Page and Frame

When movies come out that have been adapted from books, people frequently debate which is better. A lousy movie may prompt fans of the book it's drawn from to say that the movie "ruined the book." Stephen King liked to quote an author friend, who would look at a shelf of his work after hearing such a comment and say, "No, they're still there."

The Coen brothers' version of True Grit was said to be a new adaptation of Charles Portis' novel of the same name, rather than a remake of the 1969 movie starring John Wayne. Argumentative fans were in heaven, as they might now debate the relative merits of the movies against each other as well as against their source material. This debate, like most similar ones, will not likely resolve itself. In recent years, fans of different works have conclusively proven that the onscreen versions of The Lord of the Rings, the Harry Potter series, the Narnia series and the Twilight books are clearly inferior to, equal to and obviously superior to their printed counterparts.

One roadblock to resolution is that books and movies are different media. The mind of the reader must -- no matter how reluctant it might be to do so -- imagine how vampire Edward Cullen sparkles in the sunlight. But thanks to CGI, someone watching Twilight in the theater can see exactly how at least one person pictures that momentous event. An excellent movie may tell roughly the same story as an excellent book, but it's tough to compare them because of the different ways they communicate.

But sometimes you get one or the other that stands pretty clearly above its counterpart. Kevin Costner's 2003 Open Range has that relationship with its source material, Lauran Paine's 1990 novel The Open Range Men. Some spoilers follow, so beware if you want to find out for yourself how the book and the movie end.

Oddly for someone who's been writing Westerns for more than 50 years, Open Range is only the second Paine novel ever adapted for movies (The first, 1957's The Quiet Gun, was taken from Paine's novel Law Man). Both book and movie concern the conflict between free-grazing cattlemen Boss Spearman and Charley Waite with rancher Denton Baxter, who owns much of the ranchland around the town of Harmonville, as well as the town sheriff and much of the town itself. Baxter aims to steal Spearman's cattle after running him and his hands off. Spearman and Waite deal with cowed townspeople as well as Baxter's hired goons and gunhands, and Craig Storper's movie script tracks Paine's novel pretty closely for about two-thirds of its length. In both we meet the town doctor, Walt Barlow, and his pretty sister Sue, for whom Charley develops quite a fondness.

At that point, though, the movie starts to branch away from the book. In the book, after an attempt to capture or incapacitate the town marshal's henchmen near their trail wagon, Spearman and Waite are captured and jailed. Paine introduces a circuit judge and federal marshal, neither of whom are all that enamored or frightened of Baxter and whose presence complicates his scheme to have the free-grazing cattlemen arrested so he can take their cattle. Baxter has Spearman shot from ambush while the pair are being taken back to jail after their hearing, leaving Charley to team up with the federal lawman to chase down Baxter and his henchmen before shooting it out with them at their campfire. Spearman's death leaves Charley with ownership of the heard and the responsibility for their youngest worker, Button, who had been injured in an earlier attack. Charley decides to sell the herd, divide the proceeds with Button and settle down with Sue.

In the movie, Spearman and Charley decide to wait for the town marshal and his deputies in their own jail, ambushing them when they return from a fruitless night waiting for the freegrazers to show at their wagon. With them out of the fight, the pair confront Baxter and his hired guns in an epic gunbattle that moves through the entire town and results in both of them being wounded before some of the townspeople, finding their courage, take a hand and tip the scales. Spearman and Charley decide to take the herd to be sold before returning to town to settle down, Spearman as a saloon owner and Charley with Sue.

Although Paine's novel is a perfectly serviceable oater, the Storper-Costner version of the story is much stronger. For one, a story as short as The Open Range Men has no business introducing pivotal characters like a judge and federal marshal so late in the book. Their presence, the trial that develops from it and the revelation that one of Baxter's hired gunmen is actually a gunfighter that the marshal has been tracking under a different name all needlessly complicate the story. The marshal gives Charley an experienced partner for his ambush on the ranchers' campgrounds because Paine just killed the partner Charley spent most of the book with. Storper gives Charley some experience in gunfighting and battle and leaves Spearman alive, redistributing the marshal's characteristics among existing roles in the story.

Storper also gives both characters more backstory than did Paine, adding dimension to them that offers some understanding of why they do what they do and lending some weight to their different decisions. In spite of that, though, he is able to trim several branches from Paine's version, offering a clearer path from start to finish and making a much more robust narrative. Of course, Storper and Costner also benefit from the presence of the iconic Robert Duvall as Spearman, Annette Benning's quiet, graceful strength as Sue Barlow and Costner himself as Charley. These actors, in turn, draw from Paine's spare but well-outlined characterizations to create roles recognizable on both the page and the screen -- even though the actors are all about a decade or more older than the characters they're playing, according to Paine's novel.

In the end, the debate as to whether the movie Open Range is better than the book The Open Range Men or vice-versa is as likely to resolve as the ones listed above. Open Range has a cleaner, tighter and more focused story that increases its power, but without The Open Range Men as its source material it's hard to imagine that it would have had nearly as strong a foundation on which to build. Probably best to be grateful for both and for the happy result of their symbiosis.