Breakfast at Tiffany’s is quite famous and has been adapted into several different mediums. The novella was first published in 1958 entitled Breakfast at Tiffany’s a short novel and three stories by Truman Capote. Then in 1961 the novel was famously adapted into the popular movie starring Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly and George Peppard as Paul Varjak and directed by Blake Edwards. Due to the success of the movie and the enchanting characters the various adaptations started a musical version premiered in 1966 in Boston but it was canceled after only four performances. Then only three years later ABC created a sitcom that never took off. Lastly the novel was adapted into a play for a production in 2009 at a London theater. This novel has been taken and changed several times to adapt to the different mediums. The only thing staying indefinitely the same was the name of the characters and the title of the novel. Throughout the different adaptations whole characters have been left out and time periods changed and the end.
To focus mainly on the first adaption from book to film there were several changes that made a big difference. The first notable change was the time period in which the story takes place. The time period in the novel was the forties and then in the movie the time period was the present meaning the sixties. I know that this change might not seem that important but it is. The importance of the time period is what makes the characters actions believable. I wonder why the people felt that the time period needed to be changed.
Another difference between the two was the nature of the Holly’s sexual relationships with the various men. Holly in the novella has slept and lived with several different men. The book also insinuates that Holly was pregnant due to her relationship with Jose a Brazilian diplomat. The movie however leaves all this information out of the movie. Then the movie explains that Paul is kept by an older married woman, and this was completely created for the movie. This type of character creation and the leaving out of these important details is one of the reasons why the movie is so different from the book. Although the time period and the relations of the characters was changed that wasn’t the biggest change that was made.
The biggest change that was made was the ending. The ending of the book has Holly do a one eighty and go against her nature. Instead of a remembrance of Holly, the narrator ends up convincing Holly to stay in New York with him by making her realize that, like her and her cat, they belong to each other. This totally changed the theme of the story. In the book, Holly is always traveling-searching for a place to belong, a place she never finds. In the book Holly lets her cat go and she leaves leaving Paul the narrator to wonder if she ever finds what she’s looking for. This change really angered Capote he felt that Paramount had butchered his story. I can completely understand why Capote was upset; they took the ending and finished with the typical ideal ‘Hollywood’ ending. Due to the ending that the movie has the whole theme and tone of the movie changed drastically and it makes you wonder if the movie would have been better with the actual ending that Capote had written.
Not to completely bash the movie there were several parts of the movie that were word for word and beautifully adapted. Yes, the story was changed to fit a movie format and the movie going audience but as a whole the film in my opinion translated some of the material from the book elegantly and accurately and lastly some of the scenes are perfect. The only way to truly judge a movie and book is to judge them separately.