So the best movie of 2011 was undeniably Drive, a film by a director you've never heard of starring Ryan Gosling as a stunt driver who says about 3 words the entire movie and, surprisingly, drives rather minimally. Having loved the movie so much, I figured I'd check out the book it was based on, also called Drive, written by James Sallis. How does it hold up? Well...
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Pioneers of the "the book is always better" group tend to forget the fact that a good deal of the most famous movies ever made were based on books. Let's name a few you might not be aware of - Die Hard, Blade Runner, The Big Lebowski, Goodfellas, The Godfather, and so on. What's interesting about these movies in particular is that nobody remembers the books they were based on - the movies are what took on life and became ingrained in pop culture. The truth is, there are just as many superficial novels as there are superficial movies, and to say that any one medium is superior to another is pretty silly. Especially when a superficial novel is sometimes adapted into a movie and it becomes something more.
Such is the case with Drive, which, as a novel, is an incredibly superficial crime story. Sure, the story isn't told in chronological order, but I can't think of any significant literary advantage this has. Sure, the Driver (who is the main character) is never named, but this doesn't really pique your interest like it does for Graham Greene's whiskey priest. Sure, the story is interesting and has occasional moments of greatness, but they take a back seat to the plot. Essentially, the novel is light on character development, light on interesting ideas, light on literary greatness, and really heavy on 'coolness.'
The fascinating part, of course, is that the movie is far, FAR more interesting thanks to Nicholas Winding Refn's excellent direction and some really inspired performances. I won't elaborate too much here since this post is about the book, but if you haven't seen the movie, I very highly recommend it - it's a perfect example of filmmaking at its best. The book, though, is a perfect example of how a story can be really dull in the wrong medium.
i would submit that some of these books are indeed remembered and still read: Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is on my bookshelf BTW) , The Big Lebowski, Goodfellas, The Godfather--and the list goes on. But I will say that Drive (movie) is sleek and stylish. Kind of like Gosling.
ReplyDeletePerhaps saying "nobody remembers" was a bit dramatic of me - yeah, people absolutely still read the books. But still, I'd bet that most of the people who read them heard about them because of the movies, which arguably resonated much more.
ReplyDelete(also if you have Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, I might just have to check it out... I didn't actually care much for Blade Runner personally, I didn't hate it but I wonder if I'd prefer it as a book...)
ReplyDeleteWow, this is exactly what I thought about Drive (the book and movie)! I liked the movie so much, that I bought the book out of curiosity. I originally intended to write about the book in one of my posts. But I was so disappointed by the book that I couldn’t think of anything to write about. Like you said, James Sallis’ Drive isn’t terrible, but I do feel like it is missing (a lot of) something. Sallis left out many details in the book, and I think Refn did an awesome job deciding which details should be left alone (like Driver’s name). This manages to give me the same compassion/emptiness I felt for Driver when I read the book. Nicolas Refn also did a great job filling in some of the book’s missing gaps with symbols, unique music, and elaborate action scenes. Sometimes I wonder if James Sallis’s Drive would be better if he wrote the story with the intention of having the reader listen to an epic playlist and sounds to go with it. I couldn’t agree with you more about the movie, it is a great piece of art!
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