|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Kilidoescartwheels
Valinor
Sep 11 2016, 3:25pm
Post #1 of 9
(442 views)
Shortcut
|
|
Let's talk about book adaptations!
|
Can't Post
|
|
So yes, on another thread there's yet another argument about the Hobbit book to movie adaptation. This is probably one of those areas where, no matter what book to movie we're talking about, there's not going to be alot of agreement. But for discussion purposes, let's see what we can come up with. I am currently writing a stageplay for one of my favorite childhood books, "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" (a/k/a TWoBP). In fact, I hope to acquire the rights to this and try to get it into production. I figure if the play is reasonable, then maybe a movie script could be next, but we'll see. Yeah, super ambitious on my part, LOL! Anyway, here are a few of the issues I've run across so far.
1. Do we need to include EVERYTHING that happened in the book? Now, TWoBP is actually smaller than "The Hobbit", about 223 pages, but still, I'm thinking no, there's no reason to run EVERY scene. Some of them are very brief, and while somewhat explanatory, they don't really move the story forward. So, it's a matter of choosing which ones are important and developing them, and then filling in where needed.
2. How do you visually display these scenes? For instance, there's a scene where the lead character jumps out of a rowboat to fetch a toy that a child dropped. This particular scene creates some conflict between the lead character and some of the townfolk, so it's very important. Now, in a movie that's easy, but a play? I think I've figured out a good way to show this scene in the play, but it's a challenge. And then there's also economy and efficiency to consider - set design and such (not to mention budget). These considerations may require some scenes to be either curtailed or deleted entirely. The lead character has a hard time fitting in with her Aunt's family, and there are multiple brief scenes displaying this trouble. I think I've come up with a good way to demonstrate these struggles in about 5 minutes onstage. Again, even if you're doing a film, you wouldn't spend a huge amount of time watching the lead character botch dinner and mess up the garden - just enough to get the point across.
3. And then finally, how much of the book do you change, and why? There are a few scenes I definitely want to tweak. For instance, the book is set in the late 1600s when slavery was still a thing. The lead character is supposed to be a kind-hearted girl, but in the book she makes some comments about slavery that sound both ignorant and unconcerned. So I'm definitely changing that language, if for no other reason than because I think alot of people would be so offended that they'd never like her. Another thing is that in the book, her Aunt had two sons that died young (a common thing back then). But I've decided to write about just one of them, give him a name and a little more development than he got in the book. The Uncle comes across as the main antagonist - a judgmental Puritan, but I want to show a man that has some depth, and still grieves for his son. (Incidentally, I think Graham McTavish would be excellent in this part - kind of writing the character around him!) So obviously his character will change somewhat from the book, hopefully be less judgmental. And there's one other major change I'm making to the story just because I want to! I feel like the person writing the adaptation has the right to do so.
So, three things to consider when making an adaptation. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, and if there are any other considerations that need to be made. And of course, for those who hate the Hobbit movies, maybe you could discuss what would be a better adaptation - preferably something more than "something more faithful to the book."
Proud member of the BOFA Denial Association
|
|
|
Legomir
Rivendell
Sep 11 2016, 8:02pm
Post #2 of 9
(382 views)
Shortcut
|
|
In my opinion, being faithful to the book isn't important.
[In reply to]
|
Can't Post
|
|
Obviously, a huge chunk of people on this forum disagree with me there, but that's how I've always seen it. I'm no professional, especially concerning stage plays, but I have seen A LOT of films and studied them closely. I'll say that I don't know much about stage work, so this is mostly coming from a film viewpoint, but maybe it could help a bit?
(NOTE: Having read this over, I realize I've written a lot here. Sorry.)
In my opinion, with adaptations you don't want to just throw the book onto the screen, or stage. They are inherently different mediums and it probably wouldn't work. It seems like the best thing to do is to really, rigidly break the book down. Look for A) characterization, or character arcs, B) narrative themes, and C) absolutely critical plot points. Those provide the skeletal frame that everything else is built around.
It's only after that, when you really have a bare-bones, simple version of how the character changes, or what the character learns, and how that reflects themes and plot points, THEN the really fun part starts. That's when you can throw in your favorite lines from the book, your favorite moments, your favorite jokes, characters, fights, all that stuff. Throw in everything you love if you can get away with it, as long as it never takes away from the core story, the core character work. If there's no room to actually put something you love in, then try to hint at it, or make it seem like it could happen "off-stage" or somewhere in the background.
I feel strongly that every scene should be important. You can take stuff from unimportant scenes and try to fit them into important scenes and see if it works. If it doesn't, then it shouldn't be there. I also feel that there should be no boring scenes. Pack the frame, or the stage, with fun or dramatic or insightful things that always keep people interested. Make sure that the pace isn't too fast or too slow. That kind of thing normally depends on writing instincts, I think.
