One of my favorite things about literature is that really, really good writing is translatable across
time, space, and mediums; it evokes universal feelings we can find in a number of different
places. Here, I’ve put together a list of classic novels and the movies they feel like, a set of
pairings that may not always look similar but feel the same. Warning: some of these include
movie spoilers, so read this list with caution!
Brideshead Revisited / Saltburn
First up on the list is a little bit of a no-brainer, but I felt it was necessary due to the global
craze over Saltburn, and what I found to be a surprising lack of credit to this novel,
where credit is definitely due. Saltburn follows an Oxford student and his time spent at
the summer estate of his mysterious, rich new friend, where things are much darker than
they seem in the massively weird and weirdly massive color-coded hallways of the
manor. It’s fun, it’s campy, there are copious amounts of drugs, alcohol, weird sex, and
even some karaoke! But the craziest thing about Saltburn is that it (sort of) already
happened in Brideshead Revisited. Written in 1945 by Evelyn Waugh while he was
recuperating from a stint in the British armed forces, the novel details one languorous
summer spent by a young man from Oxford on the wildly expansive estate of his wealthy
new friend. It’s gorgeously written; you can feel the excess on the page, and equally as
fun as its counterpart. Alcohol, drugs, homoeroticism– everything but the karaoke.
2. Hamlet / The Iron Claw
I admit that some of these pairings feel like a stretch, but when I saw The Iron Claw for
the first time, sobbing in the back of Regal Theater Room 9, all I could think was How
Shakespearean. The Iron Claw is based on the true story of the Von Erich family, a set of
brothers dominating the wrestling scene in the 1980s under the strict command of their
draconian father. Now, there isn’t much wrestling in Hamlet, but the drama and tragedy
of the movie brings to mind the same elements. Where the von Erichs have each other,
Hamlet has nothing but his increasingly depleted sense of self, but all are young men
suffering under the looming shadows of their fathers, ghostly or otherwise.
3. Jane Eyre / Tár
Jane Eyre is a woman. Lydia Tár is a woman. It may seem like the comparisons stop
there, what with Eyre’s life in the moors of Victorian England and Tár teaching music in
the brutalism of modern-day Berlin, but as a devotee of both pieces of media, I found
them strikingly similar for some reason. Tár is a harsh, unflinching woman steadily rising
to the top of the music scene on the road to cancellation, while Eyre is a woman trying to
reconcile her yearning for freedom with religious adherence. I couldn’t pinpoint it at first,
but the undercurrent is the same: the womanhood so integral to both characters is
consistently at odds with their desires for independence. Both women are at times
villainized for their strong sense of self, but that is what makes their characters so
compelling.
4. Frankenstein / Poor Things
This one, like Brideshead, was a no-brainer. Interestingly, while the storylines look the
same on paper, I found the most interesting parts were where they diverged.
Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, is the baby of the science-fiction genre; the first of its
kind, it discusses vast themes of creation and guilt by way of a mad scientist and the
odd-looking giant he puts together in a lab. Poor Things is similar: in Yorgos Lanthimos’
crazy-colored world, a scientist reanimates the body of a woman drowned in a river, and
she sets off into the world of adults, for all intents and purposes a baby in the body of
Emma Stone. The first thing I found interesting was the choice of “creator.” Shelley is a
woman creating a man, and Lanthimos is a man creating a woman, authorial and
directorial choices which show up in their works in interesting ways. Shelley and
Lanthimos also tend to focus on different things. While Shelley hones in on the idea of
guilt and monsters, and what it means to have and be those things, I found Lanthimos to
let those topics take a little bit of a backseat in favor of examining womanhood, girlhood,
and navigating the two in an overwhelmingly monstrous world.
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