Form or content ?

Does a story itself change when it is transferred to another medium? If a text starts out as a novel, then is made into a movie, does the addition of audio and visuals make the tale something entirely different?

Essentially, the answer depends on extent: Exactly how much of a “change” in medium has the text undergone? If the jump is really only the distance between a printed book and words typed on a screen, then the meaning would for the most part be the same. They are still words being read by a reader’s eyes, with no change in cognition. This is true for most novels and pieces of non-fiction. Craig Mod, the author of the web article “Books in the Age of the Ipad”, calls these books “Formless content”

and applauds the movement to change the printed into typed:

“FOR TOO LONG, the act of printing something in and of itself has been placed on too high a pedestal. The true value of an object lies in what it says, not its mere existence. And in the case of a book, that value is intrinsically connected with content.”

He does however, point out that there is another category of writings that need to be presented in a specific way in order to be understood and to make sense. He says that “Content with form — Definite Content — is almost totally the opposite of Formless Content. Most texts composed with images, charts, graphs or poetry fall under this umbrella. It may be reflowable, but depending on how it’s reflowed, inherent meaning and quality of the text may shift.”

Mod emphasizes the use of new technology to overcome the obstacles that may face the reformatting or re-media-ing of what he defines as “Definite Content”, the foremost of which being the ipad. This new model has surpassed the iphone, the blackberry, and the Kindle in terms of being able to present the most book-like presentation, preserving the text’s comprehensibility. It’s kind of ironic that the most advanced and evolved that technology becomes, the more it can reflect and relate to the original printed form. 

The transition from books to movies, though, is an entirely different story. “It’s about that guy, in that moment, in that space”. In this clip from Richard Linklater’s film, Waking Life, director Caveh Zahedi talks about the difference between what is available through the written word versus what a film has to offer. According to him, the purpose of a movie is not to tell a story “slavishly” like literature does, but to say something coming out of a single moment, “the holy moment”. This belief stresses an inherent difference in how a moving picture, with sounds and direction and focus, affects an audience and the way that a written novel does. But what does that say about novels that ARE made into movies? 

 “Novel to Film: An Introduction to the Theory of Adaptation” quotes George Bluestone:

“between the percept of the visual image and the concept of the mental image lies the root difference between the two media”

This reflects the basic change that occurs in the transformation of a text from novel to film. When reading, people make up their own characters, voices, images, and so forth, being influenced solely by the text itself and relying on their imagination.

A physical manifestation of those thoughts and ideas, as is provided by a film adaptation, takes away that sense of individuality and freedom to interpret the text in a personal way. 

The slightest degree of inflection in an actor’s voice can completely alter how a reader might have understood an event. And what is a film, but another person’s point of view, their own interpretation of something?

It is clear that while there may be little to no change in a text’s meaning when it is simply transferred from a printed novel medium to an online format, the adaptation of a novel into a film most often changes content. Even if a movie follows the book ‘word for word’, paying attention to every single detail provided, something is bound to be different. The visual and audible manifestation of a story brings to the table what a novel does not provide in itself, but instead what it allows the imagination to do. The rest comes down to personal opinion… Do we let ourselves do the imagining, or buy into someone else’s interpretation?