Adaptations

Table Of Contents

The Directors: Translators, Magicians, Collaborators and Thieves

“Jerry and Molly and Sam” by Raymond Carver
Robert Altman: Short Cuts (1993, DVD)

*“Blow-Up” by Julio Cortazar
Michelangelo Antonioni: Blow-Up (1966, VHS)

*“Your Arkansas Traveler” by Budd Schulberg
Elia Kazan: A Face in the Crowd (1957, VHS)

“It Had to be Murder” by Cornell Woolrich
Alfred Hitchcock: Rear Window (1954, DVD)


Science Fiction: Kubrick and Spielberg, Spielberg and Kubrick

“The Sentinel” by Arthur C. Clarke
2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968, DVD)

“Super-Toys Last All Summer Long” by Brian Aldiss
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (Spielberg/Kubrick, 2001, DVD)

“The Minority Report” by Philip K. Dick
The Minority Report (Spielberg, 2002, DVD)


Horror: Cue the Gore

“Spurs” by Tod Robbins
Freaks (Browning, 1932, VHS)

“The Fly” by George Langelaan
The Fly (Neumann, 1958, DVD and Cronenberg, 1986, DVD)

“Herbert West–Reanimator: Six Shots by Midnight” by H.P. Lovecraft
Re-Animator (Gordon, 1984, DVD)


Westerns: Tonto Means Fool in Spanish

“Stage to Lordsburg” by Ernest Haycox
Stagecoach (Ford, 1939, DVD)

“A Man Called Horse” by Dorothy M. Johnson
A Man Called Horse (Silverstein, 1970, DVD)

*“This is what it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona” by Sherman Alexie
Smoke Signals (Eyre, 1998, DVD)


Graphic Stories: Flying Under the Radar

**“The Harvey Pekar Name Story” by Harvey Pekar
American Splendor (Shari Springer Berman, 2003, DVD)

**“Hubba Hubba” by Daniel Clowes
Ghost World (Terry Zwigoff, 2001, DVD)


Five All-But-Lost Stories

*“The Wisdom of Eve” by Mary Orr
All About Eve (Mankiewicz, 1950, DVD)

“A Reputation” by Richard Connell
Meet John Doe (Capra, 1941, DVD)

*“Mr. Blandings Builds His Castle” by Eric Hodgins
Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (Potter, 1948, VHS)

*“Cyclists’ Raid” by Frank Rooney
The Wild One (Benedek, 1954, DVD)

*“Tomorrow” by William Faulkner
Tomorrow (Anthony, 1953, VHS)


The Good, the Bad, and the Unadaptable

“Bringing Up Baby” by Hagar Wilde
Bringing Up Baby (Hawks, 1938, VHS)

“Babylon, Revisited” by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Last Time I Saw Paris (Brooks, 1954, DVD)

“The Swimmer” by John Cheever
The Swimmer (Perry, 1968, DVD)


Suspense = Style

*“The Killers” by Ernest Hemingway
The Killers (Siodman, 1946, DVD)

*“The Basement Room” by Graham Greene
The Fallen Idol (Reed, 1948, DVD)

“Memento Mori” by Jonathon Nolan
Memento (Nolan, 2000, DVD)


Classic Family Fare

“My Friend Flicka” by Mary O’Hara
My Friend Flicka (Schuster, 1943, DVD)

“Red Ryder Nails the Hammond Kid” by Jean Shepherd
A Christmas Story (Clark, 1983, DVD)

“Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa” by W.P. Kinsella
Field of Dreams (Robinson, 1989 DVD)


International Cinema

“In a Grove” by Ryunosuke Akutagawa
Japan: Rashomon (Kurosawa, 1951, DVD)

“The Lady with the Pet Dog” by Anton Chekhov
Italy: Dark Eyes (Mikhalkov, 1987, VHS)


The Independents: Money Changes Everything

*“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” by Joyce Carol Oates
Smooth Talk (Chopra, 1985, VHS)

“Auggie Wren’s Christmas Story” by Paul Auster
Smoke (Wang, 1995, DVD)

*“Emergency” by Denis Johnson
Jesus’ Son (Maclean, 1999, DVD)

*“Killings” by Andre Dubus
In the Bedroom (Field, 2001, DVD)