How come a book has more detail than its corresponding movie

[Avichal]

When a book is made into a movie, the book usually has more detail than its movie. However, we say that a picture is worth a thousand words. How is that a movie is not able to convey everything that is present in the book? I often see movies removing a lot of detail than its corresponding novels and still be very long.

Any thoughts?

 

[Borg]

The picture conveys information about the visuals that would take a lot of writing to describe well. The missing details in movies are plot points and storylines that may take longer to convey onscreen than is practical.

 

[Borek]

Try to make this single paragraph into the movie.

Where I want to start telling is the day I left Pencey Prep. Pencey Prep is this school that’s in Agerstown, Pennsylvania. You probably heard of it. You’ve probably seen the ads, anyway. They advertise in about a thousand magazines, always showing some hotshot guy on a horse jumping over a fence. Like as if all you ever did at Pencey was play polo all the time. I never even once saw a horse anywhere near the place. And underneath the guy on the horse’s picture, it always says: “Since 1888 we have been molding boys into splendid, clear-thinking young men.” Strictly for the birds. They don’t do any damn more molding at Pencey than they do at any other school. And I didn’t know anybody there that was splendid and clear-thinking and all. Maybe two guys. If that many. And they probably came to Pencey that way.

 

[edward]

I think this is related to people saying that they liked a book better than the movie. The book can conjure up images in a persons mind that the movie can't compete with. People always think there own version is best. Movies also have time constraints. The movie can't include a picture of every detail that a the reader sees in his minds eye.

 

[gleem]

Movies also have time constraints.

Most people cannot read an average novel in 2 hours the typical length of movie. In a novel we can stop and reflect on a passage as long as we like but not in a movie. If a reflection if necessary in a movie it eats up time as it dwells on the scene which must be later taken from some other part of the story.

 

[SteamKing]

When a book is made into a movie, the book usually has more detail than its movie. However, we say that a picture is worth a thousand words. How is that a movie is not able to convey everything that is present in the book? I often see movies removing a lot of detail than its corresponding novels and still be very long.

Any thoughts?

Besides time constraints, a movie and a book are vastly different art forms.

The book relies on the reader's imagination to visualize whatever action is occurring. The movie can dispense with this by having the actors re-create whatever action is necessary to tell the story.

In a book, the author can explain the reasons behind a character's actions or motivations, while the film cannot do so without becoming a lecture.

The author of the book must also describe the setting where the story takes place, which takes up a lot of words, where the film maker can film the movie in an actual location or use special effects instead of words.

 

[Hepth]

Try to make this single paragraph into the movie.

I need 852 more words before I can make a single still frame according to the given formula...

 

[JBA]

I think this is related to people saying that they liked a book better than the movie. The book can conjure up images in a persons mind that the movie can't compete with. People always think there own version is best. Movies also have time constraints. The movie can't include a picture of every detail that a the reader sees in his minds eye.

Being one of those ancients that actually lived before television, I can attest that also applied to listening on the radio to Batman, The Green Hornet, The Shadow and several other long in the past series as opposed to seeing them at the movies. The radio broadcasts were time restrained, just like TV and movies, but all were weekly serial shows. Of course, as opposed to books, there wasn't much character insight given in those shows for the same reason so you were free to develop those as well. One definite advantage the weekly serializations had over books was they helped you develop your memory and focus at an early age, ie. just try to remember through the next 7 days, 4 to 5 simultanous story lines.

 

[Buzz Bloom]

In a book, settings are described in paragraphs which take longer to read than the corresponding pictures movies present. Also, quite a bit of a book's details in paragraphs are about thoughts and feelings. In a movie, these are generally quickly portrayed by an actor's facial expressions and body language. Thirdly, scenes are frequently cut entirely because there are practical length limits for most profitable movies.