As far as your specific points go: like I said, trying to include everything from the book is probably a bad idea, even if it seems feasible since the book is short. Remember, a single line of "And then we ate dinner." or "With a wave of her wand, the statues came to life and took position on the ramparts" could become minutes of cinema, or stage-time, and GOOD minutes of cinema/stage time that should be there. At the same time, pages worth of discussions on things like character backgrounds could be completely unimportant to the plot, characters, and themes, and dispensable.
Visuals seem like something MUCH easier done in film than stage-work. Like you said, budgeting concerns and feasibility could make that a real issue. Your specific issue of the character having a hard time fitting in could be done one of two ways, I think. Option 1: a minute long montage of exasperated attempts could work really well in a film, less so in a play. But really just sneaking in small lines, or tiny moments of that into other scenes, scenes that don't just revolve around that, could make it come across to an audience as well. There's no rule saying a scene has to be about just one thing, right? Option 2: One nice introductory scene, probably near the beginning, could show what life is like.
For your third point, I say change the book as much as you need to to make a good, tight, pacy story that communicates everything clearly and is hopefully entertaining as well. You can get away with a lot, as long as the "spirit" is still there. (I think I might have stolen that from Vigo Mortensen in the Appendices).
Two final things I just thought about: I always seem to prefer a smaller number of longer scenes than a larger number of short scenes. I don't know why, but I think that tends to work better, especially in the few stage plays that I've seen or read. I'd rather have 1 scene that communicates 5 ideas, 3 character moments, 2 jokes, and a major plot point than a 4 scenes that do the same.
And finally (God, I've written a lot, haven't I? I'm into this stuff), I remember a screenwriter saying that he read the book very closely and made an outline with lots of notes (including favorite lines) and then he didn't keep the book with him as he wrote the script. That removed the temptation of just translating the book word-for-word. Maybe that'd work too?
|
|
|
Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Sep 11 2016, 9:21pm
Post #3 of 9
(374 views)
Shortcut
|
In my opinion, being faithful to the book isn't important.
Well, that depends. Faithfulness to the exact text of a book might be a death-sentence to a film. However, if the message of the story is rubbish then why do you want to adapt it at all? A filmmaker should at least be faithful to the spirit of the book or go come up with his own original story.
"He who lies artistically, treads closer to the truth than ever he knows." -- Favorite proverb of the wizard Ningauble of the Seven Eyes
|
|
|
2ndBreffest
Lorien
Sep 11 2016, 9:57pm
Post #4 of 9
(371 views)
Shortcut
|
|
i dont think it matters at all
[In reply to]
|
Can't Post
|
|
as long as you make a good play and most people who go to see it prolly never read the book anyways. like me. i never even heard of that book! lol
|
|
|
Annael
Immortal
Sep 12 2016, 12:01am
Post #5 of 9
(353 views)
Shortcut
|
forgot all about it until I saw the title in your post & had to look it up, but I read it as a young teen & adored it. I remember a key point was that having grown up in Barbados, she could swim - such a witchy thing to be able to do!
To answer your question, my feeling is that any adaptation should capture the world of the book accurately - that a reader who sees the movie will recognize the characters, the place, and the plot and feel the same way about the story.
That to me does not mean slavish fidelity to the book . . . in fact, I think the first Harry Potter moves went wrong because they were too 'faithful" to books that were not all that well-written, and the scriptwriters could have fixed some of Rowling's mistakes (like only giving Harry necessary information by having Hagrid blurt it out right when Harry needs to know it, instead of working it into the narrative earlier & then having Harry or Hermione or Ron remember it). I think it's okay to leave out unimportant characters or events that don't move the plot forward, if putting them in will make the script too long.
I also do not mind if the scriptwriter adds a scene or two that lets us see more of an important character. For example, the 1995 Pride & Prejudice gave us a couple of scenes with Darcy in which Elizabeth is not present (something Austen never does).
But this is tricky. For all but one of Darcy's added scenes, there is a reference to the event in the narrative. And for the other (Darcy fencing), it shows him doing something that men of his class did in fact do, so it's a reasonable addition. So it's not like the scriptwriter added scenes that don't follow the logic of the book.
I have trouble when the scriptwriter violates that logic. For instance, having people of two centuries ago speak and act as people today would doesn't work for me. And while I understand that PJ wanted to give EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER some kind of "arc," for me that sometime violated the logic of the character that Tolkien gave us. Aragorn and Faramir, in particular, were portrayed as uncertain and reluctant to take up his destiny or as unable to act according to his own judgment, respectively, and that didn't work for me. It didn't even heighten the tension as I think PJ intended.
As for the Hobbit movies, the violations of the story were so many & so egregious, they destroyed all my pleasure in the movies.
I think anyone who writes a script owes it to the book to have someone who knows the story well read their script and tell them when they've violated the author's intent. PJ certainly needed such advice.
I am a dreamer of words, of written words. I think I am reading; a word stops me. I leave the page. The syllables of the words begin to move around … The words take on other meanings as if they had the right to be young.
