Film Roar

Mario Puzo's The Godfather is an example of a novel that was fine in a pedestrian sort of way, but was expanded, thematically, into something much more rich when it was presented as a film.

What's really interesting is that the novel and the film are awfully similar... perhaps even less liberties are taken with the source material than normal, though it's been a while since I read the novel... but with the addition of a few key bits of dialog and a few choices in presentation, and Puzo's "Mafia potboiler" (as a reviewer at the time called it) became more than he imagined his story could be.

Two I'd throw up for discussion: Jaws and The Exorcist, both of which took advantage of film's unique strengths to drive a palpable sense of terror. In each case, I'd say that as much as "better" is a slippery term, it's more likely that these two will survive as exemplars of their form in film longer than as literature. Same argument might be made of Psycho.

In each case, I think we'll remember these three as "classics" in film long after people have stopped reading them, and I have my doubts most people would call these "classics" of literature.

I absolutely agree that The Princess Bride was a fabulous movie. It is definitely one of my favorites of all time, ever.

However, I diagree that the movie was BETTER than the book. Deinitely, the casting and acting and music and style that the movie had makes it a great adaptation of the book, one of the best adaptations ever made in fact.

But, the book offered more insight into the characters and situations and had William Goldman's really funny narrative. The movie doesn't suffer from not including it, but i think the book is even better for having it in there.

As a single example (of many) of why the book is so appealing to me -- Vizzini's line where he refers to where he found Fezzik "unemployed and in Greenland" seems like just a weird comment, almost non-sequitir, but if you read the book you know why Fezzik was in Greenland and why he was alone and why that is such a terrible thing for him.

Don't get me wrong. The Princess Bride absolutely is one of the best movie adaptations of a book... I just, personally, feel that the book was marginally better.

That is interesting because my reaction to the Princess Bride was actually opposite. I felt that the characters were more dimensional and alive in the movie than in the book. I am sure I am biased by having seen, loved, watched and re-watched the movie many times before reading the book. I do remember being disappointed by the book when I read it though. It was good, but at least for me, not as good as the movie.

Of course this all assumes some of us actually read, but...

On Blade Runner -- especially if you mean the director's cut, a director's cut that made director's cuts a phrase of the day.

Psycho is an interesting example. A lot of Hitchcock's movies were adapted from books and the quality of the book was not usually at issue. I imagine most of his adaptations are much better than the books overall.

A couple I consider better:

1) Jackie Brown than Rum Punch. Rum Punch is very good. And there are some aspects of it that are better. But there's a certain feeling that Tarantino gets across because he doesn't have as much invested in the anscillary characters, I think. And you get a more authentic ending from Tarantino, I think.

2) Emma: The book is good and enjoyable. But I'm not a fan of Victorian literature. The stories and characters are usually great, but they often get bogged down in the language and a certain formality. The movie comes across much more whimsical and enjoyable, I think, without losing the heart and soul of the book.

3) Fellowship of the Ring: Leopoldo, don't flame me (either virtually or physically, no car bombs please). I like the stories, the characters, the world of JRR Tolkien, but I'm one of those people who wish Tom Bombadil would just die. And please, do I really need another song about some drunken dwarf? I'm inclined towards the hobbit and got to skipping pages back when I read the LOTR. I wouldn't say this about The Two Towers, but Fellowship was better than the book in many ways, I think. Sure, there are some things that the movie can never replace. But I enjoyed the movie much more.

As for the whole idea of books vs movies. I think it is difficult comparing the two, often. I'm not sure if saying that one will remain in the minds of moviegoers for a lot longer than the minds of bookreaders is an appropriate comparison just because what if it's just that most movies suck compared to books and so it takes less to make it into movie history than the history of literature? I think it is appropriate just to say, which was better, the movie or the book.

