Thursday, July 12, 2007

From read to reel

It's been so fun participating in Sunday Scribblings that I feel like I could use another group to give some direction to And So Forth. Enter Booking Through Thursday -- a fun site I ran into through a fellow Sunday Scribbler. Every week it posts a question related to books, and this week the query is:

"1. In your opinion, what is the best translation of a book to a movie?
2. The worst?
3. Had you read the book before seeing the movie, and did that make a difference? (Personally, all other things being equal, I usually prefer whichever I was introduced to first.)"

I couldn't really come up with a "worst" rendition, but as far as a great movie version of a slightly sloggy book, I would have to go for The Wizard of Oz. It's one of those movies where the film version achieves such perfection that the existence of the book seems almost unnecessary.

I'm actually not sure if I read the book or saw the movie first, but it doesn't really matter -- all things are not equal in the two versions.

Sorry, L. Frank Baum.



4 comments:

--Deb said...

Thanks for playing!!

Kathleen said...

As proof to what you said, I didn't realize The Wizard of Oz was a book! It sure is a great movie though. Come see my answers: http://smsbookreviews.blogspot.com/2007/07/booking-through-thursday_12.html

wcs said...

I think that "To Kill A Mockingbird" was one of the best movies to do the book justice. I read it in middle school, before I saw the movie. The film really captured the feeling I got from reading the book.

More recently, I think Peter Jackson did an amazing job with "Lord of the Rings." I also read that work in high school and never thought it could ever be made into a movie.

And, for a little pop-culture, "The Poseidon Adventure" and "Jaws" were two movies I saw before reading the respective books, and they were pretty much true to the books as well (with some minor changes of course).

Betty Carlson said...

A lot of people in the little meme or whatever cited "To Kill a Mockingbird." I hadn't seen the movie in a long time, though, so couldn't really speak up on it. I didn't see Lord ot the Rings -- I guess I should!

Thanks for your comment.