Many years ago, filmmakers began transforming literary works and novels into cinematic, dramatic, and in the past, broadcasting works. Naguib Mahfouz was one of the first writers whose novels were turned into works of art. Gossip over the Nile, Wekalat al-Balah, Heart of the Night, Love on the Pyramid Hill, and writer Youssef Idris, who presented “The Sacred, No Time for Love, Indulgence, Qa’a al-Madina.” As for the writer Ihsan Abdel Quddous, many of his literary works have been transformed into works of art. Including: “Do not extinguish the sun, I will not live in the robes of my father, the dancer and the politician, days in the permissible, so that the smoke does not fly, do not ask me who I am, the thin thread, my father is above the tree,” and others.
And with the artistic community stopping producing literary works and converting them into works of art for a number of years, and then re-presenting these works with a treatment appropriate to the era, new literary works were produced and converted into films and series, in conjunction with the return also to traditional literary works, and this is what will happen during the month of Ramadan. in a number of works.
But from the literary to the dramatic transformation, the question remains open, who benefits from this transformation.. the literary work or the artwork, and who takes from the fame of the other, and who is responsible for the success of the other more?
inspiration
Despite the long history of being inspired by literary novels and turning them into cinematic works, the most famous novels that turned into cinematic works in recent years and achieved high sales and revenues during their conversion into cinematic works were the writer Ahmed Murad..
These works are the movie “The Blue Elephant”, “Diamond Dust”, and “1919”, which turned into “Kira Wal Jinn”, which was released in theaters recently, and all of these novels achieved high sales and also during theaters topped the revenues at the time of their presentation.
Regarding the impact of the novel on cinema and vice versa, the writer Ahmed Murad said that artistic works are more widespread than literary works, as they are the memory and remain in the minds of the audience, and the number of its viewers is greater, and therefore the artwork is the most durable and able to exist over many years. .
Murad added, to Al-Bayan, that we have the works of many writers, such as Naguib Mahfouz, Ihsan Abdel Quddous, and many others, whose works have increased in popularity, and this is due to the fact that readers of books and novels are certainly less than viewers of cinema and television.
“Murad” indicated that the aspect of benefiting from the conversion is for the two parties, whether for the novel or the artwork, each of which affects the other in success rates. Some went to buy the novel.
Preserving value
In 1952, the late Egyptian thinker Abbas Mahmoud Al-Akkad wrote an article in which he attacked the conversion of literary works into works of art, saying: “Great literary works and lofty stories lose their value if they are shown on the screen.
However, many scriptwriters and supporters of converting literary works into cinematics differed, according to what Al-Akkad said, stressing that it is the right of different generations to learn about our literary heritage, and what is closest to modern generations is that literary works be converted into art, whether cinematic or television, and this What the scriptwriter Mohamed Suleiman Abdel-Malik said.
Abdel-Malik added to Al-Bayan that the novels that have turned into literary works have greatly increased their popularity.
And about his reviving old novels and presenting them to drama in recent years after he presented the series “Regain Ya Hawa”, about the story of the late Osama Anwar Okasha, and he is expected to present the novel “Diary of a Husband” by the writer Ahmed Bahjat.
He stressed that drama and cinema live in the memory of history and viewers more than literary works, due to the lack of readers, especially in the current time, so everyone has become dependent on watching and not on reading, and through the experience that I presented last year in the series “Returning Ya Hawa”, he already sees that works Art can revive the literary work that has been forgotten by generations, and bring it back to the memory of viewers.
