I prefer reading the book and then if I feel like it maybe watch the movie. However, I have had many disappointments so lately I evade watching movies based on my favorite novels. It seems that the producers and the directors either haven't read the book, or have read a completely different one. Let's take Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. I understand that a 2 hour movie is incapable of capturing all the nuances of the book. However, dear producer, this doesn't justify you actually CHANGING part of the books. If you can't incorporate everything, do not add additional moments. I do not reckon Mr Wilde authorized you for this.
Same story with my most favorite novel Gone with the Wind. As much as I adore Vivian Lee and Clark Gable's amazing performance, I still cannot overcome the fact that two out of Scarlett's three children are simply eliminated from the story. As if they haven't existed. In fact, Scarlett had children from all of her husbands, which I believe is an important part of the story. The producers could have squeezed in two more children; I doubt this is such a waste of film time.
One of the books of 2010 is definitely Eat, Pray, Love. Not because it was just published, but because Julia Roberts stars in the movie of the same name. I wouldn't even start commenting on the differences between the film and Elizabeth Gilbert's book. Let's just say that if you felt very inspired to change your life simply by seeing Roberts travelling around the world, I would imagine you would conquer the world if you actually benefitted from Gilbert's writing. Much more influencing, enthralling, and inspirational.
Of course, there are some tolerable Hollywood examples. The Harry Potter movies are all very good, keeping of course in mind that the novels are enormously long and it is practically impossible to translate everything into scenes. Still, as I have read all of them as a child, I find it particularly enjoyable actually visualizing all the characters and the magics. And for the sake of little children, it is a great amusement.
i>Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote is another example of a book turned into a very good movie. Of course, some of the story is distorted, but Audrey Hepburn's amazing performance makes us forget about it and simply enjoy. I just cannot skip the fact that the ending is sugarcoated Hollywood style but there is no ideal satisfaction.
Finally, I was pleasantly surprised by the Swedish film industry. I loved Stieg Larsson's Millenium trilogy so much that I was dying to see it on a movie. The Swedish outran their Hollywood competitors and did an outstanding job with the movie adaptation. The actors are very good, the plot is as closest to the book as possible, and the movie keeps almost as excited as the novels themselves. I most certainly recommend them.
I haven't actually read a book based on a novel. To be honest I hadn't hear about one until lately, when one of the most successful Bulgarin TV Series, Glass Home was turned into a book. I cannot imagine what the feeling of reading something based on what you have watched be like. The author is a very promising young Bulgarian singer and writer and I expect the result to be worth it.
Here comes my greatest concern - the availability of most novels as movies does make reading superfluous. I am afraid that in some decades libraries will be extinct and will be replaced by more and more cinemas. As all of us passionate readers understand, reading a book has almost nothing to do with seeing the movie. I want to pick up on the plot through the author's own choice of words, to feel the characters'feelings through my own perspective and not through the perspective of some American producer, to extend the pleasure of reading a book beyond the two hours spend in the stuffy cinema, to appreciate the ending as a kind of completed "job". However, most people do not think that way. Their loss, you would say, but this loss translates into less and less books being bought and read. Which, of course, raises another question: Would very talented authors be bothered to write anything if the payout is close to zero. Of course, they could hope to sell the rights to some producer and see their piece of literature being torn to pieces and transformed into something else. Without being too pessimistic, this "bright" future expects the book of the 21st century.
