To Read The Book Or Not To Read The Book, That Is The Question

At some point you are going to get on a project that is an adaptation of a novel and the question will arise “so should I read the book?”. 

There is no real correct answer to this but I’ll give you both sides of the coin because there is value in each.

Reading the book is great because it gives you so much more than the screenplay ever could. You get a ton of other details that are often left out of the screenplay and these can help you tell the story even in minute ways. Obviously any well adapted screenplay will work on its own but sometimes knowing what the intention was can help layer your visuals. A good instance is in Al Pacino’s performance in The Godfather. In the book we learn that as a young man, Michael was severely beaten and his nasal passages never properly healed. As a result, he has a constant nasal drip that he must deal with. This information is not present in the movie but Pacino is seen many times sniffing as if his nose is running and an interview years ago confirmed that he had take this from the book and liked it. Does it change the film? Not at all, but it adds a layer of humanity that does no harm and adds to the complexity of the character in a small way.

On the flip side, I have read the book prior to filming, gotten a great deal from it, and then had the annoying issue come up when I can’t recall if something was in the book or in the screenplay, because things are invariably changed, added, and edited for clarity, shape, and the length of the project. In this case, I often was asking myself (and the script supervisor) if we had forgotten something big in a scene only to find out that it had been changed and something else had been added.

In the end, I can’t say what is right or wrong because I have had success and failures with both options. A good script is just that, so hopefully if you are working on a good one you have what you need and the book isn’t necessary. If I had to pick one or the other, I’d suggest reading the script, filming the project, and then reading the book.

My two cents.