Uniting the Creative Vision of Novelist and Filmmaker

It is surely the middle finger of novelist Jim Thompson goosing me from the grave to defend his work, his vision and his soul from the likes of writer-director Maggie Greenwald.

Greenwald, who has made a film of one of Thompson’s books, takes umbrage with a reviewer who has the temerity to compare the novel to the film, which, she contends, should be judged on its own merit because the work has been transformed to “something totally different.” I am handicapped by not having seen her movie, but I accept her assessment that it differs greatly from the novel.

She notes proudly that she made many changes in the story and the characters, using the novel only as “inspiration” and, therefore, no longer Thompson’s alone (Counterpunch, Jan. 7). This view is held by most producers and many directors, whose need to inject their own creativity under the guise of superior filmic experience has resulted in mostly mass murder of the novelist’s intention.

Indeed, many producers and directors would like to see the novelist out of the creative loop entirely, one less headache in the complicated process of making movies.

Even many novelists, intimidated into submission by studios, agents and producers or bought off by healthy sums, often opt to “take the money and run,” a foolhardy option if a novelist has any respect for his own creation.

Tom Wolfe, for one, who proudly took this line of least resistance, surely must regret the botch that has been made of his “Bonfire of the Vanities,” truly a conflagration of Wolfe’s intention. Worse, the movie, even as a physical asset, will have a longer life than the book. It will remain on the shelf as a cassette after being offered on big screens and little screens ad infinitum through the ensuing centuries.

Not so Michael Blake, whose adaptation of “Dances With Wolves” must have truly fulfilled his novelist’s vision of what a screen adaptation of his work should be. Novelists, in the past, were too quick to discard their responsibilities to their creation when film life was measured by theatrical distribution alone, then consigned to the studio vaults to gather mold and dust.

It is, I believe, incumbent on the novelist to protect his work from the “interpretation” of directors like Greenwald, whose honorable intentions are not limited to the author’s vision but to her own view that a film is intrinsically “totally different.” One wonders if a Van Gogh would accept the rearrangement of his sunflowers by some latter-day revisionist? Or would Shakespeare accept Hamlet’s ire to be directed at his faithless father instead of his mother because Dustin Hoffman wanted the paternal role? Maybe so, but I doubt it.

If a producer or director truly wants something “totally different,” then why not come up with same and avoid the argument entirely. I have been told that Thompson was cantankerous, outspoken and unruly. Woe to Greenwald if he had been alive to read her remarks. It is true that a film adaptation requires a cinematic way to visualize a novelist’s intention. To do so requires lots of invention and imagination not necessarily in ways that follow the linear invention of the original material. But if the novelist’s vision is lost in the process (even the original title), why mess with the book in the first place?

It is also true that if a living novelist is available, then what luck for a producer and director to have someone at the creative table, whether he or she physically does the adaptation or not, who truly knows what lies behind the creation of his characters and his storytelling vision.

In my view, no living novelist should sell his material ever again without, at the very least, fighting for that seat at the table. Producers and directors should welcome his participation. Perhaps the prevailing attitude will change in time.

With that said, I must confess that my own input into the film of my novel “The War of the Roses” was more subliminal than actual. The producer, James L. Brooks, had bought the work based on a script I had done for Zanuck and Brown, the first producers. Their film never got made.

Brooks did not use my script, nor in my ignorance at the time, did I fight for joint credit through the Writers Guild. But he did, by some miracle of osmosis, retain the original vision. Above all, he kept the title and the original ending, the latter a courageous act of clout and will.

As for Thompson, he does indeed owe Maggie Greenwald a debt of gratitude for her rediscovery of his work. But why would she have gone to all the trouble of the movie-making process, not to mention the dollar expenditure to buy his work, if Thompson’s novel became “something totally different”?