film adaptation

  • In Defense of the Book-to-Movie Adaptation

    Why do we keep going to movie adaptations of old classic novels we love? Over at Lit Hub, Sky Friedlander defends the book-to-movie adaptation as bringing new lessons to light for a new set of viewers, writing, “We need to…

  • Honesty, Truth, and the Facts

    At Vulture, Rumpus founder Stephen Elliott writes about seeing “himself” on screen in the film adaptation of The Adderall Diaries.

  • The Rumpus Interview with Joshua Davis

    The Rumpus Interview with Joshua Davis

    Joshua Davis talks about his new book, Spare Parts (now a movie playing all across the United States), backwards running, journalism, and entering the US National Arm Wrestling Championship.

  • Lighten Up

    Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice is a light neo-noir comedy, just like the Pynchon novel that inspired it. Despite our eagerness to overanalyze film adaptations of complicated books, Katie Kilkenny warns us not to take this one too seriously: Inherent…

  • Better than the Book

    Film adaptations can take their source novels in a million different directions, some innovative, others painfully off the mark. John Colapinto evaluates the movie versions of different Nabokov stories for the New Yorker, exploring their various formal challenges and triumphs.

  • Learning about Short Stories through Films

    Birdman, the new film starring Michael Keaton, is centered around a theatrical adaptation of Raymond Carver’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” At Electric Literature, Halimah Marcus discusses what the film can teach writers about writing short…

  • The Rumpus Interview with Alysia Abbott

    The Rumpus Interview with Alysia Abbott

    Alysia Abbott discusses craft and love in her new memoir, Fairyland, set in the ’70s and ’80s during the AIDS crisis in San Francisco.

  • This Week in Short Fiction

    Remember Elizabeth Strout’s 2008 Pulitzer-prize winning novel in stories Olive Kitteridge? What if Olive could come to life in a film adaptation? Man. In a perfect world, probably Frances McDormand would play Olive, right? In fact, maybe we could just…

  • A Wrinkle in Time…the Movie

    For those who fondly recall reading Madeleine L’Engle’s children’s novel A Wrinkle in Time, you may be taking a trip to the movies. The Los Angeles Times reports the Newberry Award winning book will be adapted for film by the director…

  • Charlie Kaufman to Write Film Adaptation of Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five

    Guillermo del Toro (director of Pan’s Labyrinth and the upcoming movie Pacific Rim) has recently announced that he has selected Charlie Kaufman as the writer of the screenplay for del Toro’s film adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. Kaufman, famous for writing the screenplays…

  • Patti Smith’s Movie Deal

    After winning the National Book Award for her memoir, Just Kids, Patti Smith is venturing into new artistic territory. She is set to work with Tony award-winning playwright, John Logan, to adapt her memoir into a film. As per her…

  • A Rabid Fan of the Novel Revolutionary Road Compares It to the Film

    A Rabid Fan of the Novel Revolutionary Road Compares It to the Film

    It has come to my attention that you keep adapting my favorite novels [see Atonement, Revolutionary Road, et. al.], and turning them into mediocre movies. Cease and desist! Get your own ideas!