An Eclectic Collection of Fiction That Inspired Film
Memento, All About Eve, Rear Window, Rashomon, and 2001: A Space Odyssey are all well-known and much-loved movies,
but what is perhaps a lesser-known fact is that all of them began their lives as short stories. Adaptations gathers
together 35 pieces that have been the basis for films, many from giants of American literature (Hemingway, Fitzgerald)
and many that have not been in print for decades (the stories that inspired Bringing Up Baby, Meet John Doe, and
All About Eve).
Categorized by genre, and featuring movies by master directors such as Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, Robert
Altman, Frank Capra, and John Ford, as well as relative newcomers such as Chris Eyre and Christopher Nolan, Adaptations
offers insight into the process of turning a short story into a screenplay, one that, when successful, doesn't
take drastic liberties with the text upon which it is based, but doesn't mirror its source material too closely
either. The stories and movies featured in Adaptations include:
Philip K. Dick's "The Minority Report," which became the 2002 blockbuster directed by Steven Spielberg and
starring Tom Cruise
"The Harvey Pekar Name Story" by reclusive graphic artist Harvey Pekar, whose life was the inspiration for
American Splendor, winner of the 2003 Sundance Grand Jury Prize
Hagar Wilde's "Bringing Up Baby," the basis of the classic film Bringing Up Baby, anthologized here for the
first time ever
"The Swimmer" by John Cheever, an example of a highly regarded story that many feared might prove unadaptable
The predecessor to the beloved holiday classic A Christmas Story, "Red Ryder Nails the Hammond Kid" by Jean
Shepherd
Whether you're a fiction reader or a film buff, Adaptations is your behind-the-scenes look at the sometimes
difficult, sometimes brilliantly successful process from the printed page to the big screen.
Table of Contents
Introduction : short story to big screen
The directors : translators, magicians, collaborators, and thieves
"Jerry and Molly and Sam"
p. 15
"Blow-up"
p. 26
"Your Arkansas traveler"
p. 38
"Rear window" (originally titled "It had to be murder")
p. 67
Science fiction : Kubrick and Spielberg, Spielberg and Kubrick
"The sentinel"
p. 104
"Supertoys last all summer long"
p. 112
"The minority report"
p. 119
Horror : cue the gore
"Spurs"
p. 161
"The fly"
p. 176
"Herbert West - reanimator : six shots by moonlight"
p. 204
Westerns : "tonto" means "fool" in Spanish
"Stage to Lordsburg"
p. 218
"A man called horse"
p. 231
"This is what it means to say Phoenix, Arizona"
p. 244
Graphic stories : flying under the radar
"The Harvey Pekar name story"
p. 261
Ghost world - chapter 5 : "hubba hubba"
p. 265
Five all-but-lost stories
"The wisdom of Eve"
p. 284
"A reputation"
p. 296
"Mr. Blandings builds his castle"
p. 309
"Cyclists' raid"
p. 331
"Tomorrow"
p. 347
The good, the bad, and the unadaptable
"Bringing up baby"
p. 370
"Babylon revisited"
p. 383
"The swimmer"
p. 401
Suspense = style?
"The killers"
p. 421
"The basement room"
p. 430
"Memento Mori"
p. 451
Family film : Nostalgia for an unlived past
"Red Ryder nails the Hammond kid"
p. 473
"My friend Flicka"
p. 495
"Shoeless Joe Jackson comes to Iowa"
p. 511
World films : now you see them, now you don't
"In a grove"
p. 533
"The lady with the pet dog"
p. 540
The independents : money changes everything
"Where are you going, where have you been?"
p. 563
"Auggie Wren's Christmas story"
p. 578
"Emergency"
p. 585
"Killings"
p. 595
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.