Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Gomorrah - Novel to Film #2

The next book on the "novel to film" list was Gomorrah by Roberto Saviano. I had watched the film when it came out last year and was not impressed by what I saw at all. I know that there were plenty of people who did love it though (it was nominated for an Oscar!) so I was interested in reading the book to hopefully change my thoughts about the film.

I found the film extremely confusing with all of the different storylines not really fitting cohesively with the others. I thought maybe it was the editing, but now that I've read the book, I see that it was the style of the way the book was written.

The book itself was interesting when discussing the role of women in the Italian mafia, as well as how Hollywood has been influenced by the Italian mafia and then conversely how the mafia has been influenced by Hollywood. Those chapters kept me engaged and weren't a chore to get through.

However, the parts I didn't appreciate so much were the chapters where the author just told story after story of how different mobsters were killed. I felt like I was reading a police log from a newspaper! I didn't feel like I could connect to any of the characters in the story and I think it was because the author didn't allow for that connection to happen.

Did anyone else feel the same way? What were your other thoughts on the novel?

2 comments:

Jenn Tippins said...

haven't read the book or seen the movie. What do you recommend doing first? Read the book? Will the movie make more sense after?

Tiffany said...

honestly, i don't think reading the book will make the film make any more sense at all, so feel free to do it in whatever order you want! hehe