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calimacAt a conversation yesterday the subject came up of people saying that a movie "ruined the book." The story was told of Raymond Chandler (or somebody) pointing triumphantly at his shelf of novels and saying, "They're still there!"
I've heard the story differently, that he looked sadly at them and said, "They're still there; that's what I have to keep telling myself."
But either way, people who say that the movie "ruined the book" are not referring to cases where the publisher removes the original novel from print and replaces it with a novelization of the movie, though that has happened a few times. They're talking about their reading experience of the book, and that makes sense: for I think most creative writers would agree that a book on the shelf might as well be dead unless someone takes it down and reads it and has it in their head.
If your re-reading or memory is tainted or mixed up with thoughts of a film version which you found unfaithful to the novel's spirit, then it's fair to say that, for you, the book has been ruined.
In response to that, someone said that's weak-minded, but I don't think so. A film is a powerful aesthetic experience involving visual art, drama, spectacle, music, and a lot of other things all at once. People are powerfully affected by films; they stick with us; that's why we see them.
I don't think it weak-minded not to be able to put that out of your head; and if it is, most people are. Deal with it. It took me about ten years to eradicate unwanted thoughts of the Bakshi film when re-reading The Lord of the Rings; if that makes me weak-minded, so be it. I was struck a few years ago reading an interview with Angelika Kirchschlager, an opera singer who prepared for the title role in an opera based on William Styron's novel Sophie's Choice by avoiding the film based on the same novel. She said, "I got the video and I started, but then gave up after 20 minutes because I realized Meryl Streep was so strong in that role I'd never get rid of the impression of how she did it." I like that word never - probably a rhetorical exaggeration; still, she said it.
Any odd cultural references can permanently change the way a work of art is viewed. When some 1930s radio producers chose the galop from Rossini's William Tell Overture to represent the Lone Ranger, they struck a cultural chord - and the overture has never been the same since.
The other way a movie can ruin a book is to get into the heads of those who haven't read the book and affect their first reading, in ways they might not even be aware of. My own experience going from a movie to a book I didn't already know is usually a disappointment akin to the one I get when a book I love is made into a movie. In either direction, the experience I first have sets up an expectation that's hard to overcome. As a child of 8 who'd seen Disney's Mary Poppins, I found Travers' books startlingly different to the point of mental whiplash. I might not have liked Travers even if I hadn't seen the film, but I don't know that, and have no way of ever finding out.
People who haven't read Tolkien, but who liked Jackson's Lord of the Rings films, usually especially praise its most Tolkienian aspects - which I think evidence that films more closely resembling the book would have been more successful - but whether they do or not, they tend to conflate the two stories into one. Which is not OK when the subject is explicitly Tolkien. Friends of mine who teach classes on Tolkien have to mark papers down for mentioning themes or scenes that occur only in Jackson, and I've seen it in some Tolkien scholarship too. (We're not talking compare-and-contrast here.)
I'm told that a lot of people going from the films to Tolkien are appreciating the book just fine. I'm delighted to hear it, but that doesn't say anything about the quality of the films. One of the top Tolkien scholars first came across Tolkien as a 12-year-old watching the Rankin-Bass Hobbit and fascinated by the map. A serendipitous encounter, but that doesn't make the Rankin-Bass Hobbit good. Frodo would never have gotten the Ring into the fire had Gollum not bitten his finger, but that doesn't make Gollum's attack praiseworthy. Just fortuitous.
I've heard the story differently, that he looked sadly at them and said, "They're still there; that's what I have to keep telling myself."
But either way, people who say that the movie "ruined the book" are not referring to cases where the publisher removes the original novel from print and replaces it with a novelization of the movie, though that has happened a few times. They're talking about their reading experience of the book, and that makes sense: for I think most creative writers would agree that a book on the shelf might as well be dead unless someone takes it down and reads it and has it in their head.
If your re-reading or memory is tainted or mixed up with thoughts of a film version which you found unfaithful to the novel's spirit, then it's fair to say that, for you, the book has been ruined.
In response to that, someone said that's weak-minded, but I don't think so. A film is a powerful aesthetic experience involving visual art, drama, spectacle, music, and a lot of other things all at once. People are powerfully affected by films; they stick with us; that's why we see them.
I don't think it weak-minded not to be able to put that out of your head; and if it is, most people are. Deal with it. It took me about ten years to eradicate unwanted thoughts of the Bakshi film when re-reading The Lord of the Rings; if that makes me weak-minded, so be it. I was struck a few years ago reading an interview with Angelika Kirchschlager, an opera singer who prepared for the title role in an opera based on William Styron's novel Sophie's Choice by avoiding the film based on the same novel. She said, "I got the video and I started, but then gave up after 20 minutes because I realized Meryl Streep was so strong in that role I'd never get rid of the impression of how she did it." I like that word never - probably a rhetorical exaggeration; still, she said it.
