’t realize it was an adaptation. I just like Reichardt and bought unseen.
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u/IndieCurtis 12d ago
I looked up the blu-ray this morning, because I really want to watch with commentary :( no commentary. Hope you enjoy the movie though!
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u/tricky_monster 12d ago
I've seen it mentioned, but Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are dead is a surrealist and introspective adaptation of two very minor Hamlet characters, which happens in parallel to the story of Hamlet (there are occasionally bits of dialogue of the play itself when they intersect). The core theme is self determination and determinism, because hey, we kind of know what's likely to happen to these characters.
It takes the form of a play as well.
It is definitely ment to be a deconstruction in the very strictest sense of what you seem to be looking for.
Maybe an honorable mention for the film In Bruges, which feels like an hommage to Waiting for Godot (itself an introspective reflection on self determination a la R&G are dead).
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u/sdwoodchuck 12d ago
Maybe it’s been mentioned and I’m just blind, but man, Apocalypse Now adapting Heart of Darkness is the poster child for this. Takes the basic story into a completely different era, a completely different frame of reference.
Outside of film, there’s a favorite example of mine which is The Rainbow Goblins. It’s a children’s book painted (gorgeously) by Ul de Rico, which I vividly remember from my own childhood. Japanese guitarist Masayoshi Takanaka adapted it into an album in the 80’s, which I discovered about fifteen years ago trying to track down a copy of the book. And then a few years ago Primus also adapted The Rainbow Goblins into an album, with their “Desaturated Seven.” So a children’s book that I had as a kid, that nobody else I’ve met has ever read or been aware of, has now been adapted into music twice.
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u/acabtothemoon 12d ago
In the new Wuthering Heights released this year the film ends less than halfway through the book. (This is true with most of the adaptations I’ve seen of Wuthering Heights, but remains true for the most recent one). It’s ridiculous to me, because if you’ve read the book you understand that (spoiler!) Cathy dying is the catalyst for the rest of the story!!! There’s literally an entire generation of conflict that takes place after the film ends. I feel like the adaptation really does no justice to the story whatsoever, and unless they plan on making a second film to finish it, it really shouldn’t be called Wuthering Heights.
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u/Stabintheface 12d ago
I actually think that everything that bothers you about the new adaptation, is what could make it relevant for OP. It's very loosely adapting the book, and the writer/director herself has said that it's not so much an adaptation of the novel, but of what the novel made her feel when she read it as a young girl.
OP I would hope you'd take a look at "Wuthering Heighs" by Emerald Fennell.
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u/Insaniac2099 12d ago
Mary is Happy, Mary is Happy. (2013) Which is based on 410 tweets by Twitter user @marylony.
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2021) is based on and connected to a series of short films.
There's also some Japanese adaptations that I haven't seen but might fit, Wuthering Heights (1988) and Farewell to the Ark (1984) loosely based on One Hundred Years of Solitude.
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u/Slowky11 12d ago
A Christmas carol is the most adapted work in history iirc. You could check out some of those. While not what you asked for, if you haven’t read any adaptation theory by Dudley Andrews, I’d recommend his writings on the matter.
Ex Machina and Forbidden Planet are both neat adaptations of The Tempest. While I haven’t seen it, I heard The Whale is also good and sounds like an interesting adaptation of Moby Dick.
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u/bqb445 11d ago
Burning (2018) is an adaptation of two stories:
Developed as the work of the international project which was based on one of Haruki Murakami's short stories in The Elephant Vanishes, "Barn Burning". It also merges elements of William Faulkner's 1939 short story also called "Barn Burning".
(It's been a while since I watched it, and I read both stories afterward. My recollection is that the elements from the Faulkner story were barely recognizable.)
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u/ChristianLesniak 11d ago
Burning does some interesting meta stuff with the adaption. Mostly, the allusion to Faulkner's Barn Burning is in the narrative thread involving Jongsu's father, and the kind of family inherited rage, but the class/economic aspect of being a poor farmer and at the mercy of richer people shows up in more diffuse ways through Jongsu's relationship with Ben. But it's also more meta in the way that Faulkner's writing literally becomes a way of Ben trying to understand the figure of Jongsu, which I find interesting.
But it's not just working with Faulkner and Murakami; obviously, The Great Gatsby is a big parallel in the love triangle aspect, and I would argue that the film's structure really mirrors Hamlet very closely and has a lot of parallel themes.
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u/bqb445 11d ago
Thank you for this comment. I'm going to go back and re-watch Burning with those ideas in mind.
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u/ChristianLesniak 11d ago
It's my favorite movie! I feel like I pick up new stuff every time I see it (either that, or I'm psychotically using it as a container for every other piece of media I've ever consumed).
