Post by account_disabled on Dec 20, 2023 23:06:53 GMT -5
The puppyThe Road ( 2006 ) by Cormac McCarthy is a post-apocalyptic genre novel, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, which became a film in 2009 directed by John Hillcoat, with Viggo Mortensen as the protagonist. One habit that should be avoided is watching a film based on a novel before reading the novel itself. But unfortunately the opposite often happens. After all, a film can be seen in a couple of hours and a book can be read in days. When I saw The Road I had never even heard of the writer Cormac McCarthy.
But after the film I immediately bought and read the book. I thought that such a terrible film - for the subject matter, certainly not for its quality - and well made had behind it an equally terrible and beautiful novel to read. I have read several books which then became films and only in a few cases have I been satisfied, as happened with The Puppy which I talked about in the last issue of the column. And The Road is another one of those. Reading Cormac McCarthy's style and mastery of language certainly gives a Special Data pleasure that cannot come from watching the film. But the film is one of those that leaves something inside. It's chilling, like the novel. It's faithful, too, I don't remember finding such macroscopic differences compared to the story.
The interpretation of the characters is the same as that found in the novel. From the pages as well as from the film, that sense of loneliness, of the end, of daily danger that McCarthy instilled in his story shines through. The novel, like the film, leaves no escape. Some scenes are really as described in the book. The dialogues seem whispered both in the story and in the film. Book and film, in the masterpiece The Road , seem like two inseparable twins. How many of you have read the novel and how many have only seen the film?
But after the film I immediately bought and read the book. I thought that such a terrible film - for the subject matter, certainly not for its quality - and well made had behind it an equally terrible and beautiful novel to read. I have read several books which then became films and only in a few cases have I been satisfied, as happened with The Puppy which I talked about in the last issue of the column. And The Road is another one of those. Reading Cormac McCarthy's style and mastery of language certainly gives a Special Data pleasure that cannot come from watching the film. But the film is one of those that leaves something inside. It's chilling, like the novel. It's faithful, too, I don't remember finding such macroscopic differences compared to the story.
The interpretation of the characters is the same as that found in the novel. From the pages as well as from the film, that sense of loneliness, of the end, of daily danger that McCarthy instilled in his story shines through. The novel, like the film, leaves no escape. Some scenes are really as described in the book. The dialogues seem whispered both in the story and in the film. Book and film, in the masterpiece The Road , seem like two inseparable twins. How many of you have read the novel and how many have only seen the film?