I believe 'Birdsong' may be as good a book as I have ever read, a compelling mix of love, loss and the futility of war. With this in mind it was with severe trepidation that I watched the recent BBC adaptation of the book.
I was pleasantly surprised. Although parts of the book were missed altogether I thought it was excellent and did the book justice.
I have read several reviews which do not share my opinion but I felt the characters portrayed on screen captured the essence of the book
It was always going to be impossible to recreate the scale of the horror of the Somme and the hell of working in the underground tunnels but I came away deeply moved and looking for my copy of 'Birdsong' to read again once I am finished with 'The Help'
Hollywood has a habit of taking a good book and destroying it but here is my list of 10 books I have read and enjoyed and then watched the movie version and been equally impressed
1. The Silence of the Lambs.......Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins in the movie version of the excellent Thomas Harris book. The same cannot be said for the later 'Hannibal Rising' which was an equally bad book and movie
2. Jaws.....By holding off on the appearance of the shark and using an outstanding soundtrack Spielberg creates a tension equal to if not better than that in the book
3. No Country For Old Men....great book, great movie...no complaints
4. High Fidelity....The movie shifts Nick Hornby's entertaining book to the USA and surprisingly it works thanks mainly to the always dependable John Cusack and a cameo appearance by Mr Springsteen (I think I need to do a list of my Top 5 breakups)
5. A Clockwork Orange.....A novel with it's own language is recreated on screen by Stanley Kubrick. Ludwig Van never sounded better but 'Singing in the Rain' was never quite the same for me after it's use here
6. Last of the Mohicans....good book but I just love this movie despite not being the biggest fan of Daniel Day-Lewis
7. The Killing Fields....both the book and the movie moved me to tears
8. The Dead Zone....I used to read quite a bit of Stephen King. The Dead Zone was my favourite of his books and the movie had the inimitable Christopher Walken
9. The Outsiders.....a coming-of-age novel set in the 60s is directed on screen by Francis Ford Coppola with a host of up-and-coming stars including Patrick Swayze, Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio and C. Thomas Howell
10. The 39 Steps....a book which my dad read to me and I read to my children but the 1935 movie had The Forth Railway Bridge and is still my favourite version of this book
But for every Yin there is a Yang so here are 5 of the worst adaptations of books I have read and liked
1. Captain Corelli's Mandolin.....the wonderful book by Louis de Bernieres is butchered on screen and even by his standards Nic Cage is truly awful
2. The Time Machine....the 1960 movie version of the H.G. Wells classic was not great but the 2002 version had Samantha Mumba as the female lead. Enough said!
3. The Perfect Catch.....What had previously worked with High Fidelity failed miserably here when Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch was moved to the USA and 'soccer' became baseball and Arsenal became the Boston Red Sox
4. The Time Traveller's Wife....a well written clever concept is turned into a melodramatic rom-com
5. The Beach....I really liked the Alex Garland book but Leonardo and the movie did nothing for me and I thought the video game sequence was cringe worthy
I may need to do a new list for bad movie versions of bad books. 'Never Let Me Go' would be top of both lists as I found the book and the movie equally pretentious and dull. But maybe that's just me
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