Adapting the Modern Law Novel: Filming John Grisham
| Published date | 01 March 2001 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6478.00184 |
| Date | 01 March 2001 |
| Author | Peter Robson |
JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY
VOLUME 28, NUMBER 1, MARCH 2001
ISSN: 0263-323X, pp. 147–63
Adapting the Modern Law Novel: Filming John Grisham
Peter Robson*
The essay looks at the process of adaptation of fiction to film. It seeks
to build on earlier work which suggested that this process required to
be examined in the political and social context within which the
adaptation occurred. It focuses on the work of John Grisham and notes
how the fiction of Grisham can be divided into thrillers and social
issues novels. These in their turn have been turned into films in which,
in the process of adaptation, their themes have become both sharper
and more focused. They have also in this process become less critical
of the social and political structures within which Grisham’s fictional
protagonists operate. The essay seeks to provide an explanation for
this paradox which relates to the fore-mentioned notion of contextual
adaptation.
The people who make these decisions are at the top of their professions . . .
there are, though, times when you wish they could have done it more
faithfully to the novel.
(Colin Dexter on the adaptation of his final Inspector Morse novel The
Remorseful Day – in which Morse dies – but lives on in the adaptation)
1
SOCIAL ISSUES IN THE MODERN LAW FILM:
ADAPTING JOHN GRISHAM
This essay is principally focused on the work of John Grisham and how
this work has progressed in its transfer from mega-selling fiction to a
number of modestly successful films – judged both financially
2
and
147
ßBlackwell Publishers Ltd 2001, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
*The Law School, University of Strathclyde, 173 Cathedral Street, Glasgow
G4 0RQ, Scotland
1
Guardian, 16 May 2000, G2, 3. Authors must have more influence than Dexter imagined.
When the final Morse was screened on 15 November 2000, Morse did indeed die.
2Movie Times: Box Office: Top 100 grossing movies ever – no appearances;
Entertainment Scene: $100m+ Grossing Movies – The Firm at 49 taking $158m and
The Pelican Brief at 154 with $100m – March 30 1998; no appearances in the top 100
movies, even adjusted for inflation. Grisham is reported to have received for the film
critically.
3
It draws on observations which suggested that to obtain a better
purchase on the process of adaptation it is crucial to examine the social
and political context within which the films in question are made rather
than simply concentrate on the aesthetic and stylistic distinctions between
the written source and film
4
as though these are pure processes to be
assessed in some kind of artistic vacuum. Grisham has been uniquely
successful in the number of his books which have been filmed. Other
authors within the sub-genre of modern legal procedurals have made much
fewer translations to the screen.
5
In an earlier essay
6
I sought to look at adaptation in the context of social
issues novels and their transformation in British film. In addition to a general
overview I looked in detail at one area of social issues, race. The film version
of a non-fiction autobiography retained significant areas of the original
storyline of a young black man coming to work in Britain in the 1950s whilst
having its context radically amended. A much blander portrayal of race and
racism in post-war Britain hence emerged. In the other area, poverty, by
contrast, a full-length work of radical fiction in three parts was adapted in a
highly modified form which emphasized the positive aspects of the struggles
of the working class against capital. In the first instance, in To Sir With Love,
the background of racism was removed from the film. In the other situation,
the ambivalence and failures of the Labour movement were airbrushed out of
the action in The Stars Look Down. That essay sought to explore some of the
reasons why this had occurred. The conclusion was that any grounded
explanation had to go beyond the artistic imperative and could best be
understood by locating the films firmly within the cultural context, political
parameters, and economic production process operative at the time. The
observations in this essay suggest that the adaptation process has both
sharpened the value conflicts between the principal protagonists as well as
softening their structural implications.
148
rights an escalating set of payments – $600,000 for The Firm, $2.25m for The Client,
$3.75m for The Chamber, $6m for A Time to Kill, and $8m for The Runaway Jury
(source: Halliwell (2000)).
3 The Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actress and Best Actress have been
received for the films – Holly Hunter in The Firm and Susan Sarandon in The Client.
4 R. Richardson, Literature and Film (1969).
5 Scott Turrow has had one of his novels filmed – Presumed Innocent (1990). No films
have emerged from the novels of Richard North Paterson, Philip Friedman, Steve
Martini, Ed McBain (writing his Matthew Hope novels) George V. Higgins (writing
his Jerry Kennedy novels), William Bernhardt, Lisa Scottoline or William Coughlin.
Barry Reed similarly has produced other novels but only his first one, The Verdict
(1982), has been filmed.
6 P. Robson, ‘Fade to Grey: Transforming Social Issues in Film’, paper at Critical
Legal Studies Conference, London, September 1999.
ßBlackwell Publishers Ltd 2001
To continue reading
Request your trial