Continuing our ongoing discussion of comic books and graphic novels that we love, we now come to the inevitable question of the films that they spawn. Here's one such take on the subject of adapting comics to film from NOW's John Harkness. Harkness is a great reviewer, but I disagree with him about From Hell which is a fine adaptation of a graphic novel...just not the one that Alan Moore wrote.
Posted by Graeme Burk at July 27, 2004 05:35 PMCouldn't really get into the movie From Hell myself. There was too much of a Pretty Woman vibe about Heather Graham's fallen-but-strangely-chaste-hooker turn.
Posted by: Alan Allport at July 28, 2004 05:14 AMI think the author gets what makes comic books hard to adapt wrong. Yes, you have storyboards, but so do a lot of bad movies.
Although I agree that many bad comic movies would have at least been better had they been more faithful to the book, that's by no means what makes a really good adaptation. The problem of adapting a comic are various; no one would claim that adapting the work Jane Austin and Thomas Pynchon were similar problems merely because they both wrote novels.
I also think it's different with live action as opposed to animated films, for one main reason. Film is a much more immediate medium that comics are. You can depict unbelievably ghastly violence in a comic without necessarily alienating the reader, but if you attempt to come even close to the same depiction in a live action film people are likely to walk out in disgust. This is one reason why no film Frank Miller's ever been involved in has been halfway decent.
The same goes for tone. A good comic can have a relentlessly depressing, gloomy (and sometimes pretentious) feel to it. Attempting to directly translate the overheated qualities of some comics leads to disaster in a film.
Blade II is a perfect example of what happens when you try to match a comic's tone in a live action film. The movie is absolutely disgusting to watch. What pleasure there is to be had in it is repeatedly turned to repulsion with gratuitous autopsy scenes and the like. And even leaving the level of violence aside, the relentlessly dark tone of the film becomes so oppressive that it's nearly unwatchable. For at least certain kinds of comics the attempt to be faithful to the source ironically ends up making an experience as different from it as you could imagine.
Posted by: Alan Hogue at August 2, 2004 07:02 PM