Christopher Caruso
Blog #29
Literature vs. Cinema: Is There a Superior Format?
Introduction
Think hard about a story or a novel that you have really
enjoyed reading. If what you are
thinking about is a story that is popular today, like Harry Potter or The Hunger
Games, there is a good chance that it has probably been adapted into a
feature film at some point in time. Have
you ever had the sensation of going to a movie theater to go see the movie
adaptation of a story you have read, only to leave the theater saying to yourself:
“Meh, the book was way better”? With the
rise of more advanced and more sophisticated technology, the ability to create
fictional settings or even whole fictional characters with the aid of computer
generated images, or CGI for short, has never been simpler for filmmakers. As such, the door has been opened for movie
studios to translate more of literature’s most fantastic and adventurous
classics onto the silver screen. One must ponder, however, if adapting so many
pre-established stories into movies is really the right thing for movie studios
to do. More often than not, it almost
appears as if people always prefer the original book versions of certain
stories over their more modern movie adaptations, but one must also wonder if
this depiction of the public’s opinion is truly valid, or if it is just a
stereotype of the public’s opinion. Do
films actually always pale in comparison to the original literary sources they
are based off of, or are there more to film adaptations than people give them
credit for?
The
main focus of this case study is to find out if there is a solid answer to
whether or not the general discourse is true that the written format of
storytelling is superior to the visual and audio cinematic format of
storytelling. On top of this, I also
wish to find out if the way that we as people read and process the information
in books versus the way that we read and process the information presented to
us in movies, or even how our experiences reading the original book effects our
experiences watching the movie and vice versa, has any contributing factor to
this notion. Because the way that we
enjoy these forms of entertainment are based on how our minds and senses
physically process the information given to us not only in film, but in
literature, we can discover exactly what aspects of certain authors’ writing
styles appeal to us. In other words, we
can potentially find out what factors attract us to the written format of storytelling. As a result, this case study will help
significantly in the field of writing studies.
Literature
Review
In order to fully understand this case study, there must
be a few terms that must be properly explained and clarified. This is done by utilizing the text book An Introduction to Discourse Analysis Theory
and Method Third Edition, written by James Paul Gee. The first thing that is crucial to understand
is the idea of little “d” discourse, which Gee defines as “any instance of
language-in-use- or any stretch of spoken or written language” (Gee 205). For the method in which I gather my
information, one must also be familiar with discourse analysis, which Gee
defines as “[t]the analysis of language in-use whether spoken or written” (Gee
205). One of the most important aspects
of discourse for this case study is the idea of general discourse, which
simplified refers to the general and nearly-universal belief of a certain group
or society. In this study, the terms
“fan base” or “fan community” will appear frequently. This term refers to a
group of people that share a similar common interest in one certain thing.
Building on that, a fan community falls under the category of being a capital d
Discourse, which is a group, community, or a collection of people that share
the same ways of talking, thinking, believing, etc. It is also important to understand the term
context, which Gee defines as “the physical setting in which a communication
takes place and everything in it; the bodies, eye gaze, gestures, and movements
of those present” (Gee 203). On final
idea that must be understood is theory, which can be defined as “a set of
claims about what exists in a realm of reality… [that] are hypotheses (guesses)
until substantive evidence is collected for them” (Gee 214).
Methods
To collect the data that I needed, I felt that the only
way this could be achieved was if I selected a story that was known for having
both a literary and a cinematic adaptation, and study the experiences that
people had while reading and viewing both formats of the story respectively in
the form of a series of interviews. This
was conducted by looking specifically at both the movie and novelized versions
of the story Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling. I
chose this particular story because it was the safest bet for gathering large amounts
of information, because of how drastically large of an impact that the Harry
Potter name has made on popular culture on a wide spread scale. Considering how the case study centers on the
tastes and opinions of the public, I felt that the best way to approach
collecting my data was through the use of personal interviews. Specifically, I interviewed individuals who
were known to be extreme fans of the Harry Potter series because they are the
most likely to be well knowledgeable of the story in both of its formats as
opposed to just one over the other. The
volunteers during the interviews were asked a brief series of simplistic
questions. These questions included, but
were not limited to; do the fans have a more enjoyable experience reading the
novel or viewing the movie and why? Is
there a happy median between the enjoyments of the two medias? Do the personal ways that the viewers and/or
readers take in information play a role in how they enjoy the story in any way?
In order to obtain the most accurate information about
the opinions of the Harry Potter fan base at large, I felt the necessity to
interview at least two Harry Potter fans.
