Friday Fun is a group post from the writers of the NHWN blog. Each week, we’ll pose and answer a different, writing-related question. We hope you’ll join in by providing your answer in the comments.
QUESTION: Memorial Day Weekend is typically the kickoff of the summer blockbuster movie season. How do you feel about books that are made into movies? Do you read the book first and then see the movie or do you wait for the movie THEN read the book? Would you prefer the two mediums never met?
ANSWERS:
Jamie Wallace – In my perfect world, the two mediums would never meet, but only so I wouldn’t be forced to choose between reading the book first or seeing the movie first. That said, I think that there are many books which, at the hands of careful and dedicated producers and directors, have made a graceful transition to the screen. J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings epic trilogy and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series are two that spring immediately to mind. I think that the quality of the movie is dictated by the quality of the book. Those two examples, for instance, are so revered that few would dare to take on their film versions unless they could commit wholly to preserving the sanctity of the original. Lesser novels fare worse, I think, because they are not held in such high regard.
Deborah Lee Luskin:I don’t watch a lot of movies. Of the few I do watch, I especially enjoy films of 19th century classics – which I view as more entertaining interpretations than most of the scholarly articles I read in grad school. Just as a book is a little different on each reading, so a film is a different “reading” of a book.
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Lisa Jackson: I generally prefer to read a book before seeing it on the screen, just so I know how different it turns out from book to screen, but I generally prefer not seeing movies of books. I like my own imagination to work things out. The one exception to that is the Twilight series. I love paranormal, I love vamps, I love romance. Somehow, I love this series and I like reading the books and seeing the movies. Recently I saw “I Am Number Four” and then I read the book, but that was more for research and I found it interesting how the two were similar, but different. I’m just now finishing up watching the Harry Potter movies and I’ve only read the first four books. But give me a choice, I’ll take reading over watching movies any day of the week.
Julie Hennrikus: Generally I prefer books over movies, if only because of the depth of the narrative in the book. I agree with Jamie on the Tolkien and Rowling translations–the movies are a great homage to the books. The books are better, but the movies are fine. And like Deborah, I find some of the remakes of classics (Austen comes to mind) to be fun, though I have been known to rant about the changes especially if they are out of character for the time. Austen heroines do not run in the street, nor do they walk out onto the moor in their nightclothes.
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Lee Laughlin I too prefer my own imagination over Hollywood’s interpretations. There are some books that are written to be movies (a few of the Grisham’s and the Twilight Series). Other, just loose some of their magic in translation.
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Wendy Thomas – I read the book before any movie and often if I’ve read the book there is no desire to see the movie as they rarely live up to my expectations (the Harry Potter series being a notable exception). Often when I read an engaging book I’ll “see” it as I read it – to the point where when I think back on the story I have to consciously think about whether it was a book or a movie that I experienced. That’s how blurred some of the lines can be.
What I absolutely hate, hate, hate, though is books that are written after the fact based on the movie or screenplay (the recent Red Riding Hood book is an example of this). As far as I’m concerned it’s not writing, instead it’s directed marketing to the movie’s audience and just this side of slimey used-car sales techniques. You won’t see me wasting my time on any of those.
Susan Nye: I’m a bookworm who likes movies but rarely likes the movies made from books. I’m guessing it’s pretty tough to translate the author’s voice to the screen. Plus – what do you leave in/take out?
More often than not, I just read the book. When I read/see them both, I generally read the book first. After all, even the paperback usually comes out at least a year before the film. I loved the Julie/Julia movie – then again who doesn’t love Meryl Streep.
Live to Write - Write to Live 
nhwn: I love that name.
I have no choice. Even when something I write is panned…the person will agree…”this would make a great movie.”
So I guess I feel it is ok…kinda weak on my part?
thank you
Jaye
This is a really interesting question, and one that I’ve pondered several times before.
I love movies, and I love movie adaptations of novels, especially 19th century ones, like Scorsese’s adaptation of “The Age of Innocence”.
Whether I see a movie first or read the book first mostly depends on chance – I am not always aware that a movie is based on a book (example: “The Four Feathers”).
