Novel Ideas on Film

It’s that magical time of year. The time of year where the crack of the bat replaces the piercing shriek of a football umpire’s whistle. When Florida is full of young, vital athletes, rather than hobbling septuagenarians. When it’s perfectly acceptable to pay three times as much for beer and hotdogs….because it’s about the experience.

That’s right folks…baseball season is upon us. In honor of Opening Day and the return of America’s Pastime, here is my review of Moneyball; the story of the under-funded Oakland A’s, their fearless leader, Billy Beane, and how statistics saved the day.

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Like the rest of you out there, I saw The Hunger Game this weekend. And, after suffering through endless vampire movie trailers (Breaking Dawn = Bella the deer hunter? Ha!), I finally got to see what I’d come for: teenagers fighting to the death in a government controlled arena. What better way could I spend my Saturday?

I’m usually one to stay far away from grim, post-apocalyptic type stories…but there was no way I could NOT read The Hunger Games. I’m sure a great deal of you read the books after you experienced a situation similar to this:

Me: What are the Hunger Games?

Friend: OHMIGOD YOU HAVEN’T READ THEM?! You HAVE to read them NOW.

Me: Okay…but what is it?

Friend: It’s this futuristic story where kids have to fight each other…and there’s this one girl who’s a badass…and…ugh just read it.

Then I, like so many before me, read it.

And I couldn’t put the darn thing down. I was one of those zombies coming in to work with a Venti instead of a Grande with my only excuse being, “I finished. I need Book 2.”

So yeah, I’ll admit it. I loved The Hunger Games.

(Except for the third book. That was the biggest literary tease that ever was. Katniss just blacks out?! Seriously? Did Suzanne Collins procrastinate on her deadline and have to wrap it up real quick? I mean, COME ON!)

But, I digress…

With a book that has captured the imagination of so many fans, young and old, the film had a lot to live up to. Especially when you consider the fact that it had to stick to a PG-13 rating in order to satisfy the series’ YA readership. (Okay, let’s be real here, it was to satisfy the parents of the tweens clamoring for Hunger Games tickets).

Considering these restrictions, I think they did a great job. Sure, there are always things you miss when you see a movie based on a book. There are always characters and places you imagined differently. It’s always, at most, only 99% as good as the original novel. But, overall, considering the epic story they had to bring to life, I think the filmmakers pulled it off.

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A year ago today, another icon of Old Hollywood passed away. RIP Elizabeth Taylor…and thank you.

oldhollywood:

Mary Badham, Harper Lee, and Gregory Peck on the set of To Kill a Mockingbird (1962, dir. Robert Mulligan) Photographer: Leo Fuchs (via)

Does it get any better than Gregory Peck as Atticus?

No. It does not.

Add this to my ever-growing list of film adaptations to write about. (It’s one of my favorites!)

I wanted to write this post weeks ago but, unfortunately, technical difficulties kept me from it. By now, the 84th Annual Academy Awards are long over. It was a good night…full of Billy Crystal’s return to hosting, stars’ memories of their favorite films…and lots and lots of French people.

(Side note: congratulations to Jean Dujardin, Michael Hazanavicius, and the rest of The Artist cast and crew! You can see my thoughts on this year’s Best Picture winner here.)

But the award for the most tearful and heartfelt acceptance speech of the evening undeniably goes to Octavia Spencer, who won Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance as Minny Jackson in The Help.

In honor of Octavia’s win…along with the many nominations the film received, including Best Picture…I figured it was about time I reviewed The Help. 

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I may have to add this to my list. The film adaptation of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter comes out in June and I’m intrigued for a few reasons:

1) The book was written by a fellow Emerson College alum, Seth Grahame-Smith. He also wrote Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. We may not have a football team, but we do have a writer who turns a beloved Jane Austen novel into a Regency Era Walking Dead…and then turns the 16th President of the United States into a 19th century Buffy. Go Lions!

2) It’s Abe Lincoln killing vampires.

3) I hate nearly all vampire movies. I will never write about Twilight being adapted into a film on this blog because I would never call what Stephenie Myers does “writing,” or her final product a “novel.” With Abraham Lincoln, I feel I’ll get some cathartic thrill out of watching vampires get destroyed.

4) It’s ABE LINCOLN KILLING VAMPIRES.

