the book is always better

Discussion in 'Entertainment' started by Lance Schukies, May 31, 2015.

  1. Quixote's Biographer

    Quixote's Biographer Active Member

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    When you read a book, yes, you do have to imagine everything in your own way. I agree with that. But that's not necessarily a valid argument for a book always being better than a film. Some author's spend hardly any time at all explaining what the surroundings look like (i.e. Jan Guillou); sometimes the reader can't imagine the surroundings the author tries to explain (being able to imagine in your mind what an author explains is seen by many as a mark of a creative person, and not everyone is creative...), and sometimes a filmmaker's vision of the surroundings, characters and setting is superior to whatever you imagined in your mind. I.e. although I'm not a big fan of the Lord of the Rings movies, one thing Peter Jackson certainly got right was the panoramic shots of the vast and beautiful New Zealand landscape, the design of some of the cities and the look of some of the characters. He created images that were far more beautiful than the ones I had in my head when reading the book (even though I like to consider myself a creative person).

    Great filmmaker's can also create beautiful images that the 'ordinary' human being (in lack of a better term) can't because film makers are artists too. I.e. Stanley Kubrick is often hailed for the images he creates. Some, myself included, will say that you can freeze a Kubrick movie almost at any point and you'll see a photo that you would want to hang on your wall. Or at least study for a few hours. Kubrick was a great artist who created beautiful and compelling images and I think I can say with confidence that a lot of people who read let's say The Shining won't be able to create the same brilliant images that the mind of Stanley Kubrick did in the movie.
     
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  2. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    Since Jurassic Park has already been covered:

    The Bourne Identity/Supremacy
     
  3. DancingCorpse

    DancingCorpse Member

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    Fight Club should not be an enthralling movie, that tale is something I would have never expected to gel so delightfully on the screen, I would've suggested nobody would ever make a movie out of that novel but look at it, as rewarding and turbulent as you could ever hope. I feel they are two interpretations of the same soul, I adore both equally and am very thankful for the two mediums.
     
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  4. Daemon Wolf

    Daemon Wolf Senior Member

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    "the book is always better". That's a laugh. To assume one is better than the other is kind of funny to me and always has been. They are both two different ways of telling stories so saying that "the book is always better" is silly at best. If you like the way stories are told via books then that's great, if you like stories via movies that's great too. But just because you like books better doesn't make the books better. I personally like both. I love all the different interpretations and retellings of the Starship Troopers Novel. Personally I like the novel better than the movies, but that being said, I LOVE the movies. But I love the Ender's Game movie too and when I read the book I dunno which I will like better. Some books are better and some movies are better. It all really depends on your tastes.
     
  5. daveydwb

    daveydwb New Member

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    What about the rare instances where the movie stays true to the original story? For example, The Green Mile by Stephen King? I find both to be very good, and IIRC, the movie is almost exactly like the book.
     
  6. Selbbin

    Selbbin The Moderating Cat Staff Contributor Contest Winner 2023

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    It seems that some people, because they like books or because they write prose, seem to think that they need to be 'patriotic' to the written word and dismiss film as an inferior art form. That's juvenile and silly. Any sensible person can recognize that the two are similar, but different, and that both can offer something the other cannot.

    Which is better, a plane or a helicopter? Well, it all depends on what you need it for, doesn't it?
     
  7. Selbbin

    Selbbin The Moderating Cat Staff Contributor Contest Winner 2023

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    Huh? They almost always stay true to the story. That's often the only bit that's ever left. They change details, characters, settings, and often the ending, but the story remains true.
     
  8. Ivana

    Ivana Senior Member

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    I love the books and dislike the movies (except the first 2 in series, which are watchable).
     
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  9. Ivana

    Ivana Senior Member

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    I'd say - the book is better for your imagination, creativity and language proficiency. I think it's more important for the children development to read books than to watch movies. It takes longer to read a book, it demands a certain devotion and it allows your imagination to go wild, while movies deliver great amount of things instantly while leaving little to your imagination. Of course, they can be great, real works of art (someone mentioned Kubrick), and they can really make an impact, but I still think that books can make a greater impact on your personality and creativity.
     
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  10. Selbbin

    Selbbin The Moderating Cat Staff Contributor Contest Winner 2023

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    It's sounds like a reasonable point about language proficiency, but I'm not sure it's that simple. I have a reasonable skills, despite English being my second language, but rarely read. As a kid I never read anything. Instead I watched thousands of movies. Dialogue is made of words, and listening to a language can be an effective way to develop your skills. That's why people say the best way to learn a language is not to read books but to immerse yourself in the dialect.

    My brother is the extreme opposite. He's a bookworm. Always has been. He still reads all the time, fantasy and thrillers and such, but is absolutely terrible at writing. He's woeful, and can barely string a sentence together, let alone get creative.

    So, while the statement seems reasonably logical, I don't think it actually works that way.
     
