a great movie vs. a great book

book. there's a feeling when i finish a novel that is impossible to get with any other medium. the total immersion in something for such a long stretch of time. it's like coming up for air, intellectually/emotionally.

Movie for immediate impact (but only a very few), book for long-term impact - so voted book.

also the connection with the artist -- however mediated through the characters -- is direct in a way that i also don't get with anything else. save maybe music, but it hits a totally different portion of the brain.

It's much easier for me to return to a book.

I think I've only ever deliberately re-watched about 5 movies (I'm not counting I-turned-on-the-TV-and-it-was-on).

"People often repeat the fallacy that “film is a passive medium”. The statement is usually elaborated like this: “When I read a story in a book, I have to use my imagination to conjure up what the characters look like, the sound of their voices, the appearance of their surroundings, the house, the landscape. When I see a movie, those things are all nailed down for me, so I don’t feel as involved.” What the person is describing are the most obvious aspects of a given story, that is, its physical properties. They are, in fact, the least interesting and least important components of a story. I do not read books in order to imagine the physical appearance of things.

Conversely, there are things which are typically spelled out in a book, but which must be imagined in a film. These are the intangibles, the important stuff; what are the characters thinking and feeling? Novelists have the advantage of being very explicit about the internal experience, and they indulge it, often to the detriment of the reader’s power to infer. Good writers are the ones who maneuver around this pitfall. A book’s ability to describe thoughts and feelings is a liability, not an advantage, if used to declaim its themes rather than evoke the desired consciousness in the reader.”
-Peter Chung, The State of Visual Narrative In Film And Comics
http://clintjcl.wordpress.com/2008/11/18/media-on-movies-vs-books-no-books-arent-automatically-better-because-you-imagine/

books last longer so I'm inclined to vote for them. Basically we're talking about days' worth of stimulation vs a couple hours

in terms of "profoud impact" a book you are reading intensely will inform your whole mindset over an extended period of time, in a way that films can't. Films are concentrated, books are diffuse.

unless you re-watch the movie, which is easier than to re-read the book
xpost

so are books the "best" story-telling art form because they are the slowest to digest?
might be.
but i don't think thats the only consideration.anyway, the images (and possible meaning behind them) in movies like Stalker or Tokyo Story can struck me for days as much as those of The Sound and The Fury or Anna Karenina.
though i would say that the number of truely outstanding masterpieces in cinema are rare compared to those of literature.

though i would say that the number of truely outstanding masterpieces in cinema are rare compared to those of literature.

way cheaper/wasteful to produce too

er less wasteful

Ask Melville.

Writing Moby-Dick was like QT shooting Pulp Fiction -- shits and giggles for Herman and Mrs. M.

?

I'm referring to the amount of money and resources that go into making a movie - particularly yr average Hollywood movie - which is completely fucking insane and way outstrips publishing.

Favorite part of Reel Paradise was when Artsy Indie Producer Dad wants to show the Fijians Apocalypse Now Redux and his kid says, "no way, Dad, they should watch Jackass" and the kid is totally right. Jackass: the novelization by Kazuo Ishiguro would have tanked.

Writing Moby-Dick was like QT shooting Pulp Fiction -- shits and giggles for Herman and Mrs. M.

― vulva eyes (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, September 15, 2009 11:55 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

what are you talking about?

Book, for what strongo said

movie - because it combines sound, visuals, and narrative for a more immersive experience (all else being equal)

book all the way, for all the reasons mentioned here, especially the immersive quality

what are you talking about?

I was suggesting that writing books isn't as easy as Shakey said.

How can you misread "cheaper/less wasteful" as easier?

i could argue this either way, but there are a few books (karamazov, the plague, song of solomon, some montaigne essays) that really changed the way i think about life, the world, morality, mortality, all those Big Issues. that may be true for some movies too, but i can't think of any that have had quite that depth of personal impact.

How can you misread "cheaper/less wasteful" as easier?

Willfully.

. . . maybe you should just pretend you meant Melville the director

I can think of half a dozen books that changed my life, but not one movie that reached the same level of impact. I can think of hundreds of books that were central to my education. Movies? Not so much.

I can think of dozens of movies that have given me lasting images, snatches of dialogue, or songs, but somehow that gift just doesn't come up to what books have given me.

Are any of these lifechanging books less than 150 pages? I just read Newjack and it's sort of a lifechanging book but it's more how the author's life changed when he became a pretend-real prison guard. I'm just sitting here reading about it, goin, "dude, you crazy, why are you putting out fires in Sing Sing on New Years?"

Are any of these lifechanging books less than 150 pages?

Death in Venice

book book book book book-book BOOK

less than 150 pages?

Tao Teh Ching

photonovels are the highest art form imo
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7877/1046/1600/photonovelalien.jpg

The MIT Press photobook of La Jetée?

Movies (save time)

I can't really afford to go to the movies these days, and tbh I'm not hugely into them, though on the other hand I am barely literate. What r vote?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I am one of the proud 5

books won in landslide but still - much more movie threads than book threads in ilx. for different reasons i guess.