Overall, books are way better than movies...

oh definitely...how can you ever get what's in the pages and your imagination to match what is impirical on the screen?

House of Sand & Fog was another one....terrific book. I looked forward to the movie because I heard an interview with the author, who was being very careful in who he chose to do the film....

I thought the movie in no way captured the essence of the story.

Books, especially books written before film, were rarely written with the idea of making them into a movie. Some of the best films are certainly original scripts. Go here for the list of the best adaptations:

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=72537

It is almost a moot point to compare the two forms of art. A book can be actually unfilmable but they will try anyway. Witness "The Great Gatsby." There have been recent successes in adaptations, most recently "Brokeback Mountain" but that film works on an entirely different artistic plane, a cinematic plane (pardon the homonym!) Film is collaborative, books are rarely collaborative and not to the extent of a film. One almost always has to cast off expectations that a film version of a book is going to be anywhere identical to the book. This isn't a fault of the integral process but of the screenwriters and directors. The can also fail with original materials.

I've not been anxious to see "Narnia" as I figured they turned it into a sixteen to eighteen-year-old's concept of the book. It's an adult fantasy, or was. It was amazing to me that Peter Jackson and the writers of LOTR, although certainly not entirely faithful to the books, made the movies even more adult than the books, leaving out (thank gawd) that childish poetry that Tolkien would interupt the story with form time to time. A poet he was not.

The list of the best adaptations on the other thread often were better than the book. I think it's a toss-up.

(None of the Harry Potter adaptations have been lauded).

I suppose it depends on whether or not you are a visual person, or an imaginative person. If you need to see things for yourself, then movies are better. But if you are more imaginative, then the books will always be better.

I often don't go to a movie if I enjoyed the book. The Potter movies are a good example. I avoid them because I want to have my own mental images of the story.

My two exceptions are:
1. Gone With The Wind, I liked the movie much better than the book. I think Hollywood really got to core of the characters, while in the book I often felt I was drowning in details and side plots. Scarlet has 4 or 5 children in the novel to complicate things further and she is always getting in trouble due her lack of common sense. Vivian Leigh gives her more power and strength in the movie.

2.LOTR - I found the books overly long and complicated. The movies did a great job of making the characters and places come to life. I never really understood Gollum until the saw the films.

In my experience mixing books and movies is just a bad idea. If you read the book first the movie will suck. If you see the movie fiost the book ends up lacking.

Now I refuse to go to any movie after I've read the book and once I've seen a movie I don't even bother reading the book.

fishin', the moon will turn blue tonight -- I totally agree.

What LW and fishin' both said.

In the final analysis, the movie which is based on a book really has very little to do with the book. It isn't possible to compare which one is "better." There is no basis for comparison.

Is it hotter in the Summer or in the city?

Well, for someone who has a nicked avatar, I'm not sure how hot.

The only comparison is if the director and his collaborative crew of people, including actors, were close enough to one's vision of the book (that they remember) to make the film enjoyable. It don't know if they can expect to be enlightened any more from the book than the movie. If one looks at that list of adapted screenplays, it's pretty sure they do a good job most of the time. I think adapting a stage play to film is far more difficult as they writer thinks in staging terms when he writes the play. When the filmmaker tries to expand beyond the stage, they can often lose the intimacy of the play and it just looks overblown and undernourished.

Not so, "Angels in America" -- I saw the stage production and the HBO film. The film is better, even though the special effects on stage were groundbreaking (well, ceiling breaking!)

I don't consider that to be an eternally true statement. Sometimes it's true, sometimes it ain't. Catch 22 could not begin to convey the totality of Heller's little novel on the big screen, but it was a damned fine movie, a tour de force with brilliant casting--and it worked because the screenplay used the novel to create a good movie, without trying to "be" the novel. Dune flopped big time, deservedly, because they attempted to literally convey the entire novel, detail by detail, into a single motion picture.

Some good movies which i have seen in which they suceeded in that medium as well as the author had succeeded with the original novel, because they made a movie instead of trying to exactly reproduce the novel:

Remains of the Day
Howard's End
Empire of the Sun
All Quiet on the Western Front (Lew Ayres version)
The World According to Garp
Doctor Zhivago
Pride and Prejudice (Emma Thompson version)
Little Big Man . . .

With some more time, i could probably think of more examples.

A Room With A View
Passage to India
Lawrence of Arabia
2001: A Space Odyssey (based on Clarke's short story, "The Sentinel"
The Grapes of Wrath

I repect ya'll opinion regarding whether you read the book or saw the movie first as to which you liked better.

However, I have to agree with Lucien in that it also depends what type of person you are.

Me, I baised because frankly, I'm no big fan of watching movies or TV.
I actually have to brace myself up to think "ok, I'm going to have to sit down and watch this DVD with my husband". On my own, I think I have gotten a DVD or tape probably 2 times in the last 10 years to watch.

I find it very difficult to capture the story line of a movie right from the start, it seems like really hard work for me. Also, my mind turns to other things and taking away the miracle of rewind, if you missed something in a movie, you've missed it.

