Everyone has heard of the acclaimed series of novels about Harry Potter by the British writer Joanne Rowling. Many read books and watched movies. Comparison of films and books has become commonplace, both in social networks and in various forums and articles. Books and film stories about “a boy who survived” have many distinguishing features, as Joanne Rowling was finishing the story about Harry at the time when the first movie came out in the early 2000s. The peculiarity is that the film is not much different from the original book, as Rowling herself had in many ways a direct impact on shooting pictures, and it gave its stamp. The story in the book, unlike other similar adaptations, almost does not differ from the British writer’s works. The Harry Potter’s world exists not only in series but also in parallel – in literature and cinema. That is the main feature of the series about the wizard from the Hogwarts Academy of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
It is worth mentioning such an aspect as the impact of the film on a literary basis, what all the director, who undertake to a film adaptation of these voluminous books, face. The works in the fantasy genre, as a rule, involve a multi-part cycle, some “seriality”. At some point of the film shooting of another part of the movie and writing of another book cycle may coincide, as happened in the case of a series of books about Harry Potter. This influenced the author’s description of the images. For instance, the release of the first film called “Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone” coincided with the writing of the fifth book “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”. In this book, two minor characters – Lee Jordan and Angelina Johnson – get some new details in the description. Lee Jordan is described as “a tall boy with dreadlocks on his head” and Angelina Johnson was characterized as a “tall black girl with long braids”. It is obvious that such details appeared in the books due to the actors who played in the film – up to the fifth book the author did not comment on the appearance of these characters. Thus, the reader understands that the film adaptation of the author is not just a transfer of the book to the screen, but a visual representation became largely inseparable from its literary original. The world of Harry Potter exists not only sequentially – firstly in the book and then in the movies, but also in parallel – in literature and cinema.
The Harry Potter’s story transferred from the books onto the screen is one of the most popular in the world. Therefore, careful attention both of the professionals and experts and fans is understandable. In light of this hype, all begin to compare and look for differences between two different kinds of art that convey the same topic. And if in other cases, these differences are most apparent, the image of Harry Potter and all the other minor characters are quite identical. This also applies to the own plot twists and specific dialogues of the characters. Finding the differences compared to the good or bad here probably will not work. In the story of Harry soon comes to the fore the fact that people love more the perception of the books, development of thinking, or direct visual range, where instead of the fans everything is done by the director, and his team presents a finished product to the viewer.
If someone tries long to find something wrong, there can be noticed a lot of mismatches, even in the images of the characters in the dialogue and the sequence of events. For example, the contrast noticed by everyone was that Petunia Dursley (Harry Potter's aunt) was a blonde the book and a brunette in the film. What a great movie it was, it was simply impossible to fully accommodate all Joanne Rowling’s fantasy. Some scenes from the book the scriptwriters estimated unnecessary and resolved to cut them out. However, then some parts of the plot are based on these trifles, but inserting them in the subsequent films is unrealistic in meaning. For example, such things as well-described mirror Einolein, later in the book, he went to the mirror more than a week. In the movie, it is shown highly fragmented. In the film there was not a Harry’s dream, that he wears a Professor Quirinus Quirrell’s blockhead. These are small details that the scriptwriters decided to leave out, although in the books they take some and not a small niche (Doran).
Everyone can also recall the time of the last Rowling’s book called “Operation "Seven Potters". In the film and the book there are significant differences. Each couple in the book takes off into its own destination, but in “The Burrow” they then get through the portkeys. Potter first comes to Nymphadora Tonks’ parents, and then is sent to The Burrow, while the rest are also distributed in various points out of the twelve. In the film, all come to The Burrow, and this fact completely kills the idea of masquerade. Speaking about the images, and in general their presence in the film, the characters like Dean Thomas and Dirk Cresswell are absent, and the goblin Griphook, who traveled with him, only appears in the Malfoy Manor. There is also nothing about how “Ginny” Weasley and her friends tried to steal “The sword of Godric Gryffindor” and of the fact that the fake sword was placed into Gringotts Wizarding Bank for storage as well as no mention of their punishment("The Top Ten Things The 'Harry Potter' Movies Left Out - Craveonline"). In all the same part of the film adaptation of the penultimate there are added some scenes, missing in the last book. So, there is a scene, where Harry Potter decides to run away before the wedding from The Burrow but Ron dissuades him. Also, there are scenes, where Hogwarts-Express stops at the Death Eaters and Harry is dancing with Hermione Granger (Thier).
Nevertheless, these small differences can be noticed while viewing movies and reading books under a magnifying glass, and whether it is worth doing in the Harry Potter series it is a rhetorical question. It is impossible to leave out of account the fact that the story "about a boy who survived" is absolutely interlinked with the two art forms – cinema and literature. There is no clear delineation that the film is originated from the book or the book is written upon the script of the movie. Yes, in the early stages of the Harry’s story, it was a very literary way, but over time, literature and cinema as intersected in this story, that they just complement each other. It is really an unprecedented case in the history of both film and literature, when there was such a powerful symbiosis between the two art forms. By creating the same story, Joanne Rowling and the makers of the Harry Potter films have brought something new to the art in principle.
No one can also miss the fact that the overall impact of cinema on the development of the modern fantasy literature is ambiguous. On the one hand, there is the rise of interest in literature and cinema. The development of these kinds of art is stimulated, such a thing as a "novelization", the transfer of the cinematographic work into the world of literature is gaining its popularity. On the other hand, due to obtrusive advertisement the on-screen imagery simply does not leave the readers a choice and space for their own imagination, which reduces the value of the book, the basis of the film, namely the phenomenon of literature, transforming it into a simply extended version of the script. In any case, the trend towards ever greater mutual influence and interpenetration of fantasy literature and cinema is obvious. But not everyone likes the written stories, as well as not everyone likes the on-screen visualization of the characters already pre-formed in the imagination. Harry Potter approached as close as possible to this concept as the "golden mean". It regards both the movies and the books by Joanne Rowling. Creating images simultaneously in two kinds of art allowed expanding the horizons of the author’s and filmmakers’ outlook, and fans were able to be imbued with a new product of high quality.
Works cited
Doran, Sarah. "7 Magical Harry Potter Book Plots That Didn't Make The Movies".RadioTimes. N.p., 2016. Web. 28 Mar. 2016.
"The Top Ten Things The 'Harry Potter' Movies Left Out - Craveonline". CraveOnline. N.p., 2011. Web. 28 Mar. 2016.
Thier, Dave. "How The 'Harry Potter' Movies Succeeded Where The Books Failed". The Atlantic. N.p., 2011. Web. 28 Mar. 2016.