Any odd cultural references can permanently change the way a work of art is viewed. When some 1930s radio producers chose the galop from Rossini's William Tell Overture to represent the Lone Ranger, they struck a cultural chord - and the overture has never been the same since.
The other way a movie can ruin a book is to get into the heads of those who haven't read the book and affect their first reading, in ways they might not even be aware of. My own experience going from a movie to a book I didn't already know is usually a disappointment akin to the one I get when a book I love is made into a movie. In either direction, the experience I first have sets up an expectation that's hard to overcome. As a child of 8 who'd seen Disney's Mary Poppins, I found Travers' books startlingly different to the point of mental whiplash. I might not have liked Travers even if I hadn't seen the film, but I don't know that, and have no way of ever finding out.
People who haven't read Tolkien, but who liked Jackson's Lord of the Rings films, usually especially praise its most Tolkienian aspects - which I think evidence that films more closely resembling the book would have been more successful - but whether they do or not, they tend to conflate the two stories into one. Which is not OK when the subject is explicitly Tolkien. Friends of mine who teach classes on Tolkien have to mark papers down for mentioning themes or scenes that occur only in Jackson, and I've seen it in some Tolkien scholarship too. (We're not talking compare-and-contrast here.)
I'm told that a lot of people going from the films to Tolkien are appreciating the book just fine. I'm delighted to hear it, but that doesn't say anything about the quality of the films. One of the top Tolkien scholars first came across Tolkien as a 12-year-old watching the Rankin-Bass Hobbit and fascinated by the map. A serendipitous encounter, but that doesn't make the Rankin-Bass Hobbit good. Frodo would never have gotten the Ring into the fire had Gollum not bitten his finger, but that doesn't make Gollum's attack praiseworthy. Just fortuitous.
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Re: Literary Imprinting: A ramble
Date: 2007-01-03 04:49 pm (UTC)I would go along with the "they're taking things too seriously" argument if 1) it weren't too often (not by you here, obviously) phrased as a sneering "It's just a movie"; 2) if it were applied by its advocates with equal frequency and force towards those who praise those films as masterworks of narrative.
Did Shakespeare's adaptations ruin the original tales?
Actually, yes. Teachers of 15th-century English history have to overcome a tremendous amount of Shakespearean literary imprinting. There are whole societies of people who've been spending the last 400 years trying to rescue Richard III from Shakespeare's extraordinarily vivid calumny.
There are chunks of 19th century poetry that you only know about because the Lewis Carroll parodies are classic.
Which means they'd be forgotten without Carroll, so there's no misreading to rescue them from.
Re: Literary Imprinting: A ramble
Date: 2007-01-03 07:51 pm (UTC)About the fourth time through the books, I tended to skim over the high fantasy and dig down into the action sequences. You're right about the battles per se, but he does go into absorbing detail about individual efforts. The battles seem real because we're following characters.
One fan we probably both know dismissed the third movie because the pikes were the wrong length for the battle. He had other criticisms, but that's what he went on about. I'm by no means an expert, but they looked fine by me. I thought (to myself) a) If Jackson gets it so right that you have to get down to the "bad pikes" level, he's done extraordinarily well; and b) In combat situations where magic plays an important role, traditional weapons tactic analysis is suspect.
Re taking things too seriously: Remember, I'm arguing in all directions, that one medium is different than another. The off-Broadaway musical Little Shop of Horrors was viewed (by some) as a degradation of the Corman movie. Personally, I thought it was great, though the movie made from the play made from the movie wasn't as good as the original movie. (Did you follow that? *whew*) Recently, a remake of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory came out, going back to the book title Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I might suggest both movies are better than the book, and the book is very good. Perhaps more to the point, I think the second movie informs the first. To me, they're different takes on the same story, and should be seen together in the same way that you can watch a movie with a commentary track.
Thanks for not lumping me in with other critics. Film can be a masterwork of narrative, but sometimes it's just a Popcorn Delivery Vehicle. Of course, sometimes a book is just a product tie-in. The medium is the massage (not just the message) and individual works don't always need a context for interpretation.
There are whole societies of people who've been spending the last 400 years trying to rescue Richard III from Shakespeare's extraordinarily vivid calumny
Heh. Still, this is a distinction between fact and fiction, not one of reinterpreting fiction.
Which means they'd be forgotten without Carroll, so there's no misreading to rescue them from.
We're not pontificating over misreading but ruination. The fact remains that Carroll's reinterpretation is much, much better than the originals. Just because something came first doesn't mean it's the best.