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  11. Quixote's Biographer

    Quixote's Biographer Active Member

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    It's a misconception, according to film theorist Brian McFarlane, that film makes fewer demands on the imagination than a book does. He writes:

    "This kind of thinking is based – erroneously, in my view – on the belief that coming to terms with a continuous narrative involving a set of characters operating in a given time and place enjoins a greater effort on the part of the reader than it does on the viewer. There it all is, exponents of this view will say, up there on the screen, leaving little for us to have to work on, whereas on the page we have to "translate" those lines of black marks that constitutes words, phrases, clauses and sentences into conceptual images. In carrying out this "work" more of our intellectual and emotional resources will necessarily be called into play, and (...) the very effort required will be good for us.

    However, it may be just as persuasively argued that in coming to serious terms with a film, much more is being required of us. It is not just a matter of allowing all the perceptual stimuli film offers us to wash over us, any more than the intelligent reading of a book asks no more than that we skim the lines for the gist of the plot. The film, if it is to make any serious impact on us, will require that we pay attention to the intricate interaction of mise-en-scène (what is visibly there in the frame at any give moment), the editing (how one shot of a film is joined-to/separated-from the next) and sound (diegetic or non-diegetic*, musical or otherwise). Each of these three categories of film's narrational arsenal has numerous subdivisions, and a full response to the film will ask the viewer, at various levels of consciousness, to take them all into different semiotic systems at issue here, and I want to claim that there is at least as much at stake in the informed response to the codes at work in film, both cinema-specific and extra-cinematic codes, as there is in the acts of visualization and comprehension enjoined on the reader."

    In my experience, as a film student, you can spend just as much time analyzing and thinking about a movie as you can with a book. It's just a difference in approach where in a book you only have the text while in a movie you have everything from the selection of film stock (the film the movie is recorded on) to editing, sound, colors, acting, costumes, lighting and so and so forth. I think the problem is that most people watch a movie then go "I liked it" or "I didn't like it" and that's it. The equivalent when reading a book is to skim the book then think "I liked it" or "I didn't like it", put it on the shelf and never think about it again. But if you want to get something more out of a book or a movie you have to treat them the same way, think about them, ask questions, study particular scenes, use of color, use of setting and so on. Only then are you treating them equally and only then can you decided which demands more of the "reader".


    *diegetic sound is sound that is part of the film world (a gun shot, dialogue etc). Non-diegetic sound is sound that is not part of the film world, sounds that the characters can't hear (like the film score for instance).
     
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  12. Aaron DC

    Aaron DC Contributor Contributor

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    Really don't mean to tread on your toes here bud, but if someone notices any of the things you and Brian McFarlane have outlined above - editing, sound, film stock, colours, acting, lighting, costumes, etc, then the movie is crap, quite frankly. All of that should be completely and utterly unnoticeable, otherwise you lose the immersion that a good movie telling a good story affords.

    Same goes for the book. Spelling mistakes are just as bad as purple prose and rare words that need looking up or cultural references from outside your locale.

    Sure, you can analyse a movie to death, and a book, but people (general public) don't go to movies or read books to analyse them. They read / watch them to get absorbed into a story.
     
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  13. Aaron DC

    Aaron DC Contributor Contributor

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    :love:
     
  14. Quixote's Biographer

    Quixote's Biographer Active Member

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    Analyzing a film is not about finding "spelling mistakes" no more than literary criticism is about finding spelling mistakes. When we talk about reading a film on a deeper level than just watching it, not noticing anything and decide whether or not you liked it, we're not talking about finding things that ruin the immersion or finding mistakes. There's no rule that says that if you notice anything when watching a movie it means it's crap. And if you don't notice anything when watching a movie I'm seriously questioning whether or not you're paying attention at all. We're not looking for the car that showed up in the first Lord of the Rings movie and to claim that's what film analysis is, is ignorant and foolish at best.

    When we're talking about analyzing a film, with all the different parts that you can study (editing, music, sounds, mise-en-scène, acting and so on), we're talking about studying the film in detail, finding the more hidden meanings, asking why the director chose that camera angle instead of a different one and what that means for the overall feel of the movie or the meaning of a theme. Take Hitchcock's Vertigo for instance. You can watch the movie without 'noticing' anything in particular and there's nothing that 'ruins the immersion'. When analyzing it however you can look at the use of color for instance. How does Hitchcock use the color green, brown, red and so on, where does he use the colors, which characters use the different colors and so on. Every movie deals with one or more themes; analysis is about seeing how the director treats that theme, what is he saying about that theme?

    I don't know how you can watch an entire movie and not notice anything. When you watch a horror movie, do you not hear the non-diegetic sound that creates the mood? When watching a car chase, do you not see the montage the director creates to create excitement and action? To notice these things does not mean the movie is crap because they're not mistakes they're just one way of making a film and that's what we study and analyze.
     
