Never Judge a Book By It’s Movie

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It’s amazing to think that all the movies circling around us are visual representations of the written world, be it a script or a book. In the beginning there was only the word of mouth which gradually evolved into the magical realm of books and from there emerged the world of cinema. First void of color and sound, these days movies have crossed all barriers regarding affecting the senses. Movies have evolved to such extremes that they do not require live settings anymore. Who wants to worry about finding a right spot with a right environment to shoot in when all you need is a green screen and half a dozen computers?

A SCENE FROM "300"

  You know what the best movie of a book is? The movie which plays inside your brain when the magic of wordplay washes over you as your eyes trail sentence after sentence engulfing the book. The most producers and directors try to do is make a palatable version of the book. But in most of the cases they fail miserably (yes I’m looking at you Feluda and Chaander Pahar). A family with legends like Upendrakishore, Sukumar and Satyajit, Sandip Ray quite lacks the secrets of his ancestors to turn the ordinary into the extraordinary. The Feluda series has taken a plummet after the Maestro himself handed over the batton to his son. Keeping aside Sandip Ray's meticulous eye for detailing, his take on Feluda is just a vague rendering of the sleuth into the 21st century! Internet has curbed Shidhu Jetha's charm and more or less, his films are just a tedious exhortations of the stories with paltry improvisations!

The last take on the "Feluda" series

BBC’s ‘SHERLOCK’ is the modernized tale of an even older time period, but they pulled it off spectacularly, so why can’t we?  And Tolly actor Dev’s take on Chaander Pahar only played in the halls because people resisted the urge to walk out on a movie they paid for. Out of respect for the Late Bibhutibhuson Bandopadhay I refuse to breach the many MANY faults of this movie and deviations from the book.

The depiction of "Bunip" was one of the biggest failures of "Chander Pahar"

 Now let us turn to Hollywood, specifically The Movie Trilogy of One of the greatest fictional works of literature, Lord of The Rings. If the book left you speechless get set for the 12 hour+ trilogy to blow your socks off. Director Peter Jackson cut off parts of the book but we aren’t complaining because lets face it, the movies ARE FREAKING AWESOME! Not only do the characters come straight out of the books, the locations, cities, battles and imaginary creatures are all portrayed with such brilliance it leaves the audience spellbound. 17 Oscars is no child's play.

 But it all went downhill when he decided to create a trilogy of the prequel book “ The Hobbit”. When a 300 page book is made into 3 movies of 2 hours you can be quite sure that the book was thrown out of the window when the scripts were written. Many many plot points, characters and events were added, including  a love interest between an elf and a dwarf. Of course this is not the biggest disappointment in terms of a magical world turned into a movie. That mantle belongs to “Eragon” only. Get ready to watch the complete demolition of the magical world of Alagaesia created in Christopher Paolini’s 4 part book series “The Inheritance Cycle”. It can be said that it was the Chaander Pahar of Hollywood.

Marlon Brando as Vito Corleone

 But there are some mind numbing which sometimes, not ashamed to admit it, put the books on the back burner. I'm talking of course of movies like The Godfather, The Silence of the Lambs, Watchmen, The Great Gatsby. These movies are perfect doppelgangers of their leafy cousins and maybe even a tad more enticing. Now that I think about it the scales may weigh slightly higher in the good movies side than the bad. Huh, I wonder if this is the first article which disapproves of it’s heading within it?



ABOUT THE AUTHOR :- 

Swagato Basak is a first year B.com student from Bhawanipore Education Society college.When he is not poring over his huge pile of books he prefers to read,write and photograph the grand event called Life. Also read :-

1. Ready! Steady! Full throttle.

2. Kolkata : Coming of Age