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Michigan Reading Journal Volume 48 Issue 1 Article 14 October 2015 For the Love of Literature: When Books Become Films Laura Apol Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/mrj Recommended Citation Apol, Laura (2015) "For the Love of Literature: When Books Become Films," Michigan Reading Journal: Vol. 48 : Iss. 1 , Article 14. Available at: https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/mrj/vol48/iss1/14 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@GVSU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Michigan Reading Journal by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@GVSU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. For the Love of Literature: When Books Become Films by Laura Apol, East Lansing Michigan State University • It is pretty clear to anyone who works in the world of children’s or YA literature that if something is a hit as a book, it is almost surely destined to be turned into a feature-length film. Hunger Games. The Book Thief. Where the Wild Things Are. Coraline. The Fault in our Stars. Charlotte’s Web. Jumanji. Polar Express. Ender’s Game. Divergent. The list goes on and on… Most book lovers are simultaneously delighted and dismayed by this phenom- enon. We’re delighted because at times the film can lead viewers back to the Laura Apol book—something that cheers those of us who love literature! But we’re often dismayed because…well the film isn’t the same as the book. Nothing is the way the author wrote it, or the way we as a reader imagined it. The character with red hair in the book is a movie brunette. A nice person isn’t nice anymore, or a villain reveals their treachery too soon. The silver slippers are red, the best friend is too young, the dog is a schnauzer rather than a collie. The car is wrong or the house is wrong; the filmmakers left out a monologue and added a love scene, or a chase scene, or chase- turned-to-love scene. And, of course, there’s that ubiquitous overarching lament: The film just isn’t as good! On the bright side, film versions of literature often serve us well in our classrooms. Watching the film can be a reward when our students have finished the text (think Romeo and Juliet); films can entice students to engage with the book (think Hugo Cabret); films can serve as contemporary substitutes for books that are long and challenging (think The Scarlet Letter). Films may even serve a pedagogical purpose when we have students compare the film version to the book they just read (think Coraline, Venn diagrams and compare/ contrast essays). Those are all worthy activities. But we would like to propose more. If literacy involves viewing and listen- ing along with reading and writing, then films can be more than a reward, a springboard..., or a substitu- tion. And pedagogically, it’s not enough to ask “what’s different” and then to create a long list. Pairings of books and films can do much more. In our column for this MRJ issue, we look at what we have found to be some interesting book and film pairings. Our goal is not to identify “what’s different” but rather to prompt viewers and readers to ask “how is that difference created?” and “what difference do these differences make?” We believe that films based on books are not translations of those books, taking each character, scene, conversation and representing it, verbatim, in visual terms. Rather, we see films as interpretations, creating from the original text something new: an entity all its own, with a new trajectory, a new message. Sometimes that message is close to the original; sometimes it’s entirely its own. 66 Michigan Reading Journal For the Love of Literature The point is: what does this new film-entity look like? It’s easy to conclude that films are different because they’re shorter (than a novel) or longer (than a picture book), or because they make concrete what is only imagined in a written text. But films are created for a purpose (which is often different from the purpose for the book) and for an audience (which may be different from the audience for the book as well). To create a film, the filmmaker selects from a world of possibilities, and makes deliberate choices that add up to something all its own. The starting place for such a conversation around film, then, is to learn a language in which to have it. Filmmakers make “moves” in their work just like authors: shots, cuts, camera angles, close ups, fades, light- ing, sound effects, frames… Each of these is used to create an effect, and each effect is in place to advance a storyline, or reveal a character, or communicate a message. So the starting place in thinking about films that are based on literature is to learn the language in which to talk about film as a medium of its own. How does the director go about creating the effects? How do these effects combine to create a message? How do these effects differ from the book version of the film? What difference, then, do these differences make? When we speak about film as film, and when we think about how and why a director may have gone about creating a film from a written text, a completely different conversation takes place. Instead of judging ac- cording to “better” or “worse,” we can debate about the effects, the change in focus or message, the implied audience and our sense of how well this new version “works.” The conversations are infinitely more rich, complicated, and satisfying. It’s a great thing for us as teachers to do; but it’s a great thing for our students to do, too. Even the youngest students can learn to recognize some filmmaking techniques, and can think about what effect is produced and what response a filmmaker might want from a viewer when he or she uses those techniques. Scary music? A close-up of a notebook? A bird’s eye view of a playground? …What does the filmmaker want you to see? To focus on? To feel? Why? It’s a small step from this kind of viewing to talking about message, and from there, to talking about “match”—with the book. With the audience. With our own viewing selves. Critical reading and viewing is based on just this understanding and evaluation. What do we think the filmmaker wants from us as a viewer? Do we want to give it, or do we want to push back? Book and film pairings can encourage critical literacy, higher-order thinking, authentic discussions and collaborative learning. Here, we offer a few book-film suggestions to help you start. 2015, Vol. 48, No. 1 67 Must Read Texts - For the Love of Literature Lisa Domke, Ashley Johnson, Laura Apol, Jeanne Loh, Tracy Weippert This column is created by Dr. Laura Apol of Michigan State University, in collaboration with a team of faculty and graduate students who teach children’s and adolescent literature in the teacher preparation program, who research issues relevant to the area of children’s and adolescent literature, and who have been or are themselves teachers in preK-12 settings. Children’s Literature: 2) Why would the writer and/or director do A Casting Call for the Audience this? 3) How do we feel about this as an audience? —Tracy Weippert and Lisa Domke Too often books and the movies based upon them First, we watched are set on an either/or scale: Either you liked the Alexander and book or the movie better. Sometimes what you the Terrible, encountered first affects your opinion. Other Horrible, No times it’s an actor’s portrayal that sways your vote. Good, Very Bad However, when we view movies based on books as Day directed by a set of decisions made by a director and a script- Miguel Arteta in writer, and when we question and analyze those 2014 based on decisions, we look at books and movies in more Judith Viorst’s complex ways. We think about what it takes to 1972 book that describes everything going wrong tell a story not just through words, but through in Alexander’s day. He wakes up with gum in his visuals as well—something picturebooks already hair, does not have a prize in his breakfast cereal, do. However, their images are static, not moving has to sit squished between people in the carpool, and without sound. As we watch a movie based on finds out that his best friend isn’t his best friend a book, as teachers, we want our students to focus anymore, makes a mess at his dad’s office, and so on three main questions (and they are not the ones on. He spends the day wishing he could move you may think): to Australia to escape it, but as his mom says, 1) What patterns do we notice in how the “…some days are like that. Even in Australia.” story is told aurally and visually? However, the movie drastically changes the story, 68 Michigan Reading Journal For the Love of Literature because although Alexander has a bad day on the tables spread across the restaurant. The speed of eve of his birthday, everyone else in his family the cuts increases as Ben gets caught up in trying has a great day. They don’t seem to sympathize. to impress his potential employers. The focus oscil- Therefore, as a birthday wish, he asks that his lates between Ben’s actions and his family’s and family understand what it is like to have a bad day.

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