There are a lot of film adaptations that have come from books that have absolutely ruled the big screen in their time, but only a few that are really memorable in a way that people can easily recall. Some of them are taken from books, others from poems, and some adaptations are taken from little more than toy lines, cartoons, or even reviews of other movies that proved to very useful. It doesn’t matter so much where the inspiration to adapt something comes from so long as it’s used in a way that mirrors the source material being used so that it can be traced back to a definite origin.
Here are a few that are counted as some of the best adaptations ever conceived.
5. Apocalypse Now
The film is taken almost straight from the book though there a few key differences that are changed around to accommodate for the time period in which it was made. Instead of taking place in the Congo it takes place in Vietnam and instead of a company man going after an ivory trader a soldier is sent in to take care of a rogue commander that now threatens his superiors.
4. Adaptation
It’s a book, and a film, about orchids and the people that love them. Somehow this movie was made into something that people wanted to watch even though it was about life imitating art imitating life imitating art. I don’t think I’ve been so turned around ever when describing a movie. However people loved this one since it was all about the adapted title.
3. Throne of Blood
Shakespeare plays a great role in a lot of films whether it’s a direct or indirect affect. His works tend to paint a very vivid picture that is translatable to film in many ways and can be produced as a hit motion picture that plays heavily upon his more subtle points. In this film King Lear is the inspiration around which the story seems to revolve, along with several plot devices to make it work.
2. Oldboy
Oldboy is kind of a complex revenge story that was completely ripped up and redone with so many different methods and devices that it became something entirely adapted from a book and yet something that was still different enough to be a very thrilling movie. It did get another adaptation that people had something of a problem with since it seemed to deviate from the original.
1. O Brother Where Art Thou
There is a truckload of imagery in this film that has a lot to do with the source it’s drawn from, that being Homer’s Odyssey. The monsters, the situations, the locations, all of it have been translated from the original story to a more old-time, down home country theme that sees the protagonists embarking upon a journey that will lead them to something they didn’t even know they were looking for.
Sometimes the best adaptations are those that make you look for the similarities.
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