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Reading the original book vs watching the movie/TV version


maniac

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I just finished reading the full version of Count of Monte Cristo.

 

As a kid I remember reading a more condensed and simplified version of it. Not sure if they still have these but as a kid in the early 90's there was this publishing company that used to put out condensed versions of classic novels in a simplified language for kids(I think the demographic is called Young adults). They published the works of Alexandre Dumas, H.G.Wells, Mark Twain or collection of short stories by O'Henry, Edgar Allan Poe ,H.G Wells etc. and other famous novels.

 

I probably still have a few of those lying some where on an attic in India still but anyway good times.

 

Recently I just picked a copy of this book on my kindle and it was about 19000 Kindle pages and based on my guess that would be at least a 800-1000 page hard copy book. However despite knowing the basic theme of the story and having read the kiddie version of it I was still mesmerized by it and engrossed in every page.

 

The character development, the way emotions are captured, the philosophy in it, the way political climate and social norms of that time are described are super-fascinating.

 

There are lot of voracious readers here, so I am obviously preaching to the choir .

 

However it got me thinking.

 

How can a movie even remotely do justice to a classic like this. In 3 hours time will a movie be able to capture the character depth, the emotion of the book? No matter who is directing it or acting in it, it would be impossible to capture the entire essence of the book.

 

I have spoken to some Harry Potter Nerds who say the same thing as well despite the amazing casting, film making and acting in Harry Potter it is not a patch on the books. I have been told the same about Game of Thrones books which also I haven't read.

 

Are there any movies out there which are better than the original book?

 

In my experience I haven't. Life of Pi may come closest for me personally because the movie was a visual masterpiece and did the best justice to the book.

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Lord of the Rings films even though obviously not a patch on the original work of Tolkien are nonetheless a top class cinema which were appreciated by both book geeks and cinema lovers alike. 

Similar case with The Godfather thanks to some top notch acting from everybody in the cast involved. 

 

But in general, yes you are right. There's no way a film can do justice to the source material given time and other constraints. 

Book authors have this liberty and freedom to properly express themselves something not available to the film directors. 

 

I guess at the end of the day it eventually boils down to the skills of the filmmaker. The likes of Spielberg et al have shown that it's possible to make the film adaptations as entertaining and captivating as the original source material. You just need a right amount of talent for that. 

 

I mean look at the Harry Potter films. They were doing alright till they decided to introduce David Yates who imo completely butchered the whole essence of the series. 

 

 

PS: Speaking of Monte Cristo, one of my all time favorite novels. 

Edited by Stradlater
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LOTR is very good in movie form. But that is because most of the people aren't able to finish the book without falling asleep or failing to understand Tolkien's writing. But the movie is very good nonetheless.

 

I read about half of the trilogy when I was 13, and I wasnt able to fully understand the writing , and so I fell asleep at times. Though I was able to understand the essence of the story. 

 

I would say the Godfather is better as a movie because of the acting by Brando, Pacino etc. 

 

Harry Potter films are very mediocre. They were never able to do justice to the books and leave out much of the details in each of the book's movie version.

 

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