I was just wondering what everyone thought about filming literature. Are they 2 separate entities not to be compared? Should they be compared? Is it acceptable to add/delete charaters, text, etc in the film version of a novel? Which should be tackled first by the viewer/reader: the book or the film? And what does a film version do to the imagination of the reader/viewer? (This is what got me to open this thread in the first place: I was reading Michael Ende's Neverending Story to a group of children who blatently told me they had seen the movie and don't need to read the book. What bothers me here is that, in the book, the Land of Fantasia is dying, slowly disappearing, because children have stopped reading and thus have stopped using their imagination. It's pleading for children to not give up reading; pleading for the love of books. Okay. But then they make a movie out of it which does the very thing that is warned against in the book). On the other hand, I myself know Gone With the Wind only as a film and so, as not to spoil the film for me, have refused to read the book. I find myself being pulled here and there on my own question.
I would be very interested in any comments.

I once heard a speaker call film a bastardized art form. Not surprisingly, he was a writer. To him, the flaw in film had to do with its corporate nature, whereas writers lived the ideal of the lone artist. We might be able to refute his opinion by noting that for a play to be staged takes a number of people as well, and that the playwright can be compared to a screenwriter.

All one may have to go on here is personal preference. I strongly feel that a book is a better thing than a film, but of course I can't expect to defend that rationally. I especially like the idea that once a book is in your hands, no technology is needed to use it (unless we all go to Kindles!). What I do think might be true is that a film is almost always like a condensed book. Unless the film is exceptionally long or the book exceptionally short, the film will omit much of the book's content. And that makes it seem as though the film-maker is just trading on the book's name to get attention for his film. I think I respect the original screenplay more than the adaptation.

As far as your question about beggaring the imagination goes, I think, yes, it's true that a spectacle will offer less for the imagination to work on than the medium of words. Film makes some of the choices for you that you make on your own while reading. It makes me sad to hear of the reaction of the schoolchildren to your offer to read The Neverending Story to them! They will be missing something really great if they don't lose that notion.

I still sometimes am eager to see a movie based on a book I've read. I'm curious what they've done with Cormac McCarty's The Road, due out this week. Often, though, I look at the extravaganza of making a movie and think, what a waste of money and work. This is not quite fair, I know, and it's a good thing for people to be able to get employment in the movie industry. Good question, by the way.

I always hate films that have been made based off of books. You can never quite capture the author's authentic voice, or the characters' feelings and thoughts. If you want a film of a book, locate your imagination and utilize it. Films leave out the characters' thoughts, big chunks of what producers dislike (ironically what the general public typically loves) and try to add things that just don't belong. There are quite simply just a few things you can only explain with words.

I enjoy films, especially old films, and I'm addicted to reading. I enjoy both. I remember one film, "Being There" that I thought was better than the book. I think "Moby Dick" with Gregory Peck is a great film and the book is a great book. "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" is a good book and, if you've read the book, a terrible film.

Well, call me a Philistine, but I think both books and movies are attractive mediums, in their own rights.

Books certainly demand an efficient imagination, and can better describe certain situations. Having one's soul slip away, for example, is probably better left in words than attempted on the screen, even if you do have a top notch fx team.

On the other hand, humans are visual creatures, and large areas of the brain are given over to processing sight, much more so than the other senses. We are programmed to pick up a wide variety of visual signals. Much communication, for example, is non-verbal. One’s eye becomes very acute at picking up dozens, or even hundreds of subtle signals that take place during a conversation. It would be tedious to the extreme to try and catalogue all of these in words, but the average human eye would take them in in an instant.

Film at its best is an art form, although at its worst is just junk. But books could be similarly categorized. Unfortunately the bar seems to be set pretty low for films.

etudiant wrote:Well, call me a Philistine, but I think both books and movies are attractive mediums, in their own rights.

i agree wholeheartedly with you. there certainly are problems of adaptation. we learned about this in our class on film and literature and what i learned is that since both are different mediums developed from different creative minds, we really can't expect the harry potter on books to be symmetrical to the harry potter on films. i love both books and movies....

In this case, a picture is not worth a 1000 words. I recently watched the movie, "The Sound and the Fury", one of the books we are discussing now. I will be so bold to say, that my imagination oftentimes is better than the finished product of a film. If an author clearly develops a character, even if that author does not describe the physical traits of the character, I have a clear image as to how that character should look and behave. I am oftentimes dissapointed in the casting of many movies taken from books and the dialogue. I think you can get to know the personality of a character through dialogue better than a 1000 words of discription. "The Sound and the Fury" distroyed many of the characters and took liberties with the novel that I did not appreciate. If a read a novel that I have enjoyed, I sometimes, will not see the movie. I enjoy the character development that just can't be achieved in a movie.

I find movies help me picture the character better. But when watching a film version of a novel, you really just have to keep in mind it's the director's interpretation.

There are lots of stories which I wouldnt know about if it werent for the film adaptations. Im talking about films adapted from authors like Charles Dickins, Austen (I read Austen but I enjoy the films more) George Elliot and Tolkin. Basically books which are quite hard going and im unlikely to read so the films make it more enjoyable.

Im always interested in the films from books ive read but I always want to read the book first. Ive brought the Road and wont watch the film until ive read it.

Pinkpaper wrote:There are lots of stories which I wouldnt know about if it werent for the film adaptations. Im talking about films adapted from authors like Charles Dickins, Austen (I read Austen but I enjoy the films more) George Elliot and Tolkin. Basically books which are quite hard going and im unlikely to read so the films make it more enjoyable.

Im always interested in the films from books ive read but I always want to read the book first. Ive brought the Road and wont watch the film until ive read it.

I really want to see that. The movie's getting alright reviews, but it's mostly from people who are like "oh geez, this AND 2012, too much apocalypse", and they're lowering the score for that. I mean, it's a really depressing book, so the movie will be as well.