These Two Books Ask, Was the Movie Better?

Dear readers,

I once went on a coffee date with a man who, early on, confided that he had based the décor of his studio apartment on the sets of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s lurid psychodrama classic, “The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant.” I found this confidence so mortifying (and the prospect of white fur rugs so alarming) that I did not see him a second time, thereby saving me from having to admit that my own studio’s décor had been inspired by Midge’s apartment in Alfred Hitchcock’s lurid psychodrama classic, “Vertigo.”

I was reminded of this terrible thing by the fact that the Paris Theater here in New York just showed “Vertigo” as part of its highly-recommended BIG LOUD 2024 series, and in turn, I revisited the novel on which it was based.

Often, it’s true, the book really is better. Other times, an adaptation takes workmanlike text and transforms it into something transcendent (hello, “Godfather”). Occasionally, a filmmaker and their subject are so perfectly matched that the result is more than the sum of its parts — looking at you, “The Road.” And sometimes, movies are just perfect reflections of the texts; I’d put “The Remains of the Day” in this category (although of course we could debate it for years).

What I want to talk about today are two cases where the movie made me aware of the source book — a book I might otherwise have never read.

— Sadie

“The Living and the Dead,” by Boileau-Narcejac

Fiction, 1956

Paris, 1940. A lawyer named Roger Flavières — who has a morbid fear of heights — is approached by an old friend whose wife, Madeleine, has been acting strangely; she seems to be possessed by the spirit of an ancestor who died by suicide at the same age. Roger begins to tail the beautiful Madeleine and ultimately saves her from drowning in the Seine. The two bond; she explains her melancholy obsession. Ultimately, Madeleine feels drawn to a remote village, where she throws herself from a bell tower. Roger, paralyzed by his phobia, can only watch helplessly.