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  15. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    Seems to me it depends on why you're watching. If you're a student of film and analyzing it, of course you notice those things, good or bad. If you're just a guy who bought a ticket to the theater and wants to be entertained for a couple of hours, the more of those things you notice the more you're being pulled out of the film, which means something has gone wrong somewhere.
     
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  16. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    Is it bad for a reader to notice "Most of the book has been written in non-italics, but this section is written in italics?"
     
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  17. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    No, but if they're reading to be lost in the story and entertained, the more they notice about things like formatting and the technical aspects of writing, the more likely they are to be pulled out of the story. Italics are something you can notice without really missing a beat in the reading. If the italics seem out of place and the reader has to stop and wonder why you're using them, then I think that's more problematic.

    But not all books are intended to be read that way, where they're just for a reader to get lost in entertainment.
     
  18. Quixote's Biographer

    Quixote's Biographer Active Member

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    When you watch movies, do you ask questions about the use of editing, the music, they camera angles and so on? Do you spend time analyzing it even while watching it?
     
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  19. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    Again, depends on why I'm watching it. If I'm watching it because I want to understand how the filmmaker did what he/she did, then I look at those sorts of things. If I'm just watching it purely for entertainment, I don't do any of that, I just watch the film as an average viewer who just wants to enjoy a movie.

    Same with books - there's a difference between reading them as a writer who is studying the craft and just reading them as a typical reader who just wants a good story.
     
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  20. Aaron DC

    Aaron DC Contributor Contributor

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    And that was my point.

    When the statement "the book is always better" is made, it's in the context of people going to watch a movie vs reading the book the movie was based on - for entertainment.

    Not students learning a craft.
     
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  21. Quixote's Biographer

    Quixote's Biographer Active Member

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    The problem, and the fundamental misunderstanding here as I see it, is that you seem to think that film analysis (noticing all these different things already mentioned) is about having your immersion ruined because you notice stuff in a film. Film analysis isn't a 100 years of people having their immersion ruined.

    Sure, if there are obvious mistakes in a film, that will ruin any experience, just like a misspell in a book. I think we agree on that point, but that's not the point I'm trying to make. And yes, if you are only focused on one particular edit or sound or color, or only focused on a certain literary style when reading a book, you are likely to miss out on the enjoyment of reading a book or watching a film. But that doesn't mean that you can't enjoy a film AND pick up on certain editing styles, sounds and so on at the same time. You have to stop separating them and saying that only one is possible.

    What I originally responded to was not "books are always better" but "the book is better for your imagination" and I argued why I didn't think that was the case, so let's keep the original statement and argument in mind here and don't make it about "the books is always better".

    There are two ways of watching a movie, either just for the pure entertainment, or to ask some questions and analyze it a bit further. No, you don't have to be a student to ask some questions just like you don't have to be a student of literature to ask some questions of the book you've just read.

    What the book and the film have in common is that you can enjoy both without asking questions, noticing themes or doing any sort of analysis. In other words, as pure entertainment. But you can also study both in a bit more detail – meaning asking some questions, discussing with friends, noticing use of color, angles, or appreciating a great acting performance – and I would argue, based on many years experience, that doing so does not ruin the immersion, it helps you appreciate it even more.
     
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  22. Aaron DC

    Aaron DC Contributor Contributor

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    Ah so analysing movies is better for your imagination?

    Hmmm you will have to break that down for me because I don't understand.

    Imagination score card:
    In the book, only broad brush strokes are provided, regardless of how detailed the descriptions. I have to fill in the blanks myself.
    This includes
    * scenes / environment
    * voices / accents / tone
    * actors
    * costumes
    * sounds
    Not so in the movie, where everything is there, laid out before you.

    Books: 5
    Moves: 0

    In the book, any emotion is generated by the words themselves. Not so in the movie, where music has the greatest impact - try watching any horror movie with the sound off. Or any chick flick with the sound off, etc.

    Books: 6
    Moves: 0

    Yeah nah I'm going with books are better for your imagination than movies.
     
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  23. Aaron DC

    Aaron DC Contributor Contributor

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    No one other than the film student or expert is even going to know about blocking or dollying or aperture effect on depth of field or pushing / pulling focus. They will recognise them when you describe them and give them an example, but people don't pay money to go to movies to analyse them. And by people I mean your average Joe and Joanne.

    They go to be entertained.
     
  24. Selbbin

    Selbbin The Moderating Cat Staff Contributor Contest Winner 2023

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    People are missing the point entirely.

    Some (many) movies require interpretation and imagination. Just in different ways than a book. Is it really that fucking hard to comprehend?
     
  25. Selbbin

    Selbbin The Moderating Cat Staff Contributor Contest Winner 2023

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    To some movies. Some. Just like there are deep and meaningful books and airport thrillers.

    This generalization is fucking lazy.
     

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