The recent reviews of Stephen King’s The Shining and Cormac McCarthy’s No County For Old Men has brought about a whirling debate in the Worm’s head; a debate that has been waging for decades when comparing novels and their cinematic counterparts: which is the better?
Some books are proven hard to adapt, ranging from Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting and Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. But sometimes, the later product of film unearths hidden beauty within the original text; and in such cases, the book becomes the forgotten sibling. Famously executed (and the Worm is forever indebted to Mr. J for this tidbit of knowledge) by Steven Spielberg with his hit movie Jaws; nobody thinks of novelist Peter Benchley when hearing the title.
Then there are those awful concoctions: the novel that follows the film. A terrible invention and cash-in of big movies, the Worm will do his best to avoid these. If you do find a lapse in the Worm’s judgement, please email with a pointed finger and mouthful of abuse. However, with movies taking centre stage and being the better known in public by millions, rather than a book’s thousands of readers, in the melee a few facts have been forgotten; for example, a few misguided souls on a forum spouted “information” that the Cohen brothers were first with their film, and McCarthy’s book was born out of this. And then, the water is muddied even further: McCarthy, in fact, wrote his story initially as a screenplay with the intention of it being a movie; when no takers appeared, he used the screenplay as the backbone to his novel (on which the Worm has previously discussed).
So, for the Worm’s reviews – of which there have been more than two hundred in the past four years – who wins in this mammoth fight to the death: the book or the movie? Let us find out, dear reader.
The Worm has read twelve books that qualify for this competition. Others have been discounted due to the Worm not having seen the companion movie (as is the case with the likes of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield). The twelve are, in order of when the review was first published:
1. Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
2. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
3. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F.Scott Fitzgerald
4. Natural Born Killers by Quentin Tarantino
5. The Boy in the Stripped Pyjamas by John Boyne
6. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
7. Watchmen by Alan Moore
8. Batman Year One by Frank Miller
9. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
10. V for Vendetta by Alan Moore
11. The Shining by Stephen King
12. No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
By the Worm’s partisan reckoning it currently stands at 8-4 in the favour of Books. An easy victors for the books was undoubtedly Less Than Zero (the actor Andrew McCarthy not cutting it as the central character) and Wuthering Heights (there is no beating Bronte, especially with the recent 2011 adaptation). However, the other contests were closer affairs: Boyne’s original book about the German boy who befriends a death-camp inmate edged out the admirable film; whilst the Worm’s fondness for the Lord of the Flies movies seemed to cloud his judgement about the quality of Golding’s work (a 5 nodder, don’t you know). The inclusion of Quentin Tarantino’s script for Natural Born Killers appears, at first, an odd choice. However, the scripted version is significantly different from Oliver Stone’s later film; unfortunately, Tarantino-fans will not experience the superior earlier work. The score is further enhanced when taking into account the graphic novels within the list: 3 in total. Although thoroughly enjoyed, Zack Synder’s Watchmen cannot rival Moore’s genre breaking series from the mid-1980s. Less impressive was the 2005 action version of Moore’s V For Vendetta: the life being truly sucked out of the original. Whilst Frank Miller’s Batman Year One was not bested by an animated feature that stayed true to the former’s spirit.
8 victories for Books; only 4 for Movies. Two of these were originally short stories: Irving’s Sleepy Hollow story and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Benjamin Button. The subsequent movies – directed by Tim Burton and David Fincher respectively - and undoubtedly improved earlier designs, although the Worm still enjoys Fitzgerald’s creation of Mr. Button: born as an old man smoking cigars. These two stood alone for a long time until the recent readings of Stephen King’s The Shining and Cormac McCarthy’s No Country For Old Men. Although both of these books were devoured enthusiastically, they remain in the shadow of their superior movie counterparts.
Luck, it appears plays a significant factor in whether or not a movie will supersede its original text. For example, both King and McCarthy were trumped by directors who have defined cinematic excellence: Stanley Kubrick remains – rightly so – a director of high standing; whilst the Cohen brothers (a long time favourite duo of the Worm’s) scooped their first – and hopefully not last – Oscars for their version of No Country For Old Men. For a movie to win the day, it needs a dedicated team to trump the earlier text verison.
Books reign as champions of this bout, and Movies are left to lick their wounds. But the fight – as always – continues…
