The Comparisons Betiween Movies and Books

I want to start out by saying that I believe that it is pointless to try to compare two different forms of media that are based on one another, especially books to movies. Lets face it 9 times out of 10 the book is better than the movie ( the other 1 out of 10 being “how the Grinch Stole Christmas”) because books have one huge advantage over movies that every author uses though most of them don’t realize it. You can put down a book and come back to it later, this lets writers expand the story far more than a movie can, allowing them to insert subplots and further explain the situation that each character faces. A movie on the other hand is made to be completed in one sitting. This means that moviemakers have to keep the audience entertained for the entire movie. This gives a limit of time constraint since, no matter how good the movie is people get bored doing nothing for eight hours. A perfect example of this would be the last movie in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. This was a great movie however towards the end I actually became really annoyed at all of the possible ending spots (I counted 4). So movie makers tend to cut many of the subplots from the book in order to cut back on the time that the viewers spend doing nothing. This is actually quite tragic since some of the subplots and subtle actions are what inevitably make the book great. Because of this I really hate to cross reference a book to its movie counterpart since all that really comes out of it is a list of everything that the movie cut out of the book in order to save on time. However there is one thing about the movie version of Jayne Eyre that I feel that I would like to comment on. That is the way Rochester looks.

Rochester to me just looks way too hot to really express an underlying feeling that the story presented. That was the feeling was that this type of love could happen to anyone. Now don’t get me wrong this guy was far from being Fabio however he just gave the vibe (at least to me) of being a cut above the rest. Replacing this actor with another would not change the film length at all and it would give the aforementioned feeling to all of the moviegoers. Personally I feel that Jack Nickelson would make a much better Rochester. He’s short, has an older looking face which would add to the illusion of Rochester being so much older than Jayne. He also has a lot of practice doing individual roles that combine to make Rochester. He has played a rich man who learns how to not look down on others and he has played the lover of a much younger female counterpart. If he can fake a British accent then he’s perfect.

Till next time.

Will Pugh