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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dr Midnight" data-source="post: 479970" data-attributes="member: 69">What I'm talking about here is that moving pictures as a medium for storytelling has far more potential to tell the story better, as its author might intend.  That you think that level of interpretation is necessary is what I'm chalking up to a matter of taste.  Well, I agree with that, but it doesn't mean anything to the point I'm making. It's not an inherent flaw in the medium. In fact, if the same controversial point is made in film as in books, and the film maker is arrested for it and blackballed due to public outcry (for example), couldn't it be said that the story was better told with the film? That's one thing I always concede to books, sure. Now hold on there. Does the fact that films are not made to exceed three, four hours all that often while books can go on as long as they want make for a flaw for moving pictures? You can put a bookmark in a book and walk away- you can stop your DVD and take a break. You're not expected to, though. Films are made to be viewed all at once, while books allow a more convenient breakup of several readings. That's fine. It just doesn't mean that moving pictures as a MEDIUM is inferior. I think it's a shame that fourteen-hour films aren't made, that tell a novel's full story from beginning to end. I say this comes down to budgets.Two hour movies are made because that's what you can sell to people for big money. Stories in bite-size chunks that they'll pay $10 to see. Books cost less to write, less to print, and less to buy. If a movie cost as much to produce as it costs to pay a writer, editor, and printing fee, then yes- I think we'd see novel-length movies. Again- I don't believe this affects the potential of moving pictures as a storytelling medium. Countering that, using the metaphor: They don't make Evian in ocean-sized bottles, because of prohibitive costs. Film do some things novels cannot, and novels do some things film cannot. If not, that's the author's (director's, producer's, etc...) fault, not the medium's. Moving pictures has the POTENTIAL to convey EXACTLY what the author intended. Right. There's just less of it with moving pictures. Less translation is needed to tell the storytold just what is happening.Wokka wokka.</blockquote>

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