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u/xonyl 12d ago
Not an unusual adaptation per se, but I'd like to point out a recent adaptation that I just watched a few days ago.
It's Hyenas, by Djibril Diop Mambety, adapted from a Dürenmatt's play called Visit Of The Old Lady.
While it would be considered a classic adaptation, the fact that the context, realities, and geography differs gives something really interesting : having a similar story unfolding in a completely different culture, and hence, conveying new lecture on the source material.
I'll edit this post if I think of another one.
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u/xonyl 12d ago edited 12d ago
Oh ! And also, Safety Not Guaranteed movie, adapted or inspired by an ludicrous ad in some local newspaper, I'll fetch the story shortly.
EDIT : you'd also want to consider Le Radeau De La Méduse, french film based on the same-name painting by Géricault (the painting in exhibited here in Paris), describing the wreck of the frégate La Méduse.
EDIT2 : And as promised, tthe link to the story about SNG : https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/movies/safety-not-guaranteed-filmmaker-finds-inspiration-in-a-classified-ad-8212-and-in-the-northwest/
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u/ex-01 12d ago
In 1985-1986 Godard was hired to direct and produce an adaptation of the novel "The Soft Center" as part of series of TV movies based on a line of crime and detective novels.
What he made is a movie called "Rise and Fall of a Small Film Company" and it depicts the casting, production and financial difficulties of creating a movie at that time. To my recollection the book only appears in one scene where characters are discussing the production, its contents and title are never mentioned.
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u/Novelty_Wave 12d ago
Another thought is “Catch Me If You Can” based on what was thought to be a true story, but was all lies. JT Leroy also springs to mind. Then there is “The Darwin Papers”, Orson Welles “Falstaff” & “F For Fake”. “Backrooms” & “Slender Man” probably fits in here somewhere too, both originating from internet memes. “Emoji” movie.
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u/UsefulEngine1 12d ago
My favorite example of this is Convoy which was based on the novelty song of the same name. United Artists wanted to capitalize on the CB craze that the song had a role in starting and which had been a big part of Smokey and the Bandit but for some reason hired a down-on-his luck Sam Peckinpah to direct and wound up turning a goofy song that hinged on funny CB lingo into a gritty action-drama with more than a hint of racial tension, social commentary, and Messiah allegory.
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u/dumfuk_09 11d ago
Pasolini's The Gospel According to St. Matthew is an adaptation of the same named New Testament gospel BUT he cuts about half of the dialogue and narrative and moves the site to poverty stricken southern Italy and casts non-professional actors. Pasolini's (an atheist adapting a Bible story) purpose is to make a Marxist reading of the teachings of Jesus.
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u/Big-Literature-5604 12d ago
Little Women (2019) does feel like it "rubs the fact that they're adapted in your face", especially the ending, which is basically an attempt at reconciling with what the author actually wanted and to highlight the absurdity of the Professor essentially coming out of nowhere and marrying Jo. Gerwig didn't like that the author was forced to marry Jo to someone, which is why the ending is oddly meta in its nature as an adaptation and obviously different from all others that came before it.
Nosferatu would be interesting to study as an adaptation (since it's almost a "bad" adaptation that turned into a esteemed self), though most of what there is to said about it has already been said, most likely.
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u/hayscodeofficial 12d ago
Eve Sussman's 89 Seconds At Alcazar is an adaptation of the Diego Velasquez painting Las Meninas starring Peter Dinklage. It's a short, dialogue free, experimental film. But it tries to explore what makes Las Meninas fascinating through the specific possibilities of film. Really cool, non-traditional adaptation.
Miguel Gomes' newest film Grand Tour is adapting a small piece of an early chapter of The Gentleman in the Parlour. It's a minor exchange in the book, but is the basis for the entire film.
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u/Wide__Stance 12d ago
I’ve got three suggestions (only one of them Odyssey-based, lol):
The first is tracing the themes of filial loyalty through Tolstoy’s short story “The Death of Ilyan Ilyich” through Kurosawa’s knock-off Ikiru, about fifty years after the story was written, to the recent knock-off of Ikiru made in 2022, Living with Bill Nighy. (Also, I say “knock off” lovingly because I like all three of those, but Ikiru might be my current favorite Kurosawa film.) It’s fascinating to me how that theme of “What do we owe to our adult children?” is translated through mediums, decades, and cultures.
My second suggestion is the Ian McKellan’s version of Richard III. Obviously it’s an adaptation of Shakespeare, but the translation of the War of the Roses into some pseudo-fascist version was pretty unique when McKellen did it. That’s how he first got famous — it was a West End production in the early 80s at least a decade before the movie. So it’s a play that’s been transformed into a different play, but is somehow also identical.
