Storytelling

They're out there, waiting. You know they are. They dwell in the bright hallways of multiplexes and the parking lots outside of theaters. They lurk on the Internet, poised at their keyboards. When you least expect it, when you walk out of a movie, sipping the last, warm, watery bits of your soda and toss the half-filled bag of popcorn in the trash, they strike. Before you can put up some sort of Star Trek-like shields to deflect them, before you can parry away their devious blow, they say it.

"The book was better."

It never fails. You know the type -- the kind of person who wants to make sure that you and everyone else knows how smart and sophisticated they are. They don't want you to think for a moment that they might actually enjoy such low-brow entertainment as a movie. Books are clearly superior to movies, and they have always read the book before seeing the movie. It doesn't matter how much you enjoyed the movie (or not), and it doesn't matter if you have also read the book. They're quick to jump right in with their favorite statement to show just how intelligent, well read, and generally superior they are.

I'm not at all impressed with someone's declaration of a book's superiority to the film based on it. In fact, I usually think that the statement makes the person look foolish.

First off, of course the book was better than the movie. You might as well say that being at the big game is better than watching it on TV, or that going to a concert is better than listening to the album. (Yes, I know that cases can be made that watching sports on TV or listening to an album is better than being at the game or concert. Just stick with me for a moment.)

Books allow you to enjoy the story at your own pace. They provide longer and more engaging entertainment. They have the unlimited special effects budget of your imagination, and the impeccable casting and acting of the people in your head. The author can speak to you directly, she can take her time in developing the story, and can make the book as long or as short as the story demands. She can tell you what people are thinking, she can pause the action to provide a lush background, and she can paint a picture that you -- and only you -- can see.

Of course the book is better.

Once you've read the book that the movie is based on, you're automatically comparing the filmmaker's choices of character and setting with how you imagined them. Of course you like your choices better -- you wouldn't have imagined them that way if it wasn't just perfect from your point of view. A movie can never match the power of your own imagination.

So let's all just get together as a society and all agree that the book was better, and move on. And let's never feel the need to say it again.

But you know that won't work.

Because what most people are really doing is trying to prove their intellectual superiority when they point out the differences between the movie and the book. However, I think this often makes them look foolish, not superior. Why? Because what they don't seem to realize is that what's good in a book is not necessarily good in a movie. They are two entirely different types of storytelling. If a bit from a book is cut out of the story in the movie based on the book, it's probably for a good reason. First of all, it might have been cut just because books are longer than movies. Why is that so hard for people to understand? The typical length of a story as told in a book is much longer than the typical length of a story in a movie. If Fellowship of the Ring was as long as some people think it should have been (with not a single scene or snippet of dialog cut), the movie would have been eight hours long. Sure, those few people would love it, but overall the film would make about fifty bucks. Compare that to the movie's budget, and you decide whether they made the right choice.

But sometimes scenes are cut from movies, or changes are made because of the change in medium. Movies need to be simpler and more straightforward in their plot developments -- simply because you've only got about two hours to tell the whole story. Sure, there are deep, involved movies, but they are nowhere near as complex and involved as the deepest and most complex of books. They can't be. It's a limitation of the medium. You can't have (to use another Lord of the Rings reference) the Tom Bombadil scene in the movie, because it would completely interrupt the flow of the necessarily quickened pace of the story. (Further, Tom's attitude toward the One Ring would undermine the mood that the movie needed to establish.)

Movies are different than books. Period. People who walk into a theater and think the movie will be exactly like the book it's based on need to have their heads examined. They have a naïve understanding of storytelling media.

In the David Mamet movie State and Main, a character says (I'm paraphrasing): "Of course you have to make your own fun. If you didn't make it yourself, it wouldn't be fun, it would be entertainment." Maybe that's a way to look at the difference. Books are fun, and movies are entertainment. A book becomes a part of you (because you invest more) and movies are something that you enjoy mostly from a passive position.

Personally, I love reading and I love movies. I love stories and I love storytelling. I wish there were more of both out there for me to completely enjoy, but that's another rant...

(and one that I've ranted about before!)