The movie or book?

 I'm sure you have heard the question, "did you like the movie or the book more?"  Afterall a lot of books are turned into movies.  Look at harry potter, lord of the rings, and even one that we read, The Great Gatsby.  Each one of these movies differ from book slightly by the medium they are being told from. The different formats can offer storytelling formats unique to the pieces.  Today we will be looking into The swimmers and The Best We Could Do to highlight the differences and how it creates a similar theme.

    To begin, in the movie swimmers, being portrayed in a movie format allow for are more in depth experience of the use of visuals. The film uses overhead shots, such as the one on the beach showing all the lifejackets, but also close ups of the characters.  However to me the main thing that stood out during the movie was the power of sound.  Being able to hear the waves and the muffles under the water is something that graphic novels could never accomplish.  For me it made my viewing experience all the more involved and emotionally heavier.     

    Meanwhile, in the graphic novel, The Best We Could Do, Bui's combination of the art and text creates themes like nostalgia but also motifs like water which represents, freedom but also struggle.  However these themes are not directly stated or easily inferred.  It must require more critical thinking that movies usually do not involve as much.  On top of this, one thing I especially enjoyed when reading the graphic novel is that you can move at your own pace when reading it.  In a movie events can sometimes be fast paced leading to you missing out on events that can serve as symbols later on, but here in the graphic novel medium you can slow down and observe more details and go more in depth on them, such as the colors and what they represent.    

    Overall both mediums do a great job in revealing an overall theme and create an emotional roller-coaster for the audience, however each medium has its own characteristics that make them unique. So the question lies on you today, which one do you like more, the movie or the book?


 





Comments

  1. Ryan ChristensenDecember 8, 2024 at 11:33 AM

    Using the aspect and pov of a student, which typically are more inclined to not read, showed how each medium of entertainment have good purposes and use their uniqueness to display stories in different ways.

    ReplyDelete
  2. NateDecember 8, 2024 at 12:14 PM

    Avi, this post was truly enlightening, I liked how you discussed the impact of different mediums of story telling. I personally found the movie more impactful because it discusses a time in which i was alive during, which makes the story all the more impactful.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2 Week Only Up Phase - Fortnite Edition

Image
Smashing my keyboard, about to break my monitor, I had just fallen down for the 50th time. This time from the skyscraper of floating buses, instead of the pool of giant purple cubes named Kevin. It was this cursed Fortnite creative map that basically ruled over my life like a videogame dictator. It decided when I slept, ate, and even when I dared to "touch grass." Every jump felt like a dopamine hit but every fall felt like personal attack to my soul. I would swear, "I'll quit after this try." I don't think I've ever openly lied to myself that much. One day I reached the top. VICTORY!! Then I fell. Game turned off. Never opened again.
Read more

Three Timelines, One Story: The Structure of Dunkirk

Image
       One of my favorite all-time films is Dunkirk by Christopher Nolan. Although the film seems nothing more than another war movie, the structure makes it feel like something completely new. I was immediately drawn in by how there were multiple elements used to tell the story being land, air, and finally sea. Each move at a different pace, and with the lack of dialogue during the movie, it was complicated to follow at first, but as the story continues, each element is used together to build up to the final climax.  To set up the rising action, we are first introduced to the land element, where thousands of soldiers are trapped at Dunkirk, hoping for an escape back to the UK. Nolan uses this perspective to make time feel slow and gurgling, showing close and intimate danger while also creating a sense of desperation. Then we move to the sea, where we see a group of civilians trying to sail from the UK to Dunkirk to hopefully save at least some soldiers. This jo...
Read more

Laughter, whats that?

Image
The other day, I caught myself scrolling through my camera roll, looking at old videos and pictures to simply pass the time. Out of nowhere, I stumbled across a video from my 8th-grade DC trip where my friends and I were exploring one of the museums. Suddenly, I burst into laughter. Not because anything shocking happened, as I've seen the video before, heck, I took the video, but because somehow my brain still doesn't expect things to go the way they do. That's when I realized almost everything that has made me laugh has the same main ingredient: the unexpected. The funniest moments in my life are never the planned ones, but they're the ones completely unhinged and off-script. It's the "this was NOT supposed to happen" moments that always get me. For example, the other day I was playing Fortnite. I was in a normal box fight, something I have done hundreds, if not thousands of times. I was in the perfect position, ready to blast my friend in our battle, but...
Read more