Who’s Watching the Watchers Watching Watchmen?

When books become movies

I finally saw “Watchmen.”  The original plan was for me to run out and see the very first matinee on the very first day it opened–and by “plan,” of course I mean “fantasy.”  I didn’t even come close.  It had been out for a couple of weeks by the time Rob and I actually made it to the cinema. 

I was dying to see “Watchmen” because I read the book this year and was blown away by it.  I wanted to roll around inside that book forever–it was that kind of feeling.  I like reading graphic novels in general, but Watchmen is to its genre what “The Simpsons” is to prime time cartoons: it inverts and subverts convention and defies expectations and yet somehow stays true to its identity.   If you haven’t read Watchmen, I can’t explain it to you–just go read it.  (And, by the way, according to one of my husband’s colleagues, I haven’t actually read Watchmen, because I’ve only read it once.  For legions of fans, you only really get to say you’ve read the book if you’ve gone through it at least half a dozen times.  And it is true that I probably missed tons the first time around–I look forward to rereading it one day.)

So I went off to the movie with a fair amount of anticipation.   Almost three hours later, I walked out with a fair amount of a shrugging sort of  ”well, that was kind of fun.”  Was it faithful to the original?  It was.  Did it transcend the original?  No.  Was it as good as the book?  Not really.  Was the adaptation flawed?  I’m not sure.   Would I have liked it if I hadn’t read the book?  I doubt it.

All in all, it was a bit like reading a photocopied version of a colorful graphic novel: everything was there and I was reminded of what I loved about the original . . . but the intensity and brilliance were gone.  I’m not sure why.

Sometimes being faithful to a book isn’t the best way to transfer it to the screen.  I say this despite having lived through the painful process of having one of my own novels turned into a TV movie and hating the way they altered everything I loved about the original.  Of course, in my case, I think they should have left the story alone, and I honestly do think they lost what was best and most meaningful about the novel in changing things so drastically.   Which would argue for staying faithful to books in general–but I’m not sure that’s always the right course, either.

I think there are basically three ways an adaptation can go: you get your totally faithful renditions like Watchmen or the Harry Potter movies.  This can be a solid strategy: since J.K. Rowling writes fairly cinematically, the movie version of her books are pretty much what you’d want them to be.  Her readers would be disappointed with any huge liberties, so for the most part the movies have stuck with including as much of what’s in the novels as they can in their limited running time and they’re serviceable and satisfying.

Then there are the ones that deviate completely from the book, like the TV movie of my novel or the Charlie Kaufman version of The Orchid Thief which wasn’t so much about the actual book as it was about the process of trying to adapt the book–which is why the movie was called Adaptation.    I happen to love Adaptation.  I don’t know how Susan Orlean, the original author, feels about it, especially since the movie shows her fictional alter ego doing drugs and attempting to commit murder–but I thought it was tremendous fun and, yes, I had read the original book and liked it.  So score one for changing things around hugely.

Finally, there are the brilliant riffs on the original, movies that are completely faithful in tone and subject, but deviate (sometimes out of necessity) in details and plot points. 

Since Pride and Prejudice is one of my favorite novels, I’ve seen pretty much every movie adaptation.  The three best-known ones sum up the three variations I described above.  There’s the Colin Firth Masterpiece Theatre mini-series which is incredibly faithful to the original, down to almost every bit of dialogue and is so well done that watching the whole thing feels like a very similar experience to reading the actual novel.

Then there’s the old Laurence Olivier black and white version.  Somehow the writer of that one managed to cut the story down to an incredibly streamlined hour and a half–and yet kept the spirit of the original wholly intact.  Things are definitely changed–a ball becomes a garden party, Mrs. Bennet has a wonderful carriage race at the very beginning to beat another woman home with the news of the new tenant at Netherfield Hall, even poor Mary has a suitor at the end, and, most importantly, Lady Catherine has  a hidden soft side–but all the changes are in service to the story which they speed up without ruining.   The soul of the book shines through the minor changes (except for one horrible moment when Jane says, “You have to learn to dream, too!” which is just embarrassing).  There’s so much wit and energy to that movie that even the new feels like it’s channeling Austen.

Finally, there’s the Keira Knightley version which does have its strengths (her beauty, the pigs running around the Bennets’ yard, a slightly skanky Lydia) and keeps as closely to the original material as it can given the running time, but which feels like it’s filtered through a twelve-year-old girl’s sensibility.   Who else but a tween would want to watch that incredibly uncomfortable “extra scene” of Elizabeth and Darcy fondling each other at the end?  I mean, sure, I fantasized about what their wedding night would be like–that doesn’t mean I want to see it.

So, oddly, while the Keira Knightley version is more loyal to the book in many ways than the old Olivier version, it ultimately feels less like Austen and more like some cheap Regency romance imitation.

Which brings me back around to “Watchmen,” which is deeply deeply loyal to the book–many shots line up perfectly with the original panel.  (As someone pointed out, it looks like Zack Snyder used the graphic novel as his storyboard.)  So why doesn’t it sing the way the book does? 

I DON’T KNOW.  Maybe when it comes to film adaptations, it’s more important to capture the spirit than the letter of the original?  

Which maybe explains why I love Clueless so much.  It’s probably my favorite Austen adaptation of them all and there’ s not a word of Austen in there.   But the spirit.  Ah, the spirit . . .

Any movie adaptations of books you especially love or don’t love?  Tell us what you think works and what doesn’t.