Is the book better than the movie? Discover the secrets of book adaptations to the cinema

It’s funny what happens with film adaptations of literary works. If the film is good, both products can benefit; If you don’t like the movie, you probably aren’t curious about the book that inspired it. But, if it is a classic of literature, the fate of the film will depend on the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the public, who will compare the cinematography with the image that the book has previously evoked in its reading.

The failure of some adaptations of the last century made popular the maxim “the book is always better than the movie.” However, this statement may be a bit unfair, since, since its inception, cinema has been closely linked to literature. We know that the first cinematographic projection of the Lumière was in 1895; But what is not known is that in 1896 the first film adaptation of a story was made in France. It was The Cabbage Fairy, a French silent short film based on a children’s folk tale. It was also the first film directed by a woman, Alice Guy.

Since then the adaptations have multiplied. Proof of this inescapable relationship is that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of the United States included the category Best Adapted Screenplay since the first edition of the Oscars, in 1929. The first film to win it was The seventh heaven, a Frank Borzage film adapted from the play of the same name written by Austin Strong.

Made in Perú

The first adaptation of a Peruvian story to the screen was Harawi (1965), directed by César Villanueva, Eulogio Nishiyama and based on a story by José María Arguedas. Since then the adaptations have followed one another: The hungry dogs (1977), Abisa the companions (1980), Maruja in hell (1983) The city and the Dogs (1985), the Pantaleon and the visitors (1999), to name a few. To this list was added, this 2021, A world for Julius, Alfredo Bryce Echenique’s classic, directed and adapted by Rossana Díaz Costa.

It is the first time that the filmmaker has embarked on a company of such a high scale, and it has meant a long-term job for her, since the script had up to 13 versions since she started working on it, in 2015. “In each version you are lengthening or shortening. I worked on the first three versions with the novel next to it, and from then on I decided to move away from the novel and work only with the script ”, he says.

The process was thorough. “To adapt a long novel you first need to choose the main conflict and a main character. I chose, evidently, Julius, and that his main conflict is the loss of his innocence due to the injustices he sees in his house. Julius had to be accompanied on his way and this meant that other stories disappeared ”, he adds.

For her part, the writer Giovanna Pollarolo, who has turned at least half a dozen literary works into successful Peruvian films, says: “The most important thing is to establish the premise or idea that will govern the adaptation: What do I want to tell? A novel opens the possibilities of many readings. The Madame Bovary de Minelli (1949) differs from that of Chabrol (1990), for example, not only because they were made at different times, other cinematographies, casting, etc., but because each director ‘read’ Flaubert’s novel in a different way, prioritized a theme: the kindness of Charles, in one case; the search for freedom, in another ”.

Pollarolo considers that saying that the book is better than the film is an old and outdated elitist idea of ​​literature as an artistic expression superior to cinema.

All forms of storytelling are welcome.