Books versus Their Movie Adaptations: A Very Controversial Topic.

3.1.2020

Disclaimer- this piece of writing may be difficult to fully understand without having read the books or watched the movies that I mention.

If given a choice between a book and a movie (even if there isn’t a choice available), I will always pick the book. This is something everyone either already knows about me, or has guessed after reading my past few blog posts.

I infinitely prefer books to movies for a number of reasons. Firstly, when reading a book, despite there being detailed descriptions of events or characters, there is still scope for the reader to be able to visualize those events or characters. Then when talking about the book to others who have read it, there are various insights and perspectives that different people can have about the same character.

With movies, I have found that it is rarely that a character is sufficiently fleshed out, and all sides of that character are depicted. This is probably why I have found myself either loving or hating characters that I see on screen, rather than appreciating the complexities and trivialities that make the character believable and human. However, the plot in a movie usually takes centre stage, and is usually well crafted, following all the literary rules: exposition, crisis and denouement (climax), sometimes with an added epilogue as well.

But, since the point of this blog post was to deal with books and their movie adaptations, not movies in general, I shall not go into detail about what I feel about the various movies I have watched.

I shall start with “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee that was made into a movie in the year 1962. This is one of the few movie adaptations that I felt did justice to its book form. My first thought after the movie ended was that the emotions I felt were very similar to those I had felt after reading the book for the first time, and this, mind you, is the highest compliment I can give to any movie adaptation. I thought that the film was very successful in maintaining two perspectives throughout: the simplicity of their world through the children’s eyes and the complexity of the same world through their father’s.

Though, of course, the book had more descriptions, I still found myself drawn to the magic of the characters (Gregory Peck outdid himself as Atticus!) and did not miss the few scenes that had to be cut out in the movie version.

This is more than I can say for a lot of other film or series adaptations.

My feelings about the film adaptation of the “Harry Potter” series, for instance, are very complicated. On the one hand, the cast was phenomenal- Alan Rickman as Snape, Emma Watson as Hermione, Maggie Smith as McGonagall, Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange, Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy, Gary Oldman as Sirius Black, and Emma Thompson as Trelawney to name a few (as I would love to go on but can’t right now).

Also, on the same hand, the set and the effects were so well done that one could re-watch the series only for its efforts on that head. Hogwarts Castle was the stuff of everybody’s imagination, as were Diagon Alley, The Burrow, and The Ministry of Magic. I watched a lot of the behind-the-scenes videos and was astounded by the amount of research that had gone into the sets, as well as the attention to the smallest details.

This is why I felt the loss of the detail in the plot all the more keenly. Now we come to the ‘other’ hand- several liberties (with permission from J.K. Rowling, of course and this makes it more despicable) were taken with the plotline and series of events. Not only were whole scenes either eliminated or rearranged, but the complexity of some plot details were compromised upon. For example, in the movie version of “The Prisoner of Azkaban”, Sirius gives the Firebolt to Harry at the end of the movie, after all the major events of the plot. This took away from a crucial turning point in the dynamics between Harry, Ron, and Hermione that was fleshed out in detail in the book. 

Another issue was the ruthless removal of and disregard for several “minor” but brilliant characters. Peeves for instance, was the life of Hogwarts and I missed him sorely in the movies. Ludo Bagman, the house elf Winky, even Charlie Weasley were rather important characters, though many may say they never had a direct impact on the plotline.

All the other book-before-movie people may be shocked but there is one movie that I prefer to its book version and that is –now I may certainly scandalize some- “The Book Thief” by Mark Zusak. I watched the movie one Friday in school, and I found myself holding my breath throughout the movie –not out of suspense, but awe at the way the characters were portrayed, and the scenes were spread out. I read the book for the first time about a month later, and to my surprise, found it very dry.

I loved the James Herriot books, and when I heard that a TV adaptation of some of the books already existed, I was very excited. For those who are not aware, he writes autobiographical accounts about his life as a veterinary surgeon in the Yorkshire Dales. His experiences with the animals he treats, their owners that he has to pacify, and the other people he encounters are portrayed hilariously and very sensitively in his books.

I was very disappointed with the character portrayal in the series. Herriot’s boss, Siegfried Farnon is described in the books as a tall, lanky man with a commanding presence, and is also very handsome in a careless, rather rough manner. In the series however, he was much shorter and a little portly, and had more strictness than charm; and this made him a completely different (and unwelcome) character.

Since Herriot’s books are based largely on his observations and witty insights and thoughts about what he sees and experiences, and since it is next to impossible to translate that onto the silver screen, the storyline felt repetitive and incomplete, especially if one has read the books. However, watching each episode was worth it just to see the beautiful Yorkshire scenery.

“Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen was always one of my favourite books, and by the time I reached middle school, I had read it enough times to be able to quote dialogues, especially exchanges between Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy and imitate characters such as Mrs. Bennett (this especially, my mother and I loved doing). I saw its 1995 BBC TV adaptation first and fell in love right then.  I have a lot of very fond memories watching the six episodes over and over again.

This was also during the time I was undergoing treatment for a condition known as amblyopia (lazy eye) where the nerve pathways between one eye and the brain are not properly stimulated, and the brain focuses on one eye, thereby ignoring the other “lazy” eye.

My treatment involved covering my good eye with an eye-patch and exercising my weak eye (this is done when you have a relatively mild form of the condition) so I had to watch a movie or TV for one hour each day. A colleague of my mother’s –to whom I am eternally grateful- gifted us this DVD and the whole two months (I think) of this unconventional treatment, we sat and watched Pride and Prejudice every day.

Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle portrayed the characters of Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett in a very realistic and believable manner. Not only did they stick to Austen’s depiction of each character but also had extraordinary chemistry between them. No parts of the original story was altered or compromised upon, and all the dialogues were retained. Though of course, description had to be converted into dialogue or omitted altogether, I feel that it was managed well, keeping with the Georgian style that exists in the book, and at the same time not boring the audience with too many details.

Lastly, the movie adaptation of Sense and Sensibility starring an ensemble cast of Emma Thompson as Elinor Dashwood, Kate Winslet as Marianne Dashwood, Alan Rickman as Colonel Brandon, and Hugh Grant as Edward Ferrars, was another movie portrayal of a book by Jane Austen that I enjoyed very much.

Since it was a movie adaptation and not a TV series, some parts of the plot had to be excluded as well as a few minor characters, but the acting was superb. Alan Rickman especially, was simply incredible as Colonel Brandon. Watching him in Sense and Sensibility really opened my eyes to his versatility as an actor as I had only previously seen him as Professor Snape.

Apart from this, the relationship between the Dashwood sisters and an accurate portrayal of society during Austen’s time were other parts of the adaptations I enjoyed and found very well depicted.

I cannot conclude this debate, as there are several other adaptations of classics and other genres that I have yet to watch. Luckily, movie versions of some of my favourite books are in the making or are about to release –the Perry Mason series (starring Robert Downey Jr. and John Lithgow) and Little Women (starring Emma Watson)- and hopefully many more very soon!