Sunday, December 29, 2013

Books vs Movies

Some of us love books…some of us love movies…and some of us have time for neither.

But what happens when a book is made into a movie?

Almost never would any one find a movie meeting their expectations if they have read the book version.

You see reading a book requires a lot of patience and concentration and it fuels up our imagination. [Actually this bulk of effort often acts as a deterrent to book reading. Watching a movie does not consume so much energy and people often dump books in favour of movies. ]

Let’s delve into our psyche while reading a book. As we read we visualize the described imagery and the events occurring in the book. So in short when we read a book we subconsciously direct and watch the movie version of it.

After that experience a movie version is bound to seem insipid. We have already watched the movie!!! And that movie had been directed by you, customized to suit your own whims and idiosyncrasies. No matter how much the poor movie director tries to cater to the mindset of his audience it is not possible for him to outdo the little directors sitting inside our heads.

In my life I have found only one movie which was better than the book. The movie was directed by Satyajit Ray and I had read the story after watching the movie.

To this day I don’t know whether it was Ray’s sheer caliber which made the movie a better experience or was it because I had read the story later.


Verdict for today? If you want to enjoy a movie do not read the book and if you have already enjoyed the book then don’t waste your time and money by watching the movie.


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