Do You Ever Get Sick Of "The Book Is Better Than The Movie" bit?

Tools    





matt72582's Avatar
Please Quote/Tag Or I'll Miss Your Responses
I love "getting lost" in movies or books (biographies; haven't read fiction in a long time) and the quality determines is. When I feel I did something productive, I know it was good. When it's something I think of years later and have amazing feelings, memories associate with it, a certain scene, a line or monologue that has great writing that is inspirational, I know it's good.



Sometimes it's escapism and an encounter simultaneously. If my mind wanders, I know I have to postpone it.



Make a better place
I do hate it for sure



"The book was better"


Another version is

"The true story was different"


I don't give a damn about the real story or the book, I watch the movie as a standalone piece of entertainment
__________________
"Beliefs don't change facts. Facts, if you're rational, should change your beliefs" Ricky Gervais



Ghouls, vampires, werewolves... let's party.
The "movies" I play in my head while reading are very intricate, and sometimes novels conjure up images or sequences that stick with me far longer than ones from actual films.

I think sometimes the mind can conjure up better images than what we see in the movies. We have our own vision of who is playing the lead character in the novel, and we "hear" certain pieces of dialogue said a certain way. Sometimes I'm disappointed when I watch a movie that doesn't fit the way I envisioned it in my mind when I read the novel.




Another version is

"The true story was different"

I don't give a damn about the real story

Hmm, this one is unfortunately a necessity in some cases. When people watch historical fiction without a preexisting understanding of history, they don't know which aspects actually happened and which are inventions. I have had discussions with people who've entered into historical argument (using the film as evidence). If all you know about the Kennedy assassination is what you just saw in JFK, then for you that is how it all went down.


The more effective the work of art, the more the fiction overtakes the actual history.



Hmm, this one is unfortunately a necessity in some cases. When people watch historical fiction without a preexisting understanding of history, they don't know which aspects actually happened and which are inventions. I have has discussions with people who've entered into historical argument (using the film as evidence). If all you know about the Kennedy assassination is what you just saw in JFK, then for you that is how it all went down.


The more effective the work of art, the more the fiction overtakes the actual history.
Fully with you. Hence my reservations about things like Bridgerton. Yes, people tell me with a smirk, “No one can possibly take that for a factual account!”, but, well, trust me you’d be surprised.



Make a better place
Hmm, this one is unfortunately a necessity in some cases. When people watch historical fiction without a preexisting understanding of history, they don't know which aspects actually happened and which are inventions. I have had discussions with people who've entered into historical argument (using the film as evidence). If all you know about the Kennedy assassination is what you just saw in JFK, then for you that is how it all went down.


The more effective the work of art, the more the fiction overtakes the actual history.

I get you and I agree


What I was trying to say is that the way to go IMO is to totally separate the movie from the historical event


In other words treat it like fiction, don't link it to the real story


That way it won't miss with your knowledge or your position on that event



I'll modify: I think film has more potential, ceteris paribus, to have a strong immediate and visceral impact in the moment. There's no such thing as a jump scare in a book, there's no soundtrack aiding you towards an emotional resolution, and there is no elegant and impactful merging of image and theme in the same way. A book is something you wade into at your own pace and your own comfort level, and a film is a river that carries you along, a fact which limits its impact in some ways and enhances it.
The jump scare point has really stuck with me. I suppose it’s largely true, though I do remember shuddering when reading Hailey’s The Final Diagnosis (must be almost 15 years ago). I experience pretty strong synesthesia almost constantly, so like Takoma, reading is its own film with its own soundtrack, and it can be quite visceral. I keep thinking about jump scares in books and there was that time I read Susan Hill’s The Various Haunts of Men, a book I didn’t particularly like or relate to and that certainly wasn’t in itself graphic by any stretch of imagination. But there was that bit towards the end where the protagonist is fighting the murderer/“bad guy” and gets her leg ripped out of her hip, I think - I remember reading that had me gobsmacked for a moment and was as visceral as it gets.

It was also very much a jump scare because, the book being for the most part a typical detective series instalment, it was beyond unexpected to have the (female) protagonist die in such an atypically graphic manner in a novel that wasn’t even horror. No wonder it has been widely described as gratuitous. All of which is to say, I think jump scares in a book are possible, albeit incredibly rare.



I also think that books can pull off tricks that film just can't, such as when a character revealed over halfway through the book that their romantic partner was a woman. After multiple sequences with that romantic partner. There are tricks of perspective that can be accomplished, and a clever writer can pull off astonishing misdirection.
I agree entirely with your point - but for argument’s sake, films can pull off the exact same level of misdirection, especially if the director is willing to get their hands dirty & rip up the rule book. In recent years I think Malignant pulled off something hitherto unseen in this regard, even if the film itself is not without flaws. Talk about perspective change.



films can pull of the exact same level of misdirection
I'm not sure that's true, especially if visual cues are how information is given. In film, this almost always requires that a character is our entrenched POV (ie what we the audience have been seeing is a delusion or something).

