Andre Bazin in his essay “In Defense of Mixed Cinema” claims that screen adaptations cannot damage the source literature- “ It is nonsense to wax wroth about the indignities practiced on literary works on the screen, at least in the name of literature. After all, they cannot harm the original in the eyes of those how know it, however little they approximate to it. As for those who are unacquainted with the original, one of two things may happen; either they will be satisfied with the film which is as good as most, or they will want to know the original, with the resulting gain for literature”. While this is technically correct- no one would say that a repudiated novel is horrible solely because the movie is bad, Bazin fails to realize that cinema offers a false substitution.
Surely, degradations do not directly damage the original. When (under pseudonym) Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda published his own inferior sequel to Don Quixote the work did not damage masterpiece Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, in fact, Cervantes incorporates this false sequel into his own sequel, using the blunder to his advantage.
Cinema seems to be a synthesis of other arts. It includes the auditory and visual strengths of theater, the mobility in time and false motion of literature, the memorable images of photographs and paintings, the notes of music, and to some extent the craftwork of sculptures. Because cinema contains elements from each of the art forms before it, at surface level cinema seems an evolutionary progression or extension of these other art forms. Cinema is in some perceptual ways more realistic than other forms of art because a main strength of cinema is its isomorphic representation of reality and its illusion of motion. Cinema appears to have more ties to reality. And being more realistic in auditory and visual ways, when cinema adapts literature it appears to be an almost evolutionary enhancement of literature- an extension of what was. This is not the case. But many feel that a cinematic adaptation is an apt substitute for literature- this is the illusion of substitution. Many feel that an adaptation equals the source, and as a result, one is often traded for another.
This substitution should never happen, but it does happen when people do not have the time to read the book. For example, James Whales’ movie adaptation of Frankenstein is a dim-witted, pale reflection of the original Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein though people more readily recall Boris Karloff as the monster than Mary Shelly’s novel. The viewer that substitutes the inferior movie for the original literary classic either 1. has no interest in the original work because of the poor quality of the movie, or 2. feels s/he has a sufficient understanding of the literature because of the information provided in the movie.
The fact is cinema is art and an art that is distinct from literature. A movie can equal or surpass its literary source in terms of greatness (see Kubrick). But one should not judge a book by its movie. Unfortunately, because a movie is related to its source book material, associations from the movie affect people’s perceptions of the book. If one watches a bad adaptation before reading the novel, it is possible that the viewer/ reader will (when reading the book) recall the images from the bad movie, and thus the movie will negatively impact their reading of the novel. We should remember the distinction between the two art forms and judge according to the standards of quality for each art, but one cannot deny that the perception of a movie does sometimes affect (and/or create an aversion) to the source book. Movie should not, but they do affect the reading of a book. Movies also help to create a popular conception of the source literature. And so, a bad adaptation can, contrary to Bazin’s claim, negatively effect literature.
Satisfaction with inferiority can damage art. “I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams”. ~Hamlet, scene ii. Hamlet (in one aspect) is a play about the inifinite space of the human mind. Lawrence Olivier’s Hamlet offers a very weak interpretation of Shakespeare’s masterpiece Hamlet (Bias alert- I think Shakespeare’s Hamlet is undeniably one of the greatest pieces of art in any category of all time). For the majority of the movie, Olivier (as Hamlet) is bounded in a nutshell, for his approach to the character is of a restrained melancholy introvert. As a result, Olivier denies us the mind of Hamlet through his too cautious restraint. O that his too too solid flesh would melt. Olivier is too firm, too resolved for a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders. As a result, we have the loss of infinite space. It is tragic to deny us this mind.
~Kristen Gorlitz