It depends—if the level of art on both sides of the adaptation is high the it may not matter. I’m glad I read The Road before watching the detestable film. It highlighted all the ways the film was a failure.
By contrast, I’m currently reading The Tin Drum years after having seen the film, and I’m finding I appreciate it more.
My understanding with The Thin Red Line is that the movie is based on the book only loosely, so I doubt it would increase your understanding too much.
I rarely read a novel after the fact. I did it with The Magnificent Ambersons recently, but only because it’s been a solid seven or eight years since I saw Welles’ film version. Now that the film will be on DVD soon, I think the book reading should prove beneficial when I see it again.
All in all, I’d say it’s a crapshoot, depending largely on how much the movie is intended to replicate or capture the essence of the book. And since intention is such a tricky thing to determine…
@HoL
I read The Road and never got around to watching the movie. I thought the film would be worth seeing only if the visuals were incredible and the casting and acting of the father and son were exceptional. I mentioned this to a critic and he said that I could probably skip the movie.
Also, while I’ve never read The Tin Drum, based on watching the film, I think that adapting the novel was one of the more crazy decisions ever. I mean, how were you going to find a lead actor and make this work. I have mixed feelings about the film, but the actor Schlondorff got really did a heck of a job. It’s amazing that Schlondorff found someone like that.
@Nathan
I have very little interest in reading a novel after I’ve seen the film. I do think that reading the novel fills in some blanks in the film adaptation. For example, there’s a lot of richness that LOTR film adaptations can’t capture, so reading the novels is helpful.
The Thin Red Line book adds not much to the film experience
Malick riffed on the film, didn’t do a straight adaptation.
It is not quite Adaptation compared to The Orchid Theif but it is very different.
The novel is better than the film and the 50s film (starring Jack Webb) is more comparable to the novel
off topic a bit, but there are many films that ended up better than the books even when the books were bery good: Tales of Ordinary Madness, Nobody’s Fool, Wonder Boys and Valley of the Dolls to name a few.
Some novels just HAVE to be read even after watching the film and such is the case with The Tin Drum like House first mentioned (which I’ve read before watching the film) but it happened to me in plenty of other cases like in the Pride and Prejudice and Notre Dames de Paris situations and of course, the Don Quixote one (although I doubt there has ever been a remotely “accurate” Cervantes’ novel adaption)
I haven’t read though anywhere that the Thin Red Line novel does justice to the artistic medium representing, that is…literature, so I can’t really comment on its (possible?) quality but what I can add here is that it doesn’t really matter if you haven’t read the The English Patient to…oh, I don’t know…fully enjoy what you have “missed” in the film, but it’s certainly better to read an English Patient than a Cold Mountain, so I guess it’s all relative.
Great books that have been adapted (as a counter-argument) but one wouldn’t need to see any films on them but simply enjoy the books and only (due to unfortunate film adaptions, ahem, ahem…or “experimental” attempts) are Tristram Shandy, The Iliad and The Red and the Black.
i think the only time i’ve been tempted to read a book after seeing the film is péter forgács’ own death which strangely felt like i was reading a novel rather than watching a film….but then, half of péter nádas’ book is photographs so i’m not sure the line between images/words is so clear anyway. either way, great stuff. must get round to it.
(oh, and of course, terrorism considered as one of the fine arts, pending comments by z.bart, although i guess in the meantime i could sate myself with the preceding de quincey…)
did you not like cock and bull story dim? i can’t be objective about anything starring alan partridge, or really remember it…
“i think the only time i’ve been tempted to read a book after seeing the film”
Oh c’mon, you’ve got to read Alexis Zorbas, it’s miles, miles, MILES ahead of what the film showed (especially the priests episode which was completely stripped off the film)
“did you not like cock and bull story dim?”
Yes, but for personal reasons and because Winterbottom deliberately filmed it as an “example of an attempt”, therefore I used the word attempt as well as adaption, ehehe. Hardly one of Winterbottom’s top works and it’s evident none will ever be able to properly adapt this and Don Quixote. (unless they can make a Tom Jones oddity…)
Oh c’mon, you’ve got to read Alexis Zorbas, it’s miles, miles, MILES ahead of what the film showed
i’ve not seen it yet, or read it! so i’d prefer to read it first, but if i did that, would i want to watch the film? (well, the answer to that is alan bates, but still)
^ I guess if you haven’t read Women in Love yet (or Maddening Crowd which I really have to get on reading more Thomas Hardy), then Alan Bates is the answer for either of those films (and yet, Zorba film is somehow better than Madding Crowd film…but what do I know, I get horny with Glenda Jackson and Julie Christie all the time :P )
I think one of the best book to film is BEING THERE. I loved that book and when I saw the movie, I was very happy…no, they’re not the same, but they’re both (IMO) masterpieces.
I was pleased as well with the adaptions of SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE & DAY OF THE LOCUST (though by adding characters, Schlesinger & Waldo Salt were threading the needle).
Now, if someone could get around to making an adaption of MONKEY PLANET that resembled the novel even remotely, that would make a terrifying film
@Den
Thanks for the tip.
I second Being There
and Bukowski in general translates very well to screen.
I thought GInsberg’s Howl was impressive
Say what you will about the film, but the book Dance with Wolves was shit. It was like a novelization of the film with zero literary worth whatsoever. Read it in high school.
“I thought GInsberg’s Howl was impressive”
I thought Howl (are we talking about the Franco-acted biopic?) was a well….a biopic…and not an adaptation of the “epic” poem.
yeah it was a biopic
but it did a good job of illuminating some of the text
Read the novel because it’s a great novel, not because of it’s relationship to the film.
Some films that I’ll never watch because I love the books too much:
East of Eden
For Whom the Bell Tolls
HoL – I wish I could go back in time and unwatch East of Eden for that very reason.
Interestingly, some of my reading in elementary school was the inverse of this. I read novelizations a lot. Return of the Jedi, Home Alone, etc. When I read Jurassic Park, I realized that I was missing too much by not reading actual novels. So movies actually pointed me to books.
Yeah, I started watching both films and turned them off almost immediately. I just don’t want those images in my head when I read them again.
Jurassic Park is a much better book than movie. Spielberg ‘Spielberged’ it.
I read the novelization of Aliens when I was a kid. Love that Cameron eventually included the deleted scenes that are described there.
“Jurassic Park is a much better book than movie. Spielberg ‘Spielberged’ it.”
Whoah, I haven’t done this on MUBI for a long time but….LOOOOL, so true!
Jazzaloha
I have a specific question. Would reading the novel, The Thin Red Line, add to one’s understanding of the film? I’m planning to re-watch the film some time in the future, but I’m wondering if I should read the novel first. Anyone?
But I also want to expand the thread to discussing the issue of reading a novel of a film adaptation. When has it really helped or hurt in one’s appreciation of the film? Do people like reading a novel after or before seeing the film version? Does it matter?