In the early 20th century, with the advent and advancement in photography and technology, the germination of a new kind of method would take place, which would forever change the entertainment landscape of the world for the years to come. The method is known today as filmmaking. Earlier people would play music, watch live sports, participate in events at festivals or participate in hunting to entertain themselves but filmmaking offered an experience for the layman by utilising the amalgamation of various traditional and never seen before techniques which were such as screenplay, music, cinematography to enhance the storytelling experience and transport the individual into a dimension that would provide them with respite from their day to day mundane or troublesome existence. It started with the silent era, with the famous comedian and filmmaker Charlie Chaplin essaying his famous role as “ The Tramp”, a character making the audience laugh at his own expense. Soon followed famous performances by entertainers such as Laurel and Hardy with their comedic gimmicks and Buster Keaton with his daredevil stunts. The filmmaking experience allowed the entertainers to push their imagination to unlimited possibilities across various genres such as ranging from action to comedy to thriller to adventure to science fiction to horror etc. and soon after, classic literary works began to be adapted on the big screen with novels such as Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Stephen King’s The Shining etc.

The transition of a literary work from the page and onto the big screen might be great to enhance the work and make it more enjoyable and for its inadvertent word of mouth publicity, but there are few key reasons as to why the big screen will never do justice to an author's literary work on screen.

One of the key factors that separates a literary work and a film is the screenplay. A screenplay, as the name suggests, is meant for the visual medium and reaches its fruition when it’s displayed on the big screen. The industry standard claims that a screenplay has to be around 120 to 140 pages long, not focusing on highly ornate vocabulary, but verbs, and then it finally arrives at its destination when it's portrayed on the big screen or television screen. A screenplay is enhanced by the dialogue by inserting dialogue, by the musician to enhance the scene, by the cinematographer to set the colour grading of the scene to convey the tone, by the actor to convey what his or her character is feeling or wants to emote in that particular scene and finally by the director who makes sure that every other scene is in tandem with the objective of the scene.

A literary work is solely the authors responsibility with extensive focus on words, themes and narratives to describe the story, set the motifs and explain what the character is feeling. As opposed to a screenplay, a novel or short story is completed when the author finishes writing it, it does not have to be as short as a screenplay and could be as long as the author wants.

When a novel or some epic poem is being adapted for the screen, chances are that due to the restrictive nature of the screenplay, some of the essential aspects of the original source might not get conveyed and thus losing an important merit of the source. Additionally, when a scene or a scenario is taken from a book and portrayed on screen, the experience of dealing with that situation while reading the book as opposed to watching it being portrayed on the screen will be completely different because while reading the reader encounters the themes or motifs in the situation and uses his own analysis to interpret the scenario offering a more personal experience but a filmmaker will use the assistance of the musician, the actor, the cinematographer and dialogue writer and his or her own interpretation to present that same particular scene which might or might not be close to the original meaning of the scenario in the work.

A film is primarily meant for a visual and auditory experience in the theatre or on television to enhance the experience of entertainment for the viewer. On the other hand, a literary work is meant to utilize words to convey ideas, complex themes, and narratives that the author encounters while he or she is interacting with the world around them, and give lessons to the readers reading their work. The literary language gets lost on the big screen, as it is a crucial element for literary works, as they set the tone, themes, motifs, narrative, and character developmen,t which a film might not be able to do as it might not be able to capture the layers or intricacies of language. It’s also practically impossible to condense a 400-page or 500-page novel into an entire film, and when one tries, it might just be a catastrophe before it’s even commenced.

One of the crucial ways to dissect any argument presented in front of an individual is criticism. When an author writes any literary work, be it a poem, novel or short story, they all want to make sense and write it with a sense of honesty, but at the same time they are open to the subjective criticism of their works when the readers analyze their works because while reading the readers go through a personal experience and use their subjective lens and thinking to dissect the work and their views are always welcomed by the author.

As opposed to filmmaking , where it’s a collective experience rather than a personal one, the tone and nature of screenplay as well as the recent developments in the PR and marketing of films where any criticism from the audience member is made to look like an annoyance rather than as an honest point to improve upon the flaws of the final product which didn’t live up to the viewers vision in certain departments.

.    .    .