Earlier I discussed the differences between books and films, comparing the mediums by the time we dedicate to their contemplation and the source of their inventive splendor. I finished off with the question, ‘What is the purpose behind a short story, and how is a short story applicable to film?’
Short stories, as readers will know, have more forms than a gloamgloazer. There are long short stories, short short stories, short long short stories and long short short stories. Typically we can catogorise them as different from novels by their size... in most cases.
When we examine adapted short stories in comparison to adapted books (adapted for the film industry, for this ramble) we will most often find the outcome is more successful. When books are adapted, they contain too much information and are thinned out to fit the appropriate time slot. When stories are adapted, often the opposite is true. They require more substance - not less - and are viewed more as concepts than as rigid frameworks for a storyline. Thus 'I, Robot' becomes an amalgamation of various ideas discussed in the course of Asimov's work, 'I am Legend', long enough to be a novel itself, incorporates only the idea of vampirism as a bacterial disease capable of wiping out the human race. Minority Report becomes a discourse on the concept of prosecuting potential criminals, while Dick's noir outcome is scrapped entirely, as is his 20th century idea of the future maximising the use of recording tape.
The attitudes between adaptations of books and short stories are immediately recognisable. Fatally, when a book is approached the screenwriter attempts to capture every aspect of the work - and fails. A book is not a film. A book cannot be condensed into two and a half hours. Back in the days of youth and folly when I still felt excited about seeing a movie based on a book I had read, I always left feeling somewhat cheated. They'd make bum moves like summing up a chapter with a line ("Norbert's Gone", for Lorkhan's sake) or wipe out characters (Cyclops and his followers from 'The Postman'). Then they go one step further and make unnecessary changes. I've wiped my brain clean of the numerous lines I heard come out wrong during the adaptation of the Harry Potter series. Don't screenwriters realise writers sit down and weigh each word as carefully as though they were handling gold? They push the boundaries further by changing characters' personalities. The Twilight movie (I could only suffer to watch the butchery of the very first) had Bella strip naked for the entertainment value of a scene rather than the true bearing of her character. The unmentionable disaster I must mention (gotta love a paradox) is at last 'The Golden Compass', flashing in cheap, whorish neon that not even the original title would make it through to the final cut.
(I am aware of the title's varied use as the trilogy's original name [The Golden Compasses] and the US release title. Goodness knows what goes through the minds of publishers.)
My point? In doesn't work, damnit. Darwin would cringe at the sight of Hollywood jungle and the natural selection that is catalysed there between conflicting film producers. When money becomes an object, art suffers. Sad, but true.
Speaking of dear Darwin, it's funny how the word they use for the metamorphosis from literature to film is 'adaptation'. Theodosius Dobzhansky defined adaptation as "an evolutionary process whereby an organism becomes better able to live in its habitat or habitats."
Well, in the sense of this commentary, one may say it is "an evolutionary process whereby an artwork becomes better able to live in its habitat."
By the very nature of the word and its underlying semantic and linguistic values, an assumption is being made that the film is an evolved state of the written word.
It is a strange thing to consider. The intention of written words has always been to attempt to deliver a message to another person in a form logical and comprehendable to a receptive human mind, even after the singularity or 'perfection' of that intention was denied.
The intention of recording, from the beginning, was to give an accurate moving picture of reality. Afterwards people experimented with special effects, doing this and that to the image where they could, sharpening, obscuring, perfecting - always scientific, rather than artistic. These became a matter of interest to theatricals, who despite their strutting about the stage could not capture a moment perfectly if its specifics held any surreal components. Thus after the success of a production of Gulliver's Travels in 1902, films grew to a standard in the exhibition of high budget or impossible dramatic productions.
So if recording was seen as an evolutionary medium for theatre, why are we forced to sit through the demolition of the written word? There's a HUGE difference between books and plays, so why have the two combined in recent years into the woeful morass of 'adaptation'?
