3/13/09

As long as there've been movies, there've been literary adaptations (this may be an exaggeration, I wasn't actually there at the time).  So as long as there've been movies (or thereabouts) there've been people asking themselves the question:  "Should I read the book before I see the movie?"  Like most great questions in this life, there are no easy answers.

It seemed like a good time to discuss this burning issue because I just broke with my own tendencies and read Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons before seeing the movie and was richly rewarded.  I generally tend to come down on the side of "No," primarily because books tend to be richer, more fully developed and, frankly, longer than movies.  As such, you read the book first and you're going to be waiting to see all kinds of stuff that gets cut out.  On the other hand, you see the movie first and the book rewards you with a more intricate, nuanced run through the same story, kinda like a Director's Cut.  Nobody wants to see the Director's Cut first and then the theatrical cut.  It just leaves you saying "What happened to Kyle Reese's ghost?!?"

Then there's the heartbreak issue.  Reading a bad book that inspired a movie I loved is really no skin off my nose.  I tip my hat to the filmmakers who took those lemons and made tasty lemonade indeed from them.  So what if The Devil's Advocate, by Andrew Neiderman shares the character names, gripping opening scene, and nothing else with Taylor Hackford's sensational supernatural thriller?  More credit for screenwriter Tony Gilroy.  Do I lose any sleep that Carl Sagan's Contact showed none of the character subtlety Robert Zemeckis' first-rate cast brought to the movie version?  Not at all.  On the other hand, don't even mention Michael Rymer's dreadful film version of Anne Rice's Queen of the Damned, because I LOVED that book, could see it so clearly on film, and then... nothing.  "I slept through the 50's."  "You didn't miss much."  "Well, there was Elvis."  "Ah, yes, Elvis."  The PAIN!!!  I also wonder if the Oscar-nominated The Green Mile would have rubbed me so totally the wrong way if all this hadn't played so much better in Stephen King's prose than enacted on-screen.

Then there's the other side, that special geeky joy that comes from seeing justice done to a beloved book, particularly after a long wait.  The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy wasn't the most faithful possible adaptation of the first in Douglas Adams' increasingly inaccurately-named Hitchhiker's Trilogy, but it spoke that wonderful novel's language and delighted me to no end.  Would I have even understood Watchmen if I hadn't first read the graphic novel?  On a superficial level, sure, but there's just so much else floating around in there that's only for the initiated.  Plus, there's the whole "literary classic" thing.  See the movie first, and no matter how good the book is, it'll always feel at least kinda like a novelization.

You can't unring that bell:  a story will always exist most for you in the venue where you first encounter it, even if it's later done better elsewhere.  So it's best to think about what works best in which format.  I've long believed that the Harry Potter stories will work best for me if I see them in the movies first, and I've been determined not to read a word J.K. Rowling has written until the end credits roll on the last of however many movies Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows ends up getting sliced into.  And every time I hear a fan nitpick all the stuff they're finding it necessary to leave out of each cinematic installment, I think "Good call!"  Right now, I don't know if I should be missing Dobby the House Elf or not and I feel pretty good about that.

Truth be told, "Read the Book or See the Movie first?" is the cinematic/literary equivalent of "If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one around, does it make a sound?"  There is no right answer.  Except for Watchmen.  Read that first.