12-01-2015, 08:03 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-01-2015, 08:07 AM by wfmyers1207.)
(11-30-2015, 05:39 PM)Belle Wrote:(11-30-2015, 01:45 PM)izzy Wrote: Louis L’Amour was prolific writer in the western genre. His son Beau continues working with his father’s legacy today, cleaning up old mistakes, bringing forth new material that never was published, films etc. Anyway at some point his son made a comment to me that I found very interesting and one that changed my viewpoint on books vs movies. The comment was that a movie was not supposed to be a faithful adaption of just the book and that there is little point in doing the movie if all it does is animate a book. Given he is a writer, director etc, I gave credence to his words.
I was rather surprised by that, but after some other discussions I came to see that the primary tool the writer has is feeding your imagination which then fills in the gaps in the printed word and brings the story alive in your own head for you. A movie simply crystalizes one person’s interpretation and often it is harder for the audience to relate to then if they actually read the book. You can think of all the lousy, failed attempts to bring comic books to the screen before CGI allowed a more faithful adaption. For decades the mind brought the story to life far better than any movie could. And even now there is a lot of catch-up going on. So I agree with Belle, if you see the movie first you will likely crystalize a vision in your mind and take away the main tool of the writer, which is allowing your imagination to fill in the gaps for you.
Anyway back to Beau’s comments, a good example is when you look at the many adaptions of a Christmas Carol, some were very faithful adaptions of the book (ala Patrick Stewart) and some were relatively faithful adaptions that added to the storyline (aka Alastair Simms and George C. Scott). Simm’s film adding that Scrooge’s mother had died in childbirth and then adds a new element, that Scrooge became morally corrupted in business by his new mentor Jorkin and Scott fleshing out Scrooge’s time at school and illustrating his ruthlessness as a businessman among other touches including his relationship with his father and the small inheritance he was left that he parlayed into a fortune. And then other’s were adaptions that crippled the messaging of the book while adhering to its central principle )aka Owens 1938) noted for leaving out he two starving children “ignorance’ and ”want”, Scrooge’s fiancée who left him is ever mentioned, nor is Scrooge’s home ransacked.
So in the end, the book is the writer’s vision, and the movie is rather a wildcard depending on what the script called for and what survives the editing process. More than one director felt his movie was rewritten by the editing process.
You bring up an important point about the author's perspective.
After reading the book Dune, I saw the movie and was completely disappointed. A little while later I saw an interview with the author Frank Herbert. Much to my shock, he raved about the film they made of his book. It's possible Herbert simply complimented the interpretation of his novel because it was in his best interest, but he seemed genuinely excited about what they did with his story.
I wonder if filmmakers who are adapting books to movies are more interested in making authors happy or simply creating films that will appeal to the broadest audience possible.
Either way, I imagine it's kind of a double-edged sword for authors. By signing on for a film adaptation of their book they can share their stories with a lot more people, but they have to give up a lot of control over their original vision in order to reach that expanded audience. It sounds as though L'Amour understands and embraces the changes that come along with that trade-off.
@Belle
If you would like to see a good adaptation of "Dune", see if you can get a copy of the SyFy miniseries from about 15 years ago. Its on DVD. Amazon.com has it, but so does my local library. Perhaps yours might as well.
I think they did a pretty good job on that one. Much better acting and directing and fx. Not to mention they made it into a miniseries which allowed them the screen time to do a very long novel some justice.
"Gad! I'm such a genius! - Wile E. Coyote