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day; a day where you are in one of two camps:

1) You are part of a couple and, no matter what you tell your bitter single friends, this day DOES matter, and you’re psyched to get some extra special attention in the form of candy, flowers, an expensive dinner and…er…”cuddling” long into the night.

2) You are a bitter single person. I don’t care if you tell yourself and others that being alone on Valentine’s Day is no big deal because it’s all about loving YOURSELF…you’re just a little bit lonely (or a lot lonely). Mostly you wish you were getting “cuddled” on a regular basis like your more relationship-inclined friends.

If you couldn’t tell, I’m in the second camp.

Which is why I was inspired to write a post about a gothic love story set on the windswept moors of England. No, not Wuthering Heights. The other Bronte novel—Jane Eyre. After all, if anyone knew how to tell a darn good tale of long-suffering love it was Charlotte Bronte.

Jane Eyre is rife with 19th century melodrama….a governess and her brutish employer falling in love on a lonely estate complete with a terrifying (psychotic) ex-wife in the attic.

Hollywood looks at the story of this Plain Jane governess and gets really excited….

Story about an orphan overcoming challenges to eventually attain her heart’s desire?

  Check.

Super cool spooky location?

  Check.

Gruff manly-man that ladies will swoon over?

  Check.

And, most importantly…people have liked it since the mid-1800s so it’s a safe bet that a decent-sized audience comes built-in.

Sounds like cinematic gold right? It should be…unless writers succumb to the temptation to go over the top on the romance…and that is exactly what happened to the 1943 version starring Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine.

By the movie poster alone you can already tell that this particular version of Jane Eyre tends to dip more into the melodramatic side of the pool. And by “dip” I mean it gets sucked down into melodrama-land like the woman who gets pulled underwater at the beginning of Jaws.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of old movies others may consider a bit corny. My favorite movie of all time is It’s a Wonderful Life by Frank Capra…a film that has been grouped with other Capra classics as being “Capra-corn.” 

(If you don’t shed a tear as the people of Bedford Falls sing “Auld Lang Syne” you’re not a human being)

That being said, I was not a fan of the 1943 Jane Eyre. There are a lot of little reasons, which I will get to in just a moment, but the overarching issue I had was with the filmmaker’s apparent belief that the audience was too stupid to understand subtlety. It seemed as if he read the Cliff’s Notes and ignored those wonderful little nuances that put Jane Eyre a step above your classic romance and into the realm of Great Literature.

Of course, you can’t jam-pack an entire Bronte novel into a film and keep it entertaining…unless you’re the BBC and you make a miniseries. But that’s for another day.

This leads us to the ultimate question in adapting great works of literature into a two hour movie: How do you stay true to the original story while “trimming the fat?” It’s a matter of figuring out those crucial elements that make Jane Eyre uniquely Jane Eyre. Does it matter what color dress Jane is wearing when she arrives at Thornfield? Probably not. Does it matter that she was an orphan growing up in a house where no affection was shown towards her? YES.

To me, the biggest problem with this particular adaptation of Jane Eyre was the mishandling of Jane’s character development. Jane Eyre is categorized as a bildungsroman, or a story about the growth of a single character, so character development is incredibly important.

Jane’s early conception of herself is based upon the isolation she feels in a household that doesn’t love her. She is tortured by her cousin John, and yet he gets away with it because in his mother’s eyes, Jane is always wrong and John is always right.

This is bound to create a great deal of anger in a young child, but, more importantly, Jane knows she is being treated unfairly. It is not so much that John hits Jane…it is that he is then rewarded for his cruelty while Jane is punished for being “wicked.” Early on, Jane develops a fine-tuned sense of right and wrong which defines her character and guides her actions for the rest of the novel.

In the film, they showcase young Jane’s anger and bitterness, but fail to highlight the unwavering sense of right and wrong that stems from her childhood injustices. Jane’s character development gets off to a bad start when the filmmaker tells rather than shows the audience the fight between John and Jane.

In the novel, we witness John’s savagery towards Jane and understand her counter-attack as necessary self-defense. When Jane is then falsely accused of attacking her cousin without provocation, the reader immediately sympathizes with Jane and understands why her treatment is unfair.

In the film, Jane is called in by her Aunt Reed and reprimanded for beating her cousin John. Jane, of course, protests and says John started it; however, without the audience seeing the altercation, we can’t be sure of exactly what happened. Since we only know the reality of her predicament through hearsay, Jane is perceived as being argumentative and no better than her tattle-tale cousin.