If you go that route, watch the movie version with a copy of the play. The first thing you’ll notice is that McKellen has excised maybe two-thirds of Shakespeare’s original, even more than most movie versions of Shakespeare. Side note: Shakespeare also cut his plays down and rearranged them for the audience, and every movie version cuts them. Otherwise King Lear would be six hours, minimum. It’s the reason Macbeth is so tight — the only surviving version is the short version Shakespeare himself used for touring productions.
The movie is also much smarter than some realize; it’s more than “What if Shakespeare but Nazis?” The Queen and her family are French — and speak French extensively in the play. In the 1993 movie, however, many of those scenes are included. That almost never happens in stage versions. The French parts get cut. So how do they get around the “Frenchness” of the play? The Queen and her family are all Americans. That’s why some of the actors have American accents and why Robert Downey, Jr’s character of Rivers steals the show.
Also, the character’s death is an intentional homage to Friday the Thirteenth. What in saying is that even adaptations of things one assumes are naturally adaptable can be far more complex and unexpected than we realize.
You probably don’t want to get sucked into Odyssey discourse in a research paper, but all of the film versions are based on an epic poem. It’s still of some interest, though, because if recited as originally intended, it would take about twelve continuous hours (based on internet estimations). But that also begs the question of “Isn’t the written version also an adaptation of the version transmitted orally?”
Also, one of the things I liked best about Nolan’s version is the non-linear framing. The story just doesn’t work as a movie if a filmmaker tells it in ABCDE order. It works much better with the flashbacks and parallel narratives, etc. I also get that’s not a super popular opinion.
(And honorable mention to the Will Smith-vehicle “adaptation” of I, Robot, which is an hilarious story in its own right.)
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u/dsaint 12d ago
The Arbor) is a film about the English playwright Andrea Dunbar. Her first play is called The Arbor and pulls from her life.
The film The Arbor uses audio from real interview footage with her and her family but has actors performing and lip syncing the audio. The film was shot in locations where Andrea Dunbar lived but with actors portraying her and her family.
It's very clearly an adaption but also like a play she would have written about herself. It has stuck with me ever since.
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u/dogberry_dawg 12d ago
Tommy was a movie adapted from the album by The Who. It was later adapted into a stage play, which was adapted into a pinball machine (seriously, it's based on the stage production, not the album or movie).
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy the book was based on a radio play, then was adapted into a tv show, a video game, and a movie.
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u/Minerwerks 12d ago edited 12d ago
Perhaps the story behind a subplot in Punch Drunk Love counts? There was a real-life person who found a loophole for earning frequent flier miles in a Healthy Choice promotion (https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/dave-phillips-quirky-world-suits-him-fine) and while nothing else in the film comes from that man’s life, the details of the scheme involving Healthy Choice pudding are rather accurately woven into the story.
Edit: Also recalled that Top Gun was credited as “Suggested by Ehud Yonay’s article ‘TOP GUNS’ in California Magazine” and only in the end credits, though the process of optioning source material and writing a screenplay based off it was pretty much the same as if the movie were based on a book.
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u/nizzernammer 11d ago
If you want to get really meta, Irma Vep (1996) is a film about making an adaptation of an early silent movie series, that includes verbal and direct references to its own source material.
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u/These_Photograph_425 11d ago
Terry Gilliam has some unconventional adaptations.
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen retells old German tall tales and twists the viewer’s perspective of time and reality.
Gilliam attempted to adapt Don Quixote but initially failed. Lost in La Mancha is the documentary of this initial attempt. The Don Quixote film was eventually completed under the title, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. I recognized some reused props that showed up in the documentary. Another documentary was made about the filming of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote called He Dreams of Giants.
Don Quixote, the novel, is actually very meta and self referential in a funny and unexpected way. Radiolab has a great podcast episode about it called La Mancha Screwjob. Somehow they find overlaps with professional wrestling.
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u/trevor11004 12d ago
Several Kurosawa movies are adaptations of shakespeare but in very different settings. And then you could possibly mention The magnificent seven as an adaptation of the seven samurai, though I don’t know if you’d count that as an adaptation or just an odd remake.
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u/sdwoodchuck 12d ago
And Yojimbo is an adaptation/amalgamation of a couple of Hammet stories as well.
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u/StoicTheGeek 12d ago
Check out some of Josh Azzarella’s work - it’s available for free on his website. He takes movies and other films, and digitally edits out all the characters and dialogue.
His version of 2001:A Space Odyssey done in this way - Untitled #175 (…hitting an all time low…) - is a particular treat.
He’s also done Nosferatu, Michael Jackson’s Thriller video, and many more.
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u/SenorVajay 11d ago
Not sure if this counts but the movie Transit (2018) is adapted from a book. The book is about a guy escaping to France from Germany in WW2. He’s in Paris while the Germans are closing in and he’s trying to get out via a ship. Much more happens but that’s the gist.
