Up in the Air–The Book vs. The Film (pt. 2)

“The movie Frankenstein is not much like the book but there’s some essential creation in the book without which there could not be the movie.”
Walter Kirn
writer of the novel Up in the Air

 

Just in case you think Up in the Air is the only movie I’ve seen recently let me assure you that in the last couple days I have seen both Sherlock Holmes and Avatar. Both were spectacles that from a writing perspective left me with little inspiration. So back to Up in the Air. I found this nice little exchange at Cinema Blend between the novelist Walter Kirn and the screenwriter/director Jason Reitman about turning the book Up in the Air into a movie.

What was the adaptation process like?
Kirn: I think that the book is to the movie, what a piece of paper is to a paper airplane.
Reitman: That was great! That’s not the first time you’ve said that though!
Kirn: What I mean by this paper airplane comparison is this, he took this story and he folded it and he refolded it and he transformed it in a way that I completely recognize my own impulse in writing it but when I sat down to see it was not only honored and delighted but surprised by the transformations that had taken place in my own material and some of the potentials that I left untapped and, you know, here are two characters [gestures towards actresses Anna Kendrick and Vira Farmiga], one of whom is sort of in the book and one of whom is not at all in the book. There’s an Alex of a sort and there is no Natalie. So there’s so much invention. I think that anyone who’s interested in book to film adaptation really should look at this book and this film and see the way that that can be something more than a linear process but actual sort of chrysalis, you know, butterfly process. I read Jason’s script amazed and when you talk about Oscars and that sort of thing, because I know the source material that it came from intimately, there is a very deserved one there.

If you’re interested in adapting a book into a story I’d recommend Linda Seger’s The Art of Adaption:Turning Fact and Fiction into Film. And it would be most helpful to pick your favorite film made from a book and do a breakdown of the similarities and differences of the two. Try to figure out why some things were added and some things left out. Ask how creating a visual film changed some of the literary qualities? How how the structure of the book and the movie are similar and different.

Go deep with one book and one movie rather than trying to do broad strokes with several of your favorite books/movies.

And if you’re adapting a book into a screenplay, unless it’s just an exercise, it’s best to get the rights before you take on the task of investing in the screenplay. (Though I believe Reitman began his script before he actually had the rights to the story so these things do work out sometimes.) Some authors are very accessible, especially if you pick one of their obscure short stories.

And don’t forget there is a lot of public domain material out there.

Also, Walter Kirn has said in interviews that he wrote a script version of his novel. If anyone knows if there is a link to that script I’d love to read it to see how the original writer attempted to adapt his own material.

Scott W. Smith