Laurence Olivier played Mr. Darcy in a 1940 version of Pride and Prejudice. Which won an Oscar for Art Direction. So even though I haven't seen it, I can't dismiss it out of hand.
It gets mixed reviews. It tends to appall Austen purists because the costumes are Victorian and Lady Catherine de Burgh is defanged, but there are those who love it, too. I fall on the purist side of the fence, but that may be at least partly because I saw the Firth/Ehle version first and just can't imagine P&P being done better.
The Risky Regencies blog discussed the Oliver adaptation here: [link]
I also use he French Lieutenant's Woman as an example of why in translation from book to film preserving the spirit often requires significant alterations in the letter.
I'm guessing Jane Eyre maybe doesn't count as a "great" book (although I think it has a lot of historical significance), but the 1940s Orson Welles version was really faithful, and nicely done.
I also think Rosemary's Baby is overlooked as pretty pointed social commentary, and the film adaptation was so faithful it was almost eerie. Also, a really good movie.
I'll go so far as to say that different qualities make a good book as opposed to a good movie.
In my own writing, I've learned that the more strongly I visualize a scene, the more difficult it is to write. I don't spend a lot of time daydreaming that anything I write will ever be a movie, but with those scenes, I do, because they're usually just so cinematic--the kind of thing you can convey beautifully with a few visuals, the right music in the background, the expression on a good actor's face, but are hard to get across with the same subtle emotional impact when I have to try to write down the amazing evocative picture in my head.
Susan, it looks like Risky Regencies liked it better as a movie than an Austen adaptation, if that makes sense. And yeah, Greer Garson doesn't make sense as a young unmarried woman. She made Mrs. Miniver only two years later -- she's one of those stars that I can't believe was ever a child.
While I can't say Peyton Place is Great Art either as book or movie, it's certainly first-rate trashiness as both. (And speaking of the controversial, read Forever Amber but skip the movie -- it should have been made about 10 years later, when the censors would probably have allowed more stuff in.)
I would say that a formula for making a bad movie from a book is to slavishly copy the book. The best movies are those that a reimagined for the screen. This is why I don't go around muttering, "But where's Tom Bombadil?"
Well, the costumes and hair in the 1940s movies are ALL WRONG.
Laurence Olivier played Mr. Darcy in a 1940 version of Pride and Prejudice. Which won an Oscar for Art Direction. So even though I haven't seen it, I can't dismiss it out of hand.
Except for the skeevy grossness of Olivier. So I guess I can.
I would say that a formula for making a bad movie from a book is to slavishly copy the book. The best movies are those that a reimagined for the screen.
I read an interview with Tom Stoppard who was saying that he agreed to direct Rosencrantz after resisting the idea for years because the stage adaptations convinced him that people were too afraid to fuck with the source material. He was the only one he knew had the proper lack of respect for the playwright's delicate genius.
The Olivier P&P is weird. I think it would work best as a movie for people who hadn't read the book, because I spent too much of the movie confused by the changes to properly appreciate it.
The insane costuming and the bizarre impostor running around claiming to be Lady Catherine de Bourgh but so clearly not her at all made it completely impossible for me to enjoy it properly. I did kind of like the way Greer Garson and Olivier played off each other, and I kept wishing I could see them in something that more closely resembled the actual P&P.
