Books and the Big Screen

This is a sample article that I submitted last year as part of my Journalism portfolio. The briefing was to create a business rationale and sample articles in a group, for a digest magazine. Our project was called 'MUD' (Midlands University Digest) and the idea was to combine the best of student publications from across the Midlands, covering a wide range of topics including Entertainment.

 

The age old debate gets another bashing.

On a rare Sunday evening alone with no family visits planned or sickeningly close deadlines, my husband and I decided to take a long awaited trip to cinema.  Knowing there was no chance that I would willingly sit through the unappealing sequel ‘Wrath of the Titans’ and I knowing that he wouldn’t stay conscious during ‘The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’, we decided to compromise with ‘The Hunger Games.’

            We were both pleasantly surprised by the time the end credits rolled, it was easy to see why the film had smashed box office records.  The basic plot, if you haven’t seen the film is that in a post-apocalyptic world, where North America once existed, is now the country Panem.  Other than The Capitol, the technologically and economically advanced metropolis, the country is divided into 12 Districts where ordinary people live in a state of poverty.   Every year, a boy and a girl from each District are selected via lottery to fight until the death in The Hunger Games, a gruesome reality TV show broadcasted across the country.  The winner earns extra food for their district for the following year.  As big science fiction fans, we found this concept of a post-apocalyptic society fascinating although altogether quite unrealistic. 

            During our animated debate of the film on the journey home, I decided to search for reviews on my iPhone.  I was disappointed but unsurprised to find that ‘The Hunger Games’ was an adaptation of a teen novel.

Yet another book has been unleashed into the world via a mega-movie franchise and yet again, there are bound to be hoards of fans complaining that it’s nowhere near as good as the book, which is so often true.  However after reading a couple of discussions on fan forums, I found that this wasn’t really the case.  Many critics have actually praised the film for being, and dare I say it…better than the book.

If I know that a film has been adapted for the screen from a novel, I will make an effort to read it before I see it.  I will never be able to read a book after seeing the film and not be able to imagine the settings, the characters appearance and personality without having the images from the film at the forefront of my mind.  A film adaptation is obviously one persons (or a group of people) manifestation of how they visualised the story.  The case being unfortunately that I find myself unable to picture my own vision of the text without the director’s interpretation popping in my mind.  Hence my disappointment upon discovering ‘The Hunger Games’ origin, all I want to do now is read the book but I know that as good as the book may be, I will only be disappointed. 

Despite the masses of complaining fans, and the disappointed prospective readers like myself, you can’t blame authors for jumping at the chance to have their carefully crafted words adapted for the big screen; it could make them millions, just look at JK Rowling and the success of her Harry Potter series.  In the relatively impecunious book world, writing books that become films is a clever way of making money, not only by earning profits from the film but it can also boost the sales of the original book.

Some authors will openly admit to writing their novels intending it for it to end up in cinemas.  Emily Rhodes, writer for The Spectator, notes in her article “Books vs. Films, Ishiguro vs. Greene” of author Grahame Greene’s intentions as a novelist:

            “’ ‘When I describe a scene, I capture it with the moving eye of the cine-camera rather than with the photographer’s eye – which leaves it frozen … I work with the camera, following my characters and their movements.’”

In her article, Rhodes goes on to say how unsurprising it is that so many of Greene’s novels have been reincarnated as films.  Here is a writer whose talent and good business acumen, are earning him an attractive income.  Peruvian author, Mario Vargas Llosa, does something similar with his 1973 novel ‘Captain Pantoja and the Special Service.’  This was written in a cinematic style, and was adapted into a film only two years after publication and co-directed by Vargas Llosa himself.

In her comparison, Rhodes also addresses Kazuo Ishiguro who, in complete contrast to Grahame Greene has declared that when writing, he is always attempting to write something that is impossible to film.  He argues that a book, unlike a film, gets inside a readers head and allows them to develop the story on their own terms, a point of view I happen to agree with.  By reading a novel, you’re able to visualise locations, flesh out characters, form instinctive opinions and sometimes attachments to characters.  For me, the beauty of a book comes from its layers, and how a reader reacts to it each time they read it.  Every time I read a book more than once, I learn something new that I didn’t see the first time.  ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ by Arthur Golden is a prime example of this; I have read it twice and the second time around I learnt so much more than the from my first reading and I know I haven’t finished it yet, it’s going to take a few more attempts before I really grasp some of the subplots.  Whereas with the film adaptation, as aesthetically wonderful as it is, I feel that I have seen it once and that’s all I need to do. I don’t feel any differently about the story or characters, all I see is one person’s manifestation of something we have both read.

            Seven out of ten Best Picture Oscar Winners in the 1940s were based on novels and today is no different with the addition of graphic novels being thrown into the mix.  In recent years, cinemas have seen an explosion of comic book characters being adapted for films; Spiderman, Fantastic Four, Hulk (twice!) and Iron Man to name just a few.  So now graphic novelists and comic book writers are facing the same fate as many novelists, and with another audience of fans to attempt to please and possibly disappoint. 

Like Kazuo Ishiguro, there are some writers in the comic book industry who prefer to avoid the contagious Hollywood franchise bug.  Alan Moore, author of ‘Watchmen’ is possibly the most notorious.  He and artist Dave Gibbons produced a twelve part series of comics which were later combined to create a graphic novel.  In 2009, it was adapted into a film, much to Moore’s aversion.  Like ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’, Moores ‘Watchmen’ is an in-depth and multi layered novel that addresses so many themes and issues such as our dysfunctional society.  Again this is something that needs to be read more than once, in order for the reader to really understand and see all the intricate subplots that Moore and Gibbons have weaved into the panels of images.  Being very much aware of his own masterpiece, Moore has publicly detached himself from the film adaptation, declaring that it simply isn’t the same as the novel and in no way does it justice. Having seen the film and fallen asleep through sheer boredom, I was reluctant to read the novel when it was assigned to me on a Popular Texts reading list last semester.  I eventually submitted to the task and could see Moore’s frustration with it; the film adaptation was ambitious but failing to grasp the depth of the characters and political backdrop.  If it weren’t for the book being assigned to me, would I have even read it? Probably not, which begs me to wonder how many other people have been discouraged from the text after having seen the film, whether it be ‘Watchmen’ or otherwise.

I thoroughly enjoyed ‘The Hunger Games’ as a film and I eagerly await the following two instalments.  As yet though I am undecided in whether to read the novels, firstly because they’re pigeon-holed ‘Teen novels’, a term which simply gives me nightmares in the form of the Twilight saga.  And secondly because I cannot bear to be disappointed again by a film I enjoyed on face value.

For now though, I shall plough on with my personally assigned summer reading list; Interview with a Vampire, Cold Mountain, Children of Men, Practical Magic and The Godfather are but a few and yes…they were all turned into films.