Book Review of Novels into Film by George Bluestone (1957)

            Novels into Film. George Bluestone. Baltimore, MD. Johns                             Hopkins University Press, 1957. 237 Pages


                                                            By


                                                Patrick Charsky


    George Bluestone’s Novels into Film seeks to demystify the mysterious process of turning Fiction into film by analyzing the history and theory of Film adaptation through six Novels which were turned into Movies. Simply put, Bluestone's book is the best work about adaptation written so far. He explains theories and history extremely well and each example elucidates his thoughts about each adaptation and serves as a learning experience for the reader. Bluestone’s book is a must read for anyone seeking to learn about the process of adaptation.

I read this book as part of a reading list I received in Graduate school. The book was listed as the only textbook about adaptation in the section about how to turn Literature into screenplays. The previous book I read about adaptation, A Walk in the Spring Rain, contained a comment by a writer who said, and I’m paraphrasing, Bluestone’s book, the six Novels and the films are all someone would need to learn about film. So I took the extra time to read not only the textbook, but each Novel. It was a well spent few months reading each Novel, Bluestone’s analysis of each Novel into Film, and, finally, watching each Movie.

I did google searches to find out more about George Bluestone. They returned little. He was a Professor at Boston University. Novels into Film appears to be his only work. I couldn’t find much else about him or any other writing he might have done.

The book begins in a long discursive essay style first chapter that is broken up into multiple parts. It is a very well written chapter. It is wide ranging about Hollywood History, Novels adapted into Films, and the differences between the Novel and the Film. It is this latter part that Bluestone succeeds the most. He writes about how a novel is made. The process a writer goes through; how he works only and hopes for a readership to read his book. The process is contingent on him alone. There is no collaboration like in Film where you have many people working on a production with “industrial style” processes.

Bluestone really hits home when he talks about the differences of experiencing time in Novels and Movies. Novels can create different experiences, feelings, or emotions about time. The author can get inside a character’s head and talk about what they are thinking. How they are feeling. In one passage Bluestone writes about how film cannot capture certain feelings that Novels can capture. “The absence of absence” is a major quality that writers like Proust, Joyce, and Thomas Wolfe can capture but are nearly impossible for a film to depict. Films are only allowed to show what we see and hear. Not what characters are thinking.

Bluestone writers about how the Novel and Film are both time based works of art. Each has to deal with the passage of time and how to show time passing or slowing or how the characters are experiencing time. Both can have elements of flashbacks or dreams. In novels, time can last much longer. Films only have a limited amount of time to tell a story. In his analysis of Novels into Film, Bluestone writes about Wuthering Heights and how time passes differently in the Movie from the Novel. Time passes much faster in the movie.

The experience of time is something that has perplexed writers of the twentieth Century. Bluestone writes many writers were challenged to show time passing. To show the experience of time. How to show that reality. Which leads to a philosophical question; do Novels show reality? How can a novel show reality? The thinking of a character, can it ever be shown in truth? Is a Novel a construct? A work of art by the Novelist. Not reality as it is. Similar to Film. Can a film show reality? How realistic can a film be? How to show the passage of time. How to tell a story that reflects the human experience of psychological time? Memories, dreams, consciousness; can a film show these? And how will it tell a story that reflects the reality of time?

The more I read Bluestone’s book I found out about a text about Time in Literature by Hans Meyerhoff. It seems like a good book for further study about Time in Literature.

Bluestone makes some great comments about the Hollywood machine or Glamour machine. The process of thinking that movies use to exploit audiences into coming back over and over again to seek escape from their dreary Worlds. He talks about the viewer becoming ever deeper into needing escape and finding their ordinary lives not nearly as glamorous as Movies keeps them coming back for more to live the fantasy over and over again and deeper and deeper into delusions like their favorite actor or actress is their close personal friend. It caused me to reflect about why I go to movies? Why do I like them so much? Why did I ever get involved with screenwriting? I remember a few times when I talked to celebrities in my mind. Thinking they were there and we were like old chums. I caught myself doing that and now realize very sharply that I was delusional.

