Separate but equal

It bothers me when I hear the phrase “the book was so much better then the movie,” primarily because, even when it is, the film is seldom granted the right to be viewed as a separate entity, completely independent of the work that inspired it.

Movies aren’t just made to be literal adaptations of books. Most of the time, live-action is limited instantly by factors as rudimentary as time and sequence. When a movie is made from a book it is first and foremost an artistic endeavor of its own, something re-envisioned by a writer or director. Why should you expect the same story from the minds of two different people, or better yet, why would you want to? It’s far more interesting to watch a vision crafted imaginatively into something else. And for all the shit I give Tisch kids, I have to admit, actors play a major role in all of this. They breathe life into characters and afford them not only a physical presence, but an emotional and psychological one as well. Great actors can add new dimensions to written characters, allowing your eyes to engage subtleties in human expression that words could never capture.

This all stems from a movie I just watched, The Talented Mr. Ripley, virtually hours after reading the book. I’d seen the movie only once before, a long time ago, to the point where I was able to view it as fresh. And it was a damn good movie, only marginally loyal to the book. The cinematography and art direction were on par with the setting I imagined, but the score and the actors took it to another level. It wasn’t better than the book, but I’ll venture to say I enjoyed it more, or at least I certainly felt it more. That had a lot to do with Matt Damon, hands-down one of the best actors of his generation. And with dreamy Jude Law, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and two of my all-time favorite leading ladies (Cate Blanchett and Gwyneth Paltrow) rounding out the cast, you can expect nothing less than a film that delivers like a book you can’t put down.