Bronte May Cummings review

The Outsiders Novel and Film review

‘The Outsiders’ was written by S.E Hinton, when she was only seventeen years of age. It was first published in Britain in the 1970’s. S.E Hinton wrote this novel - not based on her life – but what life was like in some of the suburbs of Tulsa, Oklahoma when she was that age. Then in 1983, directed by Francis Ford Coppola came the blockbuster hit ‘The Outsiders’. Both the film and the novel were brilliant but no one can beat a good book, the book contained so much detail and so much imagination was used while the film did an excellent job capturing most of S.E Hinton’s work. ‘The Outsiders’ was based on the conflict between two groups, the Greasers and the Socs, both from different ends of town. But the story revolves around a young greaser named Ponyboy Curtis. You follow his journey along with tragedies and friendships; it is a brilliant story.

The film successfully used most of the events that were in the novel but some small snippets were still left out. The climax of the film was the Church fire; the film used great detail from the book in this scene. An event that was left out of the film was the romance of Soda Curtis and his girlfriend Sandy. In the film they acknowledge this once when Soda mentioned that he was going to marry Sandy to Ponyboy, but that is the only acknowledgement of this during the film; in the book Soda and Sandy break up. Another scene which was left out of the film was the court case of Bob’s murder, it is not acknowledged in the film at all. But the scenes that were both in the book and movie were the murder of Bob, the film successfully visualised the scene exactly how it was in the book. The main focus of the film was the Church fire leading to Johnny’s death; it was the climax of the film. In the film the plot was more about fighting and the differences between the two groups, while the books plot is more about the friendships of the greasers and the life of Ponyboy Curtis.

In the film, the characters were exactly how I pictured them with their attitudes and looks. The film has successfully captured the descriptions from the novel. The Socs were described exactly how they acted, spoke and dressed. The Greasers look was perfect, they were dirty and looked poor, the film has captured the way that spoke and their attitude and even the way they walked. One of the main characters that were described differently was Dally. He was said to have an ‘unfortunate and mean face’ but Dally had a quite innocent and handsome face; his appearance in the film is much different from the novel. Dally’s attitude was different in the film as well, in the film he was more rude and had not much love in his heart. But in the novel there was more of a sensitive side to him. His feelings were described more in the novel. Pony boy’s feelings weren’t picked up as much in the film either, throughout the whole novel you knew exactly how Ponyboy felt.

The novel and the film both used great techniques to capture moments and symbolism. The novel had the best techniques for getting messages and symbolism across. It put you in the same perspective as Ponyboy; Ponyboy was always explaining how he felt which you couldn’t pick up in the film. Throughout the novel the language difference between the Greasers and the Socs was a huge difference, this symbolises that the greasers were un-educated unlike the Socs. In the film, shot types were a way to show emotion and tension during a scene. The scene in the movie where Ponyboy and Johnny were looking into the sunset, the camera angle showed both Ponyboy and Johnny looking the same way and both of them are being focused on. This symbolised how close the two were and how they still have their childhood innocence. There weren’t a lot of sensitive scenes in the movie unlike the book; the movie contained more violent scenes, where as the book contained a lot of scenes where the characters were bonding and spoke about their personal lives such as Ponyboy and Johnny.

Both the Novel and the film were amazing. The film got as close to the book as it could have, but nothing can beat the details of the book. The book focused more on the bonding of the Greasers and childhood innocence, while the film focuses on the fights and the problems between the Socs and the Greasers. The novel gave you the same feelings as the characters, it was in such great detail and had such realistic emotions, and the book captured great moments of sadness and friendship.