I know that's not ususal, but, that me....watching movies is more like work than pleasure for me, in general.

But a book is an entirely different matter. You can flip back for reference, and I can emmerse myself in the story line.

So, in short....to each his own.

Ah, a prejudice. Exactly what were those two movies in ten years? One was a DVD and one a VHS? There's no problem going back on a DVD, they all have scene finding features. In short, why are you even on the film forum if you don't even like movies? Answer: to express your bias towards the art form. This is next door to trolling. You have added nothing important to the discussion.

No, I responded to the thread in regards to Luciens initial post, which was comparing books to movies. I was giving my opinion to what he was saying.

If in your opinion I have added nothing to the discussion....in Set's words (if I may Set)...."tough."

You didn't start this thread, I wasn't responding to you.

If you would read my post, you would see I jokingly mentioned the miracle of rewind, and took that out of the equation. Obviously films have been around a lot longer than the option of stopping and reviewing, which was my point.

In addition, I did mention I believe that I respected the views expressed by those who enjoy movies.

It's an open forum -- you responded to Lucien, I responded to you. If you don't like it, in Set's words "tough." PM Lucien if you don't want your ideas seen and responded to by others.

I also read books and I decided to re-read "The Lord of the Rings," each book as the films were coming out. Actually, they books didn't wear as well as I thought, considering I read them when I was very much younger. I was impressed by Jackson's visualization and his tailoring of the drama as a cinematic experience.

I suggest that you haven't given yourself a chance with film. What were the two movies you attempted to watch? Lack of experience doesn't qualify you to judge based on Lucien's post. I am not criticizing you personally, just your admission that you have little to no interest in the subject.

So - we're on the same wave length LW - to each his own. Pax.

As to which 2 films? Have no idea.

as to lack of experience being a qualification to judge? Again, just expressing the sentiment that movies I have seen that are based on the book don't seem to get the message of the book across. That's all.

For instance, in House of Sand and Fog....the book deeply touched me....You could really see how the woman had made such a mess of her life because so much background was described, that didn't come across in the movie. Based on her history, it was so apparant that her troubles were of her own making. For instance, it was clearly discribed how she hadn't checked her mail in so long because she was too busy drinking...bottem line that was her problem that she was unaware she was having a tax property tax issue, her being an alcoholic wouldn't shield her from her responsibility.....also, the cop she met. In the book, you could see right off something was very odd about him. by the end when they went and stayed in his friends cabin in the woods, you had a very clear picture of both of them. You're thinking "Jesus Christ, they're in a cabin with no electricity, no running water, she hasn't bathed in days, she's drinking again, he's so stupid and nuts and horny over her he can't even see what's wrong with this picture. She's been telling him all kinds of stupid crap that a child could see through, and he's just eating it up" The movie just couldn't convey all that build up of just how f*cked up she was, and him also. There just wasn't time. I could go on with other things in the book that had you believing what a complete wreck the woman was.....for instance, she hardly ever ate, just chain smoked, and then started drinking.

On the other hand, the character played by Ben Kingsly (who I do really like as an actor)....his honor was not captured as well in the movie either. There, I will say they did a better job in the movie than they did with the woman, but again in the book, it was able to go into better detail of how hard he was working to keep up appearances, because it meant the future of his children. The wife? to me she came across completly different.

In one scene in the book, the man struck his wife in anger. To the American reader, it was shocking and you expected him to feel badly about it....well, he did, in his way, but there was also this strong cultural influence that he knew he was also standing up as the master of the house. It made you realize he was more complex than first thought.

see, I can explore all these things when reading. Stop and look up and consider for a few minutes. I suppose I (and perhaps Lucien, I don't know) watch a film and it just moves away from that important moment too quickly.

So that's one of the two films you didn't remember seeing? You express your failure to concentrate and get through an entire film. You are making it hard to believe you've even seen the movie "House of Sand and Fog" and are paraphrazing a review, or reviews, of it. Did you go out to a theater to see it? Perhaps that's part of the problem. Many movies fail to impress on the small screen, "House of Sand and Fog" because of the brilliant cinematography is one of those (although on my big screen, I can see the praise for the imagery of the film).

I was prompted to read "House of Sand and Fog" after I'd seen the film. Both were effective in their own way. Not the finest adaptation I've ever seen but respectably good as far as translating it to cinema.

I've only seen one instance where the movie outshone the book-- The Searchers. The book was not very exciting and rather disappointing in it's conclusion, imo. The movie was simply exceptional.

There's many, many more where the movie was as good or better than the book. Including that there are films that are as good even if they are very different from the book. I do not worship books -- the Bible should be the only book that some would warrant worshipping. I do not worship films, either. I approach anything first from an intellectual viewpoint and then let the emotional aspects sink in. For those who would believe there are no bad books and have not exposed themselves to the classic movies that are in the library of MOMA, start with a non-adaptation which could be adapted as a novel (but would be difficult to be anywhere near as good). "Citizen Kane." Then "Woman in the Dunes." Then "The Seven Samurai" (or the same director's adaptation of King Lear, "Ran.")