Regarding the prevailing attitude toward movie adaptations of books, I will contend that books are not gospel. (In the non-religious definition of the word.)
Many choose to, or unwittingly, take the stance that a story
in novel form is the absolute embodiment of an author’s ideas, and therefore
anything else imparting that story, which differs in the slightest, is
inherently wrong. I believe this is at the root of criticism for novel
adaptations. I also believe this is mistaken and I assert the book is not
gospel.
As a screenwriter, one quickly learns your writing is
anything but absolute. Directors will ignore and change details, actors will
change lines, intentionally and accidentally, and that’s just the start of the
compromises between your vision and the resulting movie. A screenwriter’s
material is not gospel; it’s one interpretation of many. However, if it has a compelling
story and a deep emotional draw, all those people’s changes will be made in the
interest of telling the story well, even if they aren’t telling it the way you did.
This is the best for which a screenwriter can hope – that all the compromises
and changes made to your original work are done so in order to tell the story
well. This is a notion everyone needs to bring to books.
Having also written a novel, I can see the book is not the
100% embodiment of my story either. In my mind, the settings are so vivid I
could spend pages and pages describing each one, but that wouldn’t make for a
good read, so I cut it down to only what you need to know to get the feel, or
what elements of the setting will interact with characters, then I move
on. In my mind, I have elaborate back-stories
for every character, even those with only brief appearances. Again, interesting
to me, I could write pages and pages on them, but again not interesting if it
doesn’t affect the core story, so alas they’re largely omitted from the novel.
In my mind, I have lengths of story before the point in time
at which my plot begins as well as after the novel’s plot concludes. Again, the
book must have limitation in order to be a tight, moving, and engaging story,
so those elements get trimmed, though many writers may save them for sequels
and prequels. I suspect we’ve all begun books, which insufficiently trimmed
such excess and tangents, though fewer of us have finished said books.
To me, all this is what makes it exciting to talk with, and
ask questions to writers we love. If everything they possibly imagined was in
their book, there would be no need or interest in asking them about their work,
it would all be in the book. But the author cuts their internal story down to
only the richest element. When you love a detail or character, you ask the
author about it and they have much more information from the story in their
mind to share, and it’s wonderful.
Thus, I maintain that the book, in itself is a derivative of
a story. The only 100% accurate version of the story exits is the author’s
mind, and will only ever exist there. The book is a derivative of that story, a
trimmed, edited, and compromised output meant to streamline the story, to make a
derived version which is the most enjoyable for reading.
Many movies adapted from books are accused of doing the same
- trimming, adjusting, streamlining, and leaving out plot and details in order to
tailor the story into one, compact, and well-flowing movie. I pose this is just
another version of what has already taken place between the author’s mind and
the book, and is no more or less valid.
The format of a book being enjoyable to read requires this shaping, and
the format of a movie being enjoyable to watch also requires it.
I’ll go a step further. If the author’s story only exits in
its entirety within the authors mind, and that which reaches the pages of a
book is a derivative of that story, what reaches the readers mind is not even
that derivative. For much of what an author omits, be it back story or
descriptive details, we the readers fill back in from our own imaginations and
experiences. If an author chooses not to
elaborately describe a mundane waiting room, because it doesn’t serve the
story, we readers impose a vision comprised of all the mundane waiting rooms
we’ve sat in.
Even the author cannot account for all the details we
readers create for the story. The author can only hope to generally guide them.
Thus, the story that reaches the readers mind is in turn a derivative of the
story in the book, or (for those also versed in mathematics as I am) a second
derivative of the author’s story. This is why it is also enjoyable to discuss books
with fellow readers, to compare how the story is perceived given each
individual’s unique profile of added details and inherently differing second
derivative versions of the story.
This however poses another impossibility for adapted movies,
for we cannot compare a movie to an author’s internal story, nor can we
actually compare the movie to the story in a book. We can only compare a movie
to the second derivative story in our minds, which is unique to only us, yet we
expect the movie to live up to our vision.
The movie is also a second derivative. Derived from the
book, derived from the story in the author’s mind. Besides being tailored to fit the medium of
movies the best, the story’s ambiguous details now get filled in by the actors,
director, wardrobe designer, set builders, computer artists, and any number of
people involved with a movie’s production. Wherever these details come from,
they are certain not to match the details in any given reader’s mind.
These might even come from the original author. The movie
could go back to the author, ask him/her questions about all the details the
author left out, or consult interviews or other writings the author composed referring
to their original ideas, and then build the movie’s version of the story with
those details. In such a case, one could argue the movie’s version of certain
aspects of the story might be more closely accurate to the author’s story than
is any given reader’s version.
Whatever the case, between the author’s internal version of
the story, the book’s version, each reader’s version, and the movie version, one
certainty is that no two versions will be the same. Rather than dwell on how different
those differences are we should embrace those differences and relish comparing
them, just like we might relish comparing thoughts with a fellow reader. Most
importantly, I ask you to consider that the book is in no way necessarily more
or less correct than any other version.
The book is not gospel; it’s one interpretation of many.
Once you’ve accepted it, the enjoyment comes from understanding what has created
the differences…
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