Apr-18-2010, 06:11 PM (UTC)
(This post was last modified: Apr-18-2010, 06:11 PM (UTC) by Albertosaurus Rex.)
About this splitting - I do understand the intent behind it, but isn't the point of discussions that they evolve?
To keep on topic, what are you guys feelings on the upcoming tv series? Everyone around is jumping joy it seems, but I find that I don't like it. Mind you, I haven't seen the series yet, and it looks like they're really putting some effort into it (Like making up a Dothraki language a la Klingons in Star Trek), but it doesn't feel right.
I am searching for words on how I feel, but once again Robin Hobb has done it better. For the sake of some pretense of brevity I'm hiding the book to movie rant in spoiler tags.
"And in years to come, the movie supercedes the book. Eventually, there is a generation of readers who ‘know’ the book without ever having opened its covers. Or they think they know it. And to me, that is the saddest loss. Because readers who think they’ve already experienced a book via a movie are less likely to seek out the original book." That is the single most useful quote for summarizing my feelings. The books are dear to my heart and I would hate any tv series to replace them, no matter how good that series is.
To keep on topic, what are you guys feelings on the upcoming tv series? Everyone around is jumping joy it seems, but I find that I don't like it. Mind you, I haven't seen the series yet, and it looks like they're really putting some effort into it (Like making up a Dothraki language a la Klingons in Star Trek), but it doesn't feel right.
I am searching for words on how I feel, but once again Robin Hobb has done it better. For the sake of some pretense of brevity I'm hiding the book to movie rant in spoiler tags.
![[+]](/images/collapse_collapsed.png "[+]")
The Book to Movie RantThe Book to Movie Rant
(Or, Whatever Happened to that Really Good Book that no one ever reads anymore?)
Being a writer is a rather private part of my life. Most of my friends and neighbors know me from other aspects of my life. They know me as the mother of their child’s friend, or as the woman on the corner who grows strawberries where most people would have a lawn, or as a neighbor or customer. But sometimes I find myself in a situation where I am meeting people for the first time, and the conversation goes something like this.
“So. What do you do for a living?”
“I’m a writer.”
“Oh, really? What do you write?”
“Mostly fantasy and a bit of science fiction.”
“Oh. Have you ever been published?”
“Yes, I have. I’ve got quite a few books out there.”
Then there’s the inevitable uncomfortable pause. Let’s admit right here that most people don’t read for pleasure, and that of those who do, not many read fantasy or science fiction. The next question is usually either, “What name do your write under?” or “What are some of your titles?”
Answering either question usually leads to an even more uncomfortable pause, as the questioner seeks for a polite way to let me know that they’ve never heard of my name or any of my books. Many seek for a leap to more comfortable ground.
“Have any of your books ever been made into movies?”
I’ll spare you the rest of the awkwardness that ensues when I have to admit that, as of yet, none of my books had made that all important leap from the page to the big screen. Eventually, I manage to steer the conversation into more congenial waters, discussing the WASL tests in our school system or how bad the mosquitoes are this time of year. But as this question recurs, I’ve come to wonder. Why is the ultimate test of a book’s success that it has been made into a movie? Why is that seen as the final stamp of excellence?
In interviews and in conversations with other writers and readers, I’m sometimes asked how I’d feel about one of my books becoming a movie. And I usually respond honestly that I’d have mixed feelings about it. I think I’d have to let go of it and accept that what would appear on the screen would not be ‘my book’ but the producer’s and/or director’s interpretation of his experience of reading my book. I’d have to look at it much as I regard cover art, as a separate creative act that owes as much to the artist as it does to the words that I put down on paper. I’d expect to be intrigued, excited, and inevitably somewhat disappointed in places where our creative visions didn’t mesh precisely. Would that dread of disappointment keep me from agreeing to such a transition? Probably not. Of late, there have been several achingly beautiful interpretations of books on the big screen. I suspect that every writer wonders if he might not be the lucky one who sees his novel leap unscathed to film and hence to the masses. Perhaps it’s worth the risk.
