I’m a reader. Always have been, always will be. I started reading when I was about 3, and I’ve never looked back, and while reading was my first love (okay, second; I’m pretty sure that music was first), I have a distinct love for other, non-literary art forms. Of course I do. My life wouldn’t be what it is if I didn’t have that love. Theatre, music, film, dance, and visual arts are all art forms that I have a great deal of respect and passion for (and in the case of music and theatre, extensive training and a career built around), and they’re not necessarily based on the written word.

Read enough books, and you’ll soon come across movie adaptations of some of them. Take something successful and make it even more successful by making it accessible to a different audience! What could go wrong with that? I think it’s most prevalent in the film/TV adaptations of books and plays; then in plays that are adaptations of books or movies; and then novelizations of existing movies, TV shows, and plays.

(I think that music, dance, and visual arts tend more toward derivative works than toward adaptations; because their storytelling is less narrative and less linear, the relationship between those three and the other three, going both ways, is less of a direct re-telling of a story. That’s another conversation altogether; right now, I’m mostly concerned with the distinctly narrative art forms.)

Now, don’t misunderstand; I’m not trying to argue the superiority of books to their film adaptations. While this may be couched in a conversation that is primarily about books and movies, the scope is far broader than that. I’m talking about understanding the generative artist’s intent. Regardless of form or genre, that’s the most important thing to be aware of. A TV show can be superior to a book; a movie can be superior to a play. It’s not about which forms are more “valid,” because none is more or less valid than the others. They each require a different set of skills, they each have the potential to showcase truly great art and storytelling, and every single one of them is constantly adapted from and by other art forms. Books are not inherently better than television; theatre is not inherently better than film, and great culture and art can be found in all of them.

I think, though, that there are several important questions to consider:

First, who is the generative artist? Whose vision is being carried out? In television, that’s often a creator or show-runner. In the case of books, that’s generally the author. In theatre or film, that could be a playwright (or screenwriter), a director, a designer, an actor, or even a producer — whoever drives the project and creates the vision that everyone else works to see come to fruition.

Second, what is the original art form? Was it originally a play? A piece of music? A sitcom? A movie?

Third, what are the inspirations for this work? Whose work does this reference? Is this a derivative work? If so, what was the original work that this is derived from?

I think that without considering those questions, it’s nearly impossible to fully appreciate any piece of media. It’s possible to enjoy it, yes, but that enjoyment comes (or should come) with the full knowledge that this is an inferior experience to the generative artist’s original intent.

Some time ago, Anne of Green Gables came up in conversation, and Colin made a comment about not having seen the movies or read the books in quite a while. I commented that I hadn’t read the books in a while, but while I think that Megan Follows embodies Anne beautifully, I’m not a big fan of the movies, particularly The Continuing Story. That movie bothers me on so many levels, mainly because the books are set 30 years earlier, and the film plays with the timeline in a way that’s unacceptable to me. World War 1 was the war that affected Anne’s children. Rilla of Ingleside is the book set during that time period, and the main character is Anne and Gilbert’s youngest daughter. The orphaned baby was taken in by Rilla, and it was Anne’s sons who fought, not Gilbert.

I think that a movie-watcher can have a complete entertainment experience with the movie alone; I just don’t think that it’s possible to experience the fullest world of the story the way that L.M. Montgomery intended. In fact, it’s not even the same story, and if the Anne movies told the same story without claiming to be a movie version of the books, I would enjoy them far more. Since they’re an “adaptation” of the books and are intended to be taken as a package deal, though, I can’t take the movies at face value.

Or take a more faithful-to-the-book example. Colin and I went to see Half-Blood Prince last night (don’t worry; no spoilers are ahead), and the first word that came to mind when we left the theatre was “thin.” The story was so much thinner and had far less substance than the books, even though it was relatively faithful to the plot. Yes, there were plot points that were condensed and cut for the sake of time, but even leaving that aside, the movie (really, all of the Harry Potter movies) allowed far less character development and relational interaction, particularly for the minor characters. All the characters’ motivations and histories are left lacking, and the story doesn’t work the same way without having that knowledge to fill in the holes.

The Harry Potter movies work as a companion to the books. A gorgeous, well-done companion, but supplementary material nonetheless — I felt like I was just skimming the surface of what the story was intended to be. It wasn’t the full experience of Harry Potter. The movies are a beautiful visual representation of certain parts of the book, and can very much be enjoyed and appreciated as such, but anyone who tries to take in the full Harry Potter experience through the movies alone robs himself of J.K. Rowling’s full story. She may have put her stamp of approval on the screenplays, but by the very nature of an adaptation, there are things that had to be cut and sacrificed; therefore, the representation of the world she created is not complete, no matter how accurate the pieces may be.

Because film and literature are two distinctly different art forms, they can’t be judged the same way. A story told on film and the same story told on paper are two different artistic experiences — the story on film fleshes out the visual narrative in a way that the story on paper is unable to. However, the story told on film channels that narrative through one specific visual lens.

In a film that’s created as a film, that individual, specific visual aesthetic is absolutely necessary. It goes back to the generative artist’s intent. In film, the generative artist is presenting a visual work, and without a specific visual context (as in, a book adaptation of a film), some of the original integrity of the art is lost. However, a book is created with a narrative aesthetic, not a visual one, so to overlay a visual aesthetic onto the book drives it into a specific channel that is marked by a particular interpretation.

Now, that’s not to say that I go to the source material for everything I see, read, listen to, or experience. I don’t, and I’m fully aware that there are artists whose work I don’t fully get because I’m not familiar with their sources. That’s also not to say that interpretation is a bad thing. In theatre, for instance, every production of a play is going to be an interpretation. The generative artist may have been the playwright, but the interpretation of the script is going to be different with each production — just like the interpretation of a book is going to be different by everyone who reads it. My mental picture will be different than yours, and the significant themes and impactful moments will be different for each reader.

That’s interaction with the work, and art is created for interaction. It’s not meant to exist in a vacuum. To adapt a work is to interact with it, and in my experience, most of the people who create the adaptations are very familiar with the original. Most people who adapt a work are probably more familiar with it than many viewers/readers of the original are. It’s the viewers/readers/experiencers of the adaptation that are getting the raw end of the deal.

Going back to the specific book-versus-movie example, I know my opinion is colored, because I can’t imagine a life without books, and I have a hard time understanding why someone would choose not to read. Even so, I think it’s the responsibility of an educated audience member — of any piece of adapted work — to be understand that they’re making a choice to get a less-than-full experience. That doesn’t mean they can’t enjoy and be entertained by the movie, play, book, TV show, or whatever; it just means being aware of the fact that the entertainment is, on some level, ignorant. Enjoy it for what it is; just know that “what it is” is less than 100% of the generative artist’s intention.

I suppose that what I’m trying to say is that I felt really, really sorry for the people who have seen (or are intending to see) Half-Blood Prince without having read the book. Especially if they think that by seeing the movie, they’ve experienced the fullness of the story. Because they haven’t.

Tags: aesthetics, art, conceptual work, film, good books, mass appeal, Theatre, things I've seen

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