Around 1981, Francis Ford Coppola received a letter from a librarian at Lone Star middle school. The text stated, “ We are all so impressed with the book, The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, that a petition has been circulated asking that it be made into a movie. We have chosen you to send it to. In hopes that you might also see the possibilities of a movie, we have enclosed a copy of the book.” The written document was signed by 110 little signatures who were eager for Coppola to make a film. Since he couldn’t resist it, he decided to make one. Two years later, on March 25 The Outsiders was released. As any film director should, he tried to keep the movie close to the original novel by S.E Hinton. However, movies and books are two different ways …show more content…
The Outsiders book and movie have similarities and differences. One of those discrepancies is that Coppola used Matt Dillon to play Dallas Winston. Dally’s hair is as described in the book,“ almost white it was so blond”(10). However, in the film he has dark …show more content…
Matt Dillon always played infamous characters and he was a teenage heartthrob at the time, so Francis knew that if he put him in the movie it would increase ratings. Also, the film was less emotional than the book. This is because, it is impossible to put narrations in movies and so Ponyboy’s heartfelt emotions can’t be narrated throughout the film. Emotions have to be shown through music and acting. Sadly, the willing suspension of disbelief is small when watching some of the younger, less experienced actors act. Some of these actors were, Thomas Howell (Ponyboy) and Ralph Macchio (Johnny). There were a few scenes where their lines seemed forced, almost as if they were reading them off a screen. Nonetheless, a lot of the actors were younger than 21 years old at the time. There were many small scenes that were altered to be more “Hollywood.” One scene, is the fight between the greasers and the Socs in the rain. During the fight in the book, it wasn’t raining at all. Coppola was trying to create a more dramatic effect