Lately I’ve been wondering, however, if a vastly successful film adaptation of a book does not also spell the demise of the book itself, especially over time. It seems to me that people forget the book that originally cast the spell and recall instead the movie. Movies have a way of usurping the book’s visibility, so that even when people are moved to re-read the book, or urge it on their children, that second generation of readers perceives the book’s world through the movie’s lens. The characters already have faces and voices. The reader’s ability to enter the book fully and create the book’s world as he turns page after page is gone. People are more apt to remember scenes from the movie than passages of prose from the book. And in years to come, the movie supercedes the book. Eventually, there is a generation of readers who ‘know’ the book without ever having opened its covers.
Or they think they know it. And to me, that is the saddest loss. Because readers who think they’ve already experienced a book via a movie are less likely to seek out the original book.
So, for instance, the reader thinks that he knows The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Frank Baum. But what he knows is the movie. In the book, there is no traveling snake-oil salesman. There isn’t a scene where Dorothy finds a striking resemblance between the people in her dream and her real life friends. She doesn’t even say ‘There’s no place like home!’ as she taps the heels of her shoes together. And I hate to tell you this, but the Ruby Slippers are Silver Shoes in the book.
The way I’ve written the above, the book would seem to be sadly lacking. But the movie is missing a great deal of what is in the book. The movie has no battle with the Kalidahs, the terrible creatures with bodies like bears and heads like tigers. The Queen of the field mice plays no role in rescuing Dorothy and the lion from the poppy field. The back-story of how the winged monkeys were enslaved is lost. It goes on and on. The fighting trees, the journey through the china country where everyone is dangerously fragile, the Hammerheads—so much is lost. For me, the greatest loss is the reality of the ending. In the book, when Dorothy returns to her family, she is not awakening from a dream, but running home to them, having been away so long that Uncle Henry has already built a new farmhouse where the old one stood. Dorothy’s Oz remains a real place, one that she can return to, for further adventures. And of course, the books do continue, for many wonderful volumes.
Now, none of this is to say that the movie The Wizard of Oz is a bad thing. It isn’t. I love it, and I’ll continue to share it with the children of my family. I just regret that one creation has eclipsed another, making it less likely that children will venture into Baum’s Oz without having a full-color tourist’s guide to influence their visit.
If this were a solitary occurrence, it would not be so daunting to me. But book after book has vanished from our cultural literacy, replaced by the movie versions. Again, I won’t deny that the movie versions are wonderful. They are unique creations that, even without their book predecessors, would have probably become part of our cultural fabric. Who can look at Tigger now without knowing how he bounces on a springy tail or hearing his unique laugh? Those things are products of the Disney version rather than the A. A. Milne books. I think everyone hums along to ‘The Bare Necessities’ from the Disney Jungle Book. My Baloo would have been far too busy instructing the Man-cub in the Law of the Jungle to have time for a song-and-dance routine.
But there are losses in the transition, too, especially when a book is perceived as being ‘for children.’ Far too often the very things that made a book a classic are changed, softened or deleted during the book to movie translation. Darkness is lightened, tragedy is dispelled by a comic sidekick and death only happens off screen. I don’t think the words ‘dumbed down’ really apply here; it’s more like the sharp edges of a book’s reality are cushioned lest we cut ourselves on the images when we see them with our eyes.
And something is lost.
Now obviously I cannot roll back our culture to a time when the written word trumped the moving image with sound. But I can present here, a few selections from Books You Think You Know that might prompt readers to go back to the printed page to discover what has been lost. These ones are ‘children’s books’ or books that have been relegated to that status, in my opinion, on the basis of the movies that were made from them.
Without further ado, a few bits from books that have been eaten by their movies, in the hopes that a reader or two might be beckoned back to turn their pages.
From The Jungle Book “Kaa’s Hunting” by Rudyard Kipling:
“Art thou hurt?” said Baloo, hugging him softly.
“I am sore, hungry and not a little bruised. But, oh, they have handled ye grievously, my brothers! Ye bleed!”