Later in the film, when Jane leaves her aunt to go to Lowood School, she stands outside the gates and launches into a tirade about how much she despises her, and will never call her “aunt” again. Although the audience senses that Jane did not have a happy childhood under the Reeds’ roof, her declaration of abuses seems childish and even a bit ungrateful.

In the novel, Jane has the guts to air her grievances to Aunt Reed’s face. This goes back to Jane’s sense of justice as she knows she deserves to have her “day in court.” And, notably, Jane’s speech to Aunt Reed focuses on the importance of truth and the lack of it in the Reed household. This continues the development of Jane’s belief in justice and fairness.

All of this is lacking in the film version and Jane instead falls into the Dreamer-Orphan-Wants-to-Fight-the-Odds-and-Improve-Her-Life trap.

Charlotte Bronte’s Jane is far from being a dreamer…life has taught her to know better. Instead, Jane begins to find solace in understanding the differences between right and wrong and where she falls along that line.

Really, the best parts of Jane’s childhood scenes come from playing the “Who’s That Actress” game. For example, Agnes Moorehead is Aunt Reed. Apparently, being a bitchy inlaw is her thing…

And then there’s Jane’s friend, Helen Burns, played by some uncredited nobody…

OH WAIT! That’s Elizabeth Taylor (though she is uncredited). Somehow her eyes are just as striking even when she’s nine years-old and in black & white. And, to be completely honest, she was much more interesting to watch than the poor actress playing Young Jane. This, ladies and gents, is called star power.

But, I digress.

Aside from the simplification and, therefore, ruination of Jane’s character development, there were some other differences worth noting.

Where did the Red Room go?

They don’t show the Red Room scene! The Red Room is significant because it’s the room where Jane’s uncle Reed died, and Jane is locked in it after fighting with John Reed. While inside, Jane thinks she sees her uncle’s ghost and goes into hysterics. Of course, no one lets her out because Aunt Reed is about a hundred times more vicious than Cinderella’s stepmother. Jane eventually faints from fright and, when she wakes up, the doctor suggests she be sent to school.

This scene is important for a few reasons.

From a literary standpoint, the Red Room is chock full of psychological and Gothic symbolism; at least some of this could have been translated to the film version. Nearly ever other movie adaptation I’ve seen includes the Red Room because of these opportunities for symbolic imagery.

Perhaps more importantly, the Red Room is another step in Jane’s character development. The fact that she remains locked in the room despite her desperate cries to be let out shows just how helpless Jane is. Leaving this out of the 1943 version of the film weakens Jane’s status as a victim and makes her hatred of the Reeds seem less justified.

Sad Jane is Sad

There are several ways to play Jane Eyre. Joan Fontaine chose melancholy Jane….and only melancholy Jane. This is a Bronte novel set on the moors of England so, yes, Jane Eyre has her desperate, love-sick moments. But there’s so much more to her character than that. For one thing, a big reason why Rochester falls in love with Jane is because of her intelligence. We don’t get to see any of their witty banter in this 1943 film. Where is clever Jane? What about strong, resolute Jane? Perhaps they were locked in the attic with Rochester’s psycho ex-wife.

There’s no St. John either.

In the book, Jane wanders for days and days after leaving Thornfield Hall. She is close to death when she happens upon a small cabin out on the moors. The kindly women who live there with their brother St. John (pronounced “sin-jin”) take her in and Jane, in an effort to earn her keep, becomes a schoolteacher at a charity school. After a time, St. John asks Jane to marry him so they can travel to India to become missionaries. Jane says she will go to India, but not as St. John’s wife because she doesn’t love him.

Also, when Jane is told she has inherited a long-lost uncle’s fortune, we find out that St. John is Jane’s cousin. Surprise!

For this particular version of Jane Eyre, I was okay with them taking out the St. John episode. As we’ve already established, this 1943 film is already quite simplified and it only would have muddied the waters to send in a batch of new characters.

Instead, Jane returns to her Aunt Reed’s house where the horrible woman is on her deathbed. Here, Jane forgives her aunt, supposedly showing the audience how much she has grown…from a spiteful little child at the beginning of the film, to this calm, benevolent angel of a lady. Well, this would be great if they hadn’t neglected to start this transformation at the beginning of the film. It’s hard to see how this transformation occurred without establishing the foundation of Jane’s moral code earlier on.

