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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Other people's visuals and the pictures in your head

  
 
that
13:33 / 28.07.03
Firstly, I looked to see if this had been done before, and couldn't find anything. Secondly, if mods think this is too fluffy for the Books, please feel free to stick it in the Conversation, of course. Thirdly, this might be a pretty pointless, amorphous blob-like thread topic in the first place, so, sorry about that.

Anyway, now I'm done apologising for myself, I was wondering how other people feel about the way films and other types of visual media, like official art (front covers and such, for instance) and unofficial art (fan art) affect the way you 'see' the people, places and things in books? Like, does the Legolas in your head look just like Orlando Bloom in a wig? Have you ever been able to shake the image of Sting as Feyd Ruatha? Does your Hogwarts look like it does on the cinema screen? And does it bother you?

For any given text, if you read the book before you saw the film/tv adaptation/whatever, how much has the adaptation affected the way you see the characters you know and love when you go back to the book? If you saw the film first, do you feel that the director's vision will always dictate the way you see the book?
 
 
Lyra
12:09 / 30.07.03
If possible I will always try to read the book before seeing a film adaptation because I dislike having all the fun taken out of building up images in my own head. It’s a gradual process and the best bit is the character development, the motives and personality that drives the character. The instant gratification of having it all laid out in front of you on screen is often dulled by the lack of depth and understanding. I tend to appreciate the work put into creating the settings rather than the casting choices because they are less personal.

However, occasionally something clicks and an actor will play a role pretty much exactly as I had imagined, the lovely Colin Firth as Darcy in the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice for example. When I read that particular book again it is Colin Firth that I see but all of the other characters are my own. In this way I feel that it can be very selective, what we choose to ‘overwrite’ and what we choose to disregard. If it doesn’t fit with what I already had in mind then my brain won’t accept it.

For me it’s still interesting to see someone else’s interpretation of books that I know. Whether it’s in the form of films, artwork or literary criticism it can give me a different perspective and make me aware of angles that I had been missing.
 
 
Mourne Kransky
21:43 / 01.08.03
Front covers I barely notice. Whole other thread in embryo there about the effective front cover. Fan art I rarely see and don’t seek out.

As for the rest, I’m undecided. I can quote examples where I read the book then saw the film /tv and the translated character echoed my own take. Yes, my Feyd Rautha was not Sting with scary eyes, but Kyle MacLachlan was pretty much my Usul /Muad’ Dib and Wolfgang Petersen was bang on as Duke Leto. The mentats and Dr Yueh were all wrong but Patrick Stewart was Gurney Halleck to the life and Sian Phillips was playing me playing a Bene Gesserit Mother Superior.

Where the character on screen is close to your own reading, your own perception may shift slightly to fit but then it’s fairly fixed. When I’m wrapped up in a character, I find I tend to see me doing what they do, wearing those clothes, but the person on screen never looks like me. Well, apart from Kyle MacLachlan. Dune might be a bad example because it’s both one of my favourite books and a favourite film.

I’m glad I read Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow before I saw the film. Great book. Film not all that great. Maybe I’d have enjoyed the film had I not read the book first but the biggest problem with it was Juliette Binoche as Smilla. In what universe would she be credible as a half Inuit, plump little Greenlander? My Smilla was nothing like her, lovely as la Binoche is, and my vision of Smilla is unaffected because they were so far from my mark. She tried for the spikiness and gumption of my Smilla (and, I think, Peter Hoeg’s) but it didn’t happen.

I avoided Captain Corelli’s Mandolin altogether because I just couldn’t see Nicolas Cage as Corelli. Perhaps I was unfair but doesn’t sound like I missed much.

Conversely, my Mr Darcy was a miserable thing compared to the earthly manifestation of Colin Firth. I am happy to have him in my head now, although I haven’t been back to the book. Legolas and many other Middle Earth folk are so beautifully realised in the first two films so far that any vestige of my own mental image has been superseded and I’m fine with that.

My Ron Weasley will never be that Thunderpants boy, btw. I flinch when he comes on screen.

Undecided then, still. Trying to think of examples of characters from film /tv whom I’ve then had to conjure from the written word alone. The Talented Mr Ripley I knew first from the Alain Delon performance before I read the book and he’ll probably always be Alain Delon-ish in my mind. But that didn’t stop me admiring and enjoying Matt Damon’s impersonation. It was truer to the character in many ways too, if physically unconvincing. Damon had an edge of vulnerability and showed the chip on his shoulder more in his Ripley and I think that's there in the book but both gave good glib globetrotting sociopath.

I know what Lyra means about the pleasure on seeing how someone else has interpreted work you know though. Whether or not they share all of or just some elements of your own vision. Or go off in a whole different direction. I loved Ang Lee’s Hulk as much as Stan Lee’s and much more than the 70’s tv version. He had touched on something deeply mythic in the character that I hadn’t paid enough attention to.

Enough. Still undecided.
 
 
that
23:20 / 01.08.03
None of the examples I gave actually apply to me. I think I generally end up with a mish-mash of original head pictures, fan art (because, for some reason, *good* fan art really sticks in my head) and stuff from the films. And the Dune landscapes in my head are quite like they are on the front covers.

