THE ONLY THING THAT TRULY CHANGES...IS CHANGE

As I’ve mentioned before, I teach high school drama. And as part of my Drama classes, I cover classic films. I figure if someone is going to claim to be a “student of the theatre”, then they should at the very least be familiar with the actors and directors and movies that came before. If for no other reason than so they recognize a re-make when they see one and have a frame of reference for it.

Last week we watched the John Huston/Humphrey Bogart classic “The Maltese Falcon”, the film that almost single-handedly invented the private eye movie, based on the book that almost single-handedly invented the mystery novel. The kids enjoyed it (interesting to note that high school students like Bogart-go figure) and we had a good time breaking it down and discussing it. But that’s not what I’m really here to talk about…not really.

You see coincidentally, just as we were beginning our discussion of the film, my next door neighbor gave me a box of old books, one of which was an omnibus edition of old Dashiell Hammett novels, including “The Maltese Falcon”. Since I’d never read the book, I thought it would be fun to read it while we were watching the movie. The amazing thing I discovered as I read and watched almost simultaneously, is that the dialogue in the book and the dialogue in the film are almost exactly the same. They didn’t change anything! These days almost the minute a book gets optioned they start trying to figure out how to expand the story beyond the book, to make it more visual, more of an eye-candy feast for the generation that grew up on MTV and video games. They say the book is always better than the movie…I say this is mainly because the book is a different story than the movie, one with words and depth and complexity, not comic book visuals and change for the sake of change.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, there are a few changes in “The Maltese Falcon”. A few scenes get flipped around or tacked onto one another to cut down on sets or additional shooting, but the scenes are still there, and that’s truly refreshing, especially for someone who almost never sees the movie without having read the book first.

Now that’s not to say that back in the forties they never changed anything. Another of my favorite Bogey movies is “Key Largo”, which is based on an award-winning play. I ordered a copy of the play once with the intention of producing it on-stage, only to discover once it arrived that the only similarities between the movie and the play were the title, the location, the main character’s first name and not much else. And it’s one of those rare cases where I like the movie better! It’s not only that it’s a different story, it’s a better story. But unfortunately, that’s what seldom happens.

Sometimes changes are a good thing when switching mediums. One of the reasons I believe most films based on Stephen King books don’t turn out very well is that most of what makes them great is the descriptive power of King’s prose; he brings you into his character’s thoughts and motivations in a way that doesn’t translate to the screen. Film-makers like Rob Reiner (Misery, Stand By Me) and Frank Darabont (The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption) understand this about King’s work and have a talent for working around these issues. Others, like the poor fools who made “Lawnmower Man” just rip off King’s title and go off on their own. The one time someone tried to be faithful to a King book, 1984’s “Firestarter” directed by Mark Lester, it turned out poorly; an absolute yawn fest, despite an outstanding cast that included George C. Scott and Martin Sheen and a bravura performance by a young Drew Barrymore. Ironically, the one place they did change from the book, when they changed the newspaper Charlie goes to from Rolling Stone to the New York Times, doesn’t work for precisely the reasons King gave in the book for picking Rolling Stone in the first place.

So what’s the answer? Well, there’s not a blanket answer that will work in every situation, that’s part of the problem. King’s books need to be adjusted for the reasons mentioned above, Neil Gaiman is currently defending the changes in the movie “Coraline” from his original story because so much of the early parts of the book are spent in Coraline’s head and won’t translate visually unless she has the new character of Wybie to talk to. Zack Snyder, on the other hand is working very hard to make his version of “Watchmen” into a visual comic book because the original material is just so perfect the way Alan Moore wrote it and Dave Gibbons drew it.

The truth of it is, movie people change books. It’s a fact of the industry. It’s one of the ways a screenwriter proves that he’s an actual storyteller and not just someone who turns prose into dialogue. And sometimes, like with “The Fellowship of the Ring”, the book is just too damn long! The secret is to change only what is necessary and not just for the sake of change, like they do in many TV adaptations, from “The Dresden Files” to the newly-minted “Legend of the Seeker”, currently running syndication, where I sometimes swear they make changes from the books just to piss fans off. Make sure that you adapt, not re-write and keep in the spirit of what made the book worth making a film of in the first place.

Change is good and should be embraced. Change simply for the sake of change is creative masturbation and will make you go blind (trust me, there have been studies!). I guess the message to Hollywood is to make sure that “your” change doesn’t make “me” change…the channel.