Kermode Uncut: Short Stories Make Great Films?
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- čas přidán 22. 07. 2024
- www.bbc.co.uk/markkermode
A newly remastered version of the great Nic Roeg film Don't Look Now is about to be released on BluRay and DVD. It got me thinking about other films made from short stories and wondering whether less is more when it comes to adapting the written word to the big screen? - Krátké a kreslené filmy
Minority Report was a great movie and was a short story by Philip K. Dick. His full-length novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was made into Blade Runner which was just excellent.
2001: A Space Odyssey was originally a short story called The Sentinal by Arthur C. Clarke. An absolute classic by anyone's standards I think. The short story ends with the discovery of the obelisk/beacon so really it was just the premise or central idea that sparked a much greater story told through the film.
More of a 'novella' than a short story here, but I must say that Breakfast at Tiffany's - both versions - never cease to make me smile. A friend of mine loves the novella and hates the film, saying the latter is too divergent. I'm able to separate them in my head to the extent that the one doesn't influence my enjoyment of the other.
My favorite film based off a short story is Brokeback Mountain.
Honourable mentions include Lust, Caution, Minority Report.
A case where it hasn't worked that I can think of is Secret Window, which was based on a novella by Stephen King. But that might be because it was David Koepp, a screenwriter who can't tell the difference between Incas and Mayans.
The first two cinematic treatments of Clive Barker's work offer a great lesson on how the short story adaptation can range from the absolutely sublime (Hellraiser, based on the novella The Hellbound Heart) to the absolutely ridiculous (Rawhead Rex).
Jacques Tourneur's classic "Night of the Demon" was based on the short story "Casting the Runes" by M. R. James.
Total Recall. :D So good!
A little movie that snuck by the cinemas over here was a CGI animated film called 9 based on a short story by a college student that when Tim Burton read the story he helped him make it onto the screen.
I love Robert Altman's - admittedly sometimes hit or miss - "Short Cuts" which puts a whole bunch of Raymond Carver short stories together, something I think works much better than a lot of films which drag and expend a single story out.
Pretty Polly based on Pretty Polly Barlow by Noel Coward. Made in the mid sixties in Singapore starring Hayley Mills, Shashi Kapoor and Trevor Howard. I WISH they would release it on DVD.
Stephen King's only directorial effort Maximum Overdrive (widely regarded as a bit of a turkey) is based on his short story "Trucks".
1408 and The Mist were both based on short stories, and are a couple of my favorite horror films of recent years.
You've mentioned the best one Dr.K, Shawshank Redemption
As mentioned, definitely Memento, A Space Odyssey & Apocalypse Now. The Innocents was adapted greatly as well.
I think it's definitely worth mentioning John Carpenter's 'They Live' based on the short story 'Eight O'Clock in the Morning' by Ray Nelson.
Carpenter took Nelson's cheesy but subtle and linear story and added all the ridiculousness you'd expect from a John Carpenter movie including silly action sequences and cheeky one-liners while keeping a very strong and poignant message about consumerism, the influence of the media and the issues of the American economy.
A lot of people are saying Memento, but what's interesting is that if you look a Chris Nolan's interview on the Memento DVD, he actually says that his film is an adaptation of his brother's idea for the story, as it wasn't actually written yet. The film and the story were both finished around the same time.
I feel short stories make better films for, as you say, they suggest ideas and they often play over just one idea and muse over it for a while. And, my favourite genres are horror and sci-fi, their finest examples are when they have a single idea and they are exploring it and almost discussing it, therefore short films are more naturally suited to film.Also, allot of what makes people love novels are what limit them when they come to been made into films and a film cannot do all that a noveldoes
I remember reading a book of short stories all of which were turned into films. Cant remember most of them but it did have Dont Look Now, The Byrds and the original The Sentinal, basis of 2001. As for Stephen king stories there is the Four Seasons collection which produced The Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me but also a stinker in Apt Pupil
Minority Report was amazing.
