Books vs Movies -a depressing truth
// February 4th, 2009 // Personal
In the essence to keep my brain active whilst out of work without actually resorting to doing any (work that is) I’ve taken to raiding the Waterstones’ 3 for 2 table at my local massive multinational book store.
I’m not sure why I don’t simply pop to the library and get the same amount of reading enjoyment for free but there your are.
Anyway, a recent trend (or not so recent not I come to think about it) is the top 10 list containing large amounts of books that have been made into movies. This means things like the excellent “The Reader” and the teen horror romance Twiglet Twilight are front and centre in the charts. Of course it also means Dan Brown make the occasional re-appearance but his books tend to drip from the shelves akin to excrement between two covers.
What’s worrying me is simply this – how many people are buying the book because they’ve seen the movie? I tend to do it the other way round (often with very disappointing results – looking at you Twiglet) prefering the trappings of my own imagination to the realisation of some multi million pound studio effort.
How about you? Read then watch? Vice Versa? Or haven’t picked up a book in years?
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- Rob said: V Nice! Of course my D&B resurgence will follo...
- Mike said: Nice, I've recently been rediscovering flashbulb: ...
- Jeremy said: Just thought i would add these to the mix ;) ht...
- Rob said: Dan - you're a bad man Mike - I'm not eating them...
- Mike said: eat them. problem solved....
- Dan said: Or indeed "Pussy Galore"...
Best example is the His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman…read these when each first came out, reluctantly went to see the New Line Cinema version (Daniel Craig, Nicole Kidman et al) and was so horrified I re-read the books again…Generally I’ll read the books first.
I’ve avoided the movies tbh. There’s simply no way they’ll get it “right”.
Another lesser example was No Country for Old Men in which they’ve left out swathes of the story line and certain key events… makes it very odd
I agree, and dont forget made for TV movies/ programmes. Hogfather for example was a good movie, but totally confusing if you hadn’t read the book and missed some excellent parts out. I guess unless your gonna make a film over 6 hours long with a budget the size of the GNP of Singapore its not gonna come close to human imagination. Books win almost always. Infact struggling to think of a book which doesn’t win.
I usually read the book and then maybe watch the film afterwards, I tend to end up dissapointed with the film though cos it’s never how it was in my head and they have a tendency to skip half the story!
I have occasionally seen the film before reading the book and then i spend the whole time trying not to picture the caracters etc how they were in the film…