Louise Willder's 'The Book Was Better' Argues Fidelity Kills Great Film Adaptations

In her new book The Book Was Better, published by Oneworld at £14.99, Louise Willder contends that a source novel's literary quality has little bearing on whether its screen version succeeds. Her research covered what she calls some of the worst viewing experiences available, among them the soft rock opera musical Heathcliff, 1996's The Island of Dr Moreau and a three-part adaptation of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, alongside masterpieces that matched or exceeded their originals. She challenges Anthony Burgess's claim that brilliant adaptations nearly always come from second- or third-rate fiction, noting that Jaws, The Godfather and The Exorcist were elevated on screen while Trainspotting, The Go-Between, The Leopard and A Clockwork Orange prove great books can yield great films. Infidelity, she argues, usually helps: Paul Thomas Anderson advised stealing only the needed parts, Hitchcock read The Birds once and never revisited it, and Sally Potter treated Orlando as though Woolf's book never existed. Alfonso Cuarón's 2006 Children of Men, drawn from PD James, retains only its central conceit, and PD James was delighted with the result. Casting, Willder writes, often departs from the page, citing Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates and Renée Zellweger as Bridget Jones. The piece also discusses Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey and Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights.