I re-watched Cloud Atlas this afternoon, and that movie is still as amazing as it was on my first viewing. This time however, I watched it right after finishing the book, and I wanted to see if it made a difference in my enjoyment of the picture.
It got me thinking about adaptations: through the first hour of the film, I was a bit sceptical, thinking that the movie skimped on way too many details apropos the book(yes, the Somni~451 arc is underdone and a bit messy, I found the Letters From Zedelghelm arc melodramatic, the Pacific Journal story to be a bit too obvious(though streamlined I have to say; the book began way too heavy on contextualising the Pacific)).
I wondered about the intentions of the directors in the making of the film. It presented itself half as a faithful presentation of the books(dialogue lifted unaltered from the book) and half it's own animal(the many streamlinings and changes). I considered that the movie might've been less polarising if:
a) It was longer, so the stories had more time to be fleshed out(though granted, the Sonmi arc is complicated in the book and rushed as well towards the end).
b) It was released as several shorter(relatively speaking) movies, each detailing the individual lives more closely to the original book.
c) It became it's own work completely, and thus have less instances of jarring plot points.
After this cognition, I was left with the thought that perhaps adapatations should never compromise in sticking to the source material. I can't imagine an instance where a piece of fiction was perfectly transcribed to the silver screen, where a fan of the source material, or heck, someone who just read it wasn't actively thinking about the delivery of the lines in contrast to that original work. This seems an unfavourable effect for a director, as it draws away from the atmosphere of their film, as well as many other key elements such as casting, line delivery, sense of time, etc.
So where am I going with this? Well, as the title suggests, should Directors abandon directly transcribing the source material into the medium? Many people agreed that The Prisoner of Azkaban of Harry Potter fame, was the best movie because it was the critical moment in which the movies diverged from the books. MovieBob suggested that the last Twilight movie was all the better because of how silly and detached the final battle was, in contrast to Stephanie Meier's original conception. Hell, The Godfather, one of the most publically-revered movies(and the LoTR trilogy to boot) was amazing partly because it did not acknowledge the original works from which it spawned.
So I pose the question: should directions create movies in consideration of the film as a creature separate of the source material, or should it live as a simulacrum of said inspiration?
Final note: However, as the movie progressed and reached it's crescendo, I rekindled my love for it, it still stands as an amazing experiment gone right for me. Though the thought of adaptations remains.
It got me thinking about adaptations: through the first hour of the film, I was a bit sceptical, thinking that the movie skimped on way too many details apropos the book(yes, the Somni~451 arc is underdone and a bit messy, I found the Letters From Zedelghelm arc melodramatic, the Pacific Journal story to be a bit too obvious(though streamlined I have to say; the book began way too heavy on contextualising the Pacific)).
I wondered about the intentions of the directors in the making of the film. It presented itself half as a faithful presentation of the books(dialogue lifted unaltered from the book) and half it's own animal(the many streamlinings and changes). I considered that the movie might've been less polarising if:
a) It was longer, so the stories had more time to be fleshed out(though granted, the Sonmi arc is complicated in the book and rushed as well towards the end).
b) It was released as several shorter(relatively speaking) movies, each detailing the individual lives more closely to the original book.
c) It became it's own work completely, and thus have less instances of jarring plot points.
After this cognition, I was left with the thought that perhaps adapatations should never compromise in sticking to the source material. I can't imagine an instance where a piece of fiction was perfectly transcribed to the silver screen, where a fan of the source material, or heck, someone who just read it wasn't actively thinking about the delivery of the lines in contrast to that original work. This seems an unfavourable effect for a director, as it draws away from the atmosphere of their film, as well as many other key elements such as casting, line delivery, sense of time, etc.
So where am I going with this? Well, as the title suggests, should Directors abandon directly transcribing the source material into the medium? Many people agreed that The Prisoner of Azkaban of Harry Potter fame, was the best movie because it was the critical moment in which the movies diverged from the books. MovieBob suggested that the last Twilight movie was all the better because of how silly and detached the final battle was, in contrast to Stephanie Meier's original conception. Hell, The Godfather, one of the most publically-revered movies(and the LoTR trilogy to boot) was amazing partly because it did not acknowledge the original works from which it spawned.
So I pose the question: should directions create movies in consideration of the film as a creature separate of the source material, or should it live as a simulacrum of said inspiration?
Final note: However, as the movie progressed and reached it's crescendo, I rekindled my love for it, it still stands as an amazing experiment gone right for me. Though the thought of adaptations remains.
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