(I will note that in the novel Jane returns to her Aunt on her deathbed as well, but before she is about to marry Rochester. And, I think it goes without saying that the reunion is quite a bit more poignant and satisfying than in the movie.)

Private Moments with Rochester

One of the most interesting changes in this film version were the moments where we see Mr. Rochester (played by Orson Welles) by himself. We don’t get this in the novel, as it is told from Jane’s point of view, and I thought it offered something unique to the film. Most notably, we get to see Rochester dump Blanche Ingram and tell her off for being a gold-digger. After reading the book several times, I found this very satisfying.

Welles’ Rochester is a bit more soft-hearted than I was used to. He ridicules his ward and Jane’s pupil, Adele, but later feels remorseful about his treatment towards the spoiled young girl. I’m not quite sure I liked seeing this side of Rochester, but at least Welles made the character his own.

Successful Monster in the Attic

One of the things this movie did very well was playing up the scare-factor. From other-worldly shrieksto shadowy corridors and rattling doors, this Jane Eyre was pretty spooky. And, best of all, we don’t see the scary creature! One of the biggest problems this story faces is how to empathize with Rochester after he’s locked his mentally unstable first wife away in the attic.This movie solves the problem by making poor Bertha a faceless, savage, beast.

(Speaking of Bertha Mason, if you’re a big Rochester fan…don’t read Wide Sargasso Sea. It will alter your opinion FOREVER. You’ve been warned.)

Overall, my recommendation would be to watch another film version of Jane Eyre, or, better yet, just read the book.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s offers an interesting look at movie adaptations in the early 1960’s. At the time, the Production code was still restricting a lot of what we would consider mild sexual humor in movies today. Truman Capote’s novel was a risque little romp about a New York City gal who earned her living through, er, sex. Not in a Julia-Roberts-standing-on-a-street-corner kind of way…but, let’s just say the “$50 for the powder room” Holly regularly received was not for being a witty conversationalist. Subtle or not, this kind of promiscuous female would NOT do in the era of Doris Days and Donna Reeds.

But, producers Martin Jurow and Richard Shepherd knew Truman Capote and his little book were a sensation, therefore, they just HAD to have the rights to it. Too bad the reasons the novel was so hot were exactly the things they would have to eliminate to get the movie to pass the censors. Welcome to 1961, folks. Regardless, Sheperd and Jurow, along with screenwriter George Axelrod and director Blake Edwards, set out to create a Holly Golightly who wouldn’t find happiness in her independent, promiscuous lifestyle, but in the loving arms of a male costar.

Score one for feminism.

THE BOOK

Truman Capote was a kind of pet to the wealthy, lonely women of New York City; he called them his “Swans.” These ladies of luxury were each fabulous in their own way, but Capote was dismayed to observe that these women all had the disturbing habit of “fading away and marrying some accountant or dentist.” So, he wrote about Holly Golightly in an effort to preserve one of these women at a time when they were full of life, excitement…and freedom.

The novella is told from the point of view of one of Holly’s neighbors who is very different than the Paul/Fred Varjak in the movie. For one thing, Capote’s narrator is never named. For another, it’s pretty clearly implied that he has no sexual interest in Holly—or any woman for that matter. This makes for an interesting relationship as the Narrator and Holly share a friendship not based on sexual attraction, but on their shared position outside the accepted sexual norm for that time. Capote’s novel takes place during World War II, while the film takes place during the swingin’ sixties; however, both eras regard homosexuality and promiscuity as extremely taboo. So, needless to say this would be a major alteration in the film adaptation.

Many of the key plot points are similar in the novel as well as the film: Holly has crazy parties, her husband from Tulip, Texas comes to find her, and she falls for a Brazilian man who dumps her when her association with a local gangster is revealed.

Holly Golightly of the novel might be a “party girl” (to put it politely), but this chick can take care of herself. When the Narrator first sees Holly, he watches as one of her male “friends” chases her upstairs and gropes her as she tries to open the door. When Holly disappears inside, the man proceeds to bang on the door until his drunken over-exertion causes him to fall down the stairs. Only then does Holly reopen her door and call down, “The next time a girl wants a little powder-room change…take my advice, darling: don’t give her twenty cents!” Holly then slams the door in his face. Whew! It’s clear that this gentleman was not a boyfriend, but a meal-ticket…and Miss Golightly takes her finances very seriously.

