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Adapting the Twists and Turns of ‘Conclave’

The screenwriter Peter Straughan has become adept at taking well known — and beloved — books and adapting them for the big and small screens. He was first nominated for an Oscar for his screenplay of the 2011 film “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” based on the classic John le Carré spy novel, and then adapted Hilary Mantel’s “Wolf Hall” trilogy into an award-winning season of television, with an adaptation of the third novel coming out soon. Now he has been nominated for a second Oscar: for his screenplay for “Conclave,” based on Robert Harris’s political thriller set in the secret world of a papal election.“It’s almost like mosaic work,” Straughan tells Gilbert Cruz, the editor of The New York Times Book Review, about adapting books. “You have all these pieces; sometimes they’re going to be laid out in a very similar order to the book, sometimes a completely different order. Sometimes you’re going to deconstruct and rebuild completely.” In this episode of our special series devoted to Oscar-nominated films adapted from books, Cruz talks with Straughan about his process of translating a book to the screen, and about the moments in ‘‘Conclave” that he found most exciting to adapt.

March 2, 2025

Podcasts
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Inside the Making of ‘Wicked’

One day, several decades ago, the writer Winnie Holzman was shopping in a Manhattan bookstore when a particular cover caught her eye. It showed a woman with a green face, a black hat pulled down over her eyes. The book was “Wicked” by Gregory Maguire, a retelling of L. Frank Baum’s “Oz” stories from the perspective of the Wicked Witch of the West. “When I turned it over and read the little précis on the back, it blew my mind,” Holzman said. “I thought it was such a brilliant premise.” The book ended up on Holzman’s bookshelf, with its enigmatic cover facing out. Years later, the composer Stephen Schwartz contacted Holzman to ask if she’d be interested in adapting Maguire’s book for the stage. The musical they wrote together opened in 2003, and it is now one of the most successful shows in Broadway history. The producers started talking about a movie adaptation, but Holzman was cautious: “We had to really kind of clear our minds and kind of reconceive the whole story.” The film version of “Wicked” opened in 2024, starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, and with a screenplay by Holzman and Dana Fox. It is one of the highest-grossing movies of the year and is nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including best picture. Holzman joins Gilbert Cruz, the editor of The New York Times Book Review, to discuss the benefits and drawbacks of adapting your own adaptation.

March 2, 2025

Podcasts
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Is Bob Dylan Still a ‘Complete Unknown’?

Elijah Wald’s 2015 book, “Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan and the Night That Split the Sixties,” traces the events that led up to Bob Dylan’s memorable performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. The book is about Dylan, but also about the folk movement, youth culture, politics and the record business. For the writer and director James Mangold, Wald’s work provided an opportunity to tell an unusual story about the musician. “You could structure a screenplay along the lines of what Peter Shaffer did with “Amadeus,’” Mangold told The New York Times Book Review editor Gilbert Cruz. “I don’t really know what I learned about Mozart watching ‘Amadeus.’ But I do know that I learned a lot about how we mortals feel about people with immense talent.” Mangold’s film “A Complete Unknown” is a chronicle of Dylan’s early years on the New York folk scene, and it avoids easy explanations for the musician’s genius and success. “What if the thing we don’t understand, we just don’t want to understand,” said Mangold, “which is that he’s actually different? That he’s just a different kind of person than you or I?” In the second episode of our special series devoted to Oscar-nominated films adapted from books, Cruz talks with Mangold about making a film centered on one of music’s most enigmatic figures.

March 2, 2025

Podcasts
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How ‘Nickel Boys’ Became One of the Year’s Most Visually Striking Films

When the filmmaker and photographer RaMell Ross first read “The Nickel Boys,” Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about two Black boys in a dangerous reform school in the 1960s, he couldn’t help but put himself in the shoes of its protagonists, Elwood and Turner. In his film adaptation of the book, Ross does that to the audience: You see what the characters see, because it’s filmed from the main character’s point of view. “I wondered,” Ross said, “how do you explicitly film from the perspective of a Black person?” It was an experiment that has paid off in critical acclaim. “Nickel Boys” has been nominated for two Academy Awards: best adapted screenplay and best picture. In our special series devoted to Oscar-nominated films adapted from books, “The Book Review” podcast host Gilbert Cruz talks with Ross about why he made the film this particular way.

March 2, 2025

Podcasts