Compare and Contrast High Fidelity Novel and Film Essay

High Fidelity, the sassy written by pass Hornby, and the consider adaptation, directed by Stephen Frears, both saluteed the vital education for the p rophy however, Hornby was able to convey the ideas better by dint of literary techniques. The sweet was adapted into a feature require in 2000 starring tail end Cusack as solicit and directed by Stephen Frears. The movie was accurate in depicting the invention to a certain extent.The shoot was able to successfully represent the main ideas of the original unexampled but when it came to the minute full points, it was lack the contributions of the story that gave it a certain sprightliness that the Hornby, was trying to convey to his audience. The most noticeable differences ar the brilliance, or the unnecessary signifi after partce, described of hocks previous girls other than Laura the visual similarities of the characters of the novel to the characters of the film and the use of literary techniques and filming techni ques that add emphasis to the story in contrastive ship track from the novel and the films perspectives.The opening prologue that sets the tone for the novel describes the lapse five break-ups that drench has encountered in his life history, make a point not to include Laura, his recently ex-girlfriend, because those places are reserved for the kind of humiliations and heart breaks that she is yet not capable of delivering (13) . nobble spends the opening of the book talking round his top five break-ups, but after that he single when references them again when he was trying to figure out what went wrong in all(prenominal) of his relationships prior to Laura. This is different in the film.The film tries to place more importance on his previous break-ups and relationships than is absolutely necessary. The novel talks briefly most the break-ups in the prologue, but the film draws out douses account of the failed relationships trying to give the wisdom that they are inc orporated into Robs everyday life. In the film, Rob narrates about his failed relationships while acquittance through his daily routine. He narrates to the audience of each of his top five shell break-ups in times throughout the day where a normal person would carryout their daily routines.Doing this in the film gives the audience the impression that the ex-girlfriends are going to pose as important characters throughout the main characters journey, which is not in true accordance with the novel. Along with the remembrance of Robs top five worst break-ups, the films overly imposes emphasis upon Marie LaSalle, an exotic and mysterious artist that Rob has a one night lose with. The novel speaks of Marie in passing, only recognizing her as an artist that Rob had a one night stand with who was the deciding fixings in Robs wanting to be Laura because he loved her.On the contrary, the means of Marie LaSalle in the film is that of a potential fling of Robs that almost created a lov e triangle between Rob, Marie, and Laura, a different plot line than what was intended by the novel. Nick Hornby went into great detail about how the characters dateed, specifically referencing Robs relationships. When comparing the descriptions Hornby gives of each char char that Rob was in a relationship with in the novel to the actresses that were cast to play those roles in the film, there are no similarities other than the lines they spoke.In the novel, Rob describes Laura to defecate her hair cut, same as usual, very short, sixties short, like Mia Farrow, except and hes not just being creepy shes better suited to this sort of cut that Mia. Its because her hair is so dark, nearly black, that when its short her eyes seem to take up most of her face (121). In the film, however, the actress cast to play Laura, Iben Hjejle, is a fairish with shoulder length hair that does not have big eyes, rather, she has a very strong jaw bone and small eyes.Although the novel was only wr itten a short five years previous to the making of the film, changing the look of Laura in the film may have been through to better suit the style of the early 2000s rather than that of the mid nineties and to as well make a better distinction of the different settings in the novel and film. The looks of London in 1995 were much different than those of Chicago in 2000. The novel wanted to better capture Lauras style of the 1995 skinhead campaign of the European fads, as described in the novel, whereas the film was trying to portray Laura as being more of a punk in juvenile society trying to break into the working class.Laura was not the only adult young-bearing(prenominal) in Robs life that was not translated correctly from the novel to the film the description of Maria LaSalle was also lost in comment when trying to create her to be an on screen character. In the novel, Rob describes that Marie is pretty, in the that nearly cross-eyed American way she looks like a slightly plumper, post Partridge Family, pre-L. A. law Susan Dey and if you were going to develop a spontaneous and pointless crush on somebody, you could do a lot worse (77).Describing Marie as being similar to an actress from the American television award the Partridge Family gives the impression that she is an all-American woman, given that the audience has an already perceived cognition for American television shows. Rob is interested in Marie not only for the fact that she is a musician, but also that she is an exotic figure in the eyes of a British man. American women in Europe are just as exotic and mysterious as a non-American woman coming to the United States men are infatuated with the unfamiliar, thus draft Rob to Marie.The novel intertextualizes Marie to have looks similar to Susan Dey, who is a white female with a sort of free-spirited style closely related to that of a hippie, tip the audience to believe that Marie LaSalle was an average American, white woman with an Indie s tyle. In the film, however, Lisa Bonet is cast to play Marie LaSalle she has mixed skin and the style that is closely relatable to Alanis Morissette, who also has a free-spirited style but in a darker manner than Susan Dey. Because the film was not set in Britain, there was a take on to breakthrough an actress who had exotic looks from the perception of the average American.The film was successful in portraying Marie as an exotic and mysterious character to the American culture convey in large part to the acting of Lisa Bonet, but the film was not fully able to portray Marie LaSalle as being as unfamiliar to the American culture unlike the portrayal of her in the novel. What made the novel relatable to the audience was the intertextuality that was used to help portray Robs ideas so that the audience better understood what he was thinking and relating his situations to. Being that a film is not able to have a continual telescope of narration, it used music to help portray Robs id eas. utilise context music as a character in the film helped to better translate the ideas and inner dialogue of Rob that cannot fully be portrayed in the film. In both the novel and the film, he was such a big believer as music being an inhering part to a persons life so this also bettered the adaption of Robs character from the printed version to the film. The intertextuality in the novel that was not easily noticeable in the cinematic version was Hornbys instances of relating Robs life to major films easily identifiable to the audience, for instance, when Rob relates his life to the movie When chafe Met Sally.At one point in the novel, Rob is questioning happiness and says that surely people who are happy should look happy, at all times, no matter how much money they have or how uncomfortable their shoes are or how little their kid is sleeping and people who are doing OK but have restrained not found their soul mate should look, I dont know, well but anxious, like Billy Cr ystal in When Harry Met Sally (257). In the film, music becomes an aid to better understand the tone and storyline of the scene. I Want Candy is playing in the background when the film is flashing back to show Robs primary relationship with Alison Ashworth. This is done to try to express the immaturity that Rob is stuck in at that moment. Since the film cannot have a continuous narrator and the novel does not have a soundtrack, each uses what the other cannot in order to enhance the intended tone and original ideas portrayed in the novel. In conclusion, the fact that the film changed the setting was a major contributing factor of the differences and misconnections of the novel to film.Because the setting was not in England, there was a need to make a transition from British pop-culture and British perceptions to American pop-culture and perception so that the film could be more relatable to its American audience. The use of techniques that can only be used in certain artistic medi ums, such as soundtracks and intertextuality, helped to better translate the novel to a film. In all, the film was able to present the ideas and plot in a restricted way but still in an entirety that Nick Hornby was able to do with more detail in his novel.