If it's a good work of adaptation, the book should remain a book and the film should remain a film, and you should not necessarily read the book to see the film. If you do need that, then that means that it's a failure. That is what I think.
Interpretation
A successful adaptation keeps the essence of both the book and the film distinct.
In this quote, Marjane Satrapi suggests that a good adaptation of a literary work into film should respect the integrity of both forms. The film should stand on its own merits, allowing audiences to enjoy it without prior knowledge of the book; if viewers must read the book to appreciate the film, then the adaptation has failed in its purpose.
In practice
During a discussion on literary adaptations in a film studies class.
It is dangerous when you start calling people from one part of the world terrorists or fanatic, and you reduce them to some abstract notion. If evil has a geographical place, and if the evil has a name, that is the beginning of fascism. Real life is not this way. You have fanatics and narrow-minded people everywhere.
I'm not a politician. I don't know how to solve the problems of the world. But as an artist, I have one duty: to ask questions.
I'm not a politician because I'm an artist. Politicians have a very easy answer for a very complicated question. I have a very complicated question for what you consider very easy situations.
For me, drawing is a question of death and life. Every day I draw, I write, I do something.
My mother always told me I had to do 100 times better than a man. I had to work hard at maths, and learn four languages.
The best thing I ever did in my life was to ask, 'Do I like everybody?' And the answer was, 'No.' So why should everybody like me? If people are against me, so what? I'm against them too.
Eraserhead is my most spiritual movie. No one understands when I say that, but it is.
Anything you do will be an abuse of somebody else's aesthetics. I think you're born an artist or not. I couldn't have learned it. And I hope I never do because knowing more only encourages your limitations.
I'd like to be remembered as a premier singer of songs, not just a popular act of a given period.
I love acting, especially if it's a fantasy of some kind, where it's not just realistic, it's not naturalism.
Art is not living. It is the use of living. The artist has the ability to take the living and use it in a certain way and produce art.
People probably have different philosophies about this, but I think that when you're first shaping the play and trying to find a character, the initial actors that develop it end up imprinting on it - you hear their voices; you hear their rhythms. You can't help but to begin to write toward them during the rehearsal process.
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