I completely relate with this sentiment on Brangan's blog today..
"I wonder ... if it’s a mere accident of profession that I’m able to easily endure — and be enlightened by– difficult movies, but fall into impatience with embarrassing quickness in the case of not-so-easy books. Would book critics feel the reverse, embracing arty books over art movies?"
For those who don't know who Brangan is - Baradwaj Rangan is easily my favorite movie critic from India. He is a writes reviews more as just a member of audience who is writing down his thoughts/feelings rather than an expert handing down movie-enlightenment to readers. This is exactly how it should be, IMO. But, more importantly, he is a superb writer.. so, it hardly ever matters whether you agree with his opinion of a particular movie or scene etc. It actually doesn't even matter whether you are interested in the movie at all, because the these reviews are pretty good pieces of writing in themselves. Again, that is exactly how it should be with any review IMO. So, to those who don't know rangan, and might be interested in movies etc, I introduce his blog Blogical Conclusion.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
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I guess it is a matter of imagination....you need more imagination/patience/perseverance to sit through an "arty" book and really get what the author is trying to portray. On the other hand maybe it is not so with movies (unless it is a book adaptation)....I believe they are more or less a complete picture/story in themselves...and the portrayal of a scene or a visual depicted directly hits you as it was meant to be.
ReplyDeleteperhaps... I can't comment on that because I just don't know how it will feel to be better at visualizing/imagining. But then, it is also possibly because books try your patience for too long. A "slow" movie will normally give the pay-off withing the hour. A "slow" book generally gives the pay-off about 200 pages after you have decided to give it up and moved on to another book. :D
ReplyDeleteAs for chances of "getting" what the author is trying to say being higher in movies, I'm not sure I agree. Definitely not for the sort of movies we are talking about here. Then again, I guess I don't have nearly as much experience with good books as you have, so chances are that you are right.