Comparing and Contrasting the Novel “Atonement” to its Film
Comparing and Contrasting the Novel “Atonement” to its Film
In class, we have been reading the novel “Atonement”, by Ian McEwan. This novel was made into a film in 2007 and won many awards for its acting, music, and many other categories. In general, the film was extremely loyal to the plot and character development in the novel. The director made sure that many of the little details that were present in the novel were in the film. I think this is what made the film so notable; the filmmakers did so much to make the film as similar as humanly possible to the award-winning novel. However since the book is so heavy on the character’s internal dialogues with themselves, the film obviously couldn’t replicate that amount of abstract speech without a continuous voiceover. Thus, even though the film did a fantastic job of translating the outward actions, words, and perspectives of the many different characters in the novel, it couldn’t have possibly translated the immense amount of nuance in the character’s internal dialogues. For these reasons, I believe that the novel version of “Atonement” is superior to the film version. Film just can’t capture the emotions and thoughts of the characters the way that the written word can. The first main difference between the novel and the movie was the fact that many of the scenes in the novel had a lot of the character’s thoughts and emotion, and the film could not capture that effectively. I feel that the internal dialogues of the characters like Briony and Cecilia are extremely important to the plot of the novel and to the film. Briony’s development as a main character in the novel is especially important because she is, in my opinion, the main antagonist of the novel. She is the one that causes Robbie to be sent to jail, and subsequently, to join the army and fight in the war. In the novel, we learn that she ends up feeling immensely guilty about what she did when was thirteen and in the film, I feel like it is not conveyed
In class, we have been reading the novel “Atonement”, by Ian McEwan. This novel was made into a film in 2007 and won many awards for its acting, music, and many other categories. In general, the film was extremely loyal to the plot and character development in the novel. The director made sure that many of the little details that were present in the novel were in the film. I think this is what made the film so notable; the filmmakers did so much to make the film as similar as humanly possible to the award-winning novel. However since the book is so heavy on the character’s internal dialogues with themselves, the film obviously couldn’t replicate that amount of abstract speech without a continuous voiceover. Thus, even though the film did a fantastic job of translating the outward actions, words, and perspectives of the many different characters in the novel, it couldn’t have possibly translated the immense amount of nuance in the character’s internal dialogues. For these reasons, I believe that the novel version of “Atonement” is superior to the film version. Film just can’t capture the emotions and thoughts of the characters the way that the written word can. The first main difference between the novel and the movie was the fact that many of the scenes in the novel had a lot of the character’s thoughts and emotion, and the film could not capture that effectively. I feel that the internal dialogues of the characters like Briony and Cecilia are extremely important to the plot of the novel and to the film. Briony’s development as a main character in the novel is especially important because she is, in my opinion, the main antagonist of the novel. She is the one that causes Robbie to be sent to jail, and subsequently, to join the army and fight in the war. In the novel, we learn that she ends up feeling immensely guilty about what she did when was thirteen and in the film, I feel like it is not conveyed