Both interviews lasted approximately twenty minutes long each. The first person that I interviewed, who I
will refer to as M for the sake of confidentiality, was a Film major who
attended Kean University; he was approximately twenty years of age. The second person that I interviewed, who I
will refer to as A, was an English Writing major who also attended Kean
University. This interview was also
recorded with a tape recorder. It is my
theory for this study that both participants will agree that the novel was
indeed better than the movie, possibly for reasons along the line of the
visuals of the film stunting the imagination while reading or because the
movies did not stick close enough to the source material. In other words, I theorize that the way that
we interpret the information plays a huge part on how we enjoy specific pieces
of entertainment.
The
Presentation and Analysis of the Data
To
make sure that I had as varied of opinions as possible for my data, I found it
necessary to conduct at least two separate interviews. The context of the first individual’s
interview, the individual who I refer to as M, was in person in the comforts of
his living room. The context of the second
individual’s interview however, the individual who I refer to as A, was not in
person, but was instead interviewed by means of video chat on Skype. Both interviews were captured using a basic
tape recorder. One of the things that I
did not realize at first was that the selection of the two people that I
interviewed could not possibly have been any better since both of the participants,
although both huge fans of the Harry Potter franchise, offer such diverse ideas
and approach both the films and the books in such contrasting ways.
For
example, the first person that I interviewed, M, is a Film major. As such, he has both extreme knowledge and
extreme passion on the subject matter of cinema. You could tell by his discourse, which was
defined in the literature review, that he knew what he was talking about and
was eager to get his opinions out, almost to the point where he would cut me
off and start answering the questions before I could finish asking them. This was most prominent whenever I asked him
questions or made comments that were specifically geared towards the film
adaptations of Harry Potter.
C I actually didn’t read the first Harry
Potter book until after I saw the first three films. So whenever I read the books, I always had,
you know, Daniel Radcliff and---
M Yeah, I always had their images in my
brain because of the movies.
Specifically,
it was when I asked M about how special effects influence people's experience
watching a movie that he gave me his longest answer and revealed his ties to
being a film major. As I read the
transcript to this interview, I realized that the emphasis of the conversation
ended up spending the most time talking about the films. When it came to visualizing the characters in
the book, M stated that the author's descriptions of the characters and settings
did not matter much to him, although he did acknowledge them, and instead he
preferred visualizing things his way.
Much of his opinions of the series were from a visual standpoint. He did confess that the films did have a big
part in how he viewed the Harry Potter world in later installments.
M I know about the general descriptions
[of the characters and environments in the books], but the problem is that over
time, as the movies came out, my general views of the characters and the, uh,
environment became more specific to what I had seen in the movies.
M
believed that this was the case for many other people who read the series as
well. Despite M's emphasis on discussing
the film adaptation in my interview with him, M admitted that in the end, he
did in fact prefer the Sorcerer's Stone
book more than the movie as a stand-alone story. In M's eyes, when following a series such as
Harry Potter, the magic in the book was a lot more powerful because with your
imagination it can become so much more amazing.
In other words, from a visual standpoint, while the human imagination is
timeless and can make certain settings and magic as vivid as the human mind
will allow, the technology of the time period in which the film was released
basically limited how extravagant the settings and the magic could be. He did
not fully dismiss the movies however, and in fact despite liking the book more,
he defended them, saying that Sorcerer's Stone did not make any unnecessary
cuts to the book, and succeeded in leaving in only what was necessary, which is
good for casual fans who do not want to be overwhelmed or weighed down by the
bulky size of the first Harry Potter book..
In fact, M went as far as to say that it would be most beneficial for
both the films and the books if people went to go see the movie before picking
up the book.
M If you watch the movie [first], and you
like the story, you are going to like the movie. And then if you read the book, it is going to
be what you saw in the movie plus whatever you imagine on your own that was not
included in the movie… It’s like getting an extended edition.
In
this way, people watch the movie without having the pre-determined standards
that people who read the book first have to live up to and can enjoy it as its
own piece of cinema. On the flip side,
since the movies tend to have less content that the books, fans can go back,
read the original book, and be pleasantly surprised and entertained by all of
the extra content, obstacles, and challenges that are in the book for them to
experience.
On
the other end of the spectrum, unlike M who was a film major, A was an English
major, specifically an English Writing major.
A is an experienced writer, and has even written some works of her
own. As such, I was fortunate to obtain
opinions from Harry Potter fans of both the cinematic and literary
persuasion. Unlike M, who was quick and
eager to answer each question, A took her time with each question, making sure
to choose each of her words carefully so that she could give the clearest and
most efficient answer possible. At
first, her answers were very terse and to the point, and it was only further
into the interview that she began to warm up and give longer and more detailed
answers. While reading over the
transcript, I was not surprised to find that unlike my interview with M, my
interview with A was a lot more about the literature side of the series. Also unlike M, A felt that when visualizing
the sets and characters, a lot of what she saw in her head was based off of the
author's character descriptions. In
fact, A went as far as to state that detailed descriptions were some of the
most important aspects when reading a book, and without them the formula
becomes dry. A had her own opinions
about how a fan of the series should handle experiencing both the book and the
movies. A believes that even if you do
decide to view the film adaptation first, you should at least read the original
book no matter what. A also argued that
it would actually be more harmful for the book experience if you saw the movie
beforehand.
