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offered them a more easy way to access all this. Reading was
replaced with watching images and the information was transmitted
much faster.
Since then the two fields became competitors. Some people still
prefer book and other prefer only films or both. Each of them can
bring positive and negative aspects.
Literature and films have become these days so important in the
life of an individual that it can be said that they are both part of our
culture. Therefore they both contribute to the intellectual and
emotional development of a person. They became interdependent to
each other and they cannot be separated. Nevertheless some people
will split them and talk only from one perspective.
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Both literature and films melt in the same place where a variety of
cultures are reunited with history. Different genres of literature as
poetry, novels and plays are present in film scripts that can be seen
as literature. Therefore there is a history of bond between film and
literature, from theatrical narratives of the silent film era to recent
blockbuster adaptations of Shakespeare and Jane Austen.
Films are telling and retelling stories, and most of those stories are
still being (or have been) appropriated from literary or dramatic
sources. Adaptation has always been central to the process of
filmmaking since almost the beginning. 1 But was not an easy job to
connect literature with films. Geoffrey Wagner said that to make an
adaptation of a book implies three types of transition: transition of
fiction into films (a book is given directly on the screen with a
minimum of apparent interference), commentary (re-emphasis or
restructure in which the original is altered) and analogy (departure
for the sake of making another work of art). Dudley Andrew, a
decade later categorized other three modes of adaptation under
other names: borrowing (extend the material, idea more or less),
intersecting
(the
uniqueness
of
the
original
text
is
left
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persons who read first a book and then see the film and then say
that "The book was better." This happens because they have already
made their own perfect film version. They have visualized it: the
locations, the characters, the actions. In one word they savored
every word that they read.3 They had become witnesses of their own
thinking that was shaped by their background knowledge of world.
Films not only that they give the text already imagined by someone
else but they offer a bigger opening to the world. That is way both
have an important contribution. Sometimes a person cannot
understand the message of a book but after seeing the film things
are more visible. Films can adapt books to contemporary times and
to emphases what is important or not important. A person who
wants to deliberate and discover the message by himself can read
the book that offers more details. Films also can offer one
understanding that opens new perspective. Therefore both literature
and films can help each other for a better understanding. Films try
to put thoughts into words, emotions into gestures, descriptions
into actions. And adapters try to satisfy almost every reader also
please the audience.4 There is one difference that separates them:
images. In books the images are in the mind of the reader who
creates them and in films are in front of the viewer made by
someone else. This small difference makes them important as
individual creation, but together they have a stronger force.
3RICHARD CORLISS, Books Vs. Movies, Sunday, Nov. 27,
2005http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1134742,00.html[21.06.2012,
16:24]
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John Poff says in an article that when the five minute story is
read or the two hour movie is finished what have we really learned
about ourselfs other than what we've been able to simply relate to
is a lot. He points out that it's very hard to distinguish the
difference in our society between a book and a movie. 5
That is way we need to read books but also to watch films.
Poetry in films
What makes a movie more interesting is when is inspired by
poetry. There are poems that each time you read each time you
understand something else. Films that are inspired from there
poems are made in the same perspective that to understand each
time something else. They give lots of possibilities of thinking.
Poetry as a source of emotions is hard to be translated into a
film. Malcolm Lowry saw a difficulty of combining the rhythm of a
spoken word with the visual rhythm. He thinks that there is little
future for poetic drama or Shakespeare in movies. For Lowry films
are seen as enemies of poetry in poetrys terms because the
camera is reduced to functioning outside the whole. Camera does
not compete with the poetry; it is inferior to poetry because they
belong to separates worlds and time. With the development of the
cinematic techniques the images are functioning abundantly,
vibrantly, immediately and also evocatively and symbolically.
Therefore almost like a rhythm.6
5 John Poff, Literature vs film, January 18, 2007 Last Updated: May 08, 2007,
Online: http://www.helium.com/items/125864-literature-vs-film [24.06.2012, 7:00
am]
4
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of
trivialities.
From
this
perspective
madmen
are
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the
subconscious.
He's
like
Orpheus
descending.
He's
straddling both worlds and sort of exploring through it and using all
the sorrow in his life as an alchemist to turn it into all this cool
stuff."15 Megan Suckut give a verdict to the movies and says The
Raven tends to be unbelievable in its explanations of Poe's life and
death, and is sometimes reminiscent of National Treasure, the
quality of its acting and writing make it a movie worth watching. 16
Images, lighting, angles and camera movements respect the
14 Linda Costanzo Cahir. Literature Into Film: Theory And Practical Approaches.
USA: McFarland, 2006, p.189
15 Megan Suckut. The Raven upholds Poe's legacy while frightening viewers. April
27 2012. Online: http://northbynorthwestern.com/story/the-raven-and-the-legacy-ofpoe/
7
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during the years and so the psychological terror and mystery grew.
The uses of heavy camera blur and the extremely unsteady scene
pull the audience into the shoes of Poe. The question is why is a
tendency for the people to identify the person from the poem with
the author? They are not the same persons even if the piece of art
was shaped by the authors life. Seeing the film and reading the
poem would provide a better understanding.
In conclusion literature is an inspiration for films and a source of
supply. They need each other to irrigate the deserts that our lives
have already become. They have a powerful impact on individuals
mind and enrich the soul. Films can become literature and can
become useful in the individuals intellectual growth.
Bibliography
1)
Online:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1134
742,00.html [24.06.2012, 7:15]
2) Leitch, Thomas M. Film Adaptation and Its Discontents: From
Gone With the Wind to the Passion of the Christ. USA: The Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2007.
16
8
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Last Updated:
The
Studio's
Classic
1931-1946,
Carolina:
McFarland, 2007.
9) Hayes, Kevin J. The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
10) Megan
frightening
Suckut.
The
viewers.
Raven
April
upholds
27
Poe's
legacy
2012.
while
Online:
http://northbynorthwestern.com/story/the-raven-and-the-legacyof-poe/[21.06.2012]
9
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10