Gemma Bruce Icon

Did anybody watch Angels Fall on Lifetime Monday night? They’re doing four Nora Roberts stories for the next few Mondays.

I thought it was a really good adaptation. I’ve worked in film and it’s a committee project. The last movie I worked on had 19 versions of the script. Everyone puts in their two cents worth and I always find it amazing that the director somehow meshes it into a story that works.

I’m amazed at how they can distill a book of hundreds of pages into two hours with commercials.

I’m glad more books are being made into television movies and feature films. I love the medium. But I have to admit, for me, nothing comes close to the long, drawn out, nail-biting suspense of page turning.

Because as effective as those collage-like fast edits are, they don’t have that slow, gut wrenching suspense that the written word creates. It’s a different kind of experience. One that speeds you through the story, not giving you time to breathe except during the commercials. Then before you know it, you’re watching Will and Grace.

(Could anybody read those credits at the end? They went by so fast, that I had to look up the actors on the internet.)

The camera can collapse action or flashback into a few seconds, while we slowly world build word after word, page after page.

Two different media, two different ways of expressing the same thing. Is one better than the other, or is it apples and oranges?

I’d just finished listening to Angels Fall on audio books, just for the flow of the language, something that you miss in the shorter, visual version. And yet it did capture the essence of the story. And there was some wonderful scenery.

But I’m still undecided. What do you think? Is a picture worth a thousand words?