Inflexibility of Mediums

Kelly’s blog “A rose by any other name…” brings up the interesting topic of the fluidity of certain works of literature into new mediums, such as movie scripts. One of my favorite books of all time is The Unbearable Lightness of Being, hence my twitter name. The book is philosophical observations using a story to illustrate points. The story it uses, however, is beautiful. The ideas and love for freedom captured by the book make me cry. The movie, with Daniel Day-Lewis, is also overwhelmingly beautiful. Although much of the dialogue is verbatim from the book, it leaves out the philosophical statements. Instead, through the movement and interaction in the film, the actors exemplify these statements. However, Kundera hated the movie. He was angry at the way they portrayed his book; he felt it was translated incorrectly.

It seems that movies, books, music, and poetry are all different languages, not just different dialects. Maybe we are in the wrong for trying to force them into each other’s boxes. It is difficult to be weary of this when we are unable to decide where the box is, or even what it looks like. I guess the best that we can do is to be cautions of this easy to commit mistake, and analyze with care.