“The book is better…”
The TV guide in our NY Times has little capsule reviews for featured films. They’re often humorous. I saw this one a few days ago. It’s a common sentiment but definitely not a tautology (something always true). For example, The Martian (movie) is much better than the book, because the director and principal actor make it so (see tomorrow’s mini-review). Gone Girl (movie) and Gone Girl (book) are equally bad. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (movie) was good, but the book IS better.
It’s useful to analyze which media can tell a story better. Because I review both books and movies, I have a clear idea on the pros and cons of each one. That doesn’t mean I can predict whether the book is better or not, but I can often hazard an educated guess, so maybe it’s worthwhile to list some of those pros and cons for readers/moviegoers.
Movies are visual and aural. We often choose glitz, special effects, and action over cerebral introspection and quiet settings. We like our professional soundtracks too. In books, the first has to be described in words and the second is, of course, absent, unless you’re “reading” an audiobook. On the other hand, books can be introspective—we can get into a character’s head easily in a book, but not so easily in a movie. Great actors can use body language to project some inner thoughts, but that is limited in its possibilities in comparison to a book.
Of course, “the book is better” implies the book was made into a movie. It rarely goes the other way. Like language itself, sometimes something is lost in the translation, often in shortening the book’s story by eliminating material, often on the cutting-room floor, and other hazards associated with turning a multi-hour reading experience into the average two-hour film. (One solution is to make multiple movies, of course, like Lord of the Rings and the last Harry Potter book.) I suppose this is why many movies come from original screenplays, not books—the writer of the screenplay already has the movie medium in mind and how much time s/he has to tell her/his story on the screen.
Unfortunately, original screenplay writers often throw away an essential element to both media—plot! That’s one common complaint I often have about both media. A book or movie without an interesting plot isn’t just boring—it’s bad! And it’s not worth my time. I don’t care who the screenplay author is for the first, and I don’t care who the book author is for the second. If you can’t tell a good story with a decent plot, go write aphorisms for Chinese fortune cookies! Don’t waste my time.
Of course, directors can take a good screenplay, whether based on a book or not, and turn it into a fiasco. These people are treated as gods until they have a few flops, they often think they’re gods, and their egomania often does damage to a good story. Actors are another culpable group sometimes, and the last description often applies to them as well. Casting people can also contribute to the disaster (Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher—c’mon!).
Turning a book into a movie is often a million-dollar enterprise—in other words, a movie costs a lot more to produce than a book. A book can win the lottery and take off, making the author or publisher a handsome percentage over investment. Movies are a bigger gamble. You’d think they’d be more careful about producing them. The return on investment can go the other way too: The book can do well; the movie can flop. Or vice versa, of course.
It’s curious that Hollywood only picks the books that have done well. Readers will reward the authors of all kinds of bad books. Fifty Shades of Grey was an amazing success, for example. The fact that it was a badly written story with an uninteresting plot didn’t dawn on the Hollywood moguls. They obviously thought the movie had a guaranteed success. That movie flopped because the book was a fad, the movie not so much. Of course, the movie couldn’t present everything in the book, making it more of a challenge and disappointment to some. If I worked in Hollywood, I wouldn’t have touched it, but what do I know?
Of course, the author of Fifty Shades never started out thinking her book would become a movie. In a sense, she suffered what many authors suffer when their books become a movie: Hollywood tinkers some or a lot, depending on the plot, because the media are so different. Sometimes it works, especially if the moviegoer tries to put the book out of mind–the Bourne series and I, Robot are examples where I enjoyed the movies only by telling myself beforehand, “They have nothing to do with the book, so just try to enjoy what they did.”
Because I’m an avid reader and full-time writer (no screenplays, although I think many of my books could translate well to the movie media), I often say, “The book is better.” It’s all about storytelling for me. Storytelling is a much older tradition than moviemaking. It’s an essential part of human beings’ DNA, going all the way back to prehistoric times. Hollywood can’t compete with that. Or, otherwise said, they still better spin a good yarn.
The fundamental reason that storytelling is so important and better in books is that a reader participates more in the creative process. I’m a believer in minimalist writing and the Goldilocks principle for that reason. A few chosen words kindle the fires of the reader’s imagination. On the silver screen, everything is laid out for the viewer—he essentially becomes a passive spectator with little or no participation. If we forego the former to emphasize the latter, we’re losing a large part of what makes us human. We essentially become recording devices—perhaps imprinting our emotions, but still recording devices.
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[Ready for mystery, suspense, and thrills? Family Affairs, #6 in the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series,” is now available on Amazon. You can read it for free in exchange for an honest review (use the contact page on this website to query me) or by downloading from Net Galley if you’re an “official reviewer” (AKA signed up on Net Galley, I guess). Enjoy.]
In elibris libertas….
