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Is a picture really worth a thousand words, or do words inspire and free the imagination? It has always been my experience that books are truly the better of the two mediums when it comes to releasing the imagination and providing the reader with an in-depth story. Perhaps with the book Cry the Beloved Country it will be different; perhaps the movie will unleash the viewers imagination with greater success than the somewhat dated book. Let s analyze three aspects of the book and movie and see how each is handled differently. The first aspect that I would like to cover is the characters of the book and movie. In the book, the characters in general are subdued; they tend to have less outward emotion.
In the movie however, the characters seem much more animated, especially when it comes to violence. An example of this difference in character animation can be found on page thirty-one of the book. The scene taking place is when Stephen Kumalo finds his sister. In the movie, Kumalo is very violent with his sister and at one point, he grabs her face and forcefully wipes away her makeup. When this same scene is read in the book, you will notice that there is no violent action at all taken on Kumalo s part. This noticeable difference in the character s disposition can be seen throughout the book.
Overall, the characters in the book are mellower and in my opinion, rather boring as well. The second aspect that I would like to cover is the settings. How are settings handled by the movie in relation to the book? Usually, when it comes to settings, I have always found that books tend to be more successful. I credit this with books having the ability to be more detailed than movies. There is a catch to the wonderful scene portion of books: you must have a vivid imagination.
If you lack such an imagination, you will probably be successful in movies because all the work is done for you. An illustration of the scenic differences between the book and movie can be found on page one of the book. The setting described in the opening paragraph tells of grass-covered hills, lovely roads, and dried up streams. All in all, the author does a wonderful job of setting up a scene in the readers mind. In the movie however, the same scene in sort of toned down.
You don t get the same feeling from seeing the scene in the movie as you do from the book. The key here, and indeed in most aspects, is the detail. And whatever movie you choose to watch, I can guarantee that ninety-nine percent of the time, the book version will have almost twice the detail of anything you can find in the movie. With Cry the Beloved Country, it is no different; detail is everything, and the movie just doesn t have it. Lastly there is the climax.
Here is where the movie finally gets some points. The climax of the story, when Absalom Kumalo gets hanged, is handled very differently by either medium. In the movie version of the climax, cold, sorrowful, and sometimes creepy music is played, while scenes from the soon-to-be hanging and Stephan Kumalo s perch on the hill are swapped sporadically. The technique is so effective, that what would normally be a just slightly upsetting happening is turned into a frightening and truly disturbing event. The book version of this same scene, however, borders on bland. Perhaps this is because I have read more than fifty military fiction books and literary violence has dulled my senses, but I still think that this troublesome event deserved better coverage from the author than what appears.
In the end, the movie truly triumphed over the book in the climax category. So is a picture really worth a thousand words? Well from what I have seen from this comparison, the answer isn t as clear-cut as some would like. No, most of the time words are successful in depicting an event or character than movies are. But there are other times, when the director of a movie is really clever about it, when a scene combining both audio and visual effects can compete with or in some cases beat a novel. I think that what it comes down to is this: books have the advantage; they have lots of space and can make use of the reader s imagination running wild.
Movies start at a disadvantage in comparisons, but there are a few select times when the extra, physical stimulation can win.
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