“Others, also,” said Bagheera, licking his lips and looking at the monkey-dead on the terrace and round the tank.
“It is nothing, it is nothing, if thou art safe, oh, my pride of all little frogs!” whimpered Baloo.
“Of that we shall judge later,” said Bagheera , in a dry voice that Mowgli did not at all like. “But here is Kaa to whom we owe the battle and thou owest thy life. Thank him according to our customs, Mowgli.”
Mowgli turned and saw the great Python’s head swaying a foot above his own.
“So this is the manling,” said Kaa. “Very soft is his skin, and he is not unlike the Bandar-log. Have a care, manling, that I do not mistake thee for a monkey some twilight when I have newly changed my coat.”
“We be one blood, thou and I,” Mowgli answered. “I take my life from thee tonight. My kill shall be thy kill if ever thou art hungry, O Kaa.”
“All thanks, Little Brother,” said Kaa, though his eyes twinkled. “And what may so bold a hunter kill? I ask that I may follow when next he goes abroad.”
“I kill nothing—I am too little—but I drive goats toward such as can use them. When thou art empty come to me and see if I speak the truth. I have some skill in these”—he held out his hands—“and if ever thou art in a trap, I may pay the debt which I owe to thee, to Bahgeera, and to Baloo, here. Good hunting to ye all, my masters.”
From The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum:
They began walking through the country of the china people, and the first thing they came to was a china milkmaid milking a china cow. As they drew near, the cow suddenly gave a kick and kicked over the stool, the pail, and even the milkmaid herself, and all fell on the china ground with a great clatter.
Dorothy was shocked to see that the cow had broken her short leg off, and that the pail was lying in several small pieces while the poor milkmaid had a nick in her left elbow.
“There!” cried the milkmaid angrily. “See what you have done! My cow has broken her leg, and I must take her to the menders’ shop and have it glued on again. What do you mean by coming here and frightening my cow?”
From Bambi by Felix Salten
Bambi braced with his hind legs and hurled himself on Ronno with redoubled fury before he had time to regain his footing. A prong broke from Ronno’s antlers with a loud snap. Ronno thought his forehead was shattered. The sparks danced before his eyes and there was a roaring in his ears. The next moment a terrific blow tore open his shoulder. His breath failed him and he fell to the ground with Bambi standing over him furious.
“Let me go,” Ronno groaned.
Bambi charged blindly at him. His eyes flashed. He seemed to have no thought of mercy.
The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Anderson
All became hushed and still on board the ship, only the steersman stood at the helm; the little mermaid laid her white arms on the gunwale and looked eastwards for the pink-tinged dawn; the first sunbeam, she knew, would be her death. Then she saw her sisters rise from the water; they were as pale as she was; their beautiful long hair no longer floated on the breeze, for it had been cut off.
‘We have given it to the witch to obtain her help, so that you may not die tonight! She has given us a knife; here it is, look how sharp it is! Before the sun rises, you must plunge it into the prince’s heart, and when his warm blood sprinkles your feet they will join together and grow into a tail, and you will once more be a mermaid; you will be able to come down into the water to us, and to live out your three hundred years before you are turned into dead salt sea-foam. Make haste! You or he must die before sunrise! Our old grandmother is so full of grief that her white hair has fallen off as ours fell under the witch’s scissors. Slay the prince and come back to us! Quick! Quick! Do you not see the rosy streak in the sky? In a few minutes the sun will rise and then you must die!’saying this they heaved a wondrous deep sigh and sank among the waves.