A If you go into reading a novel without
any influence of a movie, then you have the ability to imagine whatever is
being depicted via text… the imagination is endless… [B]ut once you watch the
movie first, that is all you think of… you sort of have a narrower mind with
what you can experience after watching the movie.
A
also stated that sometimes that it can be a huge damper on the experience of
the film when certain content from the book is altered or left out entirely in
the book. This is because if the
director or script writer goes too far with the changes, it could end up
completely altering the possible outlook of the scene, thus possibly losing the
original meaning or significance that the original author intended to be
included in there. However, A did
confess that in terms of changes to The
Sorcerer's Stone, they got all of the major points needed for the first
film to remain relevant, and actually adapted the original first story pretty
well, much like M thought. On top of
this, A also admits that in some instances watching the movie adaptation first
could potentially add to the original book as well because the reader would
have the additional audio such as the voices, sound effects, music, etc. and
visual images to make the reading experience more involved and realistic.
A I would actually say that after
watching the movie adaptation and then reading it, that would add more to the
book because you have that extra audio or you have the visual already there
were it can just enhance the reading experience of the novel… [however] I would
suggest you read the book first, and then watch the movie if willing.
A
also made a very valid point that it may not necessarily be the fact that
"literature is superior to cinema" per say, but rather fans and
people in general are stubborn by nature and do not like change, thus the tend
to prefer a story in whichever format it was released in first simply because
that is what they knew first.
A Most people stick by whatever comes
first… [the story] starts off with one media way and then the fan base is
already there. The structure starts off
right there, and people get stuck in their ways where they originally go with
what first comes out… because whichever came out first is simply what they knew
first.
In all, A was mostly in favor of the
literature adaptation over the film adaptation, but like M, she offered some
interesting insight on the literature/film debate that had not previously even
been considered until that point.
Conclusion
In
the end, even though both participants had stronger knowledge on one side of
the media conflict or the other, both seemed to have common views on the
original book. However, neither
volunteer would specifically or outright say that the other format was inferior
or worse. Both participants provided
evidence to support both forms of media. So really, what does it all boil down to? Which is truly the superior format? Going based solely off of this information, I
would have to say neither. The data is
inconclusive, not from a lack of available information, but rather from an
excess of possible available information.
Even if it were possible to hypothetically prove that the book
adaptation of The Sorcerer’s Stone was superior or inferior
concretely, that is just one of countless adaptations out there, with a
virtually endless amount of fans with an almost endless amount of different opinions. It is difficult to conclude which format of
story-telling is the superior one when even the supposed experts of the story
cannot completely decide for themselves.
Perhaps it is true that the only reason that many people prefer
literature over cinema is because we are by nature creatures of habit that do
not like to see change to the things we like and are comfortable with. In this case, because it is much more common
to see books made into movies in this day and age, people go into the movie
theaters with pre-determined standards for what the film adaptations should
live up to instead of viewing it as its own piece. As such, people tend to say "the book
was better" more often because it was all that they knew first, and humans
are creatures that don't like change.
Perhaps if we lived in an alternate universe where movies tended to get
turned into books more often, it may be possible that the general discourse would
be "meh, the movie was better".
On
the other hand, maybe literature does tend to take more of its time to properly
explain the details of the world while allowing you to remain as creative as
you wish while creating this vast universe in your mind, unchained and
unhampered by the technological limitations of the time we live in. Either more data must be collected, or in the
end, it all depends on how willing a fan is to open up or narrow their mind
when processing the information given to them.
Ultimately, I conclude that although it is impossible to concretely
determine the truly superior format of storytelling, it is my belief without a
shadow of a doubt that the way that we read and process the information of both
formats definitely does influence how we enjoy them. If we take in the information from either
format with little to no background information, we will be more likely to
enjoy that format of the story as its own piece. Whether we process the same story again in
its cinematic or literature second seems irrelevant, since the fact that we
have pre-processed information of the story makes us view this new format with
a certain bias. We expect the alternate
format to live up to pre-existing standards, which prevents us from enjoying it
as its own individual piece, possibly causing us to overlook any of its changes
or individual perks that make it great in its own right.
Work Cited
Bolter, David Jay, and
Richard Grusin. Remediation:
Understanding New Media. Cabrridge: The MIT Press, 2000. Print.
Corliss, Richard,
Richard Schickel, et al. "Book vs. Movies." TIME Magazine. 27 Nov.
2005. Web. 19 Feb. 2013 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1134742,00.html
Gee, James Paul. An Introduction to Discourse Analysis Theory
and Method Third Edition. New York:
Routledge, 2011. Print.
