FS 101

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FS 101

• Week 9
• Adaptation and Authenticity

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Announcements

• EXTENSION on the Essay
• Essay due WEEK 11 in tutorials
• must be submitted to turnitin.com within 24 hours
  
• otherwise late marks will be deducted
• Quiz 3 Next Week
• BA 110 (downstairs) Tuts 1 and 2 (Ackerman)
• BA 111 (downstairs) Tuts 3 and 4 (Bulter)
• BA 201 (this room) all others - 7, 9, 10, 11,
  12, 13, 15, 19
• Womens Studies Film Club Fri Nov 12
• Lucia, Lucia (Spanish 2003) BA101 8pm-11pm
• Last Week Gender and narration
• This Week Adaptation I
• Also Remakes, Narrative time, Austens Emma

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Adaptation

• Film Adaptation
• A film that takes a novel, play, or other text
  as its source. It uses story events, characters,
  settings, and other elements and then translates
  them from the printed page to the screen.
  www.realityfilm.com/
• The presentation of one medium of artistic
  expression through another medium (i.e. book to
  film, or, stage play to film) in such a way as to
  grant full comprehension and exactitude to the
  original work as possible. www.allmovie.com

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Adaptation
Jurassic Park (1993) based on novel by Michael
Crichton
A Christmas Carol (1951) based on novel by
Charles Dickens
Ques is adaptation a new phenomenon? When do you
think it became popular?
The Godfather (1972) based on novel by Mario Puzo
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Charles DickensAdaptations 1897-1915
www.imdb.com lists total of 117

• Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgers (1912) (ss)
• Oliver Twist (1912) (n)
• Barnaby Rudge (1911) (n)
• David Copperfield (1911) (n)
• Tale of Two Cities, A (1911) (n)
• Old Curiosity Shop, The (1911) (ss)
• Christmas Carol, A (1910) (ss)
• Mystery of Edwin Drood (1909) (n)
• Cricket on the Hearth (1909) (ss)
• Oliver Twist (1909) (n)
• Christmas Carol, A (1908) (ss)
• Tale of Two Cities, A (1907) (ss)
• Nicholas Nickleby (1903) (n)
• Scrooge (1901) (CC)
• Mr. Bumble the Beadle (1898) (OT)
• Death of Nancy Sykes (1897) (OT)

• Barnaby Rudge (1915) (n)
• Hard Times (1915) (n)
• Sverchok na pechi (1915) (ss)
• Mystery of Edwin Drood (1914) (n)
• Chimes, The (1914) (ss)
• David Copperfield (1913) (n)
• Old Curiosity Shop, The (1913) (n)
• Scrooge (1913) (CC)
• Horatio Sparkins (1913) (ss)
• Pickwick Papers, The (1913) (novel)
• Adventure of the Shoot(1913) (PP)
• Mr. Pickwick's Predicament (1912)
• Nicholas Nickleby (1912) (n)
• Old Curiosity Shop, The (1912) (n)
• Oliver Twist (1912) II (n)
• Virtue of Rags, The (1912) (CC)

OTOliver Twist CCA Christmas Carol
PPPickwick Papers BHBleak House
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Remake

• Do not confuse Adaptation with Remake
• A remake
• when a motion picture covering a particular
  subject matter is produced again with the same
  narrative and subject matter. www.allmovie.com
• Remake narr based on that of a different film
• vs
• Adapt narr based on one from a diff medium
• Oceans Eleven (Soderbergh 2001) is remake of
  
  Oceans Eleven (Milestone 1960)

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Transnational Remake
Abre les Ojos Alejandro Amenábar 1997
Spanish
Vanilla Sky Cameron Crowe 2001 American
Return of Martin Guerre (Vigne 1982) Sommersby
(Amiel 1993) La Femme Nikita (Besson 1990)
Point of No Return (Badham 1993) Insomnia
(Skjoldbjaerg 1997) Insomnia (Nolan 2001)
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Adaptation

• Hollywood likes to presell films
• Video games, sequels, remakes, adaptations
• Guarantees an audience
• Literary texts provide raw material
• which has already been tested and popular
• Stories that are popular - from classics to
  bestsellers
• Also the 'respectability' attached to the idea of
  literature and specific authors
• Buy rights to a work and develop it vs develop
  orig material
• Writing of adaptation is a creative process
• however, writers of adaptations rarely go for
  innovative/bold approaches to subject matter
  instead caution - if not reverence - for the
  source material
• Adaptations are generally popular/successful
• according to critics, biggest box-office
  successes tend to be adaptations
• 50 of all commercial films
• ¾ of 'Best Picture Oscar winners (since they
  began in 1928)

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Bought the booksee the film
White Oleander
Also saw the film so bought the book! Reissue
a film edition of novel
Peter Kominsky 2002
Janet Fitch 1999
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Adaptation? Or something else?

