Book vs Movies: Do you really want to watch?

It is almost sinful when something so beautiful is created and then brutally morphed into another of its kind. Dan Brown is the American author of the bestselling book The Da Vinci Code. An absolute must read, and as acclaimed critics all over the world have declared, it is “unputdownable” which is a praise that only the virtuosos of writers is accredited. If you have missed reading this book, it is not too late. This as a text that can be read over and over and does not gain age. The Da Vinci Code is one of the most controversial fictional novels of the decade because it plays on the nerve of a delicate ideology of society; the Christian religion. Robert Langdon is a professor of Religious Symbology and he discovers a surreptitious society called the Priory of Sion which holds the greatest secret of the Christian faith. The novel opens with a gruesome and captivating description of the unusual murder of a curator, Jacques Saunière, in the famous Louvre museum in Paris. The chapter is wonderfully constructed, his use of diction so vivid that the reader is thrown into the after-hours at the dark museum with this frightened curator, who is the last bearer of this important secret into the final hour of his life.

The Priory of Sion holds the unknown truth that Jesus Christ was not in fact an unblemished virgin and that he married; impregnated Mary Magdalene and they bore a child. From here the book takes us into a whirlpool of exciting and intriguing characters, such as the Albino Silus and his masochistic rituals and a deeper look into Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of the last supper. We are emerged into the myriad of conspiracy of the Catholic Church, Mary’s role in the Christian history and the daunting search of the Holy Grail. When reading this novel one has to remember that it is of a fictitious nature and that Dan Brown, like most great authors has just created a masterpiece with words.

After the release of a fantastic book such as this, producers dig their claws into the print text and morph it into film media; such a catastrophe! Great anticipation is created for its release and three years later, an adaptation of the novel is ‘out in cinemas near you.’ This is a firm warning: I implore you, do not watch the movie, especially if you have not read the book yet. Making a movie is a complex process and adapting a book into a film is even more complicated. This is because a screenplay works with the formula that a page of writing equals a minute on screen. One also has to note that a screenwriters use a different font (courier new) and format that allows for less words on a page than usual. TheDa Vinci Code is 489pages paperback; this would mean approximately 8 hours 15minutes on air excluding the added pages created by the format, an 8hour movie; not likely. The consequences of this are that vital and interesting chapters and events are left out to satisfy the 190page requirement of the script. The beautiful book becomes a series of shots and scenes pasted together racing towards some sort of explosive conclusion.

Rotten Tomatoes is a film review website and its general consensus is that “what makes Dan Brown’s novel a best seller is evidently not present in this dull and bloated movie adaptation of The Da Vinci Code’.” One of the most fascinating scenes in the book is the death of Monsieur Saunière and how he is found bleeding and lying in the odd position of Da Vinci’s Vitruvian man. In the film this is very poorly shown, made to look as just another twisted murder. The book however makes the reader feel every cut the curator inflicted on himself and so colourfully describes the scene that at the end of it, one realizes that they had been holding their breath.

A film is a different text and in its own respect, it is equally wonderful to books but reading novels is one of the most rewarding feelings in the world. One of those things that can be an addiction but a pleasant distraction from the rest of reality. The beauty of it is that one can do it in the space of their choosing. Lying in your bed, outside on the grass, on the airplane flying over the sea…The splendor behind reading is the power that is placed in one hand to formulate and create one’s own pictures. The world of words encompasses you and while you are receiving entertainment, your vocabulary is expanding. It has that all good feeling you get after a long jog. So next time you find yourself about to pick out the blockbuster movie before reading the book, just think, do you really want to watch?

Here are a few great books to read before you watch the movie.

Twilight    by Stephanie Meyer

The Firm    by John Grisham

The Shining    by Stephen king

The Harry Potter Series  by J. K. Rowling

Gone with the Wind   by Margaret Mitchell