How important is literature and/or film to you?
 

By important I mean in relation to your happiness with life in general.

As for me, both film and literature are a crucial part of my life. Not necessarily the book or film itself, but the feeling of connection or understanding that can sometimes be experienced through them. Also the feeling of really putting your imagination to use, testing and expanding its boundaries is always a great feeling. Not that too many films nowadays try to do that. But you know what I mean.

Literature, lately, has become extremely important to me. Constantly soaking in new ideas, old ideas, different ways of thinking, and like you said putting my mind to work.

Film is also important, but I've found I get extremely picky about it, and am constantly unsatisfied with the meaningless drabble that hits the big screen these days. But good film, that makes you think, I enjoy thoroughly.

I find literature the most enlightening thing in life. I'd rather read a good book than ... well, do anything else actually. As for movies, it seems like most movies are being made for pure entertainment. Nothing wrong with that, but I find such movies shallow and uninvolving to watch. In fact, I haven't seen a good film in ages.

Maybe the fact that a book is in general the creation of a single mind, is what makes a book (for me) more "powerful" as a means of expression than a movie. Moviemakers have to deal with a lot more factors and make more concessions because there's so much more money at stake. Which is why some of the most refreshing films in recent years are small budget productions.

i devour movies... i watch many many many movies, new ones, old ones, foreign ones, old foreign ones, independents, anything pretty much. Obviously I don't like to watch crap and there is plenty out there, but there is conversly lots of good movies out there too.

Literature has its place for me but currently I've not been reading as much because I've been watching more movies, and reading more non fiction.

Like Cynthetiq, my wife and I devour movies. There are a whole lot of really bad movies that cross our paths, but we're never sorry we saw them. I think we've only walked out of one movie (Marci X) because it was so unbelievably bad. We see pretty much every studio movie that is released and go to Indy festivals, too.

We also both read constantly. She reads "real literature," and I read Stephen King. It's amazing to me that so many people have such stock, standard sneers available when I confess that King is my favorite author. Most folks look at me as if they were patting my head and saying, "Oh you poor, pedestrain little child. Maybe one day you'll discover a REAL author."

But I know what I like.

My wife says that King's writing style is "formula fiction," and she says that John Grisham is a similar author.

I enjoy literature and movies, though mostly literature. Reading seems like a better use of my free time than anything else since it stimulates my mind and all that. I find it also is more memerable than most movies. But, whenever I have two hours to spare I'll sit down and watch almost any old movie. I enjoy movies for the distraction from my mind. I love being sucked into a film where my thoughts and problems just seem to disappear.

I'm not sure about "literature", but I'm a huge fan of reading. It is just that most of my reading is science fiction (tending towards the speculative fiction) and sociology. Back in college, we decided that the difference between fiction and literature was that you had to write papers about literature.

Movies, not so much for me. Two hours isn't enough time to immerse myself in an alternate reality, if the author has created a good one.

They're both extremely important to me, sometimes too much so...

I would probably shrivel up and die without them, like a sad little plant with water or sunlight to nourish it. Both sustain me in such important ways, literature is such a creative fulcrum for me, it inspires me and spurs me to think and work at my own creative pursuits. film helps to nourish my critical, visual senses, i am a natural born critic, and i love to pick apart films, it is not an act of disrespect, in fact, it is my own way of loving it. and, films are nice because i'm such a visual person, i prefer imagery and the able to see something far greater than i do hearing it or reading it. (although that seems like it might contradict my love of literature and music...hmm..)

I could not live without literature and film...

That's it...

The written word is by far one of man's greatest achievements. Too bad so many people neglect it.

I love a good book, but it's so hard for me to pick one to buy, or invest time in (afraid of reading something terrible and wasting my time waiting for it to get better). Basically, I enjoy reading a LOT when I actually do it, which is definitly not often enough.

Movies... eh, sometimes.

literature will always be more powerful than film for the simple premise that one cannot interpret and study images like he/she can words. Thousands of people may have different interpretations regarding, say, passages from the Book of Mark or Kurtz from Heart of Darkness, but watching the Passion of the Christ or Apocalypse Now just solidifies Mel Gibson or Coppola's own interpretations, making them tangible for the audience to see, but in doing so, filtering down the true beauty and genius that words bring to anyone's mind who is reading them.

Even Stanley Kubrick couldn't bring to life the sheer genius that is A Clockwork Orange. Granted, he only read the American version, which featured 20 of the 21 original chapters, but the beauty of Burgess's Nadsat is lost among the visual flair.