Our book club chooses one
book every four to six weeks to be discussed at a later date. When we get together, the six of us enjoy a
lively discussion even though we each have differing opinions.
We are perfect examples
of what is called reader-response theory.
Reader-response theory
suggests that the written word’s (author’s) intention and what the reader
understands are two different things. The good news, these two different views do
meet somewhere in the middle. Regardless
what the author intended, the reader adds to what is on the page based on his
or her own past experiences.
This happens with any
created object. What the “artist” presents to the world is often seen and
appreciated differently by the reader, the audience, or the consumer.
This often happens with
movies. The director creates a movie, but the movie critic sees one thing, and
the movie goer sees another. We each respond to the film based on our past
experiences, our likes and dislikes.
Knowing this, which do
you prefer to do first, read the book or watch the movie?
For those of us who read
the book first, we form a solid mental picture of the characters, not just what
they look like but also their inner workings, their motivation. Through the
written word, we have been privy to inner thoughts, back stories, imagery, mood,
and this ‘bias’ affects our expectations should “our” book become a movie.
We balk when the characters
do not look like we pictured them, and worse yet, if torrphey do not act and react like we expected. We scrutinize the film, looking for the
details we enjoyed in our reading – the inner dialogue, the back stories, the
conflict. We are not forgiving should the setting, the imagery, the mood, or the
pacing not jive with what we “pictured.”
We pretend expertise and become
amateur filmmakers, looking for evidence to back our criticism - the use of
sidekicks or confidants, camera pans, background music, and visual effects. We
become film critics if our “favorite” scenes get written out of the scripts or
end up on cutting room floors to fit budget restraints or maximum run times.
Book-first readers are
merciless.
I know very few who see
the movie first and then reach for the book. They would be surprised in the difference
between the two presentations. On rare occasions, if I see the movie version
first and it intrigues me, I’ve been known to buy the book.
Afterthoughts:
· In
the movie How Stella Got Her Groove Back,
the character played by Whoopi Goldberg was not a character in the book. She
was added as a confidante into the movie to share Stella’s misgivings over
dating a man many years younger than she was.
· Characters
have been added and deleted in series like Lord
of the Rings and Game of Thrones
in order to streamline the stories.
· The
movie character Lestat played by Tom Cruise in The Vampire Lestat looks nothing like the description the author portrayed
in the book, though he did the part so well he won over its author Anne Rice.
· Whole
sections of the Harry Potter books
were eliminated to fit into the maximum time frame allowed for a movie.
· The
beginning of the movie Jurassic Park
is totally different than the book, but that scene was later incorporated into
subsequent versions of the series.
· Books
like The Book Thief or Ready, Player One do not transfer well
onto film even with the help of modern technology. Part of the charm and
expertise of both books was allowing the reader to envision the wildly impossible.
· After
I watched The Martian, The Descendants, and Waiting for a Dancer, I had to buy the books, and I am glad I did. I
craved more details and understanding than what the movies provided, and the
books supplied them.