• An adaptation is, thus, not based on original
  material
• But are non-adaptation films original?
• Ques are all narratives recycled?
• From Greek tragedy/comedy
• Through Shakespeare
• To contemporary popular culture?
• Is anything new?

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Common cultural narratives

• Any culture contains many familiar narratives,
• oft-told stories, shared by the cultures members
  
• and used to make meaning.
• Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl
• Hero meets villain, villain thwarts hero, hero
  defeats villain
• Because they are familiar to us, advertisements
• can invoke a particular narrative and all its
  associations
• by just showing us a single image
• Snapshot effect

From http//www.uvm.edu/tstreete/semiotics_and_ad
s/syntagms.html
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Snapshots to sell
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Cultural Narratives

• Ques
• Does film use this snapshot effect as well?
• ie. single image can evoke a whole narrative
• Ques
• What distinguishes an adaptation
• from general recycling?

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Narrative Time

• Chronological Psychological time
• 1. Chronological time
• Time measured in discrete units
• By clocks in minutes, hours etc
• Bluestone argues
• Novel has three tenses Past, present, future
• Eg. He walked he walks he will walk.
• But that Film only has one Present
• Eg. Ilsa walks into the bar Rick looks up
• Ques do you agree with Bluestone or can film
  offer you the past?

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Chronological Time

• Film can address the past in a flashback
• However, flashbacks told in present tense
• Eg. Flashback to Paris
• Rick reads Ilsas letter at the station
• Ricks heart is broken and he boards the train
• Past and future only available in
• telling Vs showing
• Therefore, only in literary language and not in
  cinematic
• Bluestone argues that for film
• Screen time real time unless speed-up/slow
  actual film speed (24 fps)
• But like novels, films edit out time
• Time ellipsis
• But he also means reader/viewers feel of time
  
• ie psychological time

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2. Psychological Time

• Subjective impression of time
• Distended time
• time that feels like it goes on longer than its
  real time
• Ie. a moment feel like ages frozen in time
• TV show 24 (w/ Kiefer Sutherland)
• Each episode is 1 hour/ whole season only 24
  hours
• Compressed time
• something that takes a long time but goes by very
  quickly
• Ie. time flies when youre having fun
• Eg. time flies when you are having fun
• Bluestone argues film and novel have similar
  techniques
• Distended time
• Novel paragraphs of description Film slow
  motion Last Samurai
• Compressed time
• Novel skips across time Film speed-up (fast
  mo)

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Narrative Time and Adaptation

• Film 2 hours to watch
• Novel 3 to 20 hours to read
• Ques
• So what stays and what goes?
• Can you reproduce the novel faithfully in that
  amount of time?
• Emma (Austen)
• 446 page novel to a 2-hour film
• Same characs, story, themes?
• Can they be truly done justice?
• Pride and Prejudice (Austen)
• TV mini-series of 6 hours (1995)
• Highly praised by critics and Austen fans
• Is that because more time to develop characs/narr?

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Jane Austen b. 1775 d. 1817

• Famous works
• Sense and Sensibility (1811)
• Pride and Prejudice (1813)
• Mansfield Park (1814)
• Emma (1816)
• Persuasion (1818)
• Northanger Abbey (1818)
• One of the few women writers
• Who accepted into early into literary canon
• Important early 19th century author
• Witty, elegantly structured, satirical fiction
• Critical of her society and the role of women in
  it
• Of the books published in her lifetime,
• NONE had her name on them
• Described as being written By a Lady

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Austen Adaptations

• Pre-1990s Adaptations
• Northanger Abbey (1986) TV
• Sense Sensibility (1985) TV
• Mansfield Park (1983) TV
• Jane Austen in Manhattan (1980)F
• Pride and Prejudice (1979) TV
• Emma (1972) TV
• Sense Sensibility (1971) TV
• Persuasion (1971) TV
• Pride and Prejudice (1967) F
• Pride and Prejudice (1952) TV
• Pride and Prejudice (1940) F

• Recently,
• lots of films and TV mini-series
• Based on Austen
• Now is moment of
• most commitment to putting her work on film than
  any in the history of cinema
• But has been popular with audiences before

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Pride and Prejudice
Fieldings novel loosely based 2001
Teen Transformation 2003
TV Mini Series 1995
Famous Film 1940
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Emma

• Emma particularly blessed (or cursed)
  w/adaptations
• 3 between 1995 and 1997
• Film Heckerlings Clueless (1995)
• Film McGraths with Paltrow (1996)
• TV BBC/AE w/ Kate Beckinsale (1997)

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Easier to adapt than others?

