Lost Intimacy in Movie Adaptations

I was thinking about the differences between novel and movie adaptation. (And I know this isn't always the case, before I start.)

Let me say before I lay out the details that I am talking in a for-the-most-part manner, and there can be a separate category for a story that starts out as a movie and not as a novel.

Lets talk adaptations, though.

I'm not thinking about how accurate the adaptation is. 

Rather, I'm thinking about how a novel can get more into the mind of the character/s and paint a realistic picture that rings true to those reading/watching.

While a movie paints a somewhere-in-the-ballpark picture based off of the novel. It's never truly realistic.

Now, there are those movies created initially for the big screen. Those usually ring more true than adaptations. But it seems like movies aren't as equipped to really get into the mind of the characters for the viewer.

This could be because cinema relies on visual over internal dialogue. This is why if I was ever writing a movie story, or adaptation, I’d probably use a narrator. This can work wonders. Look at A Christmas Story.

It's harder to capture that intimate back and forth on screen than on paper. You have more room in a novel to explain things.

That's it for now. I just got to thinking why adaptations were no so great. It seems like they’re a hit or miss.

A perfect example, to me, is Dreamcatchers by Stephen King. Here the movie captured the essence of the novel up until about 75% through.

Sure the novel had many more moments than the movie, but in that rare moment the movie did emulate the book pretty good.

Up until that point I mentioned before.

Hollywood seems to have taken over at the end, which is totally different than the novel version.

Now sure, you can say you get a different ending to analyze. But it's not like the Hannibal endings of novel and movie, where you can see why they might have needed to change it for the big screen--or leaves debate open to discuss the different endings.

The ending of Dreamcatcher happened for a movie explosion of action.

Well, that's how it seems to me at least.

What do you think?

WCM