At the end of Capote’s novel (SPOILER ALERT!), Holly actually does travel to Brazil sans Jose in search of “The fifty RICHEST men in Brazil.” Though she seems determined, this is also a key moment of vulnerability for Holly as she tells the Narrator: “Yes, I’m very scared Buster. At last. Because it could go on forever.” But, instead of succumbing to her fears, she flies away to Brazil in search of her next adventure.

THE MOVIE

The film, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, is less about a fascinating nineteen year-old (yes…nineteen) living on her own in New York, but more a twenty-something-girl-meets-boy, then boy-saves-girl-from-lonely-bohemian-lifestyle story. And yet, I can honestly say, I really love this movie.

(Minus Mickey Rooney’s offensive portrayal of Mr. Yunioshi. I’m not even going to touch this subject because you could write pages on this character alone. It’s racism so outrageous it’s laughable—“Miss Gorightry! I call the porice!”—and, in my opinion, he’s not important to the overall movie. What was probably meant to be “comic relief” at the time, is now just absurd. I mean, LOOK at him!)

Although the central theme of the film is very different from the novel, the adaptation has a lot of really wonderful moments, including one of my favorite opening scenes of all time. Credits roll over Henry Mancini’s gentle, yet haunting “Moon River” as a lone woman steps out of a cab in front of Tiffany’s in New York City. Her outfit shouts “Tres Chic!” but her mode of transportation and paper-bagged breakfast tells a different story. She looks the part, but it’s also clear she’s doing just that—playing a part. She must look into Tiffany’s window from the outside and imagine herself wearing the gorgeous jewels—so close and yet so far. It’s a beautiful opening and the stark emptiness of fifth avenue introduces a sense of loneliness that increases as we learn more about Ms. Golightly.

It’s a well-circulated Hollywood tale that Capote envisioned Marilyn Monroe to play his Tiffany’s heroine. Obviously, this didn’t pan out, but I have to wonder where this idea of his came from. When we first meet Holly in his novel, she is described thus:

“For all her chic thinness she had an almost breakfast-cereal air of health, a soap and lemon cleanness, a rough pink darkening in the cheeks.”

Call me crazy, but that sounds more Audrey than Marilyn.

Either way, Capote’s Holly Golightly (besides being one of the best character names ever) is far less innocent than Ms. Hepburn’s version would have us believe. In the film, Hepburn’s Holly is kooky and independent, but there’s always a tinge of sadness beneath it. The audience has a sense that, for all her wild parties and questionable associations, Movie Holly is a bit lost and lonely. If it were any other actress, I’m not sure this would have worked, but the fact that it’s Audrey Hepburn singing Mancini’s melancholy song on the fire escape makes her character that much more endearing.

Another key ingredient in the success of the film is Blake Edward’s directing. He knew Audrey felt uncomfortable playing a woman who’s “constancy is suspect,” and he used it to the film’s advantage. Instead of seeing a woman to scorn, audiences felt a connection to this confused young woman with a case of the “Mean Reds.”

Edwards also knew how to inject some fun into the movie. If Holly Golightly was to be portrayed as a “kook,” well, so was everyone else. Nothing shows this better than the wild party scene at Holly’s apartment. There’s a woman crying to herself in a mirror, men crawling through women’s legs to answer the phone, and a masterful bit of choreography in which Holly unknowingly sets a woman’s hat on fire and then, still oblivious, promptly puts it out with someone’s drink. Blake makes it look easy, but the scene took days to film.

Really, the biggest problem I have with the film (besides Mickey Rooney), is George Peppard, who plays the role of Paul Varjak. He seems a bit full of himself and there appears to be little warmth—let alone love—between Paul and Holly. According to Sam Wasson’s book, Fifth Avenue, 5 AM, this is because, well, Peppard was a bit of a cocky bastard behind the scenes. He had learned the “Method” school of acting and, it seems, even sweet-tempered Ms. Hepburn thought he was a bit of a pompous ass. Thus, George Peppard proves yet again that, unless you’re an exception to the rule like Marlon Brando, “Method Acting” just makes you look like a jackass.