I agree about it being interesting to see someone else's vision of books...but I have to admit I also like films 'cos they flesh stuff out. My visual imagination is patchy in the sense that I get really powerful images of certain things, and hazy-ish masses inbetween. Am really looking forward to seeing Minas Tirith, for instance - not particularly because it will give me better visuals when I read, but because I can feel like I've been there, sort of. (I tried to avoid saying that, because it sounds stupid, but, there we go). It will feel more concrete, to be able to look at it, even if I don't import it wholesale into my head (which I probably couldn't do even if I tried).

I was going to say "None of my head pictures are really *concretely* determined by films etc. It's more that I pull in elements of other people's visuals without thinking about it, osmosis-stylee." But I'm not completely sure that's true. *Thinking* about the characters or settings, I think I probably am quite affected by certain films...but I'm not sure that its the same when I'm actually *reading*. I now feel the need to watch myself when I'm next reading something that's been made into a film and pay attention to exactly what I'm seeing in my head so I can reply properly to my own damn thread.

Memory comes into it here, too, I think. Misremembered details from the book, fuzzily remembered faces or environments from the films...hence the fact that the Hermione in my head had straight hair for ages.

I really like Rupert Grint as Ron - his version has taken up residence in my head quite happily. The Hermione in my head is nothing like the film Hermione, and Harry Potter just always looks like Harry Potter, but the HP in my head is not played by Daniel Radcliffe (that's not a value judgement re. his acting, it's just a fact). Various other characters as portrayed in the HP film are so apt that I've adopted them. Rickman as Snape is the best thing ever, and McGonagall also rocks. Oliver Wood, too.

Snape's interesting because although Rowling describes him in an unflattering tone, it's entirely subjective. Rickman's Snape probably has most of the physical characteristics of the book version - but he's quite, quite lovely.

Am worried on some level about the Ender's Game film, when it appears, as I think that might actually be better in my head - that its essential minimalism as far as environment goes won't translate to screen nicely. This may be (partially) why Star Trek bores me - the Enterprise looks like the inside of a cross-channel ferry. Hm.

The character whose film counterpart has really stuck with me, come hell or high water, is Gollum - Gollum is perfect, and the film version really brings out the duality of his character and the total tragedy of his life (can you tell I adore Gollum? I would like to adopt him and let him run around in the back garden with the dogs. Don't you just want to hug him, slime and all?). But, thinking about it, quite a few of my versions of the LotR characters are heavily influenced by the film - I think because I read the book just so that I'd read it before the films came out (I know I'm a philistine, so don't say it). I became briefly fascinated by Legolas' hair colour, because Tolkien never really says (he probably *is* golden-haired like his dad, however). Am I superficial, or just fucked in the head?

Sorry about that, it's late. Ok, back on topic. I think Boromir is also an interesting case, because the book version and the film version are so disparate, appearance-wise. I will have to go back to the book to see what happens to him in my head now that I've *paid attention* to the fact that he doesn't look just like Sean Bean.

One last thing - do you really look like Kyle MacLachan, Xoc?
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
08:13 / 05.08.03
Funny, although Gollum is perfect, and Frodo is passable, the only character I really responded to in terms of appearance in the films was Bilbo - excellent!

The others I find just a wee bit too pretty. OK legolas is cool as well, but Aragorn I always had as more wiry and pointy and a fair bit older and uglier, and likewise Gandalf I have as much sterner - not the sort of loveable grandad he is in the movies, more serious and sharp and tetchy, as opposed to occasionally grave but basically approachable. And pointier and uglier.

The orcs rock, and are now that way in this head.
 
 
that
14:46 / 05.08.03
The really weird thing is that Stuart Townsend, the British bloke from Shooting Fish was originally booked to play Aragorn. He was only born in '72 (Mortensen was born in '58), and Aragorn is meant to be like 90 or so during LotR...so even with the whole blood of Numenor thing, and a lot of make up, I think that would have been some grievous grievous miscasting.

I like Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn. I get what you're saying, Money $hot but for such a major film, I think most of the main characters probably need to be eye candied (now I have a mental picture of candied eyeballs, crispy with sugar. Deelightful), so as to appeal to lots and lots of people and make them want to sit there for several hours, possibly repeatedly. So the edges tend to get smoothed over, I think, especially when they're kind of going for a romantic hero thing.
 
 
Kit-Cat Club
20:22 / 05.08.03
I don't usually have a problem with this - I seem to manage to distinguish between formats in my brain somehow so that they don't get tangled up. Actually, often I don't have true pictures of characters in ym head - I just know when someone else gets it wrong. Such as the actress who played Lucy in the BBC 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'. Pauline Baynes was right and that girl, though I'm sure she was jolly good, was wrong...
 
 
Mourne Kransky
13:58 / 08.08.03
Thought of this when I saw an ad for the new "Piglet" film the other day. Ganesh tells me they have turned Eeyore into a positive, attitudinally correct role model for small kids. Pish.

But it did remind me of the horrible shock of going to see "Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day" when it came out. The damage of the quaintly creaky American voiced Pooh could not be outweighed by the attractive exuberance of Tigger, which also came parcelled with an Merkin accent.

Nothing wrong with people speaking American. But not in Hundred Acre Wood for crying out loud! I hear those voices now whenever I think of Pooh.

Same thing but less extreme with the cartoon "Jungle Book". Some wonderful reinterpretation of the characters there though, so it has stayed a bit more separate in my head from the Just So Stories' depictions.
 
  
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