Compare And Contrast Movie And Play

When a play or novel is turned into a movie, there will always be missing elements. With “Doubt”, its movie adaptation is more of a companion piece. Each medium has their advantages and disadvantages, but I think they benefit each other. In the play, the reader gets more freedom to come to their own conclusion about Father Flynn, whereas in the movie, there is a strong influence on his guiltiness. As Shanley is the playwright and also the director, he constructs both to be beneficial in their own right. On one hand, the movie is a visual medium where we can actually see the characters, their expressions, hear their tone of voice, etc, and on the other, the play is more imaginative for the reader. Both the play and the movie influence the audience to address their doubts,
A character’s facial expressions are some of the biggest clues to their true objective or motivation. While there are stage directions, such as in the second scene, an aside says “(Sister James cries a little)” or in the fourth scene, “(Sister Aloysius smiles for the first time)” (“Doubt”/play). While the asides like those describe their reactions or facial expressions, it gives much less to visualize than the movie when the audience can see the characters. By being able to see the characters and their facial expressions and such, we can see much more than one simple emotion. The complexity of the characters is developed because actually seeing the characters instead of reading their expressions provides depth and curiosity to the characters. Seeing Sister James cry a little or seeing Sister Aloysius smile in the movie gives a more concrete visualization of their emotions than reading it in the play. The characters become much more intriguing because we see how they react with other characters and we get a better sense of the characters’ true