Everyday Canvas

Good Literature and Movies

Prompt: We've all watched movies at some point or another. Have you ever studied a movie from a writer’s point of view and broke the movie down? With this in mind, what two aspects make it a film versus a book? What's your favorite movie? Why? Remember we're looking at this discussion from a writer's eye.

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I neither like nor watch movies all that much anymore. I am foremost a reader, always.

There was a time, though, when we went to the movies every week, which I am talking about a few decades ago. Among my favorite movies of long ago are Casablanca and Dr. Zhivago, and if I jiggle my memory more, I may come up with several others.

I don’t think I have studied a movie from a writer’s point of view, except for Casablanca, and I am sure what I liked was the direction, filming, and the actors. This is because between the movies and books huge differences exist.

If I read any book, I don’t want to see its movie because I expect to be disappointed, for I know how most movie makers mess up perfectly good books. On the other hand, they usually do better if they adapt a short story to a movie. Yentl comes to mind in this category.

Then, if I see a movie, I stay away from reading the book as chances are I’ll be upset at how the movie industry messes up perfectly good art. Among the good books I read that they made a movie of is Emma Donoghue’s Room. I have refused to see that movie because I loved the book.

Most of the time, in my opinion, when people adore a movie, it is the actors’ perfection they take notice, not the script or the original book. For example, Tender Mercies, Terms of Endearment, and Steel Magnolias were the movies I loved when I first watched them. I will not read them now in book form, after watching them as films, even if some of them were novels first.