Growing up in the United States, many girls fell in love with the idea of ‘happily ever after,’ ‘love at first sight,’ ‘true loves kiss’ and finding the ‘one.’ Movies and books tell us of overwhelming passion, deep emotional connections, openness and spending long, carefree days together and ‘all you need is love’ But that is not realistic.
We have been told to overlook ‘we have the same values’ or ‘we both like sci-fi movies’ or, ‘we both think sports are stupid’ Falling in love seems like an individual, personal experience, it seems odd that something like ‘romance’ can ruin a relationship.
Since around 1750, the world has been living in the era of Romanticism. Romanticism ’emphasized that sense and emotions – not simply reason and order – were equally important means of understanding and experiencing the world’ (Seiferle). Romanticism found its way into music, art, literature, and architecture.
From this setting came ‘all the great themes that form the basis of our romantic literature, including and especially knights in shining armor and fair ladies who share a ‘holy passion’ and ‘unattainable ideal’. Romanticism took these feelings and exaggerated them, turning them from mere emotions into hazardous ideas of what a relationship should look like.
These romantic stories turned into books and songs and then into movies. These stories are full of exaggerated romantic themes; two people are instantly drawn to one another, choosing a partner should be guided by intense feelings, rather than practical matters and finding someone that completes you.
A major similarity is that both books and movies set out to tell stories that are often fascinating to the audience. Regardless of which medium is being used, efforts are made to create stories that are going to be engaging to the reader or viewer.
For both movies and books, the story is a central part and the authors or directors come up with themes and plotlines that can captivate and entertain the audience. By use of elements such as characters, setting, a conflict, and a resolution at the end, book authors and movie directors are able to come up with successful stories.
A huge difference between books and movies is in the manner in which the visual images are created. When reading a book, the reader has to use his/her imagination to create a visual image from the words contained in the book. For example, in the Harry Potter books, the reader is required to form his/her own image of the various magical creatures.
Also, movies present the reader with a ready visual image. In the Harry Potter Movies, the images of creatures such as trolls and goblins are presented to the audience. The imagination of the viewer is not required since the movie makers have already created the image they want the audience to have.
Books and movies are different in the level of detail provided. In books, the author spends a lot of time providing details of characters, events, objects, and places. These lengthy descriptions are necessary to help the reader to create a mental image of the story. With movies, there are no lengthy details used.
Movies do not have to engage in detailed descriptions since a complicated image can be shown in a single movie shot. Mayer notes that a movie can, within the span of a few seconds, graphically show a mass of details to the viewer.
Books and movies are important communication mediums that play a great role in our society. They are both adequate means of telling a story. While the two make use of different technologies to communicate with an audience, they have some similarities.
These include the use of stories and the reliance on characters to tell us the story. However, the two have major differences in terms of the level of imagination required of the audience and the use of details.
