A Quote by Salman Rushdie

I think the book is less emotional than the film. With the film, the emotions are much more raw and in front. In the book, they are kind of ironized and seen through comedy.
Well, the medium of film is so different than a book that just by bringing it into visual storytelling is to change it up. I think in a book, in any book, you can have a reactive character. Some of the great novels of all time have had that, but in a film you can't do that.
As long as a film stays unmade, the book is entirely yours, it belongs to the writer. As soon as you make it into a film, suddenly more people see it than have ever read the book.
If it's a good work of adaptation, the book should remain a book and the film should remain a film, and you should not necessarily read the book to see the film. If you do need that, then that means that it's a failure. That is what I think.
Actually, screenplays were much more detailed than what I did in the book In the book I had to invent a style for communicating what the sensation of looking at a film would be, whereas the screenplays I wrote in Paris were actual blueprints for how to do the film, with every gesture, every little movement noted in exhaustive detail.
I think it is always a long shot getting a book made into a film. Making that book into a film is going to be quite a challenge.
I adore book-to-film adaptations when they're done well, and I'm more lenient than many readers when it comes to what counts as 'done well.' For me, the most important thing is that the film maintains the spirit of the original book.
A book is one kind of an art form and a film is a different art form. I think as a writer you just have to say, well the book is one thing, and the film is a completely different one.
The book I am best known for, or only known for, is a novel I am prepared to repudiate: written a quarter of a century ago, a jeu d'esprit knocked off for money in three weeks, it became known as the raw material for a film which seemed to glorify sex and violence. The film made it easy for readers of the book to misunderstand what it was about, and the misunderstanding will pursue me till I die. I should not have written the book because of this danger of misinterpretation.
Usually the script is much more funny than the film turns out to be, in my case. The script is almost like a comic book but when you start making it, for some reason the film gets very serious.
I call it a comedy film, but I feel that is because 'Sholay' is a complete film. It is the best in every aspect. You see the music, the editing, dialogues, action, drama, tragedy, and the emotions of this film and you will find everything is perfect. It is a flawless film.
Wayne Wang, the director of Because of Winn-Dixie the movie, understood the book and transferred as much of the feeling of the book onto film as humanly possible. I think he did a fabulous job. And also I'm thrilled because the movie brings people to the book - people that wouldn't know about the book - and that's a great thing.
One of the things that I love when I go to a film or when I'm reading some book or whatever, is to be told a secret I thought only I knew and then someone says, "Oh my gosh, you know, too." And film can take us into private moments in a way that the theater, I think, kind of can't, and that's one of the reasons I like doing films. And the way a book can is that these little secrets and the private things that go on in our minds that maybe we haven't shared with anyone, and then someone writes it or shows it to you in a film, you think, "Oh, that's me. Oh my God, that's me, I have that secret."
I think film and television actually is a lot harder. Acting onstage is physically more arduous, but to get to emotional truth within a scene, it's much tougher to do it on film.
All I can say is that I am not one of those writers who want 100% of their book in the film. I recognize that film is a different medium and the filmmaker must have the right to bring some new elements to the table, provided the soul of the book is preserved.
"The Diagnosis" is by far my most ambitious book. I such great hopes for it... there was so much I wanted to do with the book. I was extremely insecure about it for several years. Just didn't know whether I would finish the book much less for it to come close to what I intended. I think that for any novel you never know exactly how the book is going to turn out...
Film is more than the twentieth-century art. It's another part of the twentieth-century mind. It's the world seen from inside. We've come to a certain point in the history of film. If a thing can be filmed, the film is implied in the thing itself. This is where we are. The twentieth century is on film. You have to ask yourself if there's anything about us more important than the fact that we're constantly on film, constantly watching ourselves.
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