Cinema vs. Literature

I took a class while studying abroad about cinema and literature and we devoted a large part of our time to the analysis of cinematic adaptations of literary works. Since then I have been very interested in the comparison of the two mediums and this dichotomy between the written and the visual modes of story telling. While reading one of the essays in Authorship and Film, I was reminded of that class and this discussion of cinema vs. literature. Janet Staiger in her essay "Authorship Approaches," quotes Astruc as saying "cinema is becoming a language, which allows it to break free from the tyranny of what is visual, from the image for its own sake...to become a means of writing just as flexible and subtle as written language."

Staiger continues in saying that for Astruc, "cinema might be able to express ideas equivalent to the novels of Faulkner and Malraux, to the essays of Sartre and Camus." Though I think the inherent differences between the medium of film and that of literature make it impossible to pass a judgment on which is more effective, comparisons of film and literature make for good discussion.

While literature relies on verbal communication through the form and structure of the written word and the decoding of the text by the reader, cinema depends upon a visual form of communication though the imagery of a film and its interpretation by the audience in order to tell its story. For example, for all the narrative power of the written word, words can never achieve the visual clarity made capable by cinema. On the contrary, however talented an actor or actress may be, it is impossible to reproduce the level of psychological depth of character obtainable through the written word.

In the case of adaptation, is it really fair to compare the movie to the book since the two mediums are so fundamentally different in form? Or, must the texts be analyzed within their own genre? Hmmmm.....