Films and Literature are largely about a narrative. It is about telling a story. Both make use of characters, plot, incidents, action, drama and the general function of entertaining the readers or the audience. Films have the arduous task of crunching the narrative into a span of 90 or 120 minutes. Literature on the other hand can take more time and expand the narrative to include descriptions, digressions , debate or opinions.
Both of them are a reflection of the social reality or deeply embedded in the politics or philosophy of the society.
“Art is not a mirror held up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it.”-Leon Trotsky
Human expression is a conflict between conditioned and unconditioned reflexes. Sergei Eisenstein
Unlike all the other art forms, film is able to seize and render the passage of time, to stop it, almost to possess it in infinity. I’d say that film is the sculpting of time. Andrei Tarkovsky
The quotes are only an attempt to inform the profound value attached to films and Literature as such, by serious practitioners of the craft. Today studies of Literature don’t make a distinction between Literature and Films, but recognize both of them to be an integral part of studies to understand the forms of expression in which, writers, artists and thinkers choose to interact with the world. Literature being the initial mode of expression, has always been an inspiration to film makers and several landmark films or masterpieces have emanated out of this fusion. Mother, Gone with the wind, The Apu triology, To kill a mocking bird, Dr Zhivago, Out of Africa and Godfather being a few examples.