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Comment by smitty1e | Hacker News Reader

> Many of King’s criticisms of the film largely arise from the fundamental differences in the intentions behind the book and the movie.

As with "Heart of Darkness" / "Apocalypse Now", this gets at one point I always bring up in these contexts: a book and movie can be related, but they are distinct works of art. (HoD/AN being an extreme example of distance.)

"The book was better" always strikes me as unhelpful. What is communicated visually is radically different than what is communicated in prose. Plus, an actor is an artist, too. "Here's Johnny!" cannot be achieved in text the way Nicholson delivered it on the screen.

King himself is standing too close to the prose work to assess whether the film is any good. Of course Kubric couldn't match a vision that exists in King's head.

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Agree. Also, Kubrick's other works strongly emphasize lighting, composition, music, and effects over plot. Just look at Barry Lyndon's candlelit scenes (which look like paintings by the Dutch masters), Eye's Wide Shut's Christmas lights, Clockwork Orange's use of Beethoven, or 2001's match cut from a bone to a spaceship. You can't achieve those in a book, because they are purely audiovisual phenomena. And movies have different constraints: like time limits.

King doesn't have to worry at all about what the score is, or how to film a wall of blood. It's simply not part of the medium. The requirements and constraints are completely different.

> "The book was better" always strikes me as unhelpful. What is communicated visually is radically different than what is communicated in prose.

I think that the difference is deeper then that. Film writing tend to lean toward schematic and dumbed down motivations/characters. It is not that it would be impossible to write more smartly for film, it is possible and it was done on occasion.

But most of the time, when book is adapted every character becomes more of his own stereotype - whether by gender, age or type of person. Nuance is killed. Likewise with plot events.

Sure, but you've elided the actor, director, and the rest of the crew from the equation from the equation.

Equating the script to the document seems a bit off, IMO.

If the script contains one dimensional characters, there is only so much actors can do. The rest of the crew even less so. Director is able to have some influence, but he still needs to work with script as it is.

Writing a bit more complex characters/plot takes skills contemporary film writers just don't have - even if the source material has that. And it would take a bit of additional time too, so they don't have option to develop those skills.

Your attention is drawn to Christoph Waltz working out on the theme to "Sesame Street": https://youtu.be/nr5MXQGhft4?si=SUfMtGKq8QQoY3Kh

(Not to refute your point that modern scripts are more Hemingway than Updike in terms of linguistic sophistication.)

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