Elise Vanderreyden "The Outsiders" Film and Novel Review

“The Outsiders” Novel and Film Review

“The Outsiders” by S. E. Hinton is a very emotionally moving novel. Hinton published the novel in 1967 when she was just 18 years old. The film was also made about the novel in 1983, directed by Francis Coppola. The plot of both the film and novel was based around a young adolescence named Ponyboy Curtis. Ponyboy was classed as a Greaser, a person that is poor and is regularly involved in fights with the Socs. He lived with his brothers as his parents had died 8 months earlier. Ponyboy was close with his friend, Johnny. After Johnny killed Bob, a soc, they both escaped to the country where they lived in a church for 3 weeks. Johnny broke his back while trying to save children from the church fire. A few weeks later, he died in hospital, leaving all his friends depressed. Dallas, a close friend, then later committed suicide from grief. The novel was focused around some main themes:

·         Preserving childhood innocence

·         Simplicity

The novel was more engaging and descriptive than the film.

The film left out some important points that helped shape the novel. It cut out some main parts where you could slowly see Ponyboy maturing, and focuses on the conflict between the greasers and the socs. In the novel, Ponyboy threatens the socs with a broken bottle, but then later states that he would have never really hurt them. This scene shows, even though Ponyboy has been through so much he still would not have harmed the greasers. Thus, the novel looks at Ponyboy’s emotional journey, while the film follows his friendships and fights.

Though the characters look and act the same way, there are some differences between the novel and film characters.  For example, Ponyboy is still portrayed to be young and innocent in comparison to other greasers. Cherry is still similar to Ponyboy in the fact that she enjoys watching sunsets. The film left out information on characters like Sodapop and Dallas. It didn’t connect with the characters enough or explain why they act the way they do. The emotions from all characters are important to let the audience know how and why everything is happening. For example, when Pony boy narrates his feelings it persuades the readers to feel the same way he does. Thus, the novel is more informative on the characters and their emotions.

The novel and the film both had to use stylistic features to gain the audiences attention. The novel uses:

·         Ponyboy’s perspective on what was happening

·         Motif representing parts of Ponyboy’s life

The film uses:

·         Camera shots and angles

·         Actors emotion

If these skills were not introduced into the the film or novel the audience would become disinterested in the plot.

Overall, the novel was more engaging for reader as it took them on the journey with all of the characters and through their hardships. The film was rough around the edges and was considerably harder to understand what was happening.