[HPFGU-OTChatter] Books to movies to books was Re: What should we do next?

[P. Alexis Nguyen]

Potioncat:
> My example of watching a movie, but not reading the book would be the
> miniseries "Cranford." I highly recommend it. But I could not read the
> set of stories it was based on, like Geoff and Dickens, it was the
> style that stopped me. Based on a few moments by the movie-makers in
> the special features, I think they may have filled in a bit with some
> additional story line. If I had been a fan of the books, I might not be
> too happy with that. Since all I know is the movie, it makes no
> difference to me.

Ali:
Another rather popular example is the Gone With the Wind movie (I
believe someone mentioned it a while back).  Most everyone I know who
likes the movie couldn't get through the book (myself included).  For
me, Dickens falls into that category.  Yes, I recognized the great
writing but the man was ridiculously verbose (a side effect of being
paid by the word?), and I just can't read Dickens without recalling
the three separate times I read Tale of Two Cities and wanted to cry
(I liked Books 1 and 3, but Book 2 always got me to skip over
paragraphs) - with things like this, I feel like movies work well in
distilling the basic story and giving it mass appeal.

On the other hand, Dumas (pere) also writes extremely long books, but
I could read the musketeers trilogy over and over again (though
possibly never again in French) without ever acknowledging movie
versions were made (then again, no one wants to cover the middle story
anyway).

Oddly hypocritical of me, yes?  :)


Potioncat:
> But making a movie for an audience who is already fans of
> the book is harder.

Ali
I think that's exactly the problem right there.  For someone like
Steve Van, who doesn't care to read the books, he can take the movies
unto themselves, judging them against their own internal logic/story.
Contrast that to most of us who see the movies and books existing in
contrast to each other, we can't judge each medium by itself so we
always find things wanting here or there.  It's especially a big
problem for HP because the books are now done but the movies aren't.
We can nitpick about what was left out in one movie (versus it's
corresponding book) but what if it comes back in another movie where
it's more convenient for that medium to have it there?

And then there's the interpretation issue, where one reader or one
large portion of readers see one point as being especially essential
and crucial to the book but the script writer sees something else as
the main focus.  The recent Pride & Prejudice movie with Kiera
Knightly is an example.  The script writer clearly focused on the
romance between Darcy and Lizzy, disregarding all else for that; my
opinion is that the romance was the vehicle by which Jane Austen
conveyed how society worked in her times.  After seeing movie, I had
to really look hard unto myself to come to a conclusion about the
movie (my stance was that it stood as a well-made movie but shouldn't
have called itself Pride & Prejudice - my opinion, of course) because
I really had to struggle to remember that there are people who read
Pride & Prejudice as just a romance.

It's a fuzzy that movies v. books arena when we necessarily say one is
better than the other.  It's hard to judge a medium by it's very, very
different cousin - movies and books depend on such different methods
to get their audiences to get the final message.  As such, I've come
up with a rule for myself:  if I know of a movie coming out for a book
I want to read, I shall hold off on reading the book.  I did this for
Twilight (and enjoyed the movie more for it) and will do it for Neil
Gaiman's Coraline - don't know why but I can ignore the movie for the
book but not the reverse.

By the way, for whoever mentioned it, the Count of Monte Cristo anime
was probably the only on-screen version of that novel that ever came
close to conveying the darkness and beautiful story behind the book.
(Let's not forget that fluff piece that was Gerard Depardieu's
version.)  Ah irony.

~Ali, who apologizes for any meandering in this email but she's
writing from work and typing furiously so can't double check anything
:(