Differences Between the Novel and the Movie of
The Book Thief
“Here is a small fact: You are going to die”. Does this frighten you? Most of the readers are shocked by the first sentence, which tells the end of the story. The Book Thief, which is a world-known anti-war novel written by an Australian writer, Markus Zusak. The setting of the story was constructed in Germany during World War II from 1939 to 1945, and the main theme aimed to tell readers: “the power of the words” and “the complexity of human nature”. There are two main characters in the story: Liesel and Death. Liesel, who was a 9-year-old girl in the story. Death, the manager of the spirits after people died. Once the book was published in 2005, it soon won many awards and received praises from readers around the globe. Due to the prosperous fame of The Book Thief, the 20th Century Studios released the adapted movie in 2013. Although the movie presents most of the essential scenes in a more positive and pleasant way, the novel vividly depicts Liesel’s new life based on the three main differences compared to the movie: the arrangement of the storyline, the story content, and the portrayal of the war.
Liesel
Death
Firstly, the most obvious difference between the two is the arrangement of the storyline used in the story. In the movie, the director didn’t provide a clear timeline with a specific date or year of each event. Despite the fact that both the movie and the novel narrated the story from the perspective of Death, the novel described every event with the time order. For example, Liesel’s family accommodated a dangerous person, a 24-year-old fugitive Jewish man, Max, in November 1941. Even though the readers didn’t experience WWII, they could easily relate to the story by using their imagination as if they were experiencing the same situation with the characters. In brief, the director and the author seemed to use the different arrangements of the storyline to tell the story.
Max
Liesel is reading to Max.
Another discrepancy is the change in the story content. In the movie, Max created the book by using white paint on the autobiography of Adolf Hitler—My Struggle (German: Mein Kampf), and he sent the book to Liesel so as to encourage her to keep writing and discovering the beauty of words. However, in the novel, Max also painted My Struggle, but he wrote a 17-page book called, The Standover Man. In this book, he explained the hardship he had gone through and showed his appreciation to Liesel for accepting him and being his friend. On the contrary, the original content in the novel described the character’s image of Max in a more detailed way. Max, who represented most of the suppressed Jewish people under that “inhuman and brutal” period. Hence, the change of the story content presents the different meanings in the movie and the novel.
Max sent a book to Liesel.
The Standover Man
Lastly, the difference is the portrayal of the war. In the movie, the whole devasted atmosphere of the war had been comparatively weakened by merely showing people hiding in the dugout to avoid bombing. Therefore, the audience might not be able to feel the terror and danger of the war or link themselves with the horrible situation. Instead, in the novel, the author not only presented the unsafe side of the war but also vividly depicted the cruel side of the war. In 1943, most of the people died in a serious bombing in Munich, and Liesel even saw the air crash of the enemy, who finally died before her eye. With the comprehensive and detailed descriptions of people dying, the readers can easily project themselves onto the main characters who live in the unstable and dangerous time. As a result, these two extents of portrayals toward the war vary from the movie and the novel.
To sum up, there are three main differences between the movie and novel: the arrangement of the storyline, the story content, and the portrayal of war. Both the movie and the novel provide us an opportunity to understand the hardship of the people who were tortured by the war and guide us to realize the power of words. Nonetheless, in my opinion, the descriptions of war in the movie may be weakened compared to the novel, as the movie tends to be more commercial to attract most of the audience’s attention. Thus, I strongly recommend people to read the novel if they really want to experience “the power of words”. Hopefully, you may have some ideas about the complexity of human nature after reading this fantastic and realistic novel.
Sources of the book and the film
The Book Thief PDF: https://reurl.cc/Mkr7XX
The Book Thief Movie: https://777tv.app/vod/detail/id/160335.html
Pictures are retrieved from
Background: https://reurl.cc/g0kAep