Author Topic: Comparing Books to Movies  (Read 1966 times)

A.M. Thomas

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Comparing Books to Movies
« on: January 27, 2008, 02:30:37 AM »
Why is this done so often?

They're different mediums.  Reading a book is a way different experience than seeing a movie for me, even if it's the same narrative.

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Gore Marie

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Re: Comparing Books to Movies
« Reply #1 on: January 28, 2008, 09:57:58 AM »
The comparison is an effort to determine which medium better interpreted/presented/expored the same plot?

Shaggy 2 Grote

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Re: Comparing Books to Movies
« Reply #2 on: January 28, 2008, 11:22:40 AM »
The screenwriting asshole/guru Robert McKee says in his book Story that it's no coincidence that the best film adaptations of books usually turn out to be based on either 19th-century novels or potboilers, because both are so plot-driven.  He's got a point: compare Mario Puzo's The Godfather to Francis Ford Coppola's.

I'd do him one better, and claim that it's no coincidence that Modernist literature and narrative film both popped up at roughly the same time.  With movies so uniquely well-equipped to tell a plot-driven story, it's no wonder that literary fiction advanced/retreated into work like Joyce, Proust, or Stein (or today, stuff like Pynchon).

But to answer your question, it's probably just something for dull-witted film critics to latch onto.
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A.M. Thomas

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Re: Comparing Books to Movies
« Reply #3 on: January 29, 2008, 11:17:45 PM »
The comparison is an effort to determine which medium better interpreted/presented/expored the same plot?

Oh, you.

I'm not a chicken,  you're a turkey.