• Film literary critics recognise that
• certain kinds of novels more adaptable than
  others
• this adaptability is a function of
• the extent to which the novel presents the
  interior worlds of its characters (Huselberg 61)
• Ie. too much interior focus is hard to translate
  on screen
• Novel of manners
• emphasizes manners social settings
• seems ideally suited to film
• Austen novels affinity w/ dramatic
  representation
• Some scenes ready-made
• consisting almost entirely of dialogue with
• interspersed narrative commentary (like stage
  directions)

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Subjective experience

• Novel of manners examines
• the social world in which the individual lives
  as well as
• the psyche of the individual
• (Brothers Bowers 4)
• Austen places at the centre of narrative
• Her heroines subjective experience
• Emphasis on the interior worlds of the heroines
  poses a challenge to adaptors
• Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice
• Fanny Price in Mansfield Park
• Anne Elliott in Persuasion
• Emma Woodhouse in Emma

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Intrusive narrator

• Film versions of Austens novels must
• compensate for absent witty intrusive narrator
• who negotiates the space between
• 1. the heroines subjective experience and
• 2. other characters perspectives and
• 3. that which may be called objective reality
• 3rd person narrator who is not a character in the
  story but has a presence often critical of Emma
• The real evils indeed of Emmas situation were
  the power of having rather too much of her own
  way, and a disposition to think a little too well
  of herself these were the disadvantages which
  threatened alloy to her many enjoyments. The
  danger, however, was at present so unperceived,
  that they did not by any means rank as
  misfortunes with her. (Austen 1)
• Absence of narrator in film marks
• Departures from novels and filmmakers struggle
  with differences in the two media

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Contemporary Audiences

• Rise of Austen as major force in recent film
• suggests she has withstood the test of time
• and appeals to turn of millennial sensibilities
• What makes her novels popular adaptations?
• Nostalgia for a simpler time?
• A modern-day nostalgia for this kind of settled
  order has been suggested as one of the reasons
  for the renaissance of Austens novels in the
  frenzied and chaotic 90s. (Sally B. Palmer)
• Her heroine?
• Austen said of Emma, I am going to take a
  heroine whom no one but myself will much like
  (Austen-Leigh 157)
• But critics say readers cannot help but love
  Emma, for she is in the end faultless in spite
  of her faults (Austen, Emma 433).
• The social customs of her time?
• Contemporary films spend effort and time on the
  period décor, costume, and educating us in the
  class values and behaviour of Austens time

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Themes (novel)

• Romance
• you make think of Emma as a romance but
• there is much criticism of romance through
  Harriet
• enshrines Mr. Elton w/ her most precious
  treasures
• relics of a scrap of bandage and pencil
• But Emma is about courtship, marriage, and a
  good match
• Begins with a marriage Miss Taylor Mr. Weston
• Ends with a couple more and Emma observes other
  marriages
• Isabella John Knightley (positive) Mr. and
  Mrs. Elton (negative)
• In a letter to her niece, Austen stated
• anything is to be preferred or endured rather
  than marrying without Affection. Nothing can be
  compared to the misery of being bound without
  love
• Thats why emphasis on the good match
  spiritually, intellectually
• How will this theme be transformed in updating
  the story to the mid-90s? ie. Clueless

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Heroines growth

• All of Austens stories about
• young women growing up, learning about selves,
  others, society
• financial insecurity leaves women easy prey
• to greedy and shallow friends and men
• punished by social pressures of marriage and
  decorum
• Austens heroines generally handsome clever
• only Emma has advantage of being rich puts a
  diff emphasis on the themes
• Truth/Blindness
• Look for images/leitmotifs of sight/blindness
• Highlight necessity for insight Emma has been
  blind to real nature of
• Mr. Elton, Harriet, Robert Martin, Jane Fairfax,
  Frank, Mr. Knightley, herself
• What is the danger of blindness?
• When the truth of human situations/feelings is
  not perceived accurately then disorder/unhappiness
  result
• Lesson for Emma - acknowledge her own weaknesses
  and flaws, and that wealth has blinded her to
  misfortune of others
• Hubris excess of self-pride that brings about
  tragic fall (classical tragedy)

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Social critique and Feminism

• Is the novel a comedy, a romance? Or social
  critique?
• Austen famous for
• Her subtle but cutting critique of her society
• And its restrictions through
• institutions of inheritance, marriage, status
• on women and the poorer classes
• Some feminist critics complain about
• Austens marrying off her clever/witty heroines
  to
• Father-figure men of superior wisdom, age,
  income
• Heroine loses much of her independence, vivacity
• Takes up role of subservient wife that she at 1st
  denied
• In Austens defense
• writing in early 1800s when few women were
  published at all
• works focused on female protags/their desires in
  a patriarchal world

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For Tutorials

• How is film different from the novel?
• Same themes? Dealt w/ in same way?
• Look esp at how deals w/ narrator issue
• Interesting play with narration
• Voice-overs
• Direct address
• Sound bridges as transitions
• How is novel aimed at 1810s audience v the film
  aimed at a 1990s audiencec?