The Two Mediums

Published August 2009

So let’s say there’s this movie that you really want to watch. It’s opened to decent reviews. Friends seem keen on it. The catch? It’s a film based on some bestselling paperback or another.

I guarantee that you will come across fans of the book sprouting the usual lines of “the movie was not as good. The book will always be better.” It’s a statement that I find a little redundant given that most directors of calibre these days are aware of sensitivities from the author’s point of view and will try their best to stay true to the gist of the story.

I had a lengthy conversation with some friends whose tastes differ greatly from mine. My interpretation of a Sunday morning would be to languish horizontally in front of the telly until the need to tend to a hint of a hangover gets me out of bed.

Said friends interpretation on the best way to unwind during the weekend would be to stick their respective noses into one new novel or another. A concept that is still a little lost on me. Nothing wrong with it at all, in fact it’s a pastime I admire. I just don’t think I have it in me to hit the books again. And yes, these friends are the sort who would agree that most movies don’t do justice to the books that they’re based on.

I am aware that some would be surprised to know that I don’t usually enjoy reading – and the last proper novels I read were at the beginning of last year. They were Thrity Umrigar’s ‘The Space Between Us’ and Kiran Desai’s ‘Inheritance Of Loss’. My reasons for picking those two award winning books were less for biblio gratification, and more to educate myself further on my culture, something that I feel a little removed from at times.

Taking into account that my chosen profession is one that requires me to study various forms of writing, reading is pure work to me. It’s a chore. I wasn’t always like this though. In my younger days I was a voracious reader who could rip through anything that was put in front of me.

It started off harmlessly enough with Enid Blyton’s ‘The Wishing Chair’ and ‘The Faraway Tree’ series. I then moved on to more contemporary reading, completed my first proper novel when I was 9 and by the age of 16 I was grappling with Dante and his Divine Comedy – though it has to be said that Dante got the better of me. I was never able to fully enjoy his work and it ended up being my Waterloo. With my neurons pretty much fried, Dante’s work was the last proper piece of solid literature that I touched for over 10 years.

My personal opinion on the whole book and movie debate is very simply this: The movie will never be as good as the book. But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the movie’s take on things. To be fair, however, I do know how it feels when some piece of work isn’t interpreted as you think it should be.

Before I delve even further along my tangent I will state that I was mortified when the movie ‘Queen of the Damned’ was released several years ago. I was horrified at the brutal chopping and meshing of two books from gothic horror writer Anne Rice’s brilliant Vampire Chronicles – the other title being ‘The Vampire Lestat’.

I picked up on Anne Rice while I was a teenager who was exploring each and every artistic facet that I could. To say that I was (and still am) a bit of a Rice fan would be a severe understatement to anyone who knows me well.

I had watched and enjoyed Neil Jordan’s successful adaptation of Rice’s ‘Interview With The Vampire’ to the silver screen so when I heard that ‘Queen’ was headed in the same direction, so help me, I had expectations.

I won’t go into the bitter disappointment I felt watching two brilliantly rich works of fiction that had been mangled to fit into some sort of celluloid fantasy clearly meant for the layperson. And no disrespect to the late Aaliyah who played the eponymous role of Akasha. She was probably the best thing about it to be honest. And the movie did well. So well in fact that it still boggles the mind. But please permit me a small bon mot in wondering aloud if this had something to do with Aaliyah’s untimely and tragic death prior to the launch of the film. Had she not passed away I sincerely doubt that it would have been a worldwide hit.

Going back to me and my take on the book versus movie conundrum, I have no issues in enjoying a film for the pure entertainment of it, of what I take away from it.

I fell heavily in love with Anthony Minghella’s ‘The English Patient’, an adaptation of Michael Ondaatje’s Booker Prize winning novel. I guess it comes down to the fact that I think of myself as more of a visual person. I enjoy watching, rather than wondering or imagining. And yes, books are always going to give readers a richer sense of feeling and emotion. However, if the director is able to pull off condensing text appropriately and apply the correct amount of emotion, description and action into something tangible, then I’d say it’s a job well done.

There are also ongoing discussions that show no signs of slowing down. One famous example would be on ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ by Arthur Golden and the screen adaptation that followed it several years later by Rob Marshall. While I’ve not read the book as yet, it is interesting to note that many who have are supportive of the film. The general statement is that the book was not an easy one to navigate around while the movie was able to sum up an epic tale succinctly.

J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter highly successful series of books and films also do not escape debate, with legions of fans proffering their own interpretation of her highly personalized lexicons and characters.

In summation, regardless of personal taste or preference, there seems to be no clear answer as to which medium is better. I suppose it all boils down to the ability to utilize one’s imagination. And should you find that one of your favourite reads is being adapted to movie form, I’d say best to keep an open mind. What you see may end up surprising you.