Sometimes, I like to leave things at a question. If there is an answer, I've already made it clear that it isn't one that could justify what film has done to the literary world. I'll just keep pretending adaptations don't exist, and hope people come to see things my way.
Short stories, as readers will know, have more forms than a gloamgloazer. There are long short stories, short short stories, short long short stories and long short short stories. Typically we can catogorise them as different from novels by their size... in most cases.
When we examine adapted short stories in comparison to adapted books (adapted for the film industry, for this ramble) we will most often find the outcome is more successful. When books are adapted, they contain too much information and are thinned out to fit the appropriate time slot. When stories are adapted, often the opposite is true. They require more substance - not less - and are viewed more as concepts than as rigid frameworks for a storyline. Thus 'I, Robot' becomes an amalgamation of various ideas discussed in the course of Asimov's work, 'I am Legend', long enough to be a novel itself, incorporates only the idea of vampirism as a bacterial disease capable of wiping out the human race. Minority Report becomes a discourse on the concept of prosecuting potential criminals, while Dick's noir outcome is scrapped entirely, as is his 20th century idea of the future maximising the use of recording tape.
The attitudes between adaptations of books and short stories are immediately recognisable. Fatally, when a book is approached the screenwriter attempts to capture every aspect of the work - and fails. A book is not a film. A book cannot be condensed into two and a half hours. Back in the days of youth and folly when I still felt excited about seeing a movie based on a book I had read, I always left feeling somewhat cheated. They'd make bum moves like summing up a chapter with a line ("Norbert's Gone", for Lorkhan's sake) or wipe out characters (Cyclops and his followers from 'The Postman'). Then they go one step further and make unnecessary changes. I've wiped my brain clean of the numerous lines I heard come out wrong during the adaptation of the Harry Potter series. Don't screenwriters realise writers sit down and weigh each word as carefully as though they were handling gold? They push the boundaries further by changing characters' personalities. The Twilight movie (I could only suffer to watch the butchery of the very first) had Bella strip naked for the entertainment value of a scene rather than the true bearing of her character. The unmentionable disaster I must mention (gotta love a paradox) is at last 'The Golden Compass', flashing in cheap, whorish neon that not even the original title would make it through to the final cut.
(I am aware of the title's varied use as the trilogy's original name [The Golden Compasses] and the US release title. Goodness knows what goes through the minds of publishers.)
My point? In doesn't work, damnit. Darwin would cringe at the sight of Hollywood jungle and the natural selection that is catalysed there between conflicting film producers. When money becomes an object, art suffers. Sad, but true.
Speaking of dear Darwin, it's funny how the word they use for the metamorphosis from literature to film is 'adaptation'. Theodosius Dobzhansky defined adaptation as "an evolutionary process whereby an organism becomes better able to live in its habitat or habitats."
Well, in the sense of this commentary, one may say it is "an evolutionary process whereby an artwork becomes better able to live in its habitat."
By the very nature of the word and its underlying semantic and linguistic values, an assumption is being made that the film is an evolved state of the written word.
It is a strange thing to consider. The intention of written words has always been to attempt to deliver a message to another person in a form logical and comprehendable to a receptive human mind, even after the singularity or 'perfection' of that intention was denied.
The intention of recording, from the beginning, was to give an accurate moving picture of reality. Afterwards people experimented with special effects, doing this and that to the image where they could, sharpening, obscuring, perfecting - always scientific, rather than artistic. These became a matter of interest to theatricals, who despite their strutting about the stage could not capture a moment perfectly if its specifics held any surreal components. Thus after the success of a production of Gulliver's Travels in 1902, films grew to a standard in the exhibition of high budget or impossible dramatic productions.
So if recording was seen as an evolutionary medium for theatre, why are we forced to sit through the demolition of the written word? There's a HUGE difference between books and plays, so why have the two combined in recent years into the woeful morass of 'adaptation'?
Sometimes, I like to leave things at a question. If there is an answer, I've already made it clear that it isn't one that could justify what film has done to the literary world. I'll just keep pretending adaptations don't exist, and hope people come to see things my way.
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