In the past i quite often had discussions about whether a film adaption of a book is as good as the book itself, or even better, that a film could never come near the book.
In my opinion comparing a book with a movie is just as absurd as comparing a book with a theater play, a tv series with a movie or even comparing a novel with a poem – it just does not work. All of those are completely different media, each with it´s own rules and restrictions, each with a completely different basis.
Books
When reading a book you develop your own imagination of how the characters would look like, how they move, react and in which world they live in, you imagine the general look of the story. Another important aspect of books is the way it is written, the specific grammar of the book, so a book transports the story with words that inspire you to create your own perspective of things.
Films
A movie works completely different, a movie shows, a movie tells a story with its own language, in fact there are several different levels how a movie tells a story:
- » Filmlook
- » Acting
- » Staging
- » Camera Work
- » Editing
- » Sound & Music
All these are different layers that work together and affect the movie on the whole, all these different layers take effect on the audience, so as a movie maker you have loads of possibilities how to tell a story.
Comparing books and movies
So if you watch a movie and you also read the book you could judge each media by itself, “it is a good / bad book” and “it is a good / bad movie”, but it´s nonsense to say “the book is better than the movie”, the movie is just a small part of the story adapted for a movie.
If you watch a movie with the intention that it perfectly imitates your own imagination you had from the book, the movie won´t work for you. Of course it depends on how detailed the descriptions in the book have been, but in most cases don´t expect the movie to bring your phantasy on the screen, in almost every case you´ll be disappointed.
Instead try to give both media a chance, if you liked the book don´t expect the movie to contain every detail of the book, try to put aside everything from the book and let the movie work. Even if just a quintessence from the story from the book has made it into the movie, and the movie works for you, it´s a good movie.
Adapting a book to a movie
The job of the movie as far as i am concerned, the novelist, is to take the minimum intention of the novel and illustrate it with the maxiumum of freedom, in movie language, in movie grammar.
This is a cite from John le Carré, author of the novel “The Constant Gardener”. I think that cite says everything, a book is just too different from a movie, so just taking the very basic idea from the story and not try to imitate the book – that´s how a book adaption can work.
There is hardly a line left, there is hardly a scene intact in this movie, that comes from my novel. Yet i don´t know of a better translation from novel to film, than this one.
John le Carré about “The Constant Gardener”
Books and their Movies…
Miso writes about books <> movies:
In the past i quite often had discussions about whether a film adaption of a book is as good as the book itself, or even better, that a film could never come near the book.
In my opinion comparing a book with …
and i thought its all about the characters ;-p
(… some weeks ago you made the argument that no matter if movie or series its all about the character which makes it great. i said well they are different media with different possibilities, but you said, still characters metter most. of course you could stretch that argument on any media you like…)
anyway. i get your point, but you can still say that is a high class book and a shitty movie so objectively the book is better. or the other way round. what comes hard to judge is when both book and movie are very good (or very bad), so its hard to tell which is better. but same goes with movies on each other or any art form you like. you cant just argue on an rational level if michelangelo is better then picasso or mozart is better than beethoven (i mean you can but thats mostly bullshit). at that level its just personal preferences. but you can still see at one glance that a picture of rubens objectively has more quality than a novel by thomas brezina.
but whats absolutely true in your argument is that most people come with false expectations into a movie of a novel, and this expectations of course cant be fulfilled. same goes with comic and video game adaptions.
Well, as for the characters, they have to be good in the book as well as the movie
Of course it is legal to say that you liked the book, but dislike the movie, and you conclude that the book is better. It is just a statement like you said comparing michelangelo and picasso, you can say it, even if those things are not really compareable, but let´s not be so fussy
Comparing the quality of a media itself is absolutely o.k. (like you meant a picture of rubens and a novel from Brezina), but that´s right what i meant with: “good / bad book” and “good / bad movie”, the important part is just that most people have wrong expectations of a movie…
And you brought up a very good point, comic and video game adaptions, the same idea goes for these media.
bookz are waaaaaaaaaaay betta than vids as u r not limited to wat the dirictor pictures lik in james patterson vids it describes the main character as a young man but in the vid i was disapointed to find an old man acting as the main character
well, as i said, you can´t really compare books to movies, they media are so different that it´s nearly impossible.
but then again, this is my opinion