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Go Tian, Kimberly R.
2013-79217 / BS Geography
Word Count: 1438
The Perfectly Imperfect Adaptation
Growing up, I have always loved reading books. It helped enrich my vocabulary
and widen my imagination. I remember the first one I finished is The Little House on
Prairie Woods and I felt proud being able to finish the book. In grade school and high
school, we were required to read books for our book review and/or book report and those
added to my book list. Some I enjoyed while some I just finished just because it was
required. But I also read books for recreation. Novels and paperbacks would always be
on my hand wherever I would go and youll find me reading anywhere. Excitement would
fire up my heart when the film adaptation of the novels would come. But at times, that
excitement is dissolved once I watch the film. A huge number of novels have been
adapted to other forms of media and film is one of them. This essay will talk about the
adaptation of novels to a different media particularly into films.
Adaptation is when newer versions of a material appear in a different medium. It
has long been studied and analyzed even before the birth of film studies (Nordfjord, 2012).
Adaptation studies study the relationship of the novel and the film and its intertextual
relations. Nordfjord discussed the categories of intertextual relations by Robert Stam
(2000) and Gerard Genette (1997). In a paper written by Briane McFarlane (1999) where
he discussed the Theory of Adaptation in the research of George Bluestones Novels into
Film, there are two ways of seeing and that is the difference of the precept of the visual
image and the concept of mental image. Just like how we have mental maps in
Geography, our mental image of the places and characters in novels are constructed with

what we are already familiar of. The visual image of what films display may not be the
same as our mental image of the said scene of the film. We can also say that the
landscape of the books is our imagination but the landscape of films is the cinema.
Bluestone also argues that there is an ultimate variation between the way the images are
produced in the two media and how it is received. Much comparison can also be observed
when it comes to the audience of reading a book and watching a film. Reading books is
a personal activity in your own personal space unlike watching films which is a shared
activity with other people in theaters or at home with the family.
Some people say that changes in adaptation are essential and inevitable. With
constraints such as time or scale, the level of realism, and the ideology of the filmmaker
or author there will be various point of views and beliefs. We know that novels are usually
200 plus page long, but then the time of films are limited because of production. Since
there is a limitation of time for films, filmmakers cannot put all the events from the book
to the film. He will choose the most important ones that make up the narrative. The level
of realism is also at hand in making film adaptations. As readers have their individual idea
of reality in the novels, the filmmaker and author also have their own but the final decision
goes to the filmmaker in what he wants to show in the film. The ideology of the filmmaker
is as important as the two other constraints because it will affect the theme of the film.
The filmmakers will always have the power to insert either intentional landscapes or the
spectators landscape (Lefebvre, 2011). Its either the audience understands what the
director wants to depict or the audience understands a whole new idea. Despite these
constraints, critics say that the film must be effective at least in its aesthetics.

I have a fairly new history of watching films that were adapted from novels. The
first novel that I read that was adapted to film is Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. Twilight in
summary is about the love story of a girl and a vampire and their fight against themselves
and other vampires. I was thrilled to watch the movie that I remember even telling myself
that I could not believe that I am watching Twilight. Twilight series is the first novel series
that I read with a lot of emotions involved that is why I also had a lot of expectations for
the movie. But judgment came after watching the film. Twilight the movie broke my heart.
Not because the story was tear jerking but because the film adaptation ruined the book.
The characters that I imagined in the film did not act the way they should have acted, the
graphics and the lightning were not the best, the location they used is not what the book
described it to be and the story in the movie was completely different from the book. It
was such a huge disappointment to me that I did not bother to watch New Moon, Eclipse
and Breaking Dawn the series after Twilight. The Twilight film had such a bad response
that people made memes about it and even made a parody film for it.
The second novel series that I read that was adapted to film is The Hunger Games
Trilogy by Suzanne Collins. The Hunger Games Trilogy in summary is about the rebellion
of the civilians against their government that controls them through the Hunger Games.
Compared to Twilight, The Hunger Games did not disappoint me. I love The Hunger
Games so much that I took the risk of watching the film and I loved it too. The
cinematography was remarkable, the mood was the same mood I felt while reading the
book and the actors portrayed the characters so well that I did not see them as actors.
There were parts of the novel that were not included in the movie already but the theme
and message did not change. All the books in the trilogy which are Catching Fire and

Mockingjay were shown well in its film adaptation. In order to be faithful to the novel, the
filmmaker made two parts of Mockingjay to present all the scenes. I think this was a good
move of the filmmaker and producer to cut the movie in to two parts rather than having
one movie but deleting important scenes from the novel. The film also used diegesis to
heighten emotions and moods. The whistle in the film became the auditory symbol of the
Hunger Games. Even if the whistle in the novel did not really discuss its sound, the film
presented it exactly how it would sound. There was also a song in the novel where it only
had lyrics, but the film was able to give life to the song.
The second book that I loved reading that I actually read it twice is The Fault in
Our Stars by John Green. I made sure to finish the book before I watched the film. It is
about a girl and her battle with cancer. She then meets a boy who also had cancer and
they fall in love with each other embark on an adventurous journey together. The film
adaptation of The Fault in Our Stars was excellent. When I read the book, I cried. When
I watched the film, I cried too. The film adaptation stayed faithful to the novel and also
used diegesis by making a soundtrack which was played in the movie. The actors
Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort reportedly read the novel first before they read the
script and John Green was present in the shooting of the film which I believe helped in
the success of the adaptation. In the shooting of the film, they committed the crime against
Geography (Lukinbeal, 2005) when they just made a replica of the Anne Frank house
because they werent able to get a permit to shoot in the place and they shot a scene in
a different location because of the constant poor weather.
Film adaptations will not always be perfect and will not always be exactly the same
as the novel. Despite that, there are measures that the filmmakers can do to be faithful to

the book; And with the constraints discussed previously, its the filmmakers responsibility
to direct and show the landscape of the novel into the cinematic landscape. There will be
applause for the film and there will also be critics but in the end, a film is a film and a book
is a book. The two work of arts should be seen and appreciated differently.

References
Lefebvre, M. (2011). On Landscape in Narrative Cinema. Canadian Journal of
Film Studies, 61-78. Retrieved from Proquest.
Lukinbeal, C. (2005). Cinematic Landscapes. Journal of Cultural Geography,
23(1), 3-22. doi:10.1080/08873630509478229
McFarlane, B. (1996). Novel to Film: An Introduction to the Theory of Adaptation.
Clarendon
Press.
Retrieved
November
5,
2016,
from
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Nordfjrd, B. (2016). The Emergence of a Tradition in Icelandic Cinema. Hjort/A
Companion to Nordic Cinema A Companion to Nordic Cinema, 529-546.
doi:10.1002/9781118475300.ch24