Books Versus Movies

In 2009 I started college, I was going for my Bachelor's in Music Education.  Of course you don't just get to take the courses you want, you also have to take general education courses.  One of those courses was called Oral Communication, or rather speech class.  It was class that taught you how to make good speeches, how to do research, how to include your research in your speech, and to talk well.  I'm from the South, where ain't and y'all are actual words, so this class didn't do me a whole heck of a lotta good! Besides, I hate talking in front of a bunch of people.  But there was one speech that I did enjoy giving called Books versus Movies.  I love to read, and I love movies.  And when one of my favorite books gets turned into a movie, I get really excited.  In fact, I'm going tonight to see The Hunger Games.  Which brought this speech to mind and I would like to share it:


How often, when enjoying a movie, is this response heard? “The book was better.”  It is good to enjoy the pleasures of both worlds.  Although most people have probably seen way more movies than they have read books, reading a book can be better than just watching a movie.  Books provide more information than the related movie can give, books can make the reader feel more connected with the world and characters, and reading books can increase ones intelligence and literacy.

In a landmark 2004 study, the National Education Association (NEA) found that the percentage of the adult population that regularly reads literature has dropped from 56.9% in 1982 to 46.7% in 2002, a decline of about 20% in 20 years. The NEA report declared: "Reading is obviously related to the literacy of a nation, which in turn is related to the quality of life of its citizens. If literacy is the baseline for participation in social life, then reading and reading of literary work in particular is essential to a sound and healthy understanding of, and participation in, a democratic society (NEA)”.  The study also reported, “Americans are not just reading less, they are reading less well when they do read. Between 1992 and 2005, the percentage of 12th graders who read at the proficient level declined from 40% to 35%. Any decline in reading ability indicates a corresponding decline in overall academic accomplishment. (NEA).”  Some people may say “in such a busy life style, who has time to sit down and read a book?” In fifteen minutes, a good reader can read twenty to thirty pages.  That is an average of two to three chapters in most books.  If a book has twenty chapters, then it can be finished in about two weeks, just by reading fifteen minutes each night before bed.

Reading can also increase imagination, especially in children.  Children in today’s world do not use their imagination enough.  Movies tell people what to see, the video games tell people how to play, even the toys tell kids how and what to play.  For example, a few years ago one could buy a box of Legos, different shapes, sizes, colors.  It was up to the child to figure out what he or she wanted to build and how.  Sure, some of them came with booklets of pictures of different things to build, but the child did not have to use it.   Now Legos come in kits.  Only one thing can be built by these Legos and only one game can played with them.  Movies and books work the same way.  The books tell a story, it is up to the reader to imagine pictures to go along with the words.  What the character looks like, what the background looks like, what kind of place, buildings, rooms, how the scenes act out, is all up to the reader to imagine freely.  Movies show exactly what the people look like, where they are, what is happening, leaving the watcher free from using their brain.  Society is not creatively and imaginably engaged when watching a movie.  Otis Kramer and Geraldine Wagner state in their article, “Pleasure readers must actively engage their minds in imagining these important details while reading a book. The words on the pages of every copy of a novel are identical, but the characters that inhabit the imagination of the reader are unique. Reading a book is emphatically not the same as watching a movie based on that book (Kramer, Wagner).”

And then there is the purely aesthetic side of books and movies.  A lot of readers claim the movies do not do the books justice.  For example, in a book, there may be two to three paragraphs of what a character is thinking, or feeling.  But in a movie, there will only be about three seconds of a confused look from a camera.  There is nothing in that three seconds that tells what the character is thinking or feeling besides confusion.  Granted, movies do a better job at some things.  Like fight scenes, or chase scenes.  Fast and the Furious would not have made a good book because of all the car races and chases.  In 2009, there were around 40 movies made based on popular books including New Moon, Where the Wild Things Are, The Princess and the Frog, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, The Time Traveler’s Wife and Sherlock Holmes. One of the reasons these kinds of movies do so well in the box office is that the people who watch them have read the books and are excited to see these characters come to life on the big screen.

Even though in today’s busy world, people should take at least ten minutes a day and sit down in a quiet place and escape into the timeless pages of a story.  It can be any story, fiction, non-fiction, mystery, romance, comedy, suspense, fantasy, pick your poison.  Readers get so much more from reading a story than watching a movie.


So there it was, my speech on why we as a society should read more.  But I'm not bashing movies, I love movies.  Although I am a bit apprehensive about seeing Hunger Games, the movie is 143 minutes long.  The book was not that thick and very simply written, so I'm wondering how they got a 2 hour and 23 minute movie out of it.  This is one instance I'm hoping the movie is better than the book.