What Happens when a Book is Made into a Film

Many of the best film stories originate from a writer's pen. For centuries before the movie industry came into being, stories were already written. There is no limit to the imagination. This can be illustrated quite clearly in H.G. Wells' and Jules Verne's efforts.

Reading a book allows you to imagine for yourself what images the author has tried to paint for you. The final product that you conjure up for yourself would most probably be unique and then again, it might not even be the same as what the author imagined. Unless, of course, it is made into a film. Then we would all have the same images and identical portrayals. However, we would have lost the uniqueness of our own imagination and we would not have the chance to form our own ideas, that is, if we had watched the movie first.

Take for example, "Jurassic Park" by Michael Crichton. It tells of an ambitious philanthropist who, having discovered a way to clone dinosaurs through a chance discovery of dinosaur DNA, decides to open a Disneyland-type theme park that is quite like a prehistoric zoo. However, things go wrong because they have tried to control and contain nature and an entire civilisation, and as Michael Crichton puts it, "Life will find a way. "

I watched the movie first before I read the book and found it thoroughly enjoyable. Steven Spielberg's effects were as usual, excellent, and the dinosaurs were extremely lifelike. The action, suspense and thrills - they were all there. I enjoyed the movie so much I watched it a second time, and thereafter, decided to read the book for good measure.

I expected the book to have the same action, suspense and thrills as the movie. It did, but there was a lot more. I realised that when a book is made into a movie, the original focus of the book is lost. In the book, the focus was not so much the dinosaurs escaping from their confines, as in the movie. Instead, there was greater focus on the enormity and incredulity of actually cloning the great beasts and planning such a project in the first place.

In the movie, because we are so used to make-believe fantasy stories, we just accept the fact that such things are possible and we tend to treat it like an actionadventure. There need not be realism or probability. The book, however, is much more detailed than the movie. The plot is more complex and the realism is thus there. In making the movie, the sense of realism and incredulity, the vastness of the undertaking - these are all lost. In the book, the impossible is made believable because the events are described in such detail and all the loopholes are carefully tied. It does not leave you wondering about how they did it, but lets you think about the actual issue of the story - the disaster of having dinosaur and man on the same planet when nature decreed it impossible long ago and the tampering with nature and its effects.

It is quite impractical to make such intricate details part of the movie, or it would end up as a nine or ten hour-long film instead of two and a half! The main aim of a movie is essentially to entertain and putting in the finer details would render the film quite unwatchable. There are also budget or acting and perhaps, time constraints. Thus, a lot of details are lost and the focus shifts when a book is made into a movie.

Most of the movies that were made from books are action-adventures. These have the highest entertainment quotient but quite ironically, they have lost the most from the original book. Peter Benchley's "Jaws" was transformed into a great white shark that was highly intelligent and could even seek revenge by swimming from New York to Miami! Margaruite Duras' "Lover" was the same handsome, haunting Oriental he was in the book and the film. The seduction and affair with the young Caucasian girl was the same. In such a book, not very much detail is lost and as a matter of fact, the film naturally made the explicit sexual encounters in the book much more visual, and perhaps for some, more entertaining.

One thing must be said for all the books made into movies: no matter how good or how award-winning the portrayal of a character is, the true essence is invariably lost. Only the book will tell you exactly how this character felt or what that character thought. Again referring to "The Lover," the movie turned the story into a detailed sexual memoir, paying rather little attention to the complex and confused feelings of a fifteen-year-old girl going through her first sexual encounter with a man years older, from a totally foreign culture. Margaruite Duras' original writing allows you to identify with the girl's true feelings and inner turmoil, instead of the image of a promiscuous schoolgirl. "The Lover" was actually an autobiography. These strong sentiments were lost in the movie.

All in all, I feel that any book that is made into a movie will lose more than it has gained. The objectives of a book and movie differ to some extent and thus the final product would of course be different. The gain would be found in perhaps a higher entertainment quotient (although this does not always hold true) and in a new or different perspective of looking at it that might be more artistic or maybe more interesting. The loss would be in the detail and shift in focus. The inner feelings too would not be portrayed as accurately. And being an avid reader, I feel that the book has much more to offer because each time you read it, you find something new. "To kill a mockingbird" is a fine example of a book that is so rich that reading it over and over again would not be tiresome but refreshing because there is always a clever detail you missed. The movie skipped the first half of the book because it had no real plot and as a result, many of the book's memorable moments were lost.

The next time you watch a movie, try and pick up a copy of the original book (if there was one!) and read it to see what you have missed! You will find the comparison quite remarkable and interesting food for thought.