Book vs. Movie

We had a discussion today in my English class about whether books are better than their movie adaptations.... Well, in my humble opinion, books are usually better than their movie adaptations.  Just ask any Harry Potter fan and they will launch into an unending discussion with themselves about how many details from the books the movies leaves out. As a general rule of thumb, I don’t bring up Harry Potter with others to avoid this one-sided discussion. I did not read the series, so I believe that the movies are well animated and put together, even if the acting is a little shaky. This is one of the few exceptions to the rule for me.

            Following the rule are books such as the Twilight series, The Blind Side, and Eat, Pray, Love. If I may sound like a Harry Potter fanatic for a moment, the movie adaptations of these three books leave out so much information!  No matter the novel, it is virtually impossible to convey every minute detail on the big screen. This is no ones fault. If a director was to make a tribute to every page in the novel, the movie would be hours long and audiences would not pay to see it.

            Another problem with making a book into a movie is the point of view that the book is told in. Eat, Pray, Love, for example, is told in first person. Elizabeth Gilbert, the author, describes her experiences on her yearlong trip to different countries. Many of her experiences are inner, spiritual changes that can only described, not seen. How, then, is a director supposed to convey these changes, which are central to Gilbert’s story, on screen? He could lay cheesy narration over scenes to explain what is happening, but narration can sometimes interrupt the movie and confuse the audience. So what should the director do? More often than not, the director cuts out these scenes or adds new ones that were not in the book in order to help the movie flow and keep the audience’s interest.

            Arguably, the largest problem with movie adaptations is character identification. I know that writers argue about the literary quality of Twilight, but I love the books and the movies provide the perfect example for character identification. When I originally read the books, I created imaginary faces and vocal characteristics for each of the characters. However, Robert Patterson, who plays Edward Cullen from the books, was not what I envisioned Edward to look or sound like. This can be good or bad. Whether or not the person playing the character is similar to your imagined version, can dictate whether or not you like the movie adaptation of a book. So while I would like to group all books together and shun their movie adaptations, I cannot. To keep my distance from the Harry Potter fans, I am going to respect different individual’s ideas and preferences and conclude with this: how well a person likes the movie adaptation of a book is based solely on individual preferences.