To obsess over replication is to do the source material a great injustice; to represent it as sterile, and unnecessary…. adaptations ought to add something to the appreciation of the source material, rather than pointlessly parrot it back like inalienable gospel.

I agree. A good example of this are films of two of my favorite books, Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment and Hesse’s Steppenwolf.

Bresson’s Pickpocket was so loosely based on the source material that it’s practically unrecognizable but it’s surprisingly good at capturing its essence (unlike the nominally more faithful 1930s adaptation with Peter Lorre). Raskolnikov’s intellectual desperation didn’t really carry well to cinema, so Bresson’s impassive approach was a more effective way of building tension.

On the other hand, the Max Von Sydow version of Steppenwolf was quite faithful to the book, but only succeeded in demonstrating how unsuitable to cinema the story was.