Between the Lines & Behind the Lens: Creating an Atmosphere in Books & Movies

By: Prisha

1st year, BA (Hons.) Economics

Every piece of media speaks its own language when it comes to capturing the mood. In books, authors use perfectly placed paragraph breaks, almost like breathless pauses. Metaphors and similes evoke emotions. The words spill out—unravelling desires and fears. Every thought matters. In films, the inner monologue fades. Emotions live instead in the camera movement, the spaces between cuts, colours lingering on screen for just a little too long, and even body language.

Writers tell us exactly what the character feels—what love, loss, or despair is to them. Grief could be “a dull, persistent ache, lingering in the shadows” or “an agonising pain that leaves you gasping for air", the language capturing the duality and contradictions of being human. Similarly, a character sitting alone in a room—described as one in disarray, with peeling wallpaper, the shrill sound of a broken clock, and clothes thrown haphazardly onto the floor—creates a scene of isolation with just words. Writers don’t just tell. They show, through imagery and figures of speech.

Filmmakers paint the same loneliness and grief, just a little differently. They use lighting, framing, colour grading and sometimes, silence.

That same character might sit in a messy room, this time, bathed in sterile white light, staring blankly at a wall while music plays in the distance. Their usual eccentric and vibrant style, replaced by a loose grey sweater. A sunset reflecting on their face, yet slowly slipping away. No dialogue, no narration, but the grief and loneliness are palpable. Movies rely on visual cues, from the colour of a character’s clothes to what is in the frame and what fades away.

You can’t read longing in a film. You see it in the lingering looks between two characters and a subtle hand flex after their fingers brush. And you can’t see or hear despair in a book. But it’s apparent in the weight of what’s left unsaid by a character barely holding it together.

This is not to say that one is more powerful or more valuable than the other. Because you may close the book or let the credits roll, but the feelings linger, and that’s what’s most important.