Through out the history of film, many productions have been made based on best selling novels. An award winning novel by the name of “Go Ask Alice” did that; this book is about a teenage girls struggle with drugs. Creating film adaptations for movies has become very common because directors can be sure that their target audiences are intrigued by the topic of their future film. Readers often look forward to seeing their favourite novel be brought to life; however, when the adaptation is not done correctly it can bring a great deal of disappointment. The best selling, 1971 novel, “Go Ask Alice” far surpasses its film adaptation by Beatrice Sparks because of the removal of crucial scenes. This was because the introduction to her life was missing from the movie, there was no mention of Alice’s stay in the mental institution and her struggle to become clean was not evident. If these scenes had remained, the novel would have been a lot more effective in its hopes of informing the public of the struggles of a drug addict.
An important section of the novel that was missing from the movie, was the introduction into Alice’s life. The director, Beatrice Sparks, had decided to ignore the preamble of Alice and skip to when she was first introduced to drugs. An explanation on who Alice is and how she lived her life without drugs would have helped the viewers understand why Alice turned to drugs. Alice was a sad and quiet girl who never seemed to fit in with any crowd. In the following quote, Alice explains her first week of school.
A whole week has gone by and no one has done more than stare at me in a kind of curious, hostile, “what are you doing here?” kind of way. I’ve tried to bury myself in books and my studies and my music and pr...
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... movie because it lacked many important sections. Putting every scene of a book into the movie is impossible because the movie would have to be two days long instead of two hours. However, the director must be careful when making the decision of what scenes to cut. The movie could have had a stronger impact if it had more information about the introduction to her life, her stay in the mental institution and the process of her getting clean. These scenes would have helped create an strong emotional bond between the audience and main character. This bond is important because it creates feelings that make the movie a lot more personal. But on the other hand, this movie was made many years ago when the public might not have been ready for all the material that the book had to offer. It makes one wonder if a remake of the movie would be more influential if made in 2009.
I think that most of the event in the movie were not in the same order that Jeannette had wrote them. After reading the book I had a different picture in mind of how each character would look and it threw me off for the rest of the movie. I did like the fact that I could see what was happening and not just imagine things in my head that I thought was happening, as I was watching the movie I was seeing the same thing everyone else was and not just what I was picturing while reading the
From the start, the movie is adapted from the novel and therefore it could not cover everything, some actions or acts in the novel are too dense such that it is not of any importance to angle them in the movie. It is very realistic to everyone that the movie cannot cover every single paragraph in the novel even the memorable ones. Some materials are left out in the film, and others were changed.
However, these thoughts are not always true all the time. Sometimes Hollywood makes films to show the audience the truth contained in the movie. In the movie “Girl, Interrupted,” the filmmakers have balanced the grim realism of the book with audience-pleasing elements of entertainment in order to make the film more comfortable. The graphic representation of mental illness makes audiences feel its realities, while the use of attractive actresses captures the attention of the audiences and makes it easier to relate to the story.
...d coloring of certain images. The novel, however, puts much greater emphasis on the imagination and creativity, and on the main character Tita. The novel really makes the reader feel Titas pain and grow with her as she discovers her freedom, whereas the movie failed to achieve this. Moreover, the movie tends to ignore the significant of 3 integral motifs, cooking, tears and sensuality.
When books are very popular most of the time they are made into a movie. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a book that depicts the struggle of poverty and addiction. A movie then was made based on the book. The movie did not follow the book completely, but, that was to be expected. The movie did an excellent job with the cast. No one could have played Rex better than Woody Harrelson. The director did a respectable job of casting people who would have looked like the author described them in the book. Overall the movie did a fantastic job of portraying the major events and showing the overall theme of the book. Watching the movie, you notice a few differences. For example, Lori has glasses on and in the book, she did not get glasses until
The commitment of Lucas to share his last words with his sister shows a deep love and respect for the one that he caused so much pain. The identity that he created in his death is one that shows weakness and a falsehood of what success truly is. Alice’s healing of her own scars starts with her realization that denial of the events of her past have also stopped her from living for the future. With this final set of circumstances, Alice, now can become the person that she truly sees her self to be; An independent black professional woman who does not fit the mold that society has carved out for her to be. Lucas has given her the freedom to create her own identity and the freedom to use his life mistakes as lessons for her own well being and survival of identity issues, societal views, and her relationships.
