Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about movies …How do you react to movies made of your favourite books (or even not-so-favourite books)? Do you look forward to seeing them, or avoid them? Do you like to have read the book before seeing the movie?
I have degrees in literature, composition, and film, so seeing books made into movies just gets my little heart afluttering. Most of the time I end up disappointed because books offer so much more. Not being constrained by time or imagination, books are able to go deeper into characters, explore intricacies of plot, and we must not forget the most important thing books offer that movies do not - reader control.
When I read, I construct the vision. I have partial control over the way characters and settings look. The author describes, I create. This is why I always read the book first; once I've seen the film, my imagination loses control and the director becomes the artist of the book's world.
Despite my tendency to be less than thrilled by book to film adaptations, I still adore them. I like seeing the book come to life on the big screen. And sometimes, I get something out of the film that I missed in the book.
And every now again - be still my heart - the movie is as good as the book or, forgive me, better.
I love book to movies. and it IS a thrill when a movie is better than a book. It happens every so often, right?
ReplyDeleteCare - It really is a thrill! It's like because it is so rare, it makes it even more exciting.
ReplyDeleteI find that most often the best movie adaptations come from shorter works. 'Legends of the Fall' and 'The Shawshank Redemption' come to mind as written works that were not very long but made phenomenal movies. But the book-movie translation works better when there is less to be translated?
ReplyDeleteThat actually makes a lot of sense as the main frustration with adaptations is that "the movie is missing so much". Maybe adaptations work best when the film is fleshing out a shorter work.
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