And the Winner Is . . .

Well, a few of those 1.4 billion dollars came from me. I saw Gone With the Wind only once in a theater: In new screen splendor . . . The most magnificent picture ever! as the movie poster promised. (I think I have seen it at a couple of times on TV, but commercial interruptions certainly lessen the movie’s effect.) Before my first viewing I had already read the novel several times, and, although the movie was spectacular, when it was over all I could think was, “They left over half of it out!”

[Embarrassing Side Note (Warning: Includes plot spoiler): I first read the book when I was probably about thirteen or fourteen years old, and when Melanie died, I cried as if I’d lost my best friend. Really. Even my Mom got fed up and told me to get over it.]

The novel in hardback ran 1,037 pages, 864 pages in the paperback edition, and to compress than into three hours and forty-two minutes running time is pretty impressive, but . . .

Ah, there’s the rub. Books always include more than movies possibly can. More plot, more scenes, more depth of characterization, more interiority. I could go on, but you get the point. For a long time, this really used to bother me. I always assumed that books were better than movies. I would read the book, then see the movie. I’d compare the two and always judge the movie as lacking.

One exception to this is To Kill a Mockingbird. This outstanding movie is remarkably like the book, yet it is exceptional in its own right. In fact, this is the only book/movie pair I can think of that makes both my favorite books and favorite movies lists.



Well, back when I was an undergraduate, I had the opportunity to attend the Natchez Literary and Movie Celebration in Natchez, Mississippi. This is an event that has been called “Mississippi’s most significant annual conference devoted to literature, history, and culture,” and every year it presents a “theme-based lecture series enhanced by films, field trips, workshops, exhibits, book signings, and discussions.” The year I attended, the focus was on Richard Wright. It was here that I learned of the many and varied reasons that movies differ from the novels they portray.

Length is the obvious one. Most people are only willing to sit still and pay attention for about two hours. It has to be a really great movie for people to stay in their seats for three or four. But there are other reasons as well. A viewing audience is quite different from a reading audience. In general, they expect different things, and that must be considered. The medium is also different—a book communicates through words only, a movie through words, images, and sound. And we have to remember that a movie made from a book is an adaptation. It is usually someone else’s vision of the story, not the original author’s.

I guess the most important thing that I learned in Natchez is that, to truly appreciate movies, they must be judged on their own merit. A comparison may be fun to do, and it may reveal what’s been added or what’s been left out, but it’s not the best way to judge the worth of a movie.