(SMALL SPOILERS FOR BOTH THE BOOK AND MOVIE)
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The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, written by Suzanne Collins, is the fourth and final book in the Hunger Games series and is arguably the best book she’s written. The story follows eighteen year old Coriolanus Snow as he’s chosen to be the mentor of Lucy Gray Baird in the tenth annual hunger games. Throughout the book we, the reader, get to be inside of [future] president Snow’s head in one of the most important moments in his life, altering him to be the man we see throughout the rest of the books. When the movie was released in theaters, although it was a good rendition, there were a multitude of moments that were changed and/or taken out that should have been present. Overall, you should read The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes at least once in your life as there were important moments in the book that were not present in the movie.
As I mentioned in my last blog post, Suzanne Collins heavily relies on her first person narrative to move the story along. Throughout the entire book, we are inside Coriolanus’ mind so we can observe what he is thinking and how that affects his actions. In the movie, the audience is only allowed to see the actions he does without context, causing heavy misinterpretations of his motives. The first misinterpretation that comes to mind would probably be Coriolanus’ reaction to Arachne’s death. In the movie Coriolanus is depicted as heavily shocked to the point he can’t move and, after the horrifying event, simply moves on with his life with one less classmate. He views her death as a horrifying thing and doesn’t really do anything about it later on. Meanwhile in the books he takes a far more tactical approach to her death. While Arachne’s dying he is definitely heavily shocked, and even brought back to a time during the war, but afterward he sees her death as another way to make himself more pleasurable to the Capitol. “He was particularly pleased to catch a quick shot of Livia Cardew flailing her way through the crowd at the sound of the gunfire… Coriolanus to the rescue, Livia to the nearest exit.” (Collins 105). It is clear to see that although he views Arachne’s death as a bad thing for her, he views it as an honorable addition to his reputation.
Clemensia Dovecote’s character was also heavily altered and misinterpreted from the book compared to the movie. In the movie, Clemensia is depicted as this bratty young woman who jumps at the opportunity to take credit for other people’s work if it makes her look better. This causes her encounter with the snakes to seem partially karma related and also allows the audience to feel less sympathy for her when she goes down. Meanwhile in the books, she appears to be a much sweeter person and actually barely takes credit for the proposal. She says that the proposal was the product of a class discussion, which it was, and only mentions that she’s responsible for putting all the ideas together with Coriolanus and printing out the documents. She attempts to spread out the credit to all of her classmates while highlighting herself and Coriolanus to prove that they did the work Dr. Gaul assigned. And it seems that Dr. Gaul takes this explanation with little to no suspicion when talking to the two of them. What makes the snake situation worse though is how Clemensia thinks that she’ll be fine after seeing Coriolanus put his hand into the snake’s container, with no reaction, just to have six cling onto her arm right afterward. To add salt to the wound, while she’s in the hospital, she’s not even told that she’s being quarantined. All she thinks is that no one wants to visit her while she’s hospitalized, adding far more sympathy to her character that isn’t present in the movie’s rendition.
Overall, like many movie renditions, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes comes nowhere close compared to its book counterpart. The book contains another layer of depth and personalization that is honestly quite impossible to reflect in a movie (or any type of media that doesn’t involve the audience seeing internal dialogue). Not to mention that the book has a multitude more moments such as Arachne and the twin’s funerals that introduces us to Coriolanus’ life before the tenth hunger games properly started. It is also in these funeral scenes that we see another type of cruelness inflicted to the tributes that is far worse than the movie adaptation. Overall, although The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a good movie to watch alone, it is best to read the book if you haven’t already.
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Very good job. You clearly explained the plot of the book and how it differed from the movie. You had a good portion of analysis and really made me feel for all the characters (especially Clemensia).
ReplyDeleteFine. You win. Coriolanus Snow might not have been the best person ever. On a more serious note, I was wondering if you thought the books gave enough context to prove that he was always a flawed person, but it just took the end of the book(not spoiling) to actually solidify that he's a bad person, and make it permanent? Basically, the movie makes him more likable, and then bad at the end, do you think he was always bad in the book?
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ReplyDeleteGreat blog post! I actually recently did read this book because I wanted to watch the movie. I agree that usually movies just don't quite capture everything that is important in the book (hence why I read the book first!). Were there any good changes made in the movie that you liked?
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