I believe Blade Runner came from a novel called 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Phillip K Dick NOT a short story.
I would be very interested in seeing a movie adaptation of Harlan Ellison's I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream, a sci-fi short story of true excellence.
@WalksBehindTheRose Agreed. One of my favourite Burton films.
Brokeback Mountain, which is a short story by Annie Proulx
Minority Report was a great short-story based film.
Memento! Great Short Story. Great FIlm!
Minority Report and Total Recall are great adaptations of Philip K Dick Short stories, but there are also stinkers based on the same writers work. "Next", "The Imposter", "Paycheck", "Screamers"
@sonoflemrac Cabal was a novella, just like the Hellbound Heart, though I believe you're right in that Cabal is longer.
To expand on Mark's point, I would actually say that novellas perhaps make the best adaptation material; meatier than a short story, but still enough leeway to expand and elaborate on the source material.
There's also some great film versions of Edgar Allan Poe's work, mainly Roger Corman I think
PIt and the Pendulum
Fall of the House of Usher
Masque of the Red Death
Premature Burial
and there was Karloff's Black Cat in the 1930s......
the company of wolves - angela carter short story
This may be a bit cheeky or perhaps a different subject of discussion all together but what about the relationship between James Cameron's film The Terminator and Harlan Eliison's short stories?
Bad movie Short Story Adaptations: The Box (Cameron Diaz movie based on Richard Matheson), Quantum of Solace (Ian Fleming), Imposter (P.K. Dick), Passion in the Desert, Bicentennial Man, Mimic, The Switch (Jennifer Anniston), Next (Nicolas Cage), The Mangler (Clive Barker).
Great movie Short Story Adaptations: Rear Window, All About Eve, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, A Face in the Crowd, The Duelists, Full Metal Jacket, The Killers, The Thing, The Dead, The Love Bug, 2001, and Stand By Me.
Surely its got to be 2001: a space odessey, from the arthur c clark sotry the sentinel. I cannot think of a better film.
What are your thoughts on this short? czcams.com/video/NSnsxxoubQY/video.html
@LordZope Memento- based on a short story written by the script-writer's brother. Not really the same is it.
Kick Ass was a graphic novel
Hmm, well, I kind of want to put Hellraiser, though I know it's based on a novella. Nevertheless, it is a short novella (which I think Shawshank was too, right?) and the same principle applies. The story is great, but the film makes the relationships between the characters stronger, and it creates most of the iconic visuals which aren't present in the Hellbound Heart.
Minority Report, Blade Runner and There Will Be Blood are my picks
@terrycharnley The Running Man the movie had very little to do with King's ( as Richard Bachman) superb short story. Cat's Eye was loosely based on 3 stories from the Night Shift collection. If you liked those movies, I'm happy for you.
Clive Barker - truly love the short stories, but feel that their various screen adaptations could have been better (sometimes considerably so)
Hitchcock's Rear Window is based on a Cornell Woolrich short story, Hitchcock added the love interest and the protagonist's profession and changed the butler to a nurse worse adaptation 2010's Switch starring Jennifer Anniston based on a Jeffrey Eugenides short story. Regarding Stephen King adaptations isn't Cronenberg's The Dead Zone one of the better King screen adaptations?
well i didn't understand 2001 a space odyssey, which is based on the sentinel by Arthur C Clarke
memento was based on an interesting short story written by Christopher Nolan's own brother
The Thing :D
The Bond Film The Living Daylights is my favourite of the franchise and is based on the short story by Ian Fleming. Its opening sequence is essentially as far as the written work went, and the rest of the film was extrapolated from it - very fun, generic action and romance.
I might be in the minority here, but 'Candyman.' I adore that film.
Blade Runner was not based on a short story, I was based on the novel 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' the nove
Nightbreed was novel(cabal) not a short story. Hellraiser was a short story adaptation as was Candyman. both great. i'm sure there are alot of dodgy adapttions of Stephen King's short stories(graveyard shift for example)
Novels work as miniseries and short stories as movies.
