Compare the novel version and the movie version of The Kite Chaser
With the development of the cultural industry and the advancement of film shooting techniques, the adaptation of novels into movies is no longer a strange field for
the public. Among the works adapted from novels into movies, in my opinion,
The Kite Chaser is definitely one of the few masterpieces. Situated in Afghan, the
story is mainly about Amir witnessed Hasan suffered from rape, but he chose to
ignore and escape at that time because of jealousy. For this reason, Amir had been
tortured for many years, and finally he decided to do something for Hasan to in
search of consolation.The following paragraphs will focus on the three main
differences between the novel and the movie version of The Kite Chaser.
First, although the movie concretizes the content of the novel, many details have been neglected. For instance, in the movie, there are very few narrations about Hasan and Amir when they were little. The complicated and conflicting friendship development has been ignored. This may make people wonder why Amir drove Hasan away so cruelly, but later risked his life to rescue Hasan's child. On the contrary, the novel explains Amir’s mental process in detail. Unfortunately, this part is completely skipped in the movie, but it is actually an important breaking point in the novel. Obviously, the novel is more detailed than the movie.
Another difference is that the movie plot is relatively compact compared to the novel
version. Since the total length of time of the movie is only two hours, it’s difficult to have a very delicate performance to each plot. For example, the director originally wanted to present the rape scene carefully and realistically, but , he finally replaced it with just a few implicit and symbolic scenes instead of being as detailed and explicit as the original description in the novel. From this, we can find that many plots are only shot carelessly in the movie.
The last and the biggest difference between the novel and the movie is emotional expression of the main character. In the novel, the author conveyed complicated emotion through texts and used a large number of monologues to depict Amir’s mental process in detail. Yet, it is difficult to see those in the film. It’s possible that film actor cannot faithfully act out his inner feeling. For example, some audiences think that the actor who plays Amir did not perfectly interpret the ambivalence of his loneliness, low self-esteem and hunger for father’s love. It is because unlike in the novel, in the movie, the actor did not use a lot of monologues to explain his mental process. Therefore, the emotional expression of the main character in the film is extremely different from the novel.
In conclusion, although the movie was adapted based on the novel, there are still many differences between them such as , compact plots, and emotional expression of
the main character. From these differences, we can realize that adapting a
book into a film is not only re-interpreting the story but also an innovation
and reconstruction of narrative content. Besides, due to the mainstream trend,
we can predict that more and more novels will be adapted into movies in the future. However, both the novel and the movie have their own advantages and their fans, so we cannot say with certainty that which one is better and which one is worse. In spite of that, whether it is the novel version or the movie version, they are both worthy of watching it.
Sources of the book or the film :
追風箏的孩子 - 維基百科，自由的百科全書 (wikipedia.org)
[達人專欄] 【心得】追風箏的孩子 - name15483的創作 - 巴哈姆特 (gamer.com.tw)
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