Inner consciousness *screaming* :
"No way a movie can be better than a book."
Well, I started reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak during my semester exams. It was a chunky book and it took me good huge 20 days to complete it (since I also had exams to prepare for). Books that I've read so far had never left me surprised, this was the first book that left me awestruck. I kept on reading the last page over and over again. Yes, I was THAT MUCH SMITTEN. It is the best book I've read so far. The best book of my lifetime. Yes! You read that: LIFETIME.
"No way a movie can be better than a book."
Well, I started reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak during my semester exams. It was a chunky book and it took me good huge 20 days to complete it (since I also had exams to prepare for). Books that I've read so far had never left me surprised, this was the first book that left me awestruck. I kept on reading the last page over and over again. Yes, I was THAT MUCH SMITTEN. It is the best book I've read so far. The best book of my lifetime. Yes! You read that: LIFETIME.
The book been set up during Nazi Germany is a very simple story. It is about a girl and her foster parents. A very interesting thing about the book is that it is narrated by death, the grim reaper itself. When a person who would pick up this book to read would first ask himself the question: How is this possible?
But the author does that. It is remarkable!
So the story is simple. It is about a girl named Liesel who loves to read and is a thief. Not an ordinary thief. She is the book thief. The way the story intertwines with the book thievery is extremely of utmost interest.
Stopping here, let me remind you about the heading of this blog post *drum rolls*
It is the comparision of the book with its movie. You can certainly read its synopsis from anywhere since I am not going to summarize it here. For now, let's dunk into finding why the book is better that the movie.
The book was adapted into a motion picture by 20th Century Fox in 2013. The movie pictures the Nazi Germany and the ones being oppressed at that time. It starts in the simlar way as the book does from the narration by death. Of course, the 2 hour movie could not add every scene from the book but leaving that, the movie even failed to show some right things. It had a lot of variations from the original movie that had disjointed me.
One of the best part in the book was the explanation of the thief battalion. Liesel joins a thief battalion with her best friend Rudy. They roam about the streets of Nazi Germany stealing apples and other food materials. It wasn't depicted in the movie and it somehow saddened me.
Other intricate mistake was that that in the movie Liesel's first book was the Gravedigger's Manual. She says that it belonged to her brother but in the book it did not. There was also no depiction of the nightmares that Liesel usually had.
The major turn over in the movie was that Max offers Liesel with two handwritten story books. However, in the movie Max does not give her any (except for an empty journal for her to write on)
Other little turn overs were:
- Liesel, in the movie, did not carry her books during the black out but in the book it is mentioned that she carried it with her. The movie failed to depict the attachment of Liesel and her books.
- The part where Rudy is asked to go for the army training is neither illustrated well in the movie.
I am not stating that the movie was a complete disappointment. It was good. The actors acted well, according to the book characters. The setting and sites were also well chosen. But while weighing the movie and the book, the book surely wins the championship. The movie could be made better. It surely would have disappointed many book fanatics.
"Books and movies are
different art forms with different rules.
And because of that,
they never translate exactly"
- Tom Claney