Bluestone selected his films from what he could find in film format. He worked long before the days of DVDs or Netflix so he was limited in what films he could find. Still he did manage to find some really good movies and watched them until he was satisfied. He chose six films. Each was adapted from a novel. The Informer directed by John Ford was set in Ireland and featured Victor McLaglen as an informer for the English against the Irish in the Anglo-Irish War of the 1920’s. It won the academy award for best picture. The next two films Bluestone selected were both romances from England. Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice both starred a young Laurence Olivier. Both excellent selections. Wuthering Heights has been adapted into films many times and a new version was released just this Valentine’s Day. The adaptation of Pride and Prejudice was very well done. It’s a great novel and the film does it justice. After forays into English Literature from the 18th and 19th Centuries, Bluestone selected The Grapes of Wrath from 20th Century North America. He also selected a Western called the Ox Bow Incident. Both films star Henry Fonda and both deal with the American West. The Grapes of Wrath is possibly the best American Novel of the 20th Century. By far the best Novel about the Dust Bowl and the struggles of people affected by it. The Ox Bow incident is a shorter novel but is poignant and well written. The film is very compelling too. I enjoyed watching it even though I had never heard of it before. To close his study Bluestone chose Madame Bovary about a housewife overwhelmed by Modern life. Madame Bovary, like Wuthering Heights, has been adapted to the screen many times. Bluestone doesn’t rate the version that is part of his study. Still the book is very good and the film isn’t too bad. In his analysis Bluestone writes about all that’s left out of the film from the screenplay. He does that for each Novel into film.

Bluestone has clearly done his research with his selections and analysis of each Novel and how it was turned into a film. He writes extensively about the censorship that each film went through; how in Madame Bovary criticism of Priests was eliminated. How the ending of the Grapes of Wrath was different from the Novel because of censorship. How a lot of the radical political talk in the Novel is left out. Bluestone does not show that some things were left in. Tom Joad’s goodbye monologue to his mother was kept in. Even though it was much different from the book. Bluestone writes about many of these changes from book to film. Not always were they considerations of censorship. Changes were made also because of considerations for production. In the Informer things were changed to a more visual style to show Victor McLaglen’s character’s thoughts. In Wuthering Heights the movie ends on a happy ending and a reference to a ghost which doesn’t happen in the novel. It is all part of the process of adaptation. In Hollywood of the Golden Age or even today writers can’t be precious with their prose. Changes are made with or without their consent. And Bluestone shows much evidence to that being true.

Novels in Film is a book for anyone interested in Movies. Still it is an advanced text suitable for Film students; screenwriters in particular. Anyone who wants to understand adaptation would benefit from reading Bluestone’s book. It does delve into Film theory and Hollywood History from a bygone era so that might make it difficult for a person without a background in screenwriting, film theory, or film history. If you are not interested in those subjects the book would probably not be for you. The book is also a conduit to other books. If you are just going to read Bluestone’s book and neglect the six novels you would be selling yourself short. I was hesitant at first about reading the novels. I made the right decision to read all six novels and watch each film several times. It was a very good way to learn about adaptation and screenwriting. It made me think about doing an adaptation instead of always thinking of writing a spec script.

I spent several months reading Bluestone’s book and all the Novels he considers. It was well worth it. All the novels are excellent. Top notch. The author's best works; Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is considered her best Novel. John Steinbeck never wrote another book like The Grapes of Wrath and many readers were disappointed. Engaging with literature and movies from a past era showed how quality the films of directors like John Ford were. How Laurence Olivier and Henry Fonda were two of the best actors of the Golden Age of Hollywood. I would have never considered such great works and artists without reading the Novels too. Bluestone’s conception and execution of his book is flawless. It is the best book about adaptation yet written.