Reading Journal #2 : Comparison between movie and the book

When I read the first 30 pages, I expected a lot how the story will develop, and now, the feeling becomes different from the first because I finished the whole book and even saw the movie named ‘Stand by me’. ‘Stand by me’ is a movie made by director, Rob Reiner based on the Stephen King’s novella, ‘The body’. I expected and worried about the movie because the body is dealt with four boys’ childhood and their friendship, and the subject is easy to be boring when it is made into a movie. For that reason, I felt something lacking about few things seeing the movie though I liked the movie generally.

First of all, visual expression of the movie helped me to get in the story completely. When I read the description, I couldn’t imagine the background such as tree house or scene which twelve-year-old boys play card games and smoke cigarettes. But in the movie, those scenes which are far from innocence expressed vividly, so I could catch the atmosphere that whole story and charters create. Moreover, the young actors played and expressed particular tons, habit, and even appearance for each character so that I could feel each character’s charm in my bones. That is, because movie reproduced the visual images from the book like real world, it was better to sympathize and to be immersed in the story.  

On the other hand, changes of ending decreased enjoyment of the story. At the end of the movie, only Chris died after he had succeeded in becoming a lawyer, while in the book, all boys except Gordie died, and Chris had been finishing his second year graduate studies when he died. The death of all three boys brought dramatic effect and strong impression, and even I felt it was pitiful that Chris died not graduating and achieving his goal, but I couldn’t feel anything from the ending of the movie. In addition, author emphasizes Ace’s miserable life through showing his eventual situation in the book, as the sentence “I thought: So that’s what Ace is now”. Seeing this scene, I felt satisfying because his miserable life is kind of punishment about tormenting four boys in the past, but felt bitter at the same time. Therefore, the ending of the movie is little bit lacking in the sense of dramatic effect.

Lastly, cutting and adding the scenes during the process of adaption from novella to movie increased and decreased enjoyment of the story at the same time. For example, movie expressed Gordie’s close relationship with his brother, Dennis using the material such as baseball cap, so it made Dennis’s dead more sad and tragic. However, personally, I felt sorry about cutting my favorite scene. When Gordie went to the store to buy hamburgers, he told clerk who talked about only Dennis, “First you put your thumb on the scales and you overcharged on the groceries, Mr. Dusset. I was gonna throw some Hostess Twinkies on top of that order but now I guess I won’t”. In this scene, I felt thrilling feeling because it seemed like the boy lashed back at adults who had prejudice about four boys as their own discretion.  

             In conclusion, adapted movie from book can be better than original piece or not. In the case of ‘Stand by me’, it kept amusement of novella though the subject of this novella is difficult to dramatize to movie interestingly. The visual expression was helpful to catch interest, new scenes which director added helped understanding the story and maximized our emotions. However, if movie director add dramatic features to the ending and keep important scenes personally, the movie would be better than before.