Page to Screen

Page to Screen is a recurring column in which CoS Editorial Director Matt Melis explores how either a classic or contemporary work of literature made the sometimes triumphant, often disastrous leap from prose to film.  Novelists can’t choose how they’ll be remembered — that is, which of their creations will be favored after they’ve, to borrow a phrase, snuffed it. Once wielding autocratic control over every thought, action, and detail attributed to their characters, they cede that unique monopoly upon publication. It then belongs to others, who, if sales are strong, will reimagine those stories — those very intimate and specific ideas — a million times over in infinitely different ways. The writer goes from being a de facto Bog or God to, in extreme cases, a slave to press clippi...