Summary
- Despite the endeavors of the best and brightest in Hollywood, Tom Wolfe’s literary work struggles with film and TV adaptations.
- A Man in Full
, a Netflix series, fails to impress viewers much like
The Bonfire of the Vanities
, a watershed moment in industry hype gone awry. - Standing out among the many past duds, 1983’s
The Right Stuff
remains the only respected version of Wolfe’s work on celluloid.
Author and social critic Tom Wolfe is no stranger to explorations of American life in all its complexities, whether it be racial issues, class relations, or politics, usually all at the same time. At its release, his novel A Man in Full was heralded as an instant classic, almost winning the National Book Award for Fiction in 1998. There’s no doubt that Wolfe knows how to write a hard-hitting satire on the pitfalls and hypocrisies of American life. So, who better than Regina King and David E. Kelley to bring one of his novels to the small screen? It’s a surefire recipe for success.
Not so fast. On his way to becoming one of America’s greatest writers (passing in 2018), there has always been one uncomfortable fact that has accompanied Wolfe’s unassailable reputation. Adaptations to his celebrated work don’t stick the landing. For a number of reasons, audiences never connected to the cinematic iterations of his output. For those afraid of devoting two weeks of their free time to plunging into the sprawling 750-page saga (we’re not going to pretend anyone here has finished it either, don’t feel bad), the prospect of a glossy Netflix series with Jeff Daniels, Diane Lane, and Lucy Liu should come as a relief. If ever there was a project that demanded the limited-run series model that streaming services are preoccupied with, this is it, right?
The more things change, the more they stay the same for any producer brave enough to venture to stage one of his books. Foolhardy might be a better word. Sometimes a film is more than a film, and sometimes the crushing weight of fanfare squashes any chances of a movie ever reaching or satisfying an audience. The reviews are in, and if it’s any indicator, this could be the last attempt. This time it is Netflix who was unlucky enough to test fate when they brought the six-part A Man in Full to streaming. Critic and fan reception has been cool at best. Looking back at Wolfe’s many film projects, it begs the uncomfortable question, are some books just not suited for TV and movies?
The Right Stuff Is Arguably the Best Wolfe Adaptation
The Right Stuff
- Release Date
- October 20, 1983
- Director
- Philip Kaufman
- Runtime
- 193
- Writers
- Tom Wolfe , Philip Kaufman
Using the 1979 winner of the American Book Award for non-fiction as source material, Sam Shepard, Dennis Quaid, Scott Glenn, and Ed Harris took on the roles of the Mercury Program’s astronaut candidates amid the US and Soviet Union’s battle for control over space. If you wanted paper-thin, jingoistic propaganda, this is sure to disappoint. Not even the astronauts are spared scrutiny.
Much of that magic can be credited less to the writing than to the acting and editing. In an interview with the ACE website, the film’s editor, Steve Rotter, credits the film’s success to director Philip Kaufman and fellow editors, who had to find a way to cobble together the hours of B-roll into something coherent:
“I thought that, in terms of direction, that film was a masterpiece because he had all these elements he had to weave together, and the cinematography was just brilliant because they had to match all that stock footage ambiance, and it looked perfect.”
The biopic retains its edge without succumbing to hero worship or clichés, the script exploring the contradictions and foibles of the superhero fly boys as they reach their physical and mental limits, bumping heads with their NASA minders. Among the cast are sprinkled cameos by fantastic character actors not limited to Harry Shearer and Jeff Goldblum, both shown as government recruiters on the hunt for men with the ego and attitude to risk their lives for a fleeting chance to vomit over themselves in a tin can in low Earth orbit. As far as ensemble casts go, Kaufman was meticulous. The results speak for themselves, which can’t always be said with regard to filling out the roster for a Wolfe book in movie format – more on that in a second.
Balancing the dramatic scenes with the white-knuckle cinematography, racking up multiple Oscars (nominated for Best Picture, Shepard for Supporting Actor) in the process, The Right Stuff remarkably did not recoup its budget. It was the beginning of an irksome trend. Those who only wanted patriotic nonsense were bound to get offended. Film historian Paul Meehan hypothesizes that it was intentionally ignored and misunderstood, potential viewers dreading it was a political stunt by former astronaut and current Ohio Senator John Glenn (played by Ed Harris in the film). Glenn formally announced his bid for the US Presidency at the time of the film’s 1983 release date. If only figuring out why the rest of Wolf’s creations stumbled was so easy.
