By Walter Kraatz
The use of a book as the premise for a movie has happened since the beginning of film with early 20th century adaptions of Frankenstein and Cinderella being prime examples. The comparison of a book and its movie is a popular point of discussion and contention between book nerds and film nerds. This comparison between a book and film, while fun, is inherently flawed because of the differences between the two mediums.
The most obvious and important difference between a book and a film is the visual element present in a film that is absent in a book. Even if a film is based on a comic book or graphical novel the amount of detail that can be shown in a film exceeds the book because of the movements and expressions of the actors and the detailed background images that can be limited by print quality in a comic book. Because of the lack of a visual element in a book the author must provide a description which can be interpreted by the reader in different ways. The visual element of a film provides an explicit and concrete interpretation of the verbs and adjectives of the book that is based on how a select few screenwriters, VFX artists, and set piece designers visualized a book. The separate but related visualizations of a book can be argued between themselves but presenting a more abstract personal visualization of a book against the concrete visuals of a film might make it possible, albeit difficult, to argue person to person about the superiority of a book or a film, but would make it weird to argue within a large group or fandom.
A second and still extremely influential difference between a film and a book is marketability. The limitation of most films to 90-120 minutes and sometimes up to 180 minutes runtime is due to how long most audience would be willing to sit in a theater and watch the film. This time constraint does not apply nearly as much to a book because of the ability put in a bookmark and stop reading the book for a while. This time constraint places a limit on how much world-building and dialogue can be carried over from the books. While one could use this limitation as an argument that the book is always better than there is absolutely no point to be having a discussion about an individual film if the outcome is always expected.
The argument between the superiority of a book over a film or vice versa is corrupted by several confounding variables that make it impossible to have an argument that compares apples to apples. However I also wouldn't consider this an apples to oranges argument either, but rather an apple pie to applesauce argument. In an apple pie to applesauce argument each share the same key element, but there are large and irreconcilable differences in the other ingredients and the method of preparations.
You make a convincing argument but I'm not entirely sure it's pointless to compare a book to a movie since if there's a movie adaptation of a book people generally expect it to be like the book or will expect something from it. I agree that the different mediums can make it hard to compare but in another case, like if you're reviewing a movie that's a film-adaptation of a book, you're probably going to have to compare the two because of what I said about people expecting something from a movie-adaptation.
ReplyDeleteThis seems like a bit of an attack on the amount of student articles recently comparing books and movies. I do agree with a lot of your points, though! Because the two are so different, a direct comparison isn't entirely possible. However, I also agree with Ben in that the general ideas of the book and movie are the same. If a movie were to completely change an aspect of the book's plot, that would be more open to debate by the "nerds" than, say, the casting director's choice for the main character.
ReplyDeleteOk so I originally had a longer comment but that got deleted so here's the reproduced tl;dr version:
ReplyDeleteI think that your points to support your argument are valid, but not so much accurate. I think that the main "irreconcilable difference" is not because the formats are fundamentally different things; its rather that the film makers try to appeal to a larger audience. Because of this, they mutilate and twist the original plot into the bad film adaptation.
You could make the same argument with turning a cartoon into a live-action film, but that wouldn't make your points any truer. Avatar the Last Airbender was an enormously popular cartoon show, however the live action adaptation of it was... not very good. Sticking to your argument, you could say that because one is a cartoon and the other one is a live action film, these "fundamental differences" makes it pointless to compare them. However, the reason why the movie adaptation was bad wasn't because of these fundamental differences; its because the movie was poorly directed and produced!
I'm going to be generic and agree with the rest of the comments; whereas I do agree that some aspects important to books are forced to diverge with the source material in a given movie, some movies violate the source material so egregiously that it can't be ignored.
ReplyDeleteAlso, applesauce is better than apple pie.
I was about to click off of this post when I saw your atrocious statement at the end of your comment. HOW can apple sauce be better than apple pie?! Apple pie has warm sweet and slightly tangy filling with beautiful cinnamon aromatics that spread out through the room. Apple pie has a delicious pie crust with an AMAZING caramelized sugar on top that adds a perfect amount of crunch. Then we have apple sauce a cold/room temperature grainy mixture made up of overcooked blended apples that has been preserved in a dusty factory. HOW ARE THEY EVEN COMPARABLE?!
DeleteI agree and disagree with your argument of course it makes sense that a movie cannot catch the entire essence of a book being that books can take place through multiple days, weeks, months, even years while a movie is only 1-2 hours so its impossible for the movie to really get every scene and moments in without rushing it. But I do still believe that movies should be able to portray what the author wanted to get across within their limited time frame. You're right and wrong in my opinion. But this seems like a very well put together post, good job.
ReplyDeleteI was always annoyed when during book vs. movie arguments my mom would point out that she liked books because she could picture the character in her head, and that in movies the character was established for her. That argument is ridiculous when trying to prove that a single book is better than a movie, because the entire point of the movie is to have a concrete visual of the book's ideas. However, if using that argument to prove why all books are better than their movie counterparts, then it makes a little more sense.
ReplyDeleteI agree that book versus movie arguments are stupid, but they definitely aren't pointless. They make for interesting and often passionate discussions, and for those who like to argue, its fun to do.
I think the book vs. movie debate still has some merit. You're right that the two mediums are vastly different, but when a book and a movie tell the same story, I think they are worth comparing.
ReplyDeleteTake The Lord of the Rings for example. I really did not like the books. I read one chapter of the Fellowship and immediately quit because of how boring I thought it was. I've read many books with slow starts, but The Lord of the Rings' was just unbearable. On the other hand, I absolutely loved the movies. I felt like they actually moved the plot along at a good pace and I was able to enjoy the story and world that Tolkien created.
Another example is Ready Player One. The book was amazing and told a really engaging story, but the movie just cut so many major parts out of the story that I just couldn't enjoy it. I felt like the movie took the beginning, one or two parts from the middle, and the end, slapped it all together with a bunch of video game characters for fan service and called it a day. I understand that movies need to cut out some parts of the story so that it doesn't go on for hours, but the amount that the Ready Player One movie cut out was crossing the line.
Sorry about the late comment, this topic interests me even if it was almost a month ago. I agree with Anna that this feels like a direct attack on me and all the other people who have posted a blog post about movie-book comparisons. I, like many other people, think you make a valid argument that books are not comparable to movies. The movie will almost always be worse than the book, but some movie are less worse. Some movies manage to better capture the book's main points and leave out the unimportant stuff. Also, I should correct myself, there is one circumstance where the movie is better and that is when the book is written after the movie.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with your assessment of what makes a movie and book different. I think movie vs book comparisons could still be used effectively though. One way is that it can point out how to make a better movie out of said book or in general how to make a better movies. I don't think it is impossible to compare a movie and a book, as a movie could be better than the book and vice versa. In the end it is important to remember how sometimes changes from book to movie are needed for the movie to be better, and there are fundamental differences between the mediums.
ReplyDeleteYeah I think you think a fair point, but like many others I think book vs movie comparisons still have some sort of value in how different people interpret the story.
ReplyDelete