Book to Film Adaptation: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Essay Example

Book to Film Adaptation. The adaptation of a novel into a film is a modern feature. Moviemakers invest on movie adaptations for some reasons. According to Engelstad, a filmmaker does benefit from adopting a bestseller novel in the sense that people get motivated to read the book as well as have a look at the movie. Engelstad notes that there is always a close relationship between the film and the literature, which is prestigious in the film world (Engelstad 432). The adaptation of a novel into the film started in the 20th century; among the first novel adaptations was Mark Twain’s novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The book has been the most filmed book of Mark Twain’s works. The filmed versions of Tom Sawyer closely rhyme with the plot in the book. The movie having produced first as a silent movie was more of an illustration of the written text. The modification of Mark Twain’ book Tom Sawyer involved the emission of some parts, which promoted racism. This part involved areas in the novel that used the word “nigger” unnecessarily. The novel focused on satire to talk about racist themes. Issues of slavery when the country was busy freeing the slaves were also illustrated by using satire and irony. Adapting this into the movies would take the country back yet it had made so much progress. Engelstad states that opinion and concepts of the book are not simply transformable into a film action and conversation. A student combining the literature and the film work gets to form contact with the author as well get the visual and aural features from the film; this allows the learner to have a comprehensible understanding of the novel. Film adaptation gets to differ from the written text when a person reading the novel creates an imaginary world portrayed by the writer, the visualized image by the reader may not concur with that created by the filmmaker. This explains how different people interpret novels; this explains why people who have already read the novel do not watch the movie. The written text has the power to produce a mental image on the readers’ mind, which cannot compete with the visual adaptation. Combining the two mediums is also difficult, this occurs when the reader tries to connect the images of the film to the figures of speech in the book. According to Agullo, some words expressed in the book could be difficult to adopt in a film; therefore, the filmmakers utilise the computer designers’ in trying to create a close meaning for the imaginary words. This procedure tends to divert the reader’s attention in trying to link the translated new idea in the movie to the book. We can say to the reader a state of confusion arises, and the reader tends to mistrust the filmmakers adaptation procedure. Combining the two forms of work is beneficial in that the film may acts as a stimulating factor for one to read the book. A film does recount the tale form a visual and sound point of view. The film gives the original work a multidimensional perspective. The film represents a filmmaker’s interpretation of the original work. It is an artistic expression, and this differs from one person to another, however, the interpretation may coincide with the authors’ visual interpretation of his work. This ability to capture what the author had in mind does determine the success of the movie because chances are the readers will also relate to film easily. The film world, however, does adjust the original work in order to produce a filmmakers desired effects, these actions tend to make the movie more appealing when compared to the original work (Eyre 20). Eyre appreciates the two art forms; she describes film and literature as two distinct modes of storytelling even when the source of the story is the same. It is evident that not always does the book turnout to be better than the movie. The movie does make the audience appreciate the novel, for example, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, a screenplay adopted from Mark Twain’s book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. This novel is a story based on real life experiences of the neighbourhood around the Mississippi river. The movie has been adapted more than once, approximately 11 times, and every time the adaptation looks better as it does captivate the audience. The filmmaker Kalem Studios produced a silent film back in 1907. John Crowell directed the film adaptation in sound. The film was black and white and truly original as compared to the original text. Then most filmmakers tend to omit some scenes from a movie in an effort to create a shorter movie this usually faces criticism. Usually the readers may consider that the filmmaker omitted the most critical parts of the book from the movie. The readers come to the conclusion that such movies are a false representation of the books. However, most of the time filmmakers do this omission intentionally to protect the image of their characters. Filmmakers omit the scenes to create a desired feel towards the character (Eyre 25). The movie Adventures of Tom Sawyer in Technicolor was aired in the year 1938 under the direction of Norman Tourag. This cinematic adaptation made the movie receive recognition after earning the best art direction award. The film was also adapted into