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Altered States

The book Altered States was made into the movie Altered States.

Which one did you like better, the book or the movie?  There are 5 votes for the book, and 5 votes for the movie.

Book details for Altered States

Altered States was written by Paddy Chayefsky. The book was published in 1978 by Bantam Books (Mm). More information on the book is available on Amazon.com.

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Movie details for Altered States

The movie was released in 1980 and directed by Ken Russell. Altered States was produced by Warner Home Video. More information on the movie is available on Amazon.com and also IMDb.

Actors on this movie include William Hurt, Blair Brown, Bob Balaban, Charles Haid, Thaao Penghlis, Miguel Godreau, Dori Brenner, Peter Brandon, Charles White-Eagle, Drew Barrymore, Megan Jeffers, Jack Murdock, Francis X. McCarthy, Deborah Baltzell, Evan Richards, Hap Lawrence, John Walter Davis, Cynthia Burr, Susan Bredhoff and John Larroquette.

 

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It's easy to understand why the late, great screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky removed his name from the credits of Altered States and substituted the pseudonym Sidney Aaron. After all, Chayefsky was a revered dramatist whose original source novel was intended ... Read More
It's easy to understand why the late, great screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky removed his name from the credits of Altered States and substituted the pseudonym Sidney Aaron. After all, Chayefsky was a revered dramatist whose original source novel was intended as a serious exploration of altered consciousness, inspired by the immersion-tank experiments of Dr. John Lilly in the 1970s. In the hands of maverick director Ken Russell, however, Altered States became a full-on sensory assault, using symbolic imagery and mind- blowing special effects to depict one man's physical and hallucinatory journey through the entire history of human evolution. It's a brazenly silly film redeemed by its intellectual ambition--a dazzling extravaganza that's in love with science and scientists, and eagerly willing to dive off the precipice of rationality to explore uncharted regions of mind, body, and spirit. William Hurt made his bold film debut as the psycho-physiologist who plays guinea pig to his own experiments; Blair Brown plays his equally brilliant wife, whose devotion is just strong enough to bring him back from the most altered state imaginable. From the eternal channels of sense memory to the restorative power of a loving embrace, this movie rocks you to the birth of the universe and back again. And while it's clearly not the story that Chayefsky wanted on the screen, the directorial audacity of Ken Russell makes it one heck of a memorable trip. --Jeff Shannon