Just finished Louis Begley’s About Schmidt, the 1996 novel that was made into a 2002 film. The differences between the book and the movie are remarkable. The book is set in the Hamptons and New York. The protagonist, Schmidt, is a 60-year-old WASP lawyer who retires from his law firm partnership when his wife becomes terminally ill. The wife is from an old rich WASP family and works as a literary fiction editor. Schmidt’s daughter, a Harvard-educated yuppie who does PR for a tobacco company, is planning to marry a junior partner at Schmidt’s old firm. This horrifies Schmidt partly because his future son-in-law doesn’t read books or appreciate culture but mostly because the young lawyer is Jewish. Much of the book centers on Schmidt’s horror at a formerly genteel world of New York law firms and Long Island beaches, now despoiled by an influx of Jews. The last half of the book is devoted to a romance between Schmidt and a 20-year-old half-Puerto Rican waitress, complete with a Hollywood happy ending.
The screenplay transplants the action to Omaha, Nebraska. Schmidt and his wife are middle class salt-of-the-earth types. There are no Jews in evidence. The daughter is living 1000 miles away and her future husband is objectionable to Schmidt because he’s a “nincompoop” and his family, rather than being successful happily married Jewish psychiatrists, consists of divorced white trash-y New Age-y folks. The movie Schmidt, played by Jack Nicholson, is unrelievedly sad and pathetic. There are no romances with young women for movie Schmidt (no romances with any women, actually).
So how often does Hollywood (well, actually my cousin Harry) make a movie that is substantially darker than an already fairly dark novel?
Saw the movie. Was a little slow but this fact reminded me of older movies that didn’t need to impress the senses every two minutes in order to keep an audience. Nicholson’s facial expressions at various crossroads are hilarious.
Now I suppose I’ll have to go out an get the book–maybe. Come to think of it I’ve perhaps purchased maybe three non-fiction books in my life.
In a Times interview back when the movie came out, Begly stated that, despite surface differences, the movie remained remarkably true to the spirit of the book.
From that interview, at least, I’d guess that the author would disagree with your characterization of the movie as “substantially darker”.
I enjoyed the movie, thinking that Kathy Bates was as good as Nicholson. Few movies are true to the book. I appreciate your review of the book. To say that the “movie remained remarkably true to the spirit of the book” seems quite a strech. I suppose if you want to sell your next book to the movie folks you cannot be to critical of them.
I both read and saw “Fight Club” at roughly the same time. Not only was I astonished that the movie version had stayed so close to the book, but also that the movie has less of a “Hollywood” ending.
Down with the well-connected.
Phil’s cousin made the movie!
Yucky!
All coders are created equal.
Is it a coincidence that the protagonist of “Chinatown” is named Gittes? It doesn’t sound like a common name.
Eric: It is not a coincidence and “Gittes” is extremely uncommon. My cousin Harry and Jack Nicholson are old friends. Harry gets into a snit when people mispronounce his name so Jack decided to have a little fun at his expense in Chinatown by having the character get upset when people mispronounced “Gittes”.
Randay: I’m not sure how well-connected my family is. Being a Hollywood producer is not exactly a position of power. It is the MBA executives in the studios who decide what gets funded and therefore what gets made. The producers reject writers. The executives reject producers. The industry is 99% rejection.
Oh, so *this* is where you’ve got to. 🙂
Am I the only one who thinks that when Hollywood buys the rights to a book, usually *precisely because* it or it’s author is such a success… and then changes it completely while keeping the name, it’s committing plain, clear fraud?
— j
I knew it! That is to say, when I followed Dr. Broder’s advice and went to see “About Schmidt” with my friend Nan and saw the name “Harry Greenspun” flash on the screen, the question that popped out of my head was, of course, “Hmmm… I wonder if he is related to Philip Greenspun?” Now if only I could remember how I first came across Philip’s name. Was it via photo.net? Or was it via arsdigita.com? And if it was via arsdigita, was it via Eve Astrid Andersson’s Pi-enabled site first? (http://eveander.com ) (Man talk about beauty _and_ brains). Can’t remember. Not that it matters. Ah, now I remember…
I came across her site a long time ago (late 90s) and then found it incredibly fascinating that she and Philip were dating (a couple of years hence). Oh yeah, and I was kind of jealous too. 🙂 So it’s more likely than not that I first learned about him from her. Or was it via Slashdot….
u should give us more info