The Harder They Come

The Harder They Come The Harder They Come was truly a revolutionary effort. Prior to this book being published their was not a great amount of West Indian literature that touched on the realities of Jamaica presented at hand within the novel. Not only did the book bring truth to light on an island thought to only be a resort, but it also spread the fire of reggae across the borders. In Thelwell's re-adaptation of the movie, he alludes to many background and political details in addition to the original plot. Through clarifying on the debatable adaptation, 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 …show more content…
Clearly The Harder They Come exemplifies this sense of adaptation as Thelwell himself admits that the movie inspires the story. Among the many additions to the movie, Thelwell includes a lengthy introductory background describing Ivan's youth in the country with his grandmother. While this extra improves the reader's understanding of Ivan's character, it still simply acts as an added chunk to the movie. This background info serves one of its primary functions by depicting Ivan's innocence before moving to Kingston. However, one might argue that Jimmy Cliff, the actor playing Ivan, effectively displays his innocence through his actions in the film. Much of Thelwell's other additions to the film's dialogue consist of complex descriptions of the Jamaican city, culture, and environment. Though these prove very helpful in visualizing the scenes in Henzell's film, the adaptation of The Harder They Come basically requires them in order to reconstruct the realities captured in the movie, making them not an addition, but a requirement. This poses the question of superiority between the two mediums in which Henzell and Thelwell present the …show more content…
Reggae and the dialect of the characters is a prime example. In the film they played songs at certain moments to get a feeling across to the viewer that may not be relayed to a reader. A novel cannot transmit the expression of music and it clearly falls short in this area. Also, the characters in the movie speak with very heavy accents which are also more of an inclusive aspect. Even though Thelwell recreates these dialects as best as possible in the novel, he relies on the reader's interpretation to understand the story an accent