(For more info on behind-the-scenes of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, definitely check out Wasson’s book…more info at the end of this post!)

WHY DOES IT WORK?

It would seem that the film version of Breakfast at Tiffany’s would fail because, let’s be honest, it completely undermines Capote’s original intentions for his protagonist, Holly. The difference can best be summed up by Holly’s perceived “phoniness.”

In both the novel and film, Holly’s friend and Hollywood agent, OJ Berman, describes Holly as a “phony,” but a “real phony” because “she believes all this crap she believes.” In the novel, Holly’s phony belief system is constant. True, at the end, she’s terrified of what will become of her, but she proceeds to jet off to Brazil anyway. Her values may be shaken, but her escape is done in true Holly Golightly fashion.

In the film, however, Holly’s phony beliefs appear to be less concrete. While she seems confident in her independent ways at the beginning of the film, we see this facade crumble as the story progresses, revealing a rather fragile, confused young woman. At the end, Holly has rejected Paul and, in his bruised-ego anger, tells her:

“You know what’s wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You’re chicken, you’ve got no guts. You’re afraid to stick out your chin and say, “Okay, life’s a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that’s the only chance anybody’s got for real happiness.” You call yourself a free spirit, a “wild thing,” and you’re terrified somebody’s gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you’re already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it’s not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It’s wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.”

To summarize…

Novel Holly’s independent, “phony” lifestyle sets her free, allowing her to make her own decisions like a big girl and escape a criminal trial by flying off to Brazil for a fresh start.

Movie Holly’s independent lifestyle has trapped her in a cage of lies because only by falling in love and “belonging” to someone, can a woman find “real happiness.”

Ah, 1961…the golden age of female independence.

But, I then have to ask myself, if the film does such a complete reversal of Capote’s original intentions, why the hell do I like it so much?

Well, besides the parade of beautiful Givenchy dresses Audrey wears throughout the film, the answer is consistency. Yes, even though George Axelrod’s screenplay had to play nice with the censors and nuclear-family sensibilities, the man knew how to tell a story. Movie Holly does not begin as a completely independent woman who’s spirit gets broken in order for her to eventually settle for the male lead. Rather, Holly’s vulnerability shows itself in the early moments of the film, so the audience BELIEVES that beneath it all, that crazy kook Holly just wants be a part of something solid. Even if that solid something is George Peppard.

Now, I understand that this caters a bit to that “defenseless damsel in distress” stereotype but, come on! It was 1961…you’ve got to give the makers of this film a little credit for the creative tap-dancing they did to avoid censorship while still producing a solid movie with a very different kind of leading lady.

Think about it, even though Breakfast at Tiffany’s seems tame by today’s oversexed standards, at the time it presented a whole new kind of woman. Here you had Audrey Hepburn, living alone in the big bad city wearing fabulous clothes and going to parties that would make your apron-wearing mama blush (but your ex-Flapper grandma who lived through the Roaring Twenties might call them “child’s play”). All the other female leads at the time were sweet, Doris Day types who spent their days in the secretarial pool dreaming of catching a husband, moving out of the apartment they shared with their best girlfriend from college, and having lots of babies. Of course, until that ring was securely on her finger, the mere mention of sex was forbidden…it was all hand-holding or the highway, mister. Holly Golightly may end up with the guy at the end, but her journey to get there was quite a break from tradition.

(Why would any red-blooded, American woman be this terrified of Cary Grant?)

While Martin Jurow, Richard Shepherd, George Axelrod, and Blake Edwards weren’t able to create a 100% accurate adaptation of Truman Capote’s novella, they were able to sugar-coat some of those risque ideas to feed them to a wider audience. In hindsight, we all know the huge changes that America would undergo within the next decade, and these changes would be reflected in American cinema as well. But these guys took a story that was riddled with censorship landmines and made it not only a successful film in 1961, but an enduring classic that audiences still enjoy today. And for that, I give them a hell of a lot of credit.

FURTHER READING

If you’re interested in learning more about the process of adapting Breakfast at Tiffany’s into a successful film, I highly recommend Sam Wasson’s book, Fifth Avenue, 5 AM. It has a lot of wonderful information without being too heavy handed or dull. Wasson tells the story of the film’s creation from all sides: Truman Capote, Blake Edwards, George Axelrod, Audrey Hepburn, and others. A great summer read!