Many books ruined by cinema

CHENNAI: Some authors like the movie versions of their books and others despise them. Valerio Massimo Manfredi belongs to the second category. Speaking about the movie version of his novel, The Last Legion, at an interactive session at Landmark, Nungambakkam, on Monday, the Italian author and historian said he preferred his book more than its movie version by American director Doug Lefler. The film, incidentally, stars Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in a pivotal role. “The cast was very good, Aishwarya Rai is a very good actress, but I liked my novel better,” he maintained. “People who didn’t read the novel liked the film, but those who read the book didn’t like the movie.” At the event co-hosted by Pan Macmillan and Landmark, the author was in conversation with Tamil film producer Ramkumar Ganesan, who aptly made use of the opportunity to grill the author on various film-related queries. When the producer asked Manfredi what his opinion was on the very idea of converting books into movies, the Greek and Roman-specialist author said, “I have a T-shirt that I bought when I was in America. It reads, ‘How many books have been ruined by cinema’. It is often true, but sometimes, I can tell you, films have been better than the books.” While still on the topic, the author provided the enthusiastic audience with a list. “I think that the Shining by Stanley Kubrick is better than the book by Stephen King, with all due respect to the author. Also, the Blade Runner is a better movie than the book,” he listed. The problem, he observed, was because films and books have two different kinds of expressions. “Books express with words and phrases while movies do with images,” he explained. Editing can also play a major role, he admitted. “All the films need to have is pace, like a video game — it is terrible.” The novelist has also written numerous academic books and papers based on his travels and expeditions. His expertise lies in both fictional and non-fictional writing. “Historical writing has the burden of truth. A historian has to prove everything that he writes (through footnotes, bibliographies and the like),” he explained. But storytelling is completely different, he said. According to him, the evolution of storytelling itself has a story behind it. “Our minds are bigger than our lives. We all want more lives — alternative lives. That’s why theatre, music and storytelling were all invented,” he validated.Manfredi is famous for his books Child of a Dream, The Sands of Ammon,The Ends of the Earth (All part of the Alexander Trilogy), Empire of Dragons, The Ides of March and his latest, Otel Bruni.