Movie Adaptations, it Is Often

¶ … movie adaptations, it is often difficult to make a selection of which do you prefer over what. The case becomes a challenge in itself when say you have read the book in your early teenage years and years later when you've seen Michael Mann's film adaptation, all you want to do is again get your hands on the book that marked your early years as a teenager. That is not to say that the movie lacks the intensiveness of the book, on the contrary, the screening makes everything so much more alive that it brings back old memories and fascinations. It is funny how after reading the book and later seeing the movie, all the pieces of information on the Last of the Mohicans come from what we've seen and not from what we've read and, in this essay, we will bring the focus on why that has happened. That is to say that we will illustrate why we seem to prefer the version of the movie over the book itself, when we know it is the book we would normally have to praise.

First off, Cooper's style of writing is somewhat heavy, making it hard for the reader to get straight into the story, whereas the images of Mann are very expressive and related to the events in the movie, to the extend that you cannot but see those places and immediately project yourself in the middle of the story. It is Mann's success that he was able to create such a powerful setting that it managed to lure the viewer immediately whereas, when reading the book, you are compelled to read at a low speed that it takes away the charm of the story in the beginning. What increases the value of the movie are also the soundtracks that do create a marvelous effect between the action and the setting. In this respect, it seems as though the music in the film adaptation seems to complete the book on more than one level. It works on a psychological level that you are bound to connect scenes in the movie with music themes. Also, the soundtracks keep the balance between scenes that we find in the book and are not included in the movie.

This is also something we appreciate in the movie adaptation, that it is not an exact replica of the book. In this respect, it relishes on surprises that you find David Gamut missing in the movie, while Munro dies and Alice commits suicide. Indeed, it makes the reader doubt on whether or not he has skipped some parts in reading the novel. However, once the confusion is solved and the reader is able to let go of any regrets that the screening does not follow the plot of the book entirely, the result is a good script, following a coherent course of actions with well conceived settings. In this particular case, that the historical truth in Cooper's book was no followed accurately by Mann seems to have helped the latter into creating indeed a movie and not a documentary. Without the element of surprise, without the drama, the humor, or the love story, the script would have least resembled a movie.