*the novel is about 200 pages
Memento, I'm not sure if Blade Runner was based on a short story or a novel
Duel.
@dmxbusta nobody does, but it's great for business.
Who Goes There? Author(s John W. Campbell, Jr Country United States of America Genre(s) Science fiction Publisher Astounding Stories Publication date August 1938 Media type Magazine Who Goes There? is a science fiction novella by John W. Campbell, Jr. under the pen name Don A. Stuart, published August 1938 in Astounding Stories. In 1973, the story was voted by the Science Fiction Writers of America as one of the finest science fiction novellas ever written, and published with the other top vo
@revolutiongeorge Much better :) I respect your point of view but do not agree. This was an extremely short film in it's first draft. Depth is an impossibility in such a short story. But Tim Burton liked it so much that he was able to flesh it out to go a little longer. If you didn't like it that's fine but I'd encourage anybody who didn't like it to see it again.
@TheTruth006
Not seen it. Looks horrendous though! :-p
Maximum Overdrive was another.......
Brokeback Mountain was a pretty good short story adaptation.
Memento is the best film based on a short story
Most of the film adaptations to Stephen King's short stories (and novels, for that matter) were pretty forgetable if not awful: Children of the Corn, The Mist, The Running Man, The Langoliers ,The Langoliers, Cat's Eye, The Lawnmower Man... I can go on, you know.
Saturday Night Fever
Goning to cause a fuss with this one, what about Clockwork Orange? The film detracts from a lot of the themes in the book and with the last chapter not included in the original american copies does away with in my opinion a better resolve.
@MadBrainiac Too bad Blade Runner is based on a novel though.
@ylaviv well don't, because a couple of them were pretty damn good, you know. Cat's Eye and The Running Man.
Any of the films adapted from HP Lovecraft short stories are abysmal. I suppose you could say Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy is an example of book to film adaption that works. Some may disagree.
I really liked the film Wristcutters which was adapted from the Etgar Keret short(ish) story Kneller's happy campers.
Willow... ;)
@EcologicalFighter I think you could've set the same story in the 50s in a stereotypical black and white B-Movie style.
Memento
@HamGreenandEggs Why has this been flagged as spam? That was a great movie, and a great short story too.
company of wolves, brokeback mountain...err..
@MadBrainiac you didn't like total recall??? are you nuts? *shoots fake wife* "consider that a divorce" film is a classic
I did say my comment was going to cause a fuss. I don't dislike Kubrick's Clockwork Orange. Saying 'All novels screams its themes at you' is a ridiculous sweeping statement to make about every story that's ever been written. I'm familiar with Rob Ager and film theory. The 21st chapter is crucial and in keeping with the themes of the book it's divided into three sections with seven chapters each for that reason. Again I'm not slating Kubrick's film I'm just saying I enjoyed the book more.
Paycheck and Imposter are to examples of stinky adaptations of brilliant Philip K. Dick short stories. Short stories that benefitted from being short, while the movies tried to pad it all out with unnecesary action scenes while missing the point of the story. (For example: Imposters exciting and shocking ending was revamped and ruined in the movie)
My would have to be THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON.
Why? Because you're wrong, a trait which is becoming oh so common within the last couple of months.
I like the reviews but I think sometimes you miss the mark, Mark (XMen: First Class, prime example).
I'm surprised Phillip K Dick's shopping list has not yet been adapted for the screen.
I'm also surprised that the William Gibsons Johnny Mnemonic made such a terrible movie.
THE BAD
Broke back mountain awful movie (and loooong) from a short story.
THE GOOD
Minority report good movie based on a really short story.
THE IN BETWEEN
Conan the barbarian . based on a series of short stories, that are understandably hard to adapt because there is no particular order to them
Not all Stephen King short story adaptations are good.
Lawnmower Man anyone?
How about The Langoliers?
bladerunner everytime
The answer is simple, the best short story adaptation is Bladerunner. The worst is lawnmower man.