Film Adaptations, The book WAS different!

I was in a store and saw a legion of Nicholas Sparks’ novels in a row, thinking of the movies that came of them, and the criticism that followed. Film adaptations of books are risky business and beautiful art at the same time. The movie is never like the book- why- because if novels were entertaining in the same way as movies, Hollywood never would have existed in the first place. A movie at its best is a 360 degree experience, emotional, mentally stimulating, and a visual pleasure. Music and dialogue are used only to enhance that experience. Obviously, Freddy Krueger isn’t going to be stimulating in the same way a Disney flick will be, since the reaction is based purely on the chemistry between the film's mission and audience.   

A film needs to produce in an hour and a half what a book does in 400+ pages. Most people don’t finish a novel in one sitting, this is the first challenge if the screen writer. The important thing is that film is art,“the product or process of deliberately arranging symbolic elements in a way that influences and affects the senses emotions, and/or intellect” (www.wikipedia.org). The Last Song, for example, was written as a screenplay by Nicholas Sparks, before the novel was completed. If you saw the film, you could note some major diversions in detail from the book, however, when all was said and done, both the book and the novel bring the same message to a head. In fact, sometimes by seeing a book made into a film, readers may see a different angle of the book that they never would have. So next time you see a film, view it as a film maker, or a script writer. Maybe the film adaptation you bashed has more value than you gave it.