Why books should not be movies

[Tim Regan]

Hi All,

Richard Gulplum said:
>>> Am I *completely* unreasonable in my expectation that people 
should be prepared to back up their "feelings" with some kind of 
rationalisation beyond "it's not like the book"? <<<

Barbara said:
>>> Yes <<<

And no.

On the one hand I find people's posts most interesting when they do 
have tons of rational debate behind them. But insight can come 
without reason. As Keat's wrote to his brother "I mean Negative 
Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in 
uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching 
after fact and reason".

I didn't like the film either. Though I've only seen it once and I 
may change my mind when I can do a side by side comparison with the 
DVDs. I did enjoy the cinematography, which Richard and others have 
discussed. I could also join in with the analysis of the acting and 
the plot additions, inclusions, and omissions. But what I'm starting 
to realise, and this is just a feeling, is that I do not like the HP 
movies anymore. I really liked the first one, in fact watching that 
with my family on the insistence of my daughter turned me onto HP in 
the first place. But then I read the books. For me it is a very rare 
movie that can stand-up to any comparison with a book you already 
love. The only movie I prefer to its book counter-part is Apocalypse 
Now, but I saw that before reading Heart of Darkness. The only book 
I loved that I felt OK with the film later was The Color Purple, and 
then I had to wait several years before I felt it was safe to watch 
the movie. It would be fun to start a thread on OT-Chatter to see if 
others have found any movie adaptations of other loved books that 
really live up to the books promise.

(I'm not going to watch LotR, my mental images of the work mean too 
much to me.)

So I think my HP film watching is doomed, PS/SS aside they are just 
never going to live up to my readings of the books, and though this 
is clearly mad, each time I go to see them I expect them too.

Another disapointment with this is that I really had done all my 
homework. I watched ad re-watched all Cuaron's films, and read A 
Little Princess and Great Expectations so that I could get a sense 
of how he approached adaptations. I would love to be able to step 
back from the movie and just see, analyse, and talk of it as an 
independent work. But I cannot, It was a disappointment.

Strangely I do not think that the same happens to play scripts. I 
have read and loved Shakespeare scripts, seen good and bad 
productions, and seen really great movie adaptations (e.g. 
Zeffirelli's and Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet are both great). 
Perhaps it is the insight into characters mental processes that make 
a good book win out over a good film.

Cheers,

Dumbledad.

PS This is all just me. If companies can make money out of films 
that disappoint Tim Regan, they should go ahead and make them ;-)