Have you ever loved a book so much that you couldn’t wait to see it on screen? When you did, you find it… different!
This is what happens most of the times.
When reading a book, you create your own world with the characters from the book, you give faces and voices to the characters. You imagine the scenes in your mind. You’re like the invisible participant in the narrative.
In the screen adaptations, it’s the director’s creative interpretation that gives shape to the story. Their perceptions and understandings may or may not match yours.
And some directors take the creative liberties way too much that they lose the essence of the book.
Either ways each has its own appeal. What it does is spark curiosity, encourages everyone to compare the two versions, and create a deeper level of understanding.
You never thought this way but this exercise of comparing the book and the movie sharpens your analytical and creative thinking abilities.
The Art of Interpretation: A Tale Retold
Like it or not, there will always exist a gap in the adaptations.
The book allows the author the time to nurture and build the story, the characters, the changes. It’s a process and flows through the timeline.
The film has the limited time and therefore needs to rush to the ending, cramping as many details as possible to make an acceptable visual version.
Like if you take ‘The Lord of the Rings’, anyone who has read the book and seen the movies, knows the glaring differences between Tolkien’s and Jackson’s versions.
The magnitude of the story, the complexity of the fictional universe, the multiple races (each with their own languages and dialects), diverse geography, the chronology of the events, not something that can be replicated on the screen without making changes.
Wondered how these changes affect the narrative?
For someone who hasn’t read the book, it leaves many unanswered loose ends; for those who have, it’s disappointing finding some portions or characters left out.
Either ways, it allows you a chance to think and ponder.
Character Focus: Understanding Depth and Perspective
The biggest difference is in the depth perception. The book has the advantage of taking time building the character, watching their development, understanding the inner workings of their mind, and their thought process.
The film on the other hand works with visual or dialogue based cues. There’s no time spent on showing the inner struggles or thinking of the character.
If you’ve seen ‘The Great Gatsby’ by F Scott Fitzgerald, you’ll know what I’m referring to. The introspective narrative of Nick Carraway gets shown as an internal conflict in a few scenes, leaving you wondering about the gaps in his evolving thought process.
If you’ve read the book and watched the movie, it would be a good exercise if you can compare the character’s portrayal in both forms and see for yourself the differences, and how your appreciation for each representation changes.
Plot Details and Creative Choices
There are so many things that get left out or altered when creating an adaption for the screen. It’s like a chunk of cheese with holes in it.
Remember ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’? Hermione is passionate about S.P.E.W. so much that she ignores Harry and Ron in the beginning of the year, which affects their relationship, but it’s totally left out of the movie.
The omission also impacts her character, ignoring her sense of justice and growth as an activist. The movie shifts away the focus from her character’s depth.
Or ‘Game of Thrones’. If you’ve read and watched the series, you know how the chronology of the events have been changed, how some characters got presented in a different way, the changes in the storyline.
Another big difference is in the way the book gets presented on screen. For instance in ‘Guernsey Literary and the Potato Peel Pie Society’, the first half of the book is a series of letters between Juliet and the various characters in the book including the residents of Guernsey, from Dawsey to Eben, and even Mrs Maugery. It’s each character’s interaction that inspires her to uncover more of the unsaid story and write about it.
The letters help to slowly develops a beautiful relationship between each of them. And some very beautiful lines like, Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers. All this gets condensed into just two or three letters in the movie, taking away the complete experience of getting to intimately know a person.
Visual Storytelling: The Power of Cinema
There’s no denying the mesmerising power of the visual storytelling. The CGI enhanced visuals are a joy to watch. They’ve the ability to transport the audience for that limited time into a different place.
Every adaptation is a lens into the infinite ways stories can be told.
Like on the ‘Life of Pi’, the visual spectacle on the life aboard hooks the audience better than the abstract philosophy of the book.
My favourite is the ‘Wizard of Oz’, both the old and the new movies. I had read the story to my children but we enjoyed watching the movie more with all that magic and monkeys and witches.
Giving a form to the author’s creation and getting it onscreen is no joke. Add the visual effects and music, and you get to see a totally altered version of the book.
Benefits of Comparing Books with Their Movie Adaptations
This is an ongoing debate – what’s better: the book or the movie? And it will go on.
Both have their own set of believers and supporters. My personal choice is the book; I’m yet to see a movie that’s better than the book.
But doesn’t mind what you prefer, you’ve to agree that there’re many benefits that come from comparing the two mediums.
- You develop a deeper understanding of their story. You discover different layers which reveal themselves in each of the narratives.
- You learn to appreciate the artistic diversity. Imagine the creativity nurtured by words getting recreated visually onscreen. It’s a completely different process. Each medium has its own set of unique strengths.
- It encourages your critical thinking. Attempting to defend the book or the movie, you think in different ways, your curiosity gets stimulated, your intellect challenged and your reasoning question. You begin to analyse the creative choices.
- Makes reading more engaging for the non-readers. With reading losing its lure, it’s the movies which are getting more people to try reading after watching the films. I know at least many kids (and some adults) who read Harry Potter after watching the movies.
- Creates endless opportunities for discussions and debates. Most exciting part of this ongoing debate is it offers assignment opportunities for teachers.
Rounding Up
Instead of jumping into the debate about which is better, it’s a better idea to appreciate the interplay between the books and their adaptations; it’s a more productive way to nurture a well-rounded and analytical mindset.
You can choose the book and it’s adaptation as per your preference and convenience. Explore different genres and stories.
The book and its adaptation will each promise you a different experience. this makes it even more difficult to compare which is better. Try out both before you come to your own conclusions.
Whether a bibliophile or a cinephile, you got yourself an assignment for the weekend. So which book and movie are you going to enjoy?
Here’s a list of some books and their adaptations. Feel free to add to it and share with me so I can read and watch them too.
1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
– Genre: Classic/Literary Fiction
– Adaptation: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
2. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
– Genre: Classic/Literary Fiction
– Adaptations: The Great Gatsby (1974, 2013)
3. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
– Genre: Fantasy
– Adaptations: The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001–2003)
4. The Shining by Stephen King
– Genre: Horror
– adaptation: The Shining (1980)
5. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
– Genre: Romance/Classic
– Adaptations: Pride and Prejudice (1995 BBC series, 2005 movie)
6. Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling
– Genre: Fantasy/Young Adult
– Adaptations: Harry Potter Film Series (2001–2011)
7. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
– Genre: Adventure/Philosophy
– Adaptation: Life of Pi (2012)
8. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
– Genre: Dystopian/Young Adult
– Adaptations: The Hunger Games Series (2012–2015)
9. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
– Genre: Historical/Drama
– Adaptation: The Kite Runner (2007)
10. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
– Genre: Crime/Thriller
– Adaptations: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Swedish: 2009, American: 2011)
11. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
– Genre: Coming-of-Age/Classic
– Adaptations: Little Women (1994, 2019)
12. The Martian by Andy Weir
– Genre: Science Fiction
– Adaptation: The Martian (2015)
