The landmark, Jamaican story titled The Harder They Come, directed by Perry Henzell, originally appeared in film format in 1972. ... In the text version of The Harder They Come, Thelwell includes many background and political details in addition to the original plot. Despite this, Thelwell discourages describing his work as a “novelization” of the movie. ... Through expounding on the arguable novelization, the limitations, and the versioning attributed to The Harder They Come, one analyzes the similarities between the film and novel versions of Henzell’s story.
The Harder They Come focuses on the life of the main character, Ivanhoe Martin, who grows up in the country and following the death of his grandmother, moves to the city of Kingston seeking success as a recording artist. ... Acting on advice from his mother, he finds shelter with a preacher and girl, the preacher’s protégée, named Elsa. ... As punishment for angrily slashing up another man’s face, a court sentences and punishes Ivan by administering a caning. ...
Michael Thelwell’s recreation of this plot tells a very similar story, but with many added elements of his own. When considering if his novel resembles a novelization of the movie, one must understand the meaning of the term. In the most general sense, novelization simply implies “writing a novel based on [film]” (Lexico Publishing Group, LLC). Clearly The Harder They Come exemplifies this sense of novelization as Thelwell himself admits that the movie inspires the story. However, one must take a more in-depth look at exactly what Thelwell considers novelization of a film in order to understand his claim. Thelwell explains, “The recent practice of ‘novelization,’ by which is apparently meant the adding of chunks of narrative and description to a film’s dialogue, does not, to my mind, result in a novel. ... Nevertheless, upon reading Loretta Collins’s essay entitled The Harder They Come: Rougher Version, one learns that Thelwell indeed worked off of the film’s dialogue when writing his novel. ... Since he used the dialogue as a basis for his book, he undoubtedly added personalized chunks while novelizing Henzell’s movie. Among the many additions to the movie, Thelwell includes a lengthy introductory background describing Ivan’s youth in the country with his grandmother.
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