- Joined
- Apr 14, 2013
- Messages
- 17,343
- Reactions
- 7,583
- Points
- 113
It's an old saying, "the book is always better than the film." We all think it, when somebody mentions almost anything that's based upon a book. It becomes one of those things people will race to say, in the conversation, just to be considered right at least once in their lives.
But what about films that bucked the trend? The films that are better than the book? Example: The Exorcist. I remember reading the book years ago and I thought it was tripe. The film is chilling.
A classic example was Gone With The Wind, the film of which I preferred to the book, mainly because of Clark Gable's timeless performance of Rhett Butler. A more recent example - for me - is the Benjamin Button film, which I considered to be better than the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story, but that being because it was a short story, and the film had more leeway to tell a grander tale. Usually, whoever says "the book is always better than the film" finds themselves beaten to the reason why, by another know-all: "you always get more in the book." With Benjamin Button, you got less.
What examples can you think of, where the film was superior to the book? I bet there's loads of them, and if we come up with enough, we can be the wiseacre that cracks the old canard: "the book is always better than the film." We can be the ones who wait until smartar$e #2 has said, "you always get more in the book."
Let that one settle in, and when everybody nods wisely at the truism, we introduce our list.
"Not necessarily, what about..?"
But what about films that bucked the trend? The films that are better than the book? Example: The Exorcist. I remember reading the book years ago and I thought it was tripe. The film is chilling.
A classic example was Gone With The Wind, the film of which I preferred to the book, mainly because of Clark Gable's timeless performance of Rhett Butler. A more recent example - for me - is the Benjamin Button film, which I considered to be better than the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story, but that being because it was a short story, and the film had more leeway to tell a grander tale. Usually, whoever says "the book is always better than the film" finds themselves beaten to the reason why, by another know-all: "you always get more in the book." With Benjamin Button, you got less.
What examples can you think of, where the film was superior to the book? I bet there's loads of them, and if we come up with enough, we can be the wiseacre that cracks the old canard: "the book is always better than the film." We can be the ones who wait until smartar$e #2 has said, "you always get more in the book."
Let that one settle in, and when everybody nods wisely at the truism, we introduce our list.
"Not necessarily, what about..?"
