Lights, camera, literature!

In my opinion great books are not tailor-made for a film. Most good books have an independent style and they are so dependent on their own form and style that the film always looks faded in front of it. I feel Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez has immense potential to be converted into a film.

The not-so-literary books can make better films. For example, The Godfather — it is not a great piece of literature, but a great film has been made out of it. It has a very good storyline, which is intrinsic.
When you try to turn a great book into a film, most often than not it doesn’t translate very well as too many words can’t be interpreted nicely during shooting. That’s because in literature you move from abstract to the concrete, but in case of films, concrete is turned into abstract. In films, solid instances have to be brought into action.

However, there are a few books which are good and still the plot has enough to be made into movie. I really like A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. It had so many plots and sub-plots. I think more than three movies could be made out of it. And I personally would like to take it up because it talks about all the things that interest me — from political matters of post-independent India and empowerment of women to issues like caste discrimination. But of course, besides adapting the story from a book, a lot needs to be done to make a good screenplay.

Full report here Asian Age