Comments on: Battle royal: Books v. movies

By: shawn

shawn — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:44:56 +0000

So the guy’s position is something like “Painting is inferior to sculpture because you can’t look at the back of it”?

Christ….

By: barry

barry — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:51:59 +0000

Shawn, I think sometimes the best movies come from the shoddier side of the book tracks, so I’m with you on “The Godfather,” of course. And I’d argue for the film version of “East of Eden,” just to pick a comparison that’s closer. But Barnett (taken to his extreme) is arguing not about the relative merits of the film v. book, he’s describing an imperialism of the movie inside our own heads! He privileges the reading imagination that conjures its own “The Godfather” from Puzo’s, um, prose. And he mourns when that creative effort is replaced by Coppola’s. Barnett really is Don Quixote here.

Toy Cannon speaks with wisdom, as per usual! In reality, we find ways to work out an accommodation between our reading and our filmgoing, that protects and feeds both. Which is also what Shawn did with “Ulysses.”

What I like about Barnett’s blog, though, is the way it places the creative act of reading at the top of his ladder. Most of us have several ladders… but I enjoy his absolutism.

By: MightyToyCannon

MightyToyCannon — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 07:09:07 +0000

Reading your post, I quickly thought of a handful of good films that led me to discover the better books from which they were adapted (and their authors). For example, the movie “Wonder Boys” made me a Michael Chabon fan; “High Fidelity” led me to dive into Nick Hornby’s fiction and nonfiction.

By contrast, if I’ve read a great book, I don’t often feel compelled to follow up with the movie version. Perhaps the difference is that a great book is completely satisfying on its own, whereas a great movie whets the appetite for more. (I don’t mean that as a criticism of film).

Then there are those works for which both movie and book stand as equals. A few diverse examples:

“To Kill a Mockingbird”
“Get Shorty”
“Remains of the Day”
“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”

By: shawn

shawn — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:42:15 +0000

“Can there be anything worse than lovingly engaging with a couple of hundred thousand words of prose over perhaps two or three weeks, drinking in the author’s dialogue and descriptions, creating your own vision of the work in the privacy of your head, only to have every man and his dog (special offer on Tuesdays at your local Odeon) blast your intellectual ownership of the book out of the water after spending 90 minutes slobbing out in front of a cinema screen?”

Two words, pallie: “The Godfather”.

There are plenty of pulpy books that are better as movies: “Rosemary’s Baby,” “The Hustler,” “Shane,” “Valdez Is Coming,” to name a bunch off the top of my head.

Also: Sometimes the film can help you be better prepared to take on an intricate text, as was the case back in college when I saw Joseph Strick’s “Ulysses” before I read Joyce’s novel for the first time. (In a different and yet analagous way, Fellini’s “Satyricon.”)

Also also also: I would rather watch all of “The Lord of the Rings” DVD box sets, including all of the extras, than read that book again. Ever. Easily.