When Nia DaCosta took on playwright Henrik Ibsen Hedda Gablershe didn't come to film the play. She came to reinvent it.
The result is an impressive work of technical achievement. It stars Tessa Thompson and Nina Hoss as warring women of terrifying genius, stymied and pitted against each other by a patriarchal society. Hedda explores Ibsen's themes of duality.
Namely, is the story's focal point—kept woman Hedda Gabler, trapped in an aristocratic marriage by her own fickle impulses and external social pressures—a villain or a victim who finds a sense of personal power in the manipulation of those around her? Heddaavailable to stream on Prime, asks the same question. But while keeping the basics, DaCosta's version eliminates almost everything else.
“This is what keeps the classics alive. You have to adapt them not only to the times, but also to the person you are.” – DaCosta told IndieWire about a version of her that transforms Hedda into a queer black woman in an era when no identity was considered.
“I wasn't so much trying to make a faithful, faithful adaptation… I wanted to make something that really connected with my reaction to it and put it more in my creative space.”
In that spirit, and for your viewing pleasure, we've compiled a list of other adaptations that changed their sources to create something radically different. Maybe not always radically better, but different.
Modern covers
Also coming out this week is a book by Yorgos Lanthimos. Bugonia — about a conspiracy theorist who kidnaps a pharmaceutical company CEO he believes is an alien — is definitely weird. But it's still not as weird as the South Korean film it's based on. Save the green planet!
This original is both more disorienting in its genre confusion and more disturbing in the extremes of grotesque physical violence it depicts. But perhaps most importantly, in updating the 2003 film for the present day, Lanthimos does something different – and more demoralizing – period: Society is probably already too fragmented, atomized and decayed to be saved. Now in cinemas.
War of the RosesThe 1989 film, based on the book of the same name, tells the story of Oliver and Barbara Rose. By the end of the film, Oliver just wants to keep Barbara in his life to prove a bitter and evil point. Meanwhile, Barbara just wants him dead. Roses meanwhile takes more subtle approach: Our unfortunate Roses still sincerely love each other – even if they see each other's stupid faces, they feel sick. Buy or rent on Apple TV or buy on Prime.
Unexpected Source Material
According to Pixar, Life of a Bug has a simple origin: inspired by Aesop's fable Ant and grasshopperThe 1998 animated classic tells the story of a colony of ants seeking protection from a group of bandit grasshoppers.
But according to public opinion, it is much closer to – and almost certainly inspired by – the work of Akira Kurosawa. Seven Samurai. Returning back to contemporary Chicago Tribune review“teasing hints” that this story of resistance and resilience had been clearly borrowed and substantially reworked were always apparent. Just with mistakes. Stream on Disney+.
Joel and Ethan Coen Oh brother, where are you? there is an inverted feeling of a half-forgotten dream told by a half-drunk poet. That's the point: the folk-musical tale of three escaped convicts hunting for buried treasure is a retelling of sorts from Homer's poem. Odyssey.
But the directors constantly stated that they never actually read this: Thus, the story of a brave warrior-traveler is brought into the present day through treacherous outlaws battling sirens, the devil, the Ku Klux Klan – and a toad. Stream on Disney+.
This was originally a mature, dramatic retelling The Prince and the Pauperalmost all Emperor's New Groove was rejected due to its seemingly overly complex and slow nature. Almost all that remains of the original inspiration is the couple of a poor man (Pasha, voiced by John Goodman) and a royal (Kuzco, voiced by David Spade).
Luckily, the journey from there to there was captured in an incredible, now somewhat banned documentary. Sweatshirtwhich is still easy to watch if you do a little digging online. Broadcast Emperor's New Groove on Disney+.
(possibly) better than the original
Based on Hong Kong Internal affairsgangster-corruption drama by Martin Scorsese Gone on the streets of Boston he becomes a little more alive. But in an interview with LetterboxdScorsese and star Leo DiCaprio talked about what the Polish film will be like Ashes and diamonds about a man forced to commit a murder he doesn't truly believe was the source of the story.
“The idea of [him] “Dealing with this moral conundrum, trying to figure out what's right,” DiCaprio said. “The constant anxiety and inner tension that the main character experiences in this film – I remember it had a big impact on me.” Broadcast Gone on Crave or rent on Prime or Apple TV.
Original, non-musical Little Shop of Horrors was filmed on a dare, with a budget of $15,000 and even ended up in Canadian festival 100 worst films ever made. The changes Howard Ashman and co-writer Alan Menken made to the musical and ultimately to the 1986 film are enormous, but comes down to clarifying the structure, including giving star Seymour more room for character destruction in the murder of the plant's victims. This is along with two new endings, the darker of which is one of the wildest endings of any major Hollywood film ever. It can be purchased on Blu-ray or rented at your local video store.
No matter, Innocent better than the source material, it's hard to argue that it's superior to the many, many other films that have attempted to adapt Henry James' novel. Turn the screw. The seemingly supernatural tale of a governess and her hunted, stalking charges is suspense at its highest form: it boasts (for the time) innovative cinematic techniques and divine child-like acting that somehow enhances the terrifying moral ambiguity found in the text. And that's not even counting Truman Capote's hauntingly beautiful poem, written specifically for the film. Stream on Hollywood Suite on Prime.
Invisible alternatives
More or less based on a British film about violent teenage apathy. garbageCanada Dog pound divides the narrative focus into three parts. And while Alan Clarke and Roy Minton's edgy, often-banned original film took aim at cold, counterproductive political systems, Kim Chapiron's news was more personal.
In the sad-eyed Angel (Mateo Morales), the first of three recently imprisoned young men, we see goodness fade away. In Davis (Shane Kippel), the thin veil of boyish bravado is pierced, revealing the whining fear that lies beneath. And in Butch (Adam Butcher) we see the senseless, horrific violence required to survive in such systems. Rent on Apple TV.
Famously ridiculed Stephen King “The Shining” is a 1997 miniseries that the horror author specifically created because of how much he hated Stanley Kubrick's version of King's original book. Combining all the acquired tastes, King's play is right to a fault: a campy merry-go-round of overwrought performances that the author deliberately borrowed from the actors to counter his complaints that Jack Nichoson's portrayal was too cold.
To conclude your viewing of Halloween, watch King address his main complaint about the humanization of inserted author Jack Torrance. Just… buckle up. Rent or buy on Apple TV.
Working on a 200-word storybook Where are the wild thingsMaurice Sendak had just two rules for screenwriter Dave Eggers and writer/director Spike Jonze: “Make it personal and make it dangerous.”
After all, he had other complaints – for example, Max in the story runs away from home into a fantasy land of monsters instead of seeing his bedroom transformed. But according to Eggers and Jonze, the most important thing was to find something new.
This included a heightened sense of danger, an embedded and implied plot about an absentee father, and a story as unabashedly terrifying as the original book – and what childhood is really like. Stream on Crave or rent on Apple TV.
