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Crack this ‘Code’ — Book or movie first?
Web critic James Berardinelli poses an interesting question: With The Da Vinci Code due to hit theaters, what’s the best course of action? Read the best-seller first and then see the movie? Or wait for the movie and then read the book?
You see, I’m the other person besides Berardinelli who hasn’t read the Code.
My experience tells me it’s best to bypass the book before seeing the movie. Almost every time I’ve read the book before seeing the movie, I’ve felt cheated.
However, I don’t feel that the book has been cheated. I feel that the film was.
Take the Harry Potter novels, for example. Until the movies came out, I had never read a page of J.K. Rowling’s text. So I tried a little experiment. I saw the first movie then read the first book. The next time around, I did the opposite, reading the second book before seeing the second movie.
That was a mistake.
Since the movie of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was my introduction to the Potter world, the film held me in thrall. I ate up every frame of that movie and was kinder to it than most critics, who called it pleasant but slow and too slavishly faithful to Rowling.
So when I read The Chamber of Secrets and then saw that film, I felt disappointed, even though Chamber was actually much livelier as a movie than Stone because there wasn’t so much exposition. Nevertheless, Chamber felt less fun because I knew everything going in.
So that’s why I won’t be reading Dan Brown’s book before seeing Ron Howard’s movie. Since movies are my favorite entertainment, I prefer to see them untainted. Then, if I’m interested, I’ll check out the book, which will almost always add more layers to the experience.
But that’s just me. What do you all prefer to do? Book-movie, movie-book, or something else? Are there any movies that were actually better than their books?
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Moviegoing
Comments
By Mister G
April 17, 2006 6:34 PM | Link to this
Good topic, Eric, and a tough one in some respects. I’d say, overall, that most film adaptations of the written word are inferior to the source, be it novel, short story, play, or whatever. Examples: most film adaptations of Stephen King material (“Misery” and “Stand by Me” being notable exceptions), McNally’s bloated transfer to the screen of his very moving ” Frankie and Johnnie in the Claire de Lune,” and the lame film version of “A Chorus Line.” On the other hand, some film adaptations are as good or better than their print sources, with a prime example being the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, in which Peter Jackson managed to redact more than a thousand pages of boredom into three captivating, if somewhat long, films. I have not read Brown’s book, nor am I likely to do so. Then again, I won’t bother with the film, either, unless I run across it at the library or very, very cheap, used.By Allie D.
April 17, 2006 5:32 PM | Link to this
As one who is as much, if not more of a literary nut as a film nut, this is a subject that is near and dear to my heart. :) I agree with you that reading the book first almost ALWAYS sets up the viewer to feel disappointed in the film, because it causes us to compare the two. When I saw LOTR Fellowship of the Ring, I hadn’t yet begun to read the Tolkien novels. In the years that spanned between the release of the second and third movies, however, I had read the trilogy of books, and by the time I saw The Two Towers, I found myself attempting to feel slightly disappointed in the two other films despite my impassioned praise and love of the first film. In fact, Fellowship continues to be my favorite of the three films despite the fact that they are ALL great movies. So I will have to say that first and foremost that in general, I will try to now not read the source material first if I know that the movie is coming out very soon. That being said, however, I have read The Davinci Code, years ago, and felt that it was such a quick, thin, pedestrian read that I have a sneaking suspicion this will be one of those rare instances of Howard’s film superceding the actual book. This is of course my personal opinion; the book is wildly popular and there are those who love it. But I think that the soul of the novel- the theories and research that went into it- will translate better on the screen when better embellished by what was lacking in the Dan Brown novel- dialogue, plot and character development. So in this instance, if you feel compelled to read the book before seeing the movie, I can pretty confidently say that you will not be doing yourself or the film a disservice. But you’ll be just as well off by not reading it first in that case. :)