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The Next Great American Movie That Never Was
Bonfire of the Vanities (1990)
- Release Date
- December 21, 1990
- Writers
- Michael Cristofer
As Judy Berman said of the Netflix original A Man in Full in her thrashing in Time, “Bad decisions permeate every frame of this adaptation. There’s rampant overacting, nonsensical backstories, sex scenes that were maybe supposed to be funny but are actually just weird.”
That same scathing quote could be applied to more than one of the cinematic interpretations of Wolfe’s novels. 1990 saw the next great Wolfe book arrive in theaters, this one about a drunken reporter named Peter Fallow, played by an extra smug Bruce Willis. Firmly within his range as a smart-ass troublemaker, Willis’ performance was fine, and the rest of the stars (including Tom Hanks, Melanie Griffith, and Morgan Freeman) gave adequate performances as well, but despite the constant attention from the press, the film nosedived. From the earliest days of its announcement, director Brian De Palma was raked over the coals. Remember how we said Kaufman was celebrated for his casting? Well, nobody was slapping De Palma on the back, as author Julie Salamon reminds us:
“The idea took hold that this particular movie could be the definitive vehicle of dreams, big enough and flashy enough to carry along a great number of people — the stretch limo of hope and ambition. Everyone wanted to hop on, lured by the promise of fame or money or something else, some element of magic.”
Fans are just as relentlessly catty as they ever were, with New York Magazine singling out his directing ability months before the thing debuted. The criticism was so pervasive that the film seemed doomed from the start. De Palma was the talk of the industry for the wrong reasons. At that point, he was better known for making lurid horror and melodramatic action films like Scarface, Carrie, and The Untouchables.
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De Palma’s touch was perfect for these films, with scripts tweaked to his liking. This movie would force him to adjust to the script and would cement his legacy or break it. Sadly, The Bonfire of the Vanities kneecapped his career at its peak. Living up to a beloved, best-selling book is more often than not a curse, especially if it was written by Wolfe.
The Bonfire of the Vanities was (and remains) a certified dud, though viewers today would be forgiven for not being upset over the movie. It’s not shockingly bad as the stinkpieces would imply, the subject of ridicule and ruthless post-mortems by film historians and critics for 34 years straight, and the go-to punching bag for The Razzies come award season. But that was the whole problem; it was an average movie that did not live up to the excitement that the book and media circus had whipped up.
The Tom Wolfe Curse Strikes Again?
Perhaps as a consequence of the unsavory legacy of The Bonfire of the Vanities, the remainder of Wolfe’s fiction, essays, and non-fiction have proven too big a gamble for studios to double down on. The Last American Hero, a film based on one of his early essays about a NASCAR driver and starring Jeff Bridges, is so obscure that locating reliable box office numbers or critiques is impossible. The rest of his catalog is all in a creative or legal state of limbo.
Initial reports looked good for a deal to get his novel I Am Charlotte Simmons made in 2021, per Variety. That seems unlikely. Updates from the company that owns the rights have gone radio silent. Gus Van Sant was quoted by Indie Wire as busy at work on a long-awaited movie version of Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test… in 2011. Don’t hold your breath on that either, book lovers.
Many of the big-name proposed projects associated with Tom Wolfe’s bibliography have simply been sucked into a black hole of development hell. Why? After the tepid response to the last few Wolfe adaptations, it seems that The Right Stuff was truly a unicorn and not a particularly profitable one. Why would anyone take on the burden when they can pitch and re-write their own original script instead of staring down the sky-high standards (pun fully intended) associated with something like The Right Stuff?
Book fans are famously fickle. Consult a Percy Jackson reader for further elaboration on that matter. Why don’t any of his highly-esteemed novels and non-fiction pieces translate to film smoothly? Who knows, maybe people are worn out watching smarmy, rich yuppies bickering. A Man in Full is currently available on Netflix. The Right Stuff is purchasable on DVD and Blu-ray and can be streamed on most streaming services for sale or rent.
