Judging adapted screenplays?

[cuckoo2]

I was wandering the internet the other day when I saw the writers guild list of the 101 greatest screenplays of all time. I had seen the list before, but this time something stuck out at me. To kill a mockingbird was very high on the list. Now the reason I bring this up is that I haven't read the book in a while but have seen the movie recently, and from what I remember the movie was pretty faithful to the book in the sense that not really much changed. So does that make it one of the best screenplays of all time if the writer simply read the book and wrote it down on different paper? Now, I'm not trying to pick on horton foote,the writer of to kill a mockingbird, or the movie but adapted screenplays in general.

My question is how does one judge a good adapted screenplay? If the book's already good, then the script is faithful to the book, does that make the movie good? Does the stature of the book decide how good the screenplay is, I don't know?

Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor to me are the only people that I can understand why their adapted screenplays are so well liked and praised. In an interview they said that how they adapt a book, is that they read the book, throw it away, then write their own version of the story that usually ends up better than the book itself.

This to me is how adapted screenplays should be judged. That a movie has such a great screenplay, and it only just got the idea from the book and did not take everything else from it. IN a sense, how different the movie is from the book without making it a totally differerent story.

NOw even though I've posted my thoughts I would really appreciate what you guys have to say about this. Maybe I'm judging things way to wrong and maybe scripts like to kill a mockingbird are the best of all time. BUt I need someone to explain to me why?

[cuckoo2]

does anyone have any thoughts whatsoever?

[bigred760]

A screenplay isn't exactly a copy of a book. For starters, the format is different, it gives scene descriptions, direction instructions, so on and so forth. A book can be great and its screenplay can totally suck, and a book can suck and its screenplay can be great. So I have no problem with To Kill a Mockingbird's screenplay being high up on any list; it's a great movie with a great screenplay.

[cuckoo2]

Ok, thank you

[Pulp_Joker]

Also, a great adaptation realizes what to leave in and what to leave out. There was a lot of stuff To Kill a Mockingbird left out from the book, but the movie stands on it's own with or without a book. There are many ways to adapt a book, but the greatest screenplay list was judging based on screenplays, whether it be original or adapted. So, I'll make a concluding sentence for this convaluted paragraph-It doesn't matter what the source material is or how much it is related to the book, a great screenplay is a great screenplay.

[Tuukka]

Adapting a book into a script might seem like a simple task, but it's in fact remakably difficult, and takes a lot of talent and skill to do well.

I haven't seen this particular movie, or read the book, but I'm talking about adapted screenplays in general.

Novels and screenplays have just as much differences as they have similarities. They are two completly different artforms, working by entirely different rules.

I'll give an example:

If someone were to adapt To Kill a Mockingbird into a lenghty poem, would it be an easy task? Sure, the poet would have the story and characters ready, but the story would have to be transformed into an entirely different form.

And as we all know, poems work on entirely different way than novels, despite the fact that both are simply words written on paper. It would take great poetic talent to turn a great novel into a great poem. The essence of the story and the characters would remain, but pretty much everything else would be re-worked, to make things work in poem form.

Same goes for adapting a novel into a screenplay. In most cases there are only a few sentences that might remain the same, if even that. Everything else has been changed either with minor or major changes, to make the story work on movie form.