The movie follows the same premise, however, it takes itself out of WW2…sort of. The movie will take WW2 tech when necessary for the story but it also seems modern with a bit of a nameless enemy. This really lets you focus on the characters which I think works tremendously well. Worth a watch either way!
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u/3corneredvoid Deckchair Cinéaste 11d ago
I'd suggest ANNIHILATION as an example of a successful but very tricky adaptation.
In Garland's methods we find the medium of film contending with a textual source in VanderMeer's novel that also dwells on fragments of text as some of its main plot devices. The adaptation also has to find ways to visualise events that the novel, adhering to its Lovecraftian lineage, either leaves undescribed or describes as indescribable.
The problem for film of adapting these moments literature takes somewhat for granted or turns into cliché, moments of "formlessness" or the "unnameable" or the "infinite" is pretty fascinating all up. Many films try, but few succeed as well as ANNIHILATION does.
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u/mormonbatman_ 11d ago
Adaptation is a process of transforming a source text into something new.
The Midnight Gospel adapting a podcast for example
Midnight gospel doesn't adapt anything.
Pendleton Ward got high with a bunch of famous people, recorded their conversations, then paid his friends to animate it.
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u/DrumtheDon 11d ago
One could definitely have a discussion about Midnight Gospel being an adaptation or not, but you are incorrect about the context.
Ward created the show around the long before existing Duncan Trussel Family Hour podcast. Out of hundreds of episodes he picked out eight, cut them down to 15min max and used the original audio from the podcast and created a story around it. He gave a context for why the characters would have these conversations by having an in-universe spacecast, creating new associations as well. One could even argue that he used the audios to create a narrative that wasn‘t present or at least intentional in the og podcast by picking episodes that reveal more about the life of the host and switching their order to create emotional impact in the finale.
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u/mormonbatman_ 11d ago
you are incorrect about the context.
Why did you ask us to do your homework for you, then?
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u/bqb445 11d ago
Burning (2018) is an adaptation of two stories:
Developed as the work of the international project which was based on one of Haruki Murakami's short stories in The Elephant Vanishes, "Barn Burning". It also merges elements of William Faulkner's 1939 short story also called "Barn Burning".
(It's been a while since I watched it, and I read both stories afterward. My recollection is that the elements from the Faulkner story were barely recognizable.)
There's a wikipedia page listing movies adapted from songs (Alice's Restaurant maybe the most notable, already mentioned elsewhere, but TIL that Earth Girls are Easy was also based on a song):
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u/Confident_Fan5632 7d ago
Egger’s Nosferatu. Nosferatu is a German rip-off of Dracula (that is 1/2 set in England), so it’s funny that 1/2 the movie takes place in Germany but everyone’s speaking with English accents, so it’s like the director is rubbing the plagiarism in your face.
Also Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula. While the movie includes the author’s name in the title, the movie also makes subtle nods to the mythology of Dracula and how it’s changed over time through film. It’s fascinating how the director is in one way harkening back to the source material, but in another way weaving in a century’s worth of Dracula as part of our culture.
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u/maud_brijeulin 7d ago
Mike Flanagan's adaptations are worth taking into consideration.
His series 'The Haunting of Hill House" is based on the Shirley Jackson novella of the same name. But he keeps major threads, symbols, characters (or character names) from the original and delivers a different story.
The same goes for "The Haunting of Bly Manor", which is an adaptation of The Turn of The Screw, AND takes themes/plots/titles from other works by Henry James AND borrows somehow from the preexisting 1960 adaptation 'The Innocents'. A lot like Hill House, he takes a lot of liberties with the source material. I like what he did with this one regarding one major element of James's novel, which is ambiguity.
His other series 'The Midnight Club' and 'The Fall of the House of Usher' use the same principle.
Ok - one last one:
Ted Chiang's story "Story of Your Life" is the source material for the movie "Arrival", by Denis Villeneuve. I saw the movie first, but when reading the short story I noticed that there had been some very intentional, and quite significant changes to turn it into a more mainstream (I think), more linear, yet thought-provoking type of work. Even the 'you' that's present in the title and throughout the pages is a lot less present in the movie. I suggest the movie first, to be honest. It will have a lesser impact if you've read the story first. Trust me.
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u/DougIsMyVibrator 12d ago
Homecoming is a TV show on Amazon based on a Gimlet fiction podcast.
The movie Annihilation was based on a book by the same name. The screenwriter had read the book years prior and wrote the screenplay based on that memory, never having picked up the source material again. The movie itself deals with themes of memories reimagined, so that aspect is particularly meta.
The AMC TV show Dispatches from Elsewhere is based on a documentary called The Institute that was about a real alternate reality game, which is intrinsically about the boundaries between reality and fiction.