But a novel can spend the whole time talking about a character navigating a wilderness, sleeping under trees, listening to the animals in the woods, crossing mountains, etc. And then at the end, the withheld information that the trees are purple and the animals have five legs and three eyes finally reveals to us that this is an alien planet. The misdirection exists entirely in the mind of the viewer, and not a character inside the story. Our brains automatically fill in the gaps (the narrator says "tree" and we make a picture of a tree), and this is exploited by the author.

With a film, there are really only two choices when we are actually shown something. Either it's "real" or somehow it's unreal (a dream, a delusion, etc). Novels can withhold information (like the color of a tree, or the gender of the narrator) far more easily. If a film didn't show us our lead character's face for the whole film, we'd have a lot of questions and be very suspicious. An author can withhold basic "visual" information for almost the entire book if they want.



I'm not sure that's true, especially if visual cues are how information is given. In film, this almost always requires that a character is our entrenched POV (ie what we the audience have been seeing is a delusion or something).

But a novel can spend the whole time talking about a character navigating a wilderness, sleeping under trees, listening to the animals in the woods, crossing mountains, etc. And then at the end, the withheld information that the trees are purple and the animals have five legs and three eyes finally reveals to us that this is an alien planet. The misdirection exists entirely in the mind of the viewer, and not a character inside the story. Our brains automatically fill in the gaps (the narrator says "tree" and we make a picture of a tree), and this is exploited by the author.

With a film, there are really only two choices when we are actually shown something. Either it's "real" or somehow it's unreal (a dream, a delusion, etc). Novels can withhold information (like the color of a tree, or the gender of the narrator) far more easily. If a film didn't show us our lead character's face for the whole film, we'd have a lot of questions and be very suspicious. An author can withhold basic "visual" information for almost the entire book if they want.
Yes, fair enough, I do see that, especially with regards to withholding visual information, film being by definition more reliant on visuals. (Have you actually seen Malignant? I’m not recommending the thing itself, but I’m not sure it quite conforms to your “real/unreal”dichotomy, because it’s both). I guess to me there’s only so much “withholding” that can be done before it becomes cheating the reader, so I’m not in itself attached to that aspect of the reading medium - though it can be useful. I would interpret the alien planet situation more as cheating the reader than as an interesting use of POV. I think to me the rule of thumb is, if a fact is integral for me to understand the plot (and I’d argue the alien planet bit is), why is it being withheld - is it because the writer can’t naturally build up suspense without such tricks? Your significant other’s name example is spot-on, though. I was reading an article in The Times a few days ago about the discussions around adding pronouns at the bottom of work emails, and it’s interesting how some Lees and Sams and Camerons are against that just because they find it useful to be assumed to be a man.

A few years ago I read The Illumination by Kevin Brockmeier, which is written in what can only be described as exquisite language and describes a few instances of soft sci-fi happenings, a bit like The Shimmer in*Annihilation. Though I loved the novel, there were quite a few instances where I felt said language was used to obscure the events which would otherwise be straightforward. I remembered it because it’s kind of like your alien planet example: a passage describes people experiencing a slightly weird medical phenomenon, which could be, as you said, one character’s subjective experience until more and more people “get it”, leaving you to wonder if it’s sci-fi, speculative or just something like synesthesia that most people haven’t heard of. By the end of the novel it struck me that the medium’s ability to withhold information at less cost than film can be detrimental to enjoyment - it sort of gets “too clever” for no other reason than because it can.



Do You Ever Get Sick Of "The Book Is Better Than The Movie" bit?

Going back to the original thread question. My answer is: it depends on the intention of the person saying "the book is better".

If they mean it to be helpful and also add more content to their post then yes it can be helpful. But sometimes it's used as a troll and as a smug way to criticize a movie, especially when it's a hit and run post with a one liner bomb being dropped: "the book is better".



I'm more bothered by the "sequel is never better than the original" bit.

Why? Is this because this is like saying "water is wet" or because you don't believe it to be a reliable rule of thumb?



I'll modify: I think film has more potential, ceteris paribus, to have a strong immediate and visceral impact in the moment.
Five years of prep school Latin & have never come across this term before. Good stuff.
__________________
I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.



Why? Is this because this is like saying "water is wet" or because you don't believe it to be a reliable rule of thumb?

Scientifically, the idea of a sequel never ever being better is impossible, especially since the whole quality bit is subjective anyway. That's the one thing that annoyed me about Randy from Scream.



Scientifically, the idea of a sequel never ever being better is impossible, especially since the whole quality bit is subjective anyway. That's the one thing that annoyed me about Randy from Scream.

That seems like a bit of a strawman. Not everyone argues that the sequel is "never" better. Some argue the original is typically better. Moreover, we're arguably being a bit uncharitable to think that such statements are meant to be read hyper-realistically (i.e., scientifically). Most will acknowledge that there are exceptions to the rule (e.g., Star Trek), so it seems uncharitable to read such statements as absolute claims.


I can't vouch for how obnoxious one is in making such claims, but it seems to be a bit of a truism that sequels are, generally speaking, of diminishing quality.



Originally Posted by the thread's title
Do You Ever Get Sick Of "The Book Is Better Than The Movie" bit?
Counter question: Do you ever get sick of people using words like "bit" incorrectly?
__________________
"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra



Counter question: Do you ever get sick of people using words like "bit" incorrectly?

Uh oh, I am now champing at the bit to find out how I have been misusing it.