I think books most often win not because of the completeness and intricateness, as Leopoldo suggested, but because of the imagination factor. It's actually because they're less detailed. They may have more words, but I don't know that we know any less about a character. It just doesn't take much to know a character in the movies. When Clint Eastwood walks onto the screen in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, does he have to say anything, do we need any narration, to know who he is. Heck, a look is enough. Then the action solidifies it. I think movies too often try to give what they think is detail in clumsy exposition (think of Episode I discussion of where the force comes from) and narration rather than just having the characters do what they do and be who they are. In a book, our minds fill in a lot of that and add to it. I know that when I'm reading I often forget where I am as I'm following along the lines because I've gone off on a tagent with the characters in my mind. I'm creating more when I read. In a movie, we're much more receptacles than participants, I think. I think that ability to participate in a book's creation of a world and characters makes them seem better than the movies.

btw, my least favorite adaption ever: Forrest Gump. Great book with a lot of honest heart turned into little more than a goofy Hollywood piece of cheese for the masses complete with unrealistic happy endings. Read the book.

btw, intricateness, to you people who actually read, should be intricacy, probably. When you gonna institute one of them grammar/spelling checker thingies so not I look moron anymore.

Ooooh.. dangerous statement with point #3 there Mr. Zukin.

Seriously I think you are at least partially right. Tolkien has a unique ability to drone on.. and on.. and on... As I like to tell people who show an interest in reading the books:

"The middle of the second book reads something like this: 'and then they passed the rock, beyond which there was some grass, and then some more grass followed by grass and a great rock. The great rock was large and stupendous and beyond it lay grass followed by more grass' etc..." I agree that the movies did a superb job of getting to the meat of the story. A sort of 'abridged Lord of the Rings' if you will. I cannot condone them as better than the books though... then again I actually liked Tom Bombadil.

Nick Hornby's "About A Boy" was a so-so book, but the movie was off the charts. This is truly a case of the movie being better than the book and I am really happy that other people say things like that. I always get criticized, but it is such a pretentious thing to say that the book is always better than the movie.

Well, guys, what can I say?

I read King. Not Dr. Martin Luther...Stephen. The man has fiction down, and I don't believe I've read any "horror" of his yet, either. If anyone has not had the pleasure, read the DARK TOWER series by Stephen King. It rivals the LORD OF THE RINGS as a modern masterpiece of fantasy blended with fact. King creates a world like no other filled with gunslingers and wizards, robots and demons all connected to the ultimate quest to find the Dark Tower. It's based on "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came", a dark poem by Robert Bowning. It's a beautiful world to imagine, and horrifying at times. It *WILL BE* a seven book series when he finishes it. I say "will be" since he is only on book 4, though rumour says he has them all written. King says it's his ultimate work, his life's work. He began writing it when he was in college and most of his other stories are tied to the world of the Dark Tower in some way. It's like an insider secret. If you don't read the Dark Tower works, you won't fully understand many of his other books (namely Insomnia).

If they ever decide to create a movie of the Dark Tower, it will match in scope and sheer size what Peter Jackson did so perfectly with LOTR. Why not, they have made The Stand, Carrie, The Shining (A true classic), Tommyknockers, Langoliers, It, Pet Cemetary, Storm of the Century, Green Mile, Needful Things ad nauseum... I am sorry they only seem to reproduce mostly his horror, he knows fiction as well if not better. BTW, Dreamcatcher (I am currently reading this one) will be coming out this year at your local theatre!!!)

Read it...Dark Tower will blow you away.

I never read "about a boy" and was reluctant to see the movie given it's 'Hugh Grant romantic comedy vehicle' billing. I read some favorable reviews and decided to give it a go. I was very happy that I did, I thought the movie was excellently written and quite well acted.

Tried a couple of times to read Stephen King books but never did manage it. The books are just not that interesting to me. The movies he has written or written for, however, are top notch. Consider
Shining, The (1980)
Stand by Me (1986)
Shawshank Redemption, The (1994)
Green Mile, The (1999)

Shawshank Redemption alone is one of the best scripts I have seen put to celluloid in years!

http://us.imdb.com/Name?King,+Stephen

That's definately my point. Those awesome films were books first, and the movies are generally pretty darn close to the films. I feel it's cool to read a great book and then find out a movie is going to be made about it: Example, Hearts in Atlantis, Dreamcatcher. Now, bear in mind both of these movies might not be that great (we'll have to see how good Dreamcatcher is, it comes out this year) but King has an insane ability to imagine any kind of world to suit his characters. Trust me, Dark Tower I-IV are goldmines, you won't be sorry.