The Once and Future King (source for Camelot, The Sword in the Stone)
Merlyn had a long white beard and long white moustaches which hung down on either side of it. Close inspection showed that he was far from clean. It was not that he had dirty fingernails or anything like that, but some large bird seemed to have been nesting in his hair. The Wart was familiar with the nest of Spar-hark and Gos, the crazy conglomerations of sticks and oddments which had been taken over from squirrels or crows, and knew how the twigs and the tree foot were splashed with white mutes, old bones, muddy feathers and castings. This was the impression which he got from Merlyn. The old man was streaked with droppings over his shoulders, among the stars and triangles of his gown, and a large spider was slowly lowering itself form the tip of his hat, as he gazed and slowly blinked at the little boy in front of him. He had a worried expression, as though he were trying to remember some name which began with Chol but which was pronounced in quite a different way, possibly Menzies or was it Dalziel? His mild blue eyes, very big and round under the tarantula spectacles, gradually filmed and clouded over as he gazed at the boy, and then he turned his head away with a resigned expression, as thought it was all too much for him after all.
(Or, Whatever Happened to that Really Good Book that no one ever reads anymore?)
Being a writer is a rather private part of my life. Most of my friends and neighbors know me from other aspects of my life. They know me as the mother of their child’s friend, or as the woman on the corner who grows strawberries where most people would have a lawn, or as a neighbor or customer. But sometimes I find myself in a situation where I am meeting people for the first time, and the conversation goes something like this.
“So. What do you do for a living?”
“I’m a writer.”
“Oh, really? What do you write?”
“Mostly fantasy and a bit of science fiction.”
“Oh. Have you ever been published?”
“Yes, I have. I’ve got quite a few books out there.”
Then there’s the inevitable uncomfortable pause. Let’s admit right here that most people don’t read for pleasure, and that of those who do, not many read fantasy or science fiction. The next question is usually either, “What name do your write under?” or “What are some of your titles?”
Answering either question usually leads to an even more uncomfortable pause, as the questioner seeks for a polite way to let me know that they’ve never heard of my name or any of my books. Many seek for a leap to more comfortable ground.
“Have any of your books ever been made into movies?”
I’ll spare you the rest of the awkwardness that ensues when I have to admit that, as of yet, none of my books had made that all important leap from the page to the big screen. Eventually, I manage to steer the conversation into more congenial waters, discussing the WASL tests in our school system or how bad the mosquitoes are this time of year. But as this question recurs, I’ve come to wonder. Why is the ultimate test of a book’s success that it has been made into a movie? Why is that seen as the final stamp of excellence?
In interviews and in conversations with other writers and readers, I’m sometimes asked how I’d feel about one of my books becoming a movie. And I usually respond honestly that I’d have mixed feelings about it. I think I’d have to let go of it and accept that what would appear on the screen would not be ‘my book’ but the producer’s and/or director’s interpretation of his experience of reading my book. I’d have to look at it much as I regard cover art, as a separate creative act that owes as much to the artist as it does to the words that I put down on paper. I’d expect to be intrigued, excited, and inevitably somewhat disappointed in places where our creative visions didn’t mesh precisely. Would that dread of disappointment keep me from agreeing to such a transition? Probably not. Of late, there have been several achingly beautiful interpretations of books on the big screen. I suspect that every writer wonders if he might not be the lucky one who sees his novel leap unscathed to film and hence to the masses. Perhaps it’s worth the risk.
Lately I’ve been wondering, however, if a vastly successful film adaptation of a book does not also spell the demise of the book itself, especially over time. It seems to me that people forget the book that originally cast the spell and recall instead the movie. Movies have a way of usurping the book’s visibility, so that even when people are moved to re-read the book, or urge it on their children, that second generation of readers perceives the book’s world through the movie’s lens. The characters already have faces and voices. The reader’s ability to enter the book fully and create the book’s world as he turns page after page is gone. People are more apt to remember scenes from the movie than passages of prose from the book. And in years to come, the movie supercedes the book. Eventually, there is a generation of readers who ‘know’ the book without ever having opened its covers.
Or they think they know it. And to me, that is the saddest loss. Because readers who think they’ve already experienced a book via a movie are less likely to seek out the original book.
So, for instance, the reader thinks that he knows The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Frank Baum. But what he knows is the movie. In the book, there is no traveling snake-oil salesman. There isn’t a scene where Dorothy finds a striking resemblance between the people in her dream and her real life friends. She doesn’t even say ‘There’s no place like home!’ as she taps the heels of her shoes together. And I hate to tell you this, but the Ruby Slippers are Silver Shoes in the book.