...said, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Another striking difference between the movie and the book is that both are developed by different sexes. This obviously could effect the compare and contrast views of this paper. For example, being male, I found that the two images that left the greatest impression were of sexual nature, Gertrudis making love with the soldier, and Tita being intimate with Pedro. The different views of the sexes may also be the answer to some of the contrasts between the movie and novel. For instance, the death of Mama Elena. Esquirel’s version fits the emotional death, suicide, geared toward the female audience, while Arau’s shows a more sexual and violent death, extinguishing the male desire for action. In conclusion, I found the novel more entertaining than the movie. The reason the movie fell short in expectations is because Esquirel does a great job in allowing the reader to draw on their imaginations. However, Arau is able to capture this imagery occasionally throughout the movie. Furthermore, most of the changes added to the movie were grand, which added to the thrill and plot of the story. Overall, both are memorable and deserve their legacy.
because it made me became very curious about what is going to happen next. The play’s beginning was no as interesting as the movie’s. I also liked the acting in the movie.
she was sexually molested as a child. Other than the controversy the film success plays an important role in the psychological concept we know as Gender Identity.
In conclusion, details involving the characters and symbolic meanings to objects are the factors that make the novel better than the movie. Leaving out aspects of the novel limits the viewer’s appreciation for the story. One may favor the film over the novel or vice versa, but that person will not overlook the intense work that went into the making of both. The film and novel have their similarities and differences, but both effectively communicate their meaning to the public.
Many times in Hollywood, a movie that intends to portray a novel can leave out key scenes that alter the novel’s message. Leaving out scenes from the novel is mainly done to time limits, however doing so can distort the author’s true purpose of the story. In history, movies were directed to intentionally leave out scenes that could alter the public’s opinion. This frequently lets the novel’s main points be swept under the rug. There were times of this at the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, where white Americans were the only ones making movies.
The film may have edited out one of the drastic details that made the novel’s success, explaining the film’s failure.
The decision of the screenwriter and director to cut out what I felt were several story arcs and scenes from the novel was very disappointing. For example, in the movie there is no mention of Beth's shyness, or of her overcoming that shyness to become friends with Mr. Lawrence. The scene in the novel where she gathers her courage to walk over to his house and thank him for giving her his piano is one of the most defining moments for Beth. Overall I found Beth and Mr. Lawrence to both be sadly underdeveloped in the movie. Mr. Lawrence appears in only three scenes, while many of Beth's key moments also vanished. Jo's wonderful tomboyish nature is also severely tone-down for this version. She does not say "Christopher Columbus"; nor any of her other slang words. We never see the scene where she longs to go be a soldier fighting in the war and wishes she were a man. They transformed the character of Meg from someone who longs for finer things and tends to be snobbish into the wise older sister who does not care about such things. Lacking is the wonderful moment when she realizes that she does not care about Mr. Brook's poverty as she staunchly defends her love of him against Aunt March. While Amy's quest for a perfect nose is mentioned twice, there is never a scene showing some of her efforts such as her wearing the clothespin on it at night to make is straight, nor do we get enjoy watching her artistic endeavors such as her attempts to make a plaster cast of her foot.
The book and the movie were both very good. The book took time to explain things like setting, people’s emotions, people’s traits, and important background information. There was no time for these explanations the movie. The book, however, had parts in the beginning where some readers could become flustered.
Alice in Wonderland belongs to the nonsense genre, and even if most of what happens to Alice is quite illogical, the main character is not. “The Alice books are, above all, about growing up” (Kincaid, page 93); indeed, Alice starts her journey as a scared little girl, however, at the end of what we discover to be just a dream, she has entered the adolescence phase with a new way to approach the mentally exhausting and queer Wonderland. It is important to consider the whole story when analyzing the growth of the character, because the meaning of an event or a sentence is more likely to mean what it truly looks like rather than an explanation regarding subconscious and Freudian interpretations. Morton states “that the books should possess any unity of purpose seems on the surface unlikely” (Morton, page 509), but it’s better to consider the disconnected narrative and the main character separately, since the girl doesn’t belong to Wonderland, which is, as Morton says, with no intrinsic unity. Whereas, there are a few key turning points where it is possible to see how Alice is changing, something that is visible throughout her journey. Carroll wants to tell the story of a girl who has to become braver in order to contend with challenges like the pool made by her own tears, or assertive characters, like the Queen.