However, I would argue that movies and books have different merits and that really neither could be said to be ‘superior.’ While books are adept at discussing internal thought and have the freedom of space to explore ideas in more detail than movies, movies are more easily able to juxtapose different elements such as sound and imagery. For example, the images described by Lester as he looks back on his life at the end of American Beauty are so much more powerful because they’re represented visually in black-and-white on the screen. Similarly sound in movies can be used to change our perceptions of events in ways that books would struggle with. I’m sure there’s hundreds of examples of this, but the one that springs to mind right now is the scene in, I believe, Crash (the only scene I’ve seen of this film) in which all the sound of the car crash is muted, lending it a dream-like quality that somehow highlights the painfulness of the scene, or, the same kind of thing again, when Mr. Blonde plays ‘Stuck in the Middle with You’ as he tortures the police officer. The juxtaposition of the up-tempo pop song with the torture really highlights the psychopathy of Blonde’s character.

I suppose that might suggest movies are only good for violence, but the other thing they can do more neatly than books is quickly show the passage of time through a montaged series of shots either with or without narration.

Books and films are different mediums and are not necessarily in competition with each other. Yes, a lot of book-movies are considered to be inferior to their source material, usually because fans are so vehemently attached to their own notions of the characters or events within the books, but occasionally films can enhance the original stories, or at least offer a new take on them. My prime example of this would be the film of William Faulkner’s short story ‘Tomorrow’, which I have discussed at length in a previous post: http://hbenjaminpetrie.com/2009/03/25/opinion-tomorrow/

The film deviates quite significantly from the original story, meaning that both the forms do different things, though they share common characters and events. What this results in is too distinct artistic achievements, and two of my favourite narratives in both mediums.