The Weekly LitWit Challenge 8.4: Which is better, the book or the movie?
You picked the winner of the Weekly LitWit Challenge 8.3: Cruel Rejections. It’s VenusdeSupsup! Congratulations, Venus—it appears you voted for yourself more than twice; fortunately other readers agreed. You may claim your Carson McCullers hardcover any day starting Thursday, 2 February 2012, at the Customer Service counter of National Bookstore at Power Plant Mall, Rockwell, Makati.
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The book being The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson, the movie being the adaptation of the same by David Fincher. Explain your answer in 500 words or less. Oh and try not to write like Stieg Larsson; make your prose compelling.
The winner will receive the bestselling Scandinavian thriller The Boy In The Suitcase by Lene Kaaberbol and Agnete Friis
and a copy of the official Fincher movie poster (see above). Consider it a limited edition: You won’t be seeing this poster displayed in cinemas due to the racy artwork.
Three runners-up will each get a poster, courtesy of Jay and Columbia Pictures. David Fincher’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo opens in Metro Manila theatres today.
We’re accepting submissions until Tuesday, 7 February 2012 at 12 noon.
The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
February 1st, 2012 at 11:32
The Book: Larsson doing a really bad impression of Agatha Christie, John LeCarre and Carolyn Keene might have fell flat if it weren’t for the presence of Lisbeth Salander. Her body art, kickass attitude, photographic memory, troubled past, and what she did with the Taser kept me riveted.
The Movie: David Fincher doing a really good impression of Stieg Larsson doing a really bad impression of Agatha Christie, John LeCarre and Carolyn Keene. Heady from Noomi Rapace’s eerie performance in the Swedish version, I was prepared to detest Rooney Mara but I didn’t. She gave Lisbeth a younger and fresh-faced look which Rapace obviously lacked. Daniel Craig is his usual self as a beautiful film decor.
Verdict: The movie is better. There’s nothing like David Fincher trying his best to give justice to a campy novel as a delight.
February 1st, 2012 at 12:10
Please note that this is a LitWit Challenge and the entries still have to be well-written.
February 4th, 2012 at 09:20
I just read the 1st book during the Christmas break last year and saw the movie last night. I must say that the movie is very good. I was trying to remember sequences from the book and trying to compare them to the movie. Let me say that doing that exercise really ruins the movie experience!
I can only compare on 2 points because like any book adaptations, there will be difficulties in making realities of the author’s imagination. Due maybe to budget or the director’s take on the scene.
When I was reading the book, I could feel the “coldness” of the place. I am referring to the climate. I have not been to Sweden during their winter, but Stieg was able to get the climate description to the readers very well.
There is coldness. While reading, I am always imagining Hedestad as a very very white snow covered isolated town. Very similar to Clooney’s The American opening scene. Very quiet, no man-made sound. Very lonely yet with simple contentment if you could live without the luxury trappings of life.
I read this in December last year so I am not really sure if the “coldness” that I felt was really due to the cold climate in the country. :)
The movie did not really convey this feeling. The scene where Blomquist arrives at the mansion really shows this feeling very well but it was a short scene in the movie while the book really reiterates this time and time again.
The other point that I like more in the book than the movie is Lisbeth. The characterization in the movie is ugly. I always have in mind of Lisbeth when I was reading the book was kind of the Angelina Jolie type of punk hacker. You know the sexy pouty lips femme fetale in tight black spandex & leather jacket type. The movie Lisbeth is not sexy! The actress I saw in an interview was not ugly but they made her so in the movie. Maybe my taste in women has changed over the years or Hollywood’s makeup artists have a different interpretation of the punk genre. To put it another way, “I will not have sex with the movie Lisbeth!”:)
The movie is not bad do not get me wrong. It is just that each reader depending on their imagination have a different take on the book’s atmosphere while reading. This sometimes-no most of the time- do not coincide with a director’s take on the book. This is a good thing for art and literature because it gives viewers a fresh angle on the book’s words when translated into the visual medium.
Go watch the movie! Go read the books! I just finished TGWPWF 2 weeks ago!
February 4th, 2012 at 11:39
Stieg Larsson or David Fincher?
It should have been a no-brainer for me.
It took me a record one day to finish the book back then. It was so riveting that I couldn’t allow myself to let the book go and have the next chapter wait and be read another day. I remember reading it even when I was doing a no. 2.
And then came the David Fincher adaptation. Something’s missing. But I still gave it a benefit of the doubt. Come on, it’s David Fincher! Fight Club! Se7en! Panic Room! How could he miss this one? (Note that I purposely did not include The Social Network because I never really liked Facebook). Have I set my expectations too high? Have I expected his version to be more daring? After all, it’s a transgressive take on a hunt for a serial killer of women!
And the movie has Christopher Plummer! How can it be so… much of a letdown?
I have to give props though to Rooney Mara for being an astonishing Lisbeth Salander. And much love should be given to Jeff Cronenweth too for excellently capturing an island of incestuous SOBs through his cinematography.
That said, I must have set my expectations too high. Because I felt that David Fincher’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is like Zodiac. Technically good, but you know that something’s not right.
I’d say the book is better, especially now that I picture Rooney Mara every time I read about Lisbeth.