The way I’ve written the above, the book would seem to be sadly lacking. But the movie is missing a great deal of what is in the book. The movie has no battle with the Kalidahs, the terrible creatures with bodies like bears and heads like tigers. The Queen of the field mice plays no role in rescuing Dorothy and the lion from the poppy field. The back-story of how the winged monkeys were enslaved is lost. It goes on and on. The fighting trees, the journey through the china country where everyone is dangerously fragile, the Hammerheads—so much is lost. For me, the greatest loss is the reality of the ending. In the book, when Dorothy returns to her family, she is not awakening from a dream, but running home to them, having been away so long that Uncle Henry has already built a new farmhouse where the old one stood. Dorothy’s Oz remains a real place, one that she can return to, for further adventures. And of course, the books do continue, for many wonderful volumes.
Now, none of this is to say that the movie The Wizard of Oz is a bad thing. It isn’t. I love it, and I’ll continue to share it with the children of my family. I just regret that one creation has eclipsed another, making it less likely that children will venture into Baum’s Oz without having a full-color tourist’s guide to influence their visit.
If this were a solitary occurrence, it would not be so daunting to me. But book after book has vanished from our cultural literacy, replaced by the movie versions. Again, I won’t deny that the movie versions are wonderful. They are unique creations that, even without their book predecessors, would have probably become part of our cultural fabric. Who can look at Tigger now without knowing how he bounces on a springy tail or hearing his unique laugh? Those things are products of the Disney version rather than the A. A. Milne books. I think everyone hums along to ‘The Bare Necessities’ from the Disney Jungle Book. My Baloo would have been far too busy instructing the Man-cub in the Law of the Jungle to have time for a song-and-dance routine.
But there are losses in the transition, too, especially when a book is perceived as being ‘for children.’ Far too often the very things that made a book a classic are changed, softened or deleted during the book to movie translation. Darkness is lightened, tragedy is dispelled by a comic sidekick and death only happens off screen. I don’t think the words ‘dumbed down’ really apply here; it’s more like the sharp edges of a book’s reality are cushioned lest we cut ourselves on the images when we see them with our eyes.
And something is lost.
Now obviously I cannot roll back our culture to a time when the written word trumped the moving image with sound. But I can present here, a few selections from Books You Think You Know that might prompt readers to go back to the printed page to discover what has been lost. These ones are ‘children’s books’ or books that have been relegated to that status, in my opinion, on the basis of the movies that were made from them.
Without further ado, a few bits from books that have been eaten by their movies, in the hopes that a reader or two might be beckoned back to turn their pages.
From The Jungle Book “Kaa’s Hunting” by Rudyard Kipling:
“Art thou hurt?” said Baloo, hugging him softly.
“I am sore, hungry and not a little bruised. But, oh, they have handled ye grievously, my brothers! Ye bleed!”
“Others, also,” said Bagheera, licking his lips and looking at the monkey-dead on the terrace and round the tank.
“It is nothing, it is nothing, if thou art safe, oh, my pride of all little frogs!” whimpered Baloo.
“Of that we shall judge later,” said Bagheera , in a dry voice that Mowgli did not at all like. “But here is Kaa to whom we owe the battle and thou owest thy life. Thank him according to our customs, Mowgli.”
Mowgli turned and saw the great Python’s head swaying a foot above his own.
“So this is the manling,” said Kaa. “Very soft is his skin, and he is not unlike the Bandar-log. Have a care, manling, that I do not mistake thee for a monkey some twilight when I have newly changed my coat.”
“We be one blood, thou and I,” Mowgli answered. “I take my life from thee tonight. My kill shall be thy kill if ever thou art hungry, O Kaa.”
“All thanks, Little Brother,” said Kaa, though his eyes twinkled. “And what may so bold a hunter kill? I ask that I may follow when next he goes abroad.”
