For this list, I imposed on myself a few rules:
a) only name adaptations of novels I have read (e.g. I can’t name Little Women);
b) exclude films I don’t remember very well (e.g. Gone with the Wind);
c) only name films/ series that are great films/ series in their own right (e.g. the 1972 War and Peace is in many ways an excellent adaptation of Tolstoy’s novel, but I exclude it because of the disastrous Natasha).
Chronological order.
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1931)
Frankenstein (1931)
Rebecca (1940)
The Heiress (1941), from Washington Square
The Sound of the Mountain (1954)
The Innocents (1961), from The Turn of the Screw
Tom Jones (1963)
Woman in the Dunes (1964)
Dr Strangelove (1964), from Red Alert
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)
The Godfather (1972)
Anna Karenina (1977)
Jane Eyre (1983)
Bleak House (1985)
Arashi ga oka (1988) from Wuthering Heights
Alice (1988), from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
The Age of Innocence (1993)
Pride and Prejudice (1995)
Clueless (1995), from Emma
Emma (1996, with Kate Beckinsale)
Love & Friendship (2016)
See related blog post: What makes a good screen adaptation?
Persuasion 1995
ReplyDeleteBecky Sharp (1935) from Vanity Fair
ReplyDeleteThe Maltese Falcon (1941)
A Christmas Carol (1951)
A Room with a View (1985)
The Remains of the Day (1993)
I didn't love A Room with a View, but I also didn't particularly like the book.
DeleteDaniel Day-Lewis is brilliant in it though.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945)
ReplyDeleteThe Best Years of Our Lives (1945)
The War of the Worlds (1953)
Slaughterhouse-Five (1972)
A Clockwork Orange (1972)
Silence (2016)
The Leopard (1963)
ReplyDeleteHoward's End (1992) (although it leaves out a lot of the humor)
Shogun (1982)
I, Claudius (1976)
Did you forget the Alec Guinness miniseries of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy? I might have expected to see the Alan Bates miniseries of The Mayor of Casterbridge, also, and the Our Mutual Friend miniseries of 1998. They're all worth repeated viewings. And the Crime and Punishment miniseries with John Hurt although he's old for the part of Raskolnikov. The Russian miniseries of Dostoevsky's Demons (2014) is almost breathtaking.
ReplyDeleteWell, I can't name the ones I haven't seen.
DeleteThanks for the recommendations though.
My suggested additions would be John Ford's 1940 film of "The Grapes of Wrath", and ... you knew this was coming! ... Satyajit Ray's "Pather Panchali". Indeed, the entire trilogy based on the two magnigiceny novels by Bibhuthibhushan Bandopadhyay, whose neglect in the West I can only put down to the difficulty westerners have in pronouncing his name.
ReplyDeleteSorry about my spelling of "magnificent".
ReplyDelete