It is to my great distress that I find myself turning the focus of this comments page to that of the on screen adaptation of Chicken Mc Chicken And The Magical Flying Monocle. For those of you who have read both the popular adult fiction novel and seen the high grossing film debut of Chicken Mc Chicken would no doubt be as disappointed as myself with a number of flaws I will now take the time to highlight

1: The character portrayal of Chicken Mc Chicken was odd and inaccurate to say the least. The fact that some bright spark Hollywood big wig to cast Christopher Lee as the foot tall, 7 years old, African American Chicken was a ludicrous move.
2: The monocle that was actually only a metaphorical factor in the novel managed to not only make an appearance in the movie of the same name, but also grow arms and legs through genetic mutation and wanders around stating its opinions of nuclear disarmament. Where’s the relevancy?
3: The book, although lengthy did not need to be drawn out into a 9 hour long film (The start and end credits alone lasting for 143 minutes)
4: The use of computer generated graphics to bring to live the Go Cart Of Freedom And Justice was a costly procedure of 56 millions dollars when a children’s Go-Cart could be purchased for $25 American.

I could go on, but I choose not to, as I do not wish to waste any more of my valuable time on commenting on such a second rate, low brow action/adventure comedy that completely destroyed the original vision of JRR Tolkien.

Hello all.

I stumbled on this site whilst looking for pages that dissect the Matrix Reloaded. (Great discussions over there btw).

So, randomly, I started reading this thread and thought I'd submit About a Boy for your approval/derision.

And what to my surprise, Chris already mentioned it.

That amazes me on many levels:

1. I thought it was an excellent, pitch-perfect movie, but didn't think it was well-watched or well-respected enough to merit that kind of an evaluation.

2. I figured most people who read About a Boy found it so mediocre as to not bother with the movie (I almost didn't).

3. There's probably not even 10 movies mentioned in this thread, and in the universe of movies, there's gotta be a lot more famous ones than About a Boy that are better than their hard copy version.

So, anyway, I have no point, other than to agree.

As a rule, I don't compare books to movies, regardless of whether the movie is actually a version of the book or not. They're completely different mediums of creativity. Although they are both visual in a certain sense, in books it is the verbal expression of the story that creates the images in your mind, whereas with movies, images are carefully orchestrated by the director to create a story. And because most of us find it easier to relate to an image that's already there than wade through a current of words to try and create one for ourselves, it's no surprise that movies are much more popular than books, as far as entertainment value goes.

So when I do compare the two, I try to judge each on its own plane, among its own peers, and see how the two compare insofar as their respective quality among similar works. Although this doesn't always yield a definitive answer. I think the Lord of the Rings movies, while absolutely towering above any and all other fantasy/sci-fi efforts to date, may not have achieved the same awesome power and total longevity of Tolkien's masterwork. But then again, it may be too early to tell.

But I'm really thankful that the movies have been made, because so many people are basically unable to appreciate the sheer scope of Tolkien's writing ... I tell my friends not to read the books if they aren't really serious readers. Those who read books with dedication and appreciation of each and every word, they are the ones who will really understand how awesome the trilogy really is. For the rest, thankfully, there are movies.

i love to read particularly ludlums so i was shocked with the terrible transfer of the bourne identity from book to film, the book was so much more complex being able to explain jaons thoughts and fears. several main characters have been left out of the film which cuts the storyline in half. and while many do like the film i found while it was ok, during the second film i found you could not tell who was winning during the fight scenes half the time where as in the book the fights are given in so greate detail you might as well be there yourself.

Hi eyeryone
I was actually doing schoolwork when i stumbled across this site. As an ardent reader (I read about 3 hours a day) I had chosen books vs films as the the theme of my speech. I think books are good fo you in every way, from cultural and moral knowledge to vocabulary and grammar to imagination. I have to say, films are mainly just a form of entertainment and I think i's a pity that so few people bote to take the time to read and just go and watch the film, sometimes without even knowing it's based on a book.
However Mr. JRR Tolkien does tend to drone on and on about decription.