“I kill nothing—I am too little—but I drive goats toward such as can use them. When thou art empty come to me and see if I speak the truth. I have some skill in these”—he held out his hands—“and if ever thou art in a trap, I may pay the debt which I owe to thee, to Bahgeera, and to Baloo, here. Good hunting to ye all, my masters.”
From The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum:
They began walking through the country of the china people, and the first thing they came to was a china milkmaid milking a china cow. As they drew near, the cow suddenly gave a kick and kicked over the stool, the pail, and even the milkmaid herself, and all fell on the china ground with a great clatter.
Dorothy was shocked to see that the cow had broken her short leg off, and that the pail was lying in several small pieces while the poor milkmaid had a nick in her left elbow.
“There!” cried the milkmaid angrily. “See what you have done! My cow has broken her leg, and I must take her to the menders’ shop and have it glued on again. What do you mean by coming here and frightening my cow?”
From Bambi by Felix Salten
Bambi braced with his hind legs and hurled himself on Ronno with redoubled fury before he had time to regain his footing. A prong broke from Ronno’s antlers with a loud snap. Ronno thought his forehead was shattered. The sparks danced before his eyes and there was a roaring in his ears. The next moment a terrific blow tore open his shoulder. His breath failed him and he fell to the ground with Bambi standing over him furious.
“Let me go,” Ronno groaned.
Bambi charged blindly at him. His eyes flashed. He seemed to have no thought of mercy.
The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Anderson
All became hushed and still on board the ship, only the steersman stood at the helm; the little mermaid laid her white arms on the gunwale and looked eastwards for the pink-tinged dawn; the first sunbeam, she knew, would be her death. Then she saw her sisters rise from the water; they were as pale as she was; their beautiful long hair no longer floated on the breeze, for it had been cut off.
‘We have given it to the witch to obtain her help, so that you may not die tonight! She has given us a knife; here it is, look how sharp it is! Before the sun rises, you must plunge it into the prince’s heart, and when his warm blood sprinkles your feet they will join together and grow into a tail, and you will once more be a mermaid; you will be able to come down into the water to us, and to live out your three hundred years before you are turned into dead salt sea-foam. Make haste! You or he must die before sunrise! Our old grandmother is so full of grief that her white hair has fallen off as ours fell under the witch’s scissors. Slay the prince and come back to us! Quick! Quick! Do you not see the rosy streak in the sky? In a few minutes the sun will rise and then you must die!’saying this they heaved a wondrous deep sigh and sank among the waves.
The Once and Future King (source for Camelot, The Sword in the Stone)
Merlyn had a long white beard and long white moustaches which hung down on either side of it. Close inspection showed that he was far from clean. It was not that he had dirty fingernails or anything like that, but some large bird seemed to have been nesting in his hair. The Wart was familiar with the nest of Spar-hark and Gos, the crazy conglomerations of sticks and oddments which had been taken over from squirrels or crows, and knew how the twigs and the tree foot were splashed with white mutes, old bones, muddy feathers and castings. This was the impression which he got from Merlyn. The old man was streaked with droppings over his shoulders, among the stars and triangles of his gown, and a large spider was slowly lowering itself form the tip of his hat, as he gazed and slowly blinked at the little boy in front of him. He had a worried expression, as though he were trying to remember some name which began with Chol but which was pronounced in quite a different way, possibly Menzies or was it Dalziel? His mild blue eyes, very big and round under the tarantula spectacles, gradually filmed and clouded over as he gazed at the boy, and then he turned his head away with a resigned expression, as thought it was all too much for him after all.
"And in years to come, the movie supercedes the book. Eventually, there is a generation of readers who ‘know’ the book without ever having opened its covers. Or they think they know it. And to me, that is the saddest loss. Because readers who think they’ve already experienced a book via a movie are less likely to seek out the original book." That is the single most useful quote for summarizing my feelings. The books are dear to my heart and I would hate any tv series to replace them, no matter how good that series is.
This signature makes the preceeding post about 20% cooler.
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