Films and their Books
After just watching the BAFTA’s, and now looking ahead to this summer’s blockbuster films, you might notice there’s something quite literary about the movies this year. From The Lovely Bones to A Single Man, from the next Harry Potter to the next Twilight film (cringes) – (I feel your pain – Editor), if you thought the influence of books was as dead as the dodo then consider yourself wrong.
In my last article I talked about how films condense a book into a movie that appeals to everyone and will make money. It seemed unfair, however, to look at Hollywood as a pure profiteer, mistreating or misusing books, as if you walk into a WHSmith’s any week of the year you’re guaranteed to see a book in the best seller list with the label, ‘now a major movie’. In books and their films I looked at how books are adapted for the screen, but now I want to look beyond that to explore how films can both benefit and breathe new life into a book, but at the same time how on-screen expectations can affect our expectations of a book.
Before the internet and still to this day the big screen has been one of the most effective markets to make people buy books. Whether the film is good or bad, the book’s sales generally rise with a screen adaptationon, i.e. the Da Vinci Code in a sense cemented the Dan Browphenomenonon; the same could be said with more recent films like the Time Travellers Wife. To a degree adaptations bring attention to books that have been looked over i.e. Push, otherwise known as Precious, thanks the critical success of its film. Although admittedly in some cases, it could be argued that the impact on book sales is debatable. For example, did you know that screen classics like Psycho, Rosemary’s Baby and Cape Fear were all adapted from books? Today you might not, and I doubt audiences then knew, but since I didn’t exist at the time, I can only judge from what I read on wikipedia. (-Shuddertwitch- Ed).
It’s easy to read a book review or to have Richard and Judy tell you it’s good, but sometimes nothing can make you want to read a book than experiencing the films. Instead of spending months reading the fourth Harry Potter book to know if it’s good, why not take two hours of your life in the comfort of a cinema or your living room to decide? There’s only so much you can get from a review or a plot synopsis…but you have to still be careful, since there are dangers as to how a film can effect your expectations.
I’m going to use the example of Frankenstein (which will also be the subject of my next review), which any horror fan worth his plastic hockey mask will know about. Whether it’s the classic black and white version or Kenneth Branagh’s re-envisioning you know who the real monster really is, don’t you? Well actually…the images of a burning windmill surrounded by peasants with pitch folks and an angry, brainless monster with bolts through its neck has been burned into the mind of popular culture to the extent that if you decide to pick up the book you have so many expectations and feel that you know what will happen and what’s it about…well, actually…you don’t.
Films are very misleading in the way they can play havoc with the original text and make changes and overall. Although just as easily, they can make you want to pick up a book and read. The images they plant in your mind can taint the experience with perhaps disappointment or shock. My advice is if you watch a film version, clear that out of your mind before you read the book…just to be on the safe side.
Erasing the memories of the movie before starting the book is an ideal way to go but at the same time hard to do as you read you start to recall what was in the movie…and how it portrayed the characters in the book.
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James,
I agree with the majority of the points you raise, I have myself written an article for the Ripple (sorry Sara) with regards to the impact films have upon books and vice versa. I will however say that although some movies do distort/bastardise perfectly legitimate plotlines (a la the Shining and Misery to give a couple of classic Stephen King novels put through the hollywood rinser) sometimes it is the cinematography and acting that can enhance the experience of reading a book…
One example I will give is No Country for Old Men. Directed by the Coen Brothers. This is a fantastic film, based on an equally moving novel by Cormac McCarthy. If you have ever read a McCarthy novel, you will know that his style is sparse, with little description, no punctuation beyond full stops and commas, and quick, short, staccato dialogue between characters who are not always fully rounded. In this case I read the book before I saw the film, but after watching the masterful adaptation I went back and re-read the book, and this provided me with a MUCH enhanced reading experience. Characters whom I had previously struggled to picture and locations that had not come across clearly in the novel were elucidated and fully formed on a second reading.
BUT- and this is important, I do agree with your warning of how film can distort images and ideas. As I stated in the article, reading is such a subjective experience, that for one man or woman to try and capture the essence and ideas from an authors head, from page to screen, is in itself a problematic concept. We bring our own experiences, our own intellectual baggage to each thing we read, and no two readings are the same.
So although I would always advocate reading the book first, a ‘purge’ of the director’s production of a book prior to reading it if the order is reversed isn’t always necessary, and often a film can benefit and enhance the reading of a text just as much as it has the potential to detract from its source material.
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