Fidelity Issue of Film Adaptations and Book References

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Have you ever read a book that was later adapted for the big screen? Or have you ever watched a film adaptation and read its book reference after?

People are always looking for a good book to read, fiction or non-fiction, for any genre there is. Since trilogy and series books are on the mainstream nowadays, filmmakers are always in the process of adapting a lot of best selling books for the big screen.

A film adaptation is the transfer of a written work, in whole or in part, to a feature film. It is a derivative work. A common form of film adaptation is the use of a novel as the basis of a feature movie. However, those who have read the book beforehand almost always like the reference better than its film adaptation. Most readers are disappointed when the movies fail to meet their expectations.

According to Desmond 2011, the field has been preoccupied with the fidelity issue. The main question asked about adaptations by critics and reviewers alike has been to what degree the film is faithful to the text. The practitioners of this approach tend to judge a film's merit based on the adaptation realizes successfully the essential narrative elements and core meanings of the printed text.

The book and the movie based on it often arise from the demands placed on the material by the expectations of an audience. The comparison of text to film reveals what is distinctive to each form.

However, if book and film enthusiasts were to choose which medium they like better, survey says that the book takes the cake. For one, imagination is not limited when it comes to reading contrary to movie. It is an advantage that the book leave all the imagination to the reader and that is something that movies, or any other visual medium for that matter, obviously won't do. The pace is more fluent and it does not have holes than when it is turned into a film.

On the other hand, adaptations differ from it book reference because film is another medium with its own conventions, artistic values and techniques, so the original story is transformed into a different work of art. Literary texts are capable of supporting an indefinite number of interpretations.

Nevertheless, novels and films are very different media and scripts just can't slavishly reproduce the story and dialogue from a book. Words just have that magical way of enganging the senses, as well as the ability to affect you, make you think or touch you at your deepest core. The same can be said of motion pictures, except in their case, they do it with graphic details and presentations. Book readers and movie viewers must let to appreciate the art of both medium and their differences.

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