The Sound and the Movie

While at the book store looking for gifts I found a favorite book of mine in high school. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, I remember I picked it for a project at school and I was a little daunted because The Sound and the Fury, by the same author, was a pretty tough read. Any way, I'm not trying to boast, but the book had some importance to me. That being said, when I say it was being made into a feature length film with James Franco, I had mixed feelings.

Now Hollywood has always made books into movies, for some reason though it's just now starting to get to me. I was never so elitist to complain about this inevitability. Yet, there was something about seeing this book turned into a movie as well as this rumor that David Foster Wallace is going to be played by Jason Segel in a potential biopic, that really pushed me over the edge. I don't really understand how this movie carried with language, can be turned into a movie with the impossible task of capturing the attention of an audience who is largely looking to be visually stimulated. I went over to Book Riot to hopefully find some fellowship in my anger, but was met instead with Jeff O'Brian's interesting take on the matter.

O'Brian posits that movies are logistical nightmares and therefore the story is best left up to an author. He believes that books are the best of story making technology because there is the least amount of friction between creation and imagination. It is up to the movie to create a vivid world of format for the story of the book to exist in. The two should be working together creating a parallel of form and contact that will convey a more whole and immersing message. The film's job is to captivate and the novels job is to enlighten. I thought this was an interesting perspective, but I feel as though the storm is not quite over.

In part I agree with O'Brian, but I don't like the fact that there is an infinite cache of books for producers and production companies to choose from. What this means to me is that there will be a very real effect on both works of the past and works of the future in addition to the literary world as a whole. If a great work of fiction written some time ago is today coupled with a terrible movie, our reaction to that book is forever changed for generations to come. Similarly, today a lot of authors seem like they're just writing screen plays in book format and publishing companies are quick to raise those books to the public eye because movies are what sell. I don't want the literary world to continue this indentured servitude to the film industry.

Technically I have no proof any of this is happening or will happen. I just hope when future teachers play the Great Gatsby film to accompany the book, someone is there explaining directorial decisions. I hope that the poetry of As I Lay Dying is not lost because "who needs it? James Franco is hott!"

Thanks for Listening,

Kyle