Novels and movies are very different animals, and, as any screenwriter will tell you, it takes nothing short of a miracle to duplicate the phenomenon of a truly beloved book on film.
But sometimes the miracle happens. It happened to “Gone With the Wind,” “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “The Color Purple,” all of which made it to the screen with their essences intact, and were arguably even enhanced by the process.
And based on the rave reviews and early audience response, it also has happened to “The Joy Luck Club,” Amy Tan’s 1989 bittersweet best seller that interweaves the lives of four pairs of Chinese-American mothers and daughters.
Part of the reason for this success may be Tan’s total involvement with the film project, but in Seattle recently, where she made a publicity stop, she credited “beginner’s luck” and meeting the right filmmakers.
Tan, 41, said that after her book started to take off in 1989, she was inundated by producers who wanted to option it. “But I was very leery of Hollywood, and the whole business of moviemaking. I really didn’t know anything about it, and I guess I still don’t know very much.”
She became interested when she was approached by Wayne Wang, the Hong Kong-born, San Francisco-based director of “Chan Is Missing” and “Dim Sum.”
“I knew Wayne’s films,” she said, “and I knew he could handle the material-after all, he had lived the Chinese emigrant experience. So, after we met, I got excited about the idea.”
But not until the third element came into place did the movie start to happen. This was Ron Bass, a former entertainment lawyer who in the 1980s made the transition to Hollywood screenwriter; he won an Oscar in 1988 for the script to “Rain Man.”
Bass long had had a special fascination with China and impressed Tan with an improvised scene-by-scene breakdown of the book at their first meeting.
“He was also the only `name’ screenwriter we talked to about the project who wanted me involved,” she said.
As writing partners they were an odd couple. Tan was accustomed to a lazy pace and quiet, literary surroundings. Bass is a bulldozer, getting up at 2:30 a.m. every morning, taking 50 phone calls a day and turning out, on average, eight scripts a year.
But somehow it worked.
“My job was primarily the structure,” Bass said. “Amy made sure the tone and vision were correct. We worked each other’s drafts, and wrote most of the dialogue together. Wayne (Wang) was there to make sure we stayed within two hours (running time). It sounds chaotic, but it was a very amicable experience.”
After coming up with the script they liked, the three decided they would not compromise it and went for complete creative control. After being turned down at several studios, Jeffrey Katzenberg at Disney gave them the deal they wanted.
In casting the film, their first thought was to go after Gong Li, the Chinese star of “Raise the Red Lantern” and “Ju Dou.”
“We had a lunch at Universal City,” Bass said, “and she was interested, but she was just too booked up.
“In retrospect I’m glad at how it worked out. She is such a star right now she might have thrown the ensemble off balance. And I’m very happy with what we got.”
The film was cast with eight Asian actresses and shot late last year mostly around San Francisco, though several sequences were shot in China. Bass said the budget came in “at just under $11 million.”
The buzz on the film began about a month ago, after several successful Los Angeles previews. Since then it has had a triumphant debut at the Telluride Film Festival, a sellout opening weekend in New York and L.A. and glowing reviews. In its first two weeks in seven locations, the film earned $38,093 per location.
Tan and Bass stressed again that the film was the result of a rare three-way collaboration that became a friendship.
The collaboration was so good that they plan to adapt Tan’s second novel, “The Kitchen God’s Wife,” and Bass also said he can’t stop thinking about a “Joy Luck” sequel: “I really want to know what happens to these characters.”
Tan agreed, but said she didn’t relish the idea of becoming a full-time screenwriter: “It’s not the kind of writing I enjoy. Maybe it’s not private enough. But the movies are seductive-it’s exciting to think (of) how large an audience a film can reach. Some people have actually come up and said they liked the movie better than the book. For a while I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Now I feel pretty good.”
