Skip to main content

What Came First, the Movie or the Book?




I recently started my first MOOC focusing on Rhizomatic Learning and the topic for Week 1 was 'Cheating as Learning'. After seeing Michael Petroni's film adaptation of Markus Zuzak's The Book Thief today and it got me wondering, is seeing the film before reading the book cheating? Does the book come first or are they both completely different?


It is usually argued that the book has primacy. Why else would the film be described as an 'adaptation'? The very term suggests that the book has some sort of pride of place, that it is the thing that is changed for a new medium. However, what is often denied is the place of the adapted text to be a text-in-itself. For example, can you watch the film Tomb Raider without having played the game? Can you listen to Cedric Gervais' remix of Lana Del Rey's "Summertime Sadness", without listening to the original album version? What is the place of the adapted when considering adaptations?

After discussing the film and Zuzak's text with my wife, I got wondering about the notion of historical fiction. The film included many significant historical events, such as Kristallnacht, the burning of the books and the bombing of Germany. This got me thinking, is history itself the 'original' text in all of this? Should the film really say "Based on Markus Zuzak's novel The Book Thief, which in turn was adapted from history". The problem with this is that it then prioritises history, but whose history is it? Whose perspective is it from? What evidence is this understanding based upon?

In the end, it may well be cheating to see an adaptation before reading the print version, however it is better to consider such texts as merely a collection of traces whose true origins are forever lost. Although we may feel that we know or understand a text the more we look into it, really we just get more and more caught up in the mire.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Are You Really Connecting If You Are Not Giving Back?

cc licensed (BY-SA) flickr photo by mrkrndvs: http://flickr.com/photos/113562593@N07/13713874174 Alan Thwaites posted the following tweet and it got me thinking. Not just what you Tweet Aaron, but watching how you use Twitter has been very clarifying for me. I appreciate it mate. — Alan Thwaites (@athwaites) April 6, 2014 How is it that I use social media anyway and more importantly, what does it mean to be a connected educator anyway? In a recent post about the benefits of blogging and being a connected educator,  +Tom Whitby  outlines some of the many benefits associated with sharing online. He states: The difference between writing a blog post and writing a magazine or journal article is the immediate feedback in the form of comments or responses. Before a blogger puts words to the computer screen the audience and its reaction are a consideration. The blogger will strive for clarity in thought. The blogger will strive for clarity in the writing. The blogger wi

The Tree - A Metaphor for Learning

creative commons licensed (BY-NC-ND) flickr photo by sachman75: http://flickr.com/photos/sacharules/7431640808 I remember in Year Four Ms. Bates teaching us about how trees grew. She explained that they reach to the sun and it is for that reason that they are not always straight. I am sure there is more to it than this, but Ms. Bates story really stuck with me, maybe because of its simplicity, but I think because it completely changed the way that I looked at the world around me. Thinking about it today makes me think that learning might be the same. I remember when my wife and I moved into our house we planted a series of lilly pillies down the side of property. The thought was that they would provide some screening and a bit more privacy. Clearly we weren't going to let them grow to their potential height of 100 metres as the tag suggested that they could in their natural surroundings, rather we would mould and shape them. As a plant, they are not only hardy, but

What Digital Revolution?

creative commons licensed (BY-SA) flickr photo by brizzle born and bred: http://flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/4934882110 In a recent ICT committee meeting, one of the participants made the remark that the digital revolution has failed to deliver all that it supposedly promised. Having been a part of the YVeLC pilot program almost ten years ago which focused on the potential of 2:1 laptops, it has been interesting seeing the changes that have occurred since that time. In a conversation with +Catherine Gatt , this is the list of reasons that we came up with as to why the digital revolution has failed to be the saviour that so many said it would be. Failure to Invest The government, both state and federal, has invested a lot over the last ten years. Whether it be providing Internet for students, WiFi access in schools, support in regards to servers and switches, as well as devices for students. In addition to this, the state government Victoria made a big investment wi