Books vs. Movies

Between books and movies both certainly have their merits and demerits. I have to admit that I prefer books to movies for a few reasons. It’s rare that I go out of my way to watch a movie at home let alone at a movie theater. That being said, I recently saw a movie in the movie theater after not having done so for more than a year so I feel I can talk a little bit about both.

With regards to movies at a movie theater, the draw is almost entirely based on novelty. There is novelty in almost the entire experience. From the fact that the movie is being watched in a place you don’t often go to, the feeling of the seats, the darkness of the theater, the big sound and the big screen, and also the fact that the movie is most often not available in any other format for the time being, it all adds to the novelty of the experience. A book would probably have some trouble competing with this on that scale.

With regards to movies at home or on one’s phone, many of the novelties listed above are no longer at play, but they have their own merits. A movie, even on a smaller screen, can be the culmination of a myriad of human methods of expression. From music, to lighting, to costume design, to directing, to the composition of music, to the framing of shots, to sound design, and to the delivery of lines and actions sequences, such a wide breadth of expression is at play that it is hard to not marvel at most movies. They truly are a unique experience that will probably not be trumped for a few more years until something like VR moves into that territory.

With all of that being said, I still prefer books. I’ll be the first to say that books are not very convenient. However, in exchange for this convenience, one might receive a much deeper and fulfilling experience limited only by the imagination of the reader. A good book is told in such a way to evoke imagery and everything else germane to the story from the reader. Even when the book is about something that has never been seen or witnessed, almost any reader would still end up imagining something and this can often be even more pivotal to the experience.

A good book is like a good dance. You let each line on the page take the lead but without your own participation the experience would be lacking. Every movement is welcome and when it surprises you it becomes an enjoyable foray into an unexpected space with an unplanned outcome. Best of all, with a particularly good book, you can start and stop wherever you left off in many places. With the advent of e-readers, it’s possible to carry thousands of books on you at all times and have a decent experience as you read them. It’s an experience that is superior to reading them on an LCD or AMOLED screen such as the ones found on tablets and smart phones. If this were not amazing enough, audio books have become commonplace at least for English language books and so you can even multitask if you really felt you needed to be doing other things or didn’t want to have your hands full.

The demerits of books are of course related to the time they require to get through as well as the possibility that you might actually lack imagination or that you are unsure as to how good a book actually is since there isn’t really an analogue to a movie trailer. It also contains a lot less collaboration generally than a movie might and so there might be less different things to appreciate about a book. Similarly, the production almost comes entirely from the mind of one person so they had better be creative. However, a book is a lot like life. You will get out of it what you put in but sometimes you will get more out of it than others. A movie often times feels like a predictable amusement park ride and that is the main reason I prefer books, however I imagine there might be some very fun amusement park rides as well.

Ivan

Vocabulary

draw (n) – someone or something that causes a lot of people to come to a place
be at play (idiom) – to be involved; something that helps produce or influence a result
breadth (n) – the wide scope or range of something
germane (adj.) – relevant, applicable or closely related to something
foray (n) – a short journey