Book Vs the Movie
Whenever we object to a movie that deviates from a book, we inevitably hear the response, ‘but a book is not a movie.’

We know that a book is not a movie is not a book. Please don’t keep explaining this to us. If that really meant what you think it means than titles would be interchangeable. We could replace the title Remember the Titans with Sense and SEnsibility, based on the novel by Jane Austen, and nobody could complain.We recognize that deviations and alterations must be made when translating a book into a movie. When we complain about leaving the book behind, we are discussing whether the deviations were really necessary, were they successful or not, did they strengthen or weaken the movie/story, and did they make a better story? When we complain about a deviation, the answer to those questions for us is that no, they were not necessary, successful, stronger, or better. They only played to current cultural mindlessness, the director’s desire to titillate, or his failure to understand how to portray the themes of the movie (usually this happens because the director or writers fail to understand the basic morality the author intended)..

Captains Courageous by Robert Louis Stevenson Rudyard Kipling a marvelous book. The movie with Spencer Tracy is a marvelous movie. We recommend both. But they are not really much the same story. The book is about a spoiled rich kid and the incredible work and lives of New England’s cod fishermen. The movie is about a spoiled rich kid, cod fishing, and father-son relationships. We recommend both, and we don’t think it’s critical to point out that the movie tells a very different story than the book except to let people know that they really cannot substitute the movie for the book.

We do not watch movies to nitpick or complain. We actually hope to enjoy ourselves. Happily, we are able to enjoy ourselves while leaving our logical and critical thinking skills engaged. We think watching a movie is an interactive family event, not a passively receiving whatever happens without question event. Discernment is not boring for most of us, it’s part of the pleasure of watching a movie.

As history buffs (and one history major), we often object to certain anachronisms in movies, however, we do not (except for the history major) note them just for the sake of noting them. We focus on the ones which we consider egregiously wrong- in a Pride and Prejudice movie, for instance, a well bred young lady accepts a loan of money from a male acquaintance she barely knows. This screams out at us as WRONG. In another movie we otherwise like very much, the Victorian mother leaves her adolescent daughter alone with an adolescent boy she hardly knows to talk together in the house- and she knows that they rather fancy each other. This is also something that screams out at us- it jars, it pulls the chair out from behind us and we don’t like it- and it’s just wrong-footed.

So it’s rather ironic that often when we explain why we dislike a movie variation from the book and we are told, “It’s just a book a book is not a movie,” many of those same people will tell us in the next sentence, “I’m surprised you didn’t notice….” and then they will name other anachronism. We noticed. We were not making a laundry list of all the mistakes in the movie. We didn’t think it necessary, and we did think that would be tedious. It’s not save to assume that just because we didn’t mention x, we didn’t notice x. We mention those things that, to us, communicate something awry in the director’s intentions or understanding of the work we wish he had read for comprehension rather than for selling a commercial venture.

For some people, this sort of discernment exercise and discussion ‘ruins’ the movie for them. For those people, I suggest that you take your movies far too seriously and should probably take a break from them. A long break.