| 10 April 2010
It's a war that's been waged for eons, which started with one simple question - "What are better, books or film adaptations of books?" - and to this day books have won almost every time. Of course, there are some exceptions to this, and by that I mean films like A Clockwork Orange, Fight Club, Jaws, and Trainspotting. That being said, I recently found out that a favorite book of mine, Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, had been adapted into a 1999 film called Instinct that I neglected to see when it first came out for obvious reasons. The obvious reasons, obviously, are a) the film looked like garbage and b) the film is probably garbage.
I decided to watch it, if only because I was curious to see how the film handled Ishmael's philosophical take on our world. It's not every day that a Hollywood film tries to tackle such subjects as mankind's role on this planet, overpopulation issues, and the end of our civilization. Turns out they didn't really know how to tackle it. The film spends about five minutes discussing some of the issues raised in Ishmael - mainly, our move from tribal societies to civilization - but barely skims the full breadth of Daniel Quinn's novel (and two sequels). However, I still found it to be a fairly entertaining film, and my wife really liked it.
Looking back, it's been ten years since I first read Ishmael and its message, while overly Darwinist at times, is something that everyone could stand to read. I won't get into the book's details because it's a discovery you should make on your own (however, there is this thing called "Wikipedia" if you're really curious). I'm glad that somebody at least tried to bring Ishmael to a larger audience; I just wish there was a little bit more of it in the actual film.
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