Coming home after spending 10 hours on campus, any student just wants to relax. Two easy ways of relaxing quickly come to mind: reading a book or watching a film. But, students will ask, which is better?

Best-selling books like "The Spiderwick Chronicles" by Holly Black and even lesser known novels like "The Other Boleyn Girl" by Philippa Gregory are now major motion pictures.

Today, film adaptations of books are not uncommon. They have been popular since the beginning of film itself, and filmmakers often look to the written word for new ideas.

The first film adaptation to receive an Academy Award for writing was "Cimarron" in 1930, based on Edna Ferber's novel of the same name. An adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women," starring Katharine Hepburn as Jo, received the same distinction two years later.

"It's easier to watch a movie," said Eve Ledford, an advertising major from Fayetteville, Ga. "Movies use visual effects to replace pages and pages of writing, and it works well as long as the images are true to the story."

She said she doesn't read much because she doesn't have the time. She said she is even less likely to read a book that has been made into a film.

"I don't experience the disappointment if the book is better than the movie," Ledford said. "I like the 'Harry Potter' movies a lot even though I haven't read the books. My friends who have [read the books] tell me all the extra details, but I like the movies fine without them."

However, even busy students who prefer reading will find the time to read if they want to. Some students prefer the extra details that reading a book can offer.

"A lot gets left out of the movies," said Brianon Baker, an elementary education major from San Jose, Calif. "There's only so much you can do to condense an intricate book into a two-hour film."

Baker is an avid reader of fiction novels from every genre and she often sees the film counterparts. One of her favorite books is "Gone With the Wind."

"I thought the film was really well done," Baker said, "but the book is so much better because you get a deeper sense of things. Actors can do a really good job, but sometimes it's difficult to portray everything accurately in a film."

She said many films are only loosely based on novels and go off in different directions when adapted for screen. She said she dislikes it when films do not stay true to the prose of the books.

She listed the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy as being faithful adaptations for the myriad cult fans, but pointed out the films were no comparison to the books, which have more details.

The British newspaper, The Guardian, published a list of 50 of the best book-to-film adaptations in an article in April 2006.

Some of the films BYU students may be more familiar with include "Alice in Wonderland," "Breakfast at Tiffany's," "The Goldfinger," "Lord of the Flies," "Fight Club," "Oliver Twist" and "Pride and Prejudice."

"As anyone who has seen any version of 'Anna Karenina' knows, a great book does not necessarily make a great film," wrote the Guardian's arts correspondent Mark Brown in the article. "And while 'The Godfather' was a great movie, was it a great novel? Probably not."

Copyright Brigham Young University 13 Mar 2008