As I'm sure almost every reader agrees with, I prefer reading books to watching movies. I can easily curl up with a pile of books through all sorts of crazy hours, but whenever I sit back late at night and pop in a DVD, more often than not, I end up waking up when the credits roll at the end.
However, I have found that certain genres tend to work better in books or movies. Of course, it all depends on the skill of the writer or actors/director/whatnot, but, for instance, horror movies terrify me more than horror novels, and literary books (along the lines of, say, If I Stay) are more effective than their movie counterparts, in my opinion.
This makes sense, because horror stories are most effective when they produce a visceral reaction in the watcher/reader, and movies have the advantage of showing the viewer everything and using music to heighten emotion.
However, when it comes to literary stories, those are primarily meant to affect the watcher/reader's mind and make them think and feel on a deeper level, and words can do that better than anything.
So what do you think? Are movies more effective than books in some cases, and vice versa?
2 comments:
When done right, I think this could go either way. Some movies (Casablanca for one) have such great actors that become the character that I can't imagine reading the book version and not picturing everything the movie showed, especially the song Sam played. On the other hand there are books that did such a perfect job of creating a world and I have the characters pictured in my mind - I don't think a movie version could be done to match what the book made me feel (Jane Austen's books for me because none have ever lived up to what I imagined).
I think books allow for deeper character development than a movie ever can, and 9.9 times out of 10 I prefer the book over a film adaptation. But...some stories are just better as movies. I recently saw Cowboys vs. Aliens, for example - utterly cheesy and over-the-top, yet vastly entertaining in a visual way that a book can't quite match.
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