stage musicals in the year 1950. The musical adaptation was not as successful as the movies; this is due to the production translation that failed to translate the original text appropriately. The original text does describe the characters in an enchanting manner, but the translation into the movies fails to bring out the aspect that the author emphasises. The events in the movie have a humorous perspective which the author does clearly present in his works, but the initial adaptations of the movie fail to give the audience this part. Laura Eason, however, managed to rectify these failures in the movie and made an adaptation that did match the original texts. Eason managed to integrate Twain’s dialogue with the narration she gives her adaption of the novel a lively physical life; this involves giving the characters a lively appearance, as well some energy in the words they utter, as well as in their physical activities. Eason did manage to maintain Twain’s original text, as well as the narration of Twain. The narration is what manages to create the link among the characters and audience. Eason uses narration intertwined with dialogue to make a beautiful adaptation of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The director does this with the intent of removing the scenes that appear to be unnecessary in the story line. The directors also change the original material by omitting some of the scenes to make the movie shorter, other additions in the movie do act to break the tension in the movie created by too much action; usually this involves the romantic scenes. A director does alter the original text in a movie with the aim to make movie lively. Emission of some parts of the original text may be to avoid conflicts in the society. For instance, the production of Adventures of Tom Sawyer was during a time society was in the process of alienating itself from racism. Therefore, directors had to be sensitive to issues in the original text that raise an issue. The book is known to have been promoting racism this was due to the use of words such as “nigger” in the original text. Most directors had to alter such words in their movies so as not to face criticism from the black community. The differences in the book and the movie are also notable, for example, the structure of the family is different in the film. The movie does omit the cousins who are recognized in the book as part of the family. The movie also gives details to some scenes by altering some of the actions in the book. For example, the movie explains Joe killing Dr. Robinson is for the treasure map, and he does not notice Tom and Huck who bear witness to the murder. In the book, Joe kills Dr. Robinson because of a misunderstanding concerning digging the grave to bury the treasure, and he does notice that Tom and Huck are aware of what his actions. The reason provided by the movie is realistic, and, therefore, movies can alter a scene form a book to make it real. The movie also alters Huck’s behaviour after the retrieval of the treasure by Huck and Tom. The movie brings out transformation into a woman but maintains that Huck fancies his life as a kid, in the book the narration gives a different image of Huck as a woman and does not fancy the life as a kid. The elimination of the word “nigger” in the movie adaptations does alter Twain’s work which aimed at giving a clear image of life in Twain’s neighbourhood at this period. Slavery and racism were part of life in this period, and the omission of these words from the movies fails to reveal this part of life. Some critics say removal of the ‘N-word’ in the movie omits a critical part of the American history. The audiences are not presented with the image of racism that was critical and persistent during this period. However, it is agreeable that producing the movie without being sensitive to this issue would be a problem the thought of a conflict in the society would be a problem for the media, which aimed at entertaining its audiences, and not cause a rift among the audiences. Let us conclude that adaptation of films is one critical area in the world of films, and it is a fascinating field in the world of filming. Every filmmaker desires to visualize his authors’ works accurately, and direct an entertaining film that the audience and book readers appreciate. Adaptation of a movie to any filmmaker is a task that is demanding; it involves the reading of the novel, visualizing the storyline and coming up with a compressed storyline that only covers a maximum of 3 hours filming. The filmmakers need to present the themes intended to be brought out by the authors of the story. The filmmakers in trying to capture these points in a motion picture also wish to adjust the script to come up with an interesting movie. Therefore, the adaptation of novels requires a critical read into the work, and designing a creative means that would bring out the author's story in a more realistic manner without altering the plot intended by the author. Work Cited Ellis-Christensen, Tricia. “Why Are the Books Always BetterThan the Movie Versions.” Web. WiseGeek. 28 March 2012 . Engelstad, Arne. “Literary Films Adaptations as Educational Texts.” Desighn For learning Material (2006): 432-435.Print. Eyre, Jane. “Can A Movie Adaptation Ever be As Good As The Book.” Web.2011. Ripple Effect. 28 March 2012 . Read More