By: Sofya Kavalenka
Culture Editor
Watching a film to unwind after a hard day is a common leisure activity for many people. When choosing a movie to cozy up to, one might think that the Twilight sequence is a great series of films to relax to. However, in the United States, only about one out of seven adults who saw this book-to-movie adaptation read the actual novels. Nowadays, streaming services are picturizing a myriad of literary works into movies or television shows, compelling the public to choose passive visual content over textual forms. To avoid the decline of reading culture, modern consumers should preserve literary works instead of allowing streaming platforms to commercialize them by turning novels into films.
Cinematic book adaptations often feel rushed due to time constraints. Films have a time limit on how long they can be, preventing them from incorporating every aspect of a book that has hundreds of pages of subplots and background information. Those smaller storylines usually provide the readers with deeper insight into the characters or the setting, enhancing the story and explaining the behaviors and actions of characters. Studios regularly modify or change storylines in order to save time illustrating those small details and arrive at the turning point of the narrative in time. For instance, in All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, a book-to-movie adaptation released in 2018, the producers significantly minimized the complex story surrounding the main characters’s family traditions, late mother, and the long history between characters. Explaining years of history and the effect of grief on characters would have required various lengthy scenes, something that would not allow the directors to quickly jump into the main plotline.
These cuts reduce the author’s original voice, robbing readers of complex monologues and plot points that would have enabled them to connect with the characters better. In the more recent adaptation of Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the filmmakers condensed young President Snow’s inner conflicts, translating his gradual, paranoid internal shift into rapid, decisive actions. Suzanne Collins heavily explored Snow’s inner monologues and orderly evolution in the novel, dedicating entire chapters to describing the step-by-step logic of his betrayal of his best friend, Sejanus. This indifference towards elements like the internal narrative takes away from the depth of the original story, and the unique voice of the author is transformed into a third-person, visual interpretation.
Beyond the technical aspects of book-to-movie adaptations, society needs to recognize how critical choosing literature over cinema is for literacy. A society that replaces deep, active text comprehension with passive visual consumption risks lowering literacy rates among its civilians, and a society that cannot read is easy to mislead. Relying on purely visual storytelling and screen media may compromise practice with complex vocabulary, long-term attention spans, and textual analysis humans need to stay educated.
Books allow us to imagine and create our own perceptions of stories, evaluate literary devices, and sharpen our critical thinking skills. With so many screen adaptations of novels, there is a plausible risk of diminishing reading culture. Although going to the cinema with friends or enjoying a night in with a romcom book-to-movie series is fun, the public should not forget the importance of literature and let books be books.
(Source: Penguin Books, The Barna Group)