Jessica Weiss on film versus literature

The primary difference I feel between most works of literature and their film adaptations is the level of emotion I feel. While reading Death and the Maiden I felt more creeped out and more drawn into the book. Reading, for me, is a lot like thinking. I feel I am constantly thinking and feeling complex thoughts, and feelings are not images. Often times,when I read, I don't have the same images in my head as what I see in the movie. For example, when I read The Reluctant Fundamentalist I imagined the restaurant to be lavish and beautiful, with romantic candelight. In the movie, it was much dirtier, scarier, and seemed like a terrorist hide-out organization. Unfortunately, I saw the first part of Death and the Maiden before I ever began reading the play. When I read the play, I already had the image of a stormy night, with the lights out, and with the waves roaring in the background. This gave me false images that I would not have had in such detail had I read the play first. The parts of the play where Paulina talks about the metal rod being inserted inside her where scarier for me because they seemed more like personal thoughts inside my head, whereas when she says the same things in the movie, I feel like it is another Hollywood shocker tactic. I enjoyed the movie, but I loved the play. Often times, when I see a movie, I feel entertained. I see movies frequently, but I rarely see any movie more than once. With literature, I find that books have different effects on me emotionally at different times, and that whatever feeling I get, it is profound and long-lasting. Because The Reluctant Fundamentalist was my favorite piece of literature for any of my classes this semester, I find I relate many things to it. But I hated the film and how they totally lost the essence of the book. Probably the thing that bothered me the most was the two endings of Death and the Maiden. In the play, at the end Paulina is about to shot Dr. Miranda. It is the same sort of ending as The Relucatnt Fundamentalist where Changez is about to get shot, but no shots are actually described as being fired just yet. I find this to be an excellent ending because the reader doesn't really know what happens, so the reader can make it up in his/her head and ponder further. With the films adaptations of these movies, some really cliché emotions are forced upon you in what I feel is typical, so therefore devoid of real-life emotion. Paulina just walks away from Dr. Miranda on the edge of a cliff, then sees him casually at the orchestra. In this version, you get the feeling that Dr. Miranda is real. In the play, you aren't sure if he is an illusion in Paulina's head, a lasting impression of the post-traumatic stress she will probably suffer in silence for the rest of their life. Primarily, I think literature tends to be more complex, and allows for different ideas to occur in the mind of the reader, where as films tend to have an agenda that prevents quality emotions from the audience.