What is something that written text can do but a film can’t? Also, what can never be done in film properly or generally but can be done in a book?
There’s the obvious fact that books allow for further development and character\audience connection. Generally, when it comes to visuals and characters and locations, it allows me to see what I want to see, rather than being forced to see what a company or crew thought that I needed to see. In terms of visual or plot, a good philosophy story or really any story can take advantage of what I assume, or shake me after I spend so long knowing what’s going on \ who someone is only to find out I just bamboozled myself. And with a page of text, a writer has the power to conceal information, hold details, and isolate the reader. In my opinion that’s why horror is better in a story than in film, an unreliable narrator and withheld details have a much bigger effect after I’ve spent days in a character’s head, in my head.
Honorable mention to House of Leaves for the formatting. Another mention to the books that can imply what happens and allow the reader to infer or “receive” the events that otherwise would never make their way onto a tangible or releaseable film, and books that can stretch out a situation that wouldn’t seem so bad on film.
What can’t be, or is rarely, done in a book that can be done in film? Outside the obvious visual and aural effect. I think the object symbolism is easier to pull off in a movie than it is in a book because the object doesn’t have to be part of the plot or current action sequence, it can just be there and, if done properly, do the job (and symbolism can be just as lasting in a film as is in a book).
You could say that scary or sad scenes are less avoidable in films because you have no choice but to hear it and see it, compared to a book where you could just stop reading or skip ahead without looking , but that point is redundant due to audiobooks and The fact that our imaginations are activated by the smallest things,including the words that we read that made us decide to stop reading.
What is something that a book could do to make it as effective as a movie when it comes to visible horror or fantasy?
by MoistCurdyMaxiPad
2 Comments
Books: Internal monologue. That’s not really something you can do on film. I mean you can, but it would be incredibly stupid (see the original Dune movie).
Movie: action sequences and fights. You can do your best to describe them, and you can have a basic fight on page “Joe swung his arm around and decked Bill.” You could never really have a very detailed kung-fu battle or a dogfight on paper.
Books are a monologue between the writer and the reader. Good books require the reader to bring their own imaginations to the story. Bad books fill in all the blanks and turn reading into a chore. Movies are similar, bad movies fill in all the blanks, adding layers of music and editing that control and direct the emotions of the viewer too much. Good movies do it subtly and bad movies are clunky and obvious. There isn’t really something one can do and the other can’t, just whether or not they do it well or badly.