Movie and Novel

Cinema and literature… These two words have a opposing each other for quite a long time now. Since the beginning of the XIX century cinema has produced a great number of films. Some of them are worth of the spectator’s attention, some of them are not but nevertheless nowadays it is hard to imagine a person that does not know “what’s new” in the movie world. Literature is a complete different world. It is a world that in spite of its openness and accessibility still remains unreachable for the majority of contemporary people. We are not to analyze the reason of this phenomenon but it is important to say that a movie does save time in comparison with the book. This “time saving process” of course in the first place influences the quality of the “product” and as a result we have endless amounts of poor quality movies that are claimed.

As every production, movie-making needs “raw-materials”. Books become a perfect never-ending source where film producers borrow or sometimes even steal the ideas of writers’ imagination. People, as it has been said before, do want to save their time, but they also want to stay educated and get acquainted with the works that are considered to be “the classics”. Therefore the only way to get acquainted with the most stunning literary works is through watching movies made form these books. Only a few producers have an aim to truly show the reader what the book is about, making their movies truly objective. This fact makes the contrast between films and books even bigger. The “immortal” books have inspired many producers to make films out of them, unfortunately quite a few can state that their filming had a successful result. Of course for a person that has not read the book the film might seem rather good and sometimes even splendid. “Yes, yes, now I know what Hemingway (Shakespeare or anybody else) meant“, - is usually heard after the film. A film becomes the reflection of the book. But thought it is sad to mention, a garbled reflection with rare exceptions. No one will argue with the fact that it is very hard to do a one-year novel in a two-hour movie. This is primarily due to a set of external and internal difficulties.

The “charm” of the books lies in its ability to give the reader countless hidden and revealed messages. One single reader will get only one combination of messages from the book; another one will get another combination. Therefore, no reader gets the same “pattern” of the author’s ideas and this pattern is unique for every reader.

A film presents just of those patterns, but it still does put a tag on the book. The only thing that can reflect the book perfectly is the book itself. Otherwise people face difficulties in understanding the movie. Producers, like no one else, know what these difficulties are about and dedicate their work into their elimination. They try to convert a product of the word-dimension into a product of a visual-dimension and this process has a lot of barriers.

One of the major difficulties in making a movie out of a book is that it is hard to make words into image and sometimes it results in a movie with poor quality. This is a theorem that does no need any other proof except watching existing movies and therefore it becomes an axiom.

One of the most important fields concerning this problem is the media field. Books deliver their core with the help of words; the book-descriptions create corresponding imagination responses in the brain of a person. So it may be even said that the book does not only penetrate a man through his consciousness but it actually shapes the book-based consciousness of this man. In this case the person becomes the media himself, creating a magnificent effect on the reader. The contents of the book becomes an integral part of the reader: not just the author’s perception of the world, but also the readers perception, too. This imposition of two philosophical worlds one over each other produces the “effect of presence” that a film can hardly claim to achieve.

Movies, in their turn, provide visual images that are already given and unchangeable. They represent a product that is all ready for its consumption. There is no need to turn on the imagination or make a deep analysis of what is being observed, because the producer has processed everything for the viewer. In other words, the information is already been “chewed”, so the spectator simply needs to open his mouth and eat it. So generally, the reader’s personal opinion is replaced by the producer’s perception of the books contents. These difficulties are impossible to overcome even with the help of the latest contemporary video techniques, equipment and effects.

No matter how good the movie based on the book is, it always has it ownbuts… It may be good, but it will be always unilateral; always the producer’s personal interpretation and perception of the book. A book, literary, is a sequence of words that produces a unique effect on the reader. The words appeal to the imagination and the imagination complement it with all the necessary attributes taken from the book-descriptions.

A film is a sequence of image, sound and only then words. The focus is taken away from the meaning to the words. Words are visualized, but the main controversy or difficulty is that as soon as the word becomes visualized it is not a word any more. It becomes just an image and sometimes it possesses a small amount of the original message of the author’s word. This is the primarily reason for reading a book before watching the movie. This will make the movie not good, or bad, but different. Reading the book will make it just another opinion on the book. Of course, if it goes about qualitative productions.

The temptation to add words of his own is great for the producer and is ordinarily done. Once in a while the world sees great films made from books, but no matter how objective they try to be, subjective interpretation is the essential quality of a human being. So while a book represents author’s pure thoughts resulting in the reader’s unique interpretation, a film results in a twisted reflection, which is based on a garbled interpretation of the book contents made by a producer.

The difficulties that producers face, prevent them from making a true book-based work, making it just their personal perception of the author’s message. The truth is that a film was never meant to “match” the book, because otherwise the producer’s creativity would not be valued. A movie is just an addition to the book. It is like a review that helps the reader to see other sides of the work. But as a person cannot make any judgments on the book basing on literary reviews, a spectator cannot make any judgments concerning the book after watching a movie on it. Another thing to remember is that: reviews can be bad! So may be movies should encourage people to read books, as they present the subjective producer’s opinion on it. As the film is the producer’s personal interpretation of what he had read it is nothing more that “his personal” interpretation. The spectator has to understand it and take it into account. In order to create the most objective perception, the spectator has to read the book, create a unique understanding of the author’s thoughts and then, and only then he may say, “Yes, now I know what Harper Lee and Steinbeck meant”!