But I think that having read the book is often a great impediment to enjoying the movie: one is much more critical, because inevitably, one has certain expectations. Adaptations of Jane Austen (especially by Joe Wright!) tend to make me screech… (I enjoyed his adaptation of “Atonement” much much more because I hadn’t yet read the book). And sometimes, the movies simply butcher the novel – the movie adaptation of Elizabeth Goudge’s “The Little White Horse”, re-christened “The Secret of Moonacre” is not a bad film per se, but as an adaptation of the book, I think it’s terrible and misses the entire point of the story.
The question is: do we want movies to be a simple translation into the visual world of our favourite books? Or do we accept that the page and the screen are two such different media that they cannot possibly treat the same subject in the same way, and that directors are therefore perfectly within their rights to interpret the raw material as they see fit, and to turn what was a literary work of art into a cinematic work of art?
Personally, I think a balance must be struck between the two…
I will absolutely pick the book over the movie. and then i usually don’t want to see the movie. current example: i refuse to see water for elephants. there’s no way the movie can be anywhere near as good as the book.
Cider House Rules [years ago]: the book was great, and the movie was also very good. and of course my favorite To Kill A Mockingbird held up very nicely. it’s my favorite book AND movie. but adaptations have gone much more hollywood these days, and tend to be just too over the top. or all about the actors rather than the story.
if i do see the movie just out of curiosity, i admit i go in with a bias.
great topic!
I have to agree with Jamie. The Lord of the Rings (only in the extended versions) and Harry Potter, are one of the few movies that I don’t think butchered their books.
Even the Count of Monte Cristo, which was a great movie and a great book, ruined the plot.
I’m hoping that they do a good job on the Hunger Games since they’re making that into a movie, but I’m worried they won’t and the plot will be butchered for everyone. And of course there’s the nightmarish possibility that it will be as bad as Eragon was. That was a butchered movie.
Really good post. =)
wow, some really good comments on this one. Some of my kids are the harshest critics of the Harry Potter movies – not because they think they are bad – to the contrary they want more.
They forgot about this part, they’ll tell me. They didn’t mention that.
I am forever telling them that a movie is really only the director’s interpretation of the book and that if my kids had directed it (or anyone else for that matter) it would be totally different.
Knowing this, though, I still get annoyed with directors who don’t see things my way. Isn’t it obvious she should look like this? I’ll think.
I haven’t seen all of the Harry Potter movies, only the first and the third. At the time I was younger and didn’t care so I don’t remember how close they were to the books, just that they were good.
Sometimes a great book can be adapted into a great movie. Sometimes a mediocre book can be adapted into a great movie. But, most often, great books are adapted into lukewarm movies.
Personally, I love literature and I love film. However, they are two very different media. A novel plumbs different depths than a movie. Novels force readers to imagine and create worlds in their heads. Movies thrust sensual input onto the viewers, engaging audiences in worlds created by the filmmakers.
Both can coexist. Watching a good movie doesn’t make me less inclined to read the book version, and vice versa. I’ve never cared too much about spoiled endings, anyway. If a movie or book’s only selling point is a surprise twist, then it probably wasn’t a terribly good piece anyway.
I feel we lose quite a bit in the transition from book to movie.
Obviously some movies fare better than others in the transition.
My favorite horror author is Clive Barker, and the movie “Hellraiser” comes nowheres near the book “The Hellbound Heart” that it is based off of.
In his books I personally get the chills, get creeped out and to be honest a little scared while reading them, which is incredible because that’s what he intended the reader to experience. I don’t experience any of that from the movie.
You get a better “feel” for the story from the book in my opinion.
Seems to me that producers of movies from beloved books are asking for trouble. Fans often expect the movie version to be a word-for-word, scene-for-scene re-creation of the book, and they often come down hard when the movie doesn’t exactly repeat the book.
Film does not lend itself to the same kind of telling. Many parts of a book must be left out, especially in the case of a long epic novel, just to fit the two-hour limit of the movie. “The Godfather,” for instance, left out many, many side stories that Mario Puzo explored, not only in the interest of time but in order to focus the story.
After I’ve read a book I like, I often find myself “casting” it as a movie, just for fun. Alec Baldwin, Meryl Streep and James Franco get a lot of fake work from me!