-- Gaston Bachelard
* * * * * * * * * *
NARF and member of Deplorable Cultus since 1967
(This post was edited by Annael on Sep 12 2016, 12:04am)
|
|
|
Kilidoescartwheels
Valinor
Sep 12 2016, 12:20am
Post #6 of 9
(336 views)
Shortcut
|
Yes, that's a very good point! Well one of the issues is that the book was written in the late 1950's, and was probably fairly progressive in that Kit rejects no less than two wealthy suitors - something that would have been unbelievable back then! (Although not to Jane Austen!) Also, the author seemed to make a point that slavery was very bad (obviously), and that Nate was pretty offended by Kit's remarks. It's not so much a stretch, I don't think, to have Kit be a little more sensitive to the plight of the slaves that would be sold to pay off the estate's debts. And as I said, to me she was a kind-hearted, but somewhat misguided, young lady who wanted to help others, so having her be indifferent to the slaves as she was originally portrayed doesn't really fit with her character. It's enough to me that she's never really worked before, and now has to adjust to life on a farm with no servants, in a Puritan household.
That is a very good idea about having someone who's read the book read the script when I'm finished - thanks for that! I've got about 20 - 30 pages so far, I'm thinking it will be a short play, roughly 90 minutes plus maybe an intermission. I'll hopefully have the first draft finished soon - probably late October, as I doubt I'll be writing while I'm on my dream vacation!!!
Proud member of the BOFA Denial Association
|
|
|
Annael
Immortal
Sep 12 2016, 2:35pm
Post #7 of 9
(303 views)
Shortcut
|
I have no problem with Kit being a little more enlightened about slavery; she certainly was ahead of her time in other ways, so that works for me.
I'm going to have to lay my hands on a copy of this. I recently acquired "Witch of the Glens" which was another YA book starring a girl accused of being a witch, this time in Scotland around the Jacobite rebellion, which I loved as a preteen. It's stood up to an adult re-read.
I am a dreamer of words, of written words. I think I am reading; a word stops me. I leave the page. The syllables of the words begin to move around … The words take on other meanings as if they had the right to be young.
-- Gaston Bachelard
* * * * * * * * * *
NARF and member of Deplorable Cultus since 1967
|
|
|
Omnigeek
Lorien
Sep 14 2016, 7:36am
Post #8 of 9
(268 views)
Shortcut
|
|
I don't think it has to be word for word
[In reply to]
|
Can't Post
|
|
Faithfulness is as much a matter of preserving spirit as it is the written word. In point of fact, nearly any multimedia adaptation of a book has to make some adjustments for timing, tempo, available scenery/sets, etc. The film version of "Master and Commander" combined elements of different books in the Aubrey/Maturin series and the ship itself was smaller in scale than the actual ship would have been but it did a great job preserving the essential spirit of the books. I'm not a fan of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books but I thought Chris Columbus' first film was actually superior to the book because he did a better job (IMO) of capturing the sense of joy and wonder 10 year old kids would have had in a magical place like Hogwart's.
In the case of the LOTR trilogy, many fans were disappointed at not having a Tom Bombadil sequence but it really didn't add anything to the story so eliminating the sequence sped up the film without any real loss (although I would have appreciated a Tom Bombadil bit as an add-on in the Blu-rays even if they would have had to tone down the budget for the sets and effects to do it). Compressing characters is often required to keep the cast manageable but can often be done quite acceptably (case in point: Arwen and Glorfindel in PJ's FOTR). Adding new material has to be judicious -- Haldir's death at Helm's Deep in PJ's trilogy violated canon but added to the feeling of Elf/Man unity and increased the emotion of the battle while I think even fans of PJ's Hobbit (well, many of them) will admit the Kili-Tauriel-Legolas triangle was a bad idea.
Some film adaptations can be somewhat faithful to the written word but still miss the spirit of the book. As a case in point, Tim Burton's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" was perhaps more faithful to the book of the same name than the classic "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" but the classic original film was (IMO) truer to the spirit of the book. It may have helped that Roald Dahl was actually involved in the writing of the script for the first film and only left the project because he wanted more emphasis on Charlie and less on adults like Grandpa Joe. In the end, I think what the film did with Grandpa Joe actually enhanced Charlie's character.
Looking at the superhero movies that have been increasingly popular since "Superman the Movie", none of the movies have been strict adaptations of the comics but the ones I liked best preserved classic elements and lines. Compare "Superman the Movie" when Superman says he's here for "truth, justice, and the American way" to "Superman Returns" when Perry White asks if he's "still for 'truth, justice, all that stuff?'" or Toby Maguire's "Spider-Man" filled with classic lines from the comics to Andrew Garfield's first run in "The Amazing Spider-Man" when Martin Sheen as Uncle Ben can't even get one of the most well-known lines in comics (with great power comes great responsibility) right. One of the neatest things for comics fans about the "Iron Man" movies was the way they preserved and used elements from the comics even when they tightened it up for the movie.
The two most faithful film adaptations of books that I can think of, "Gettysburg" (from "The Killer Angels") and "Ender's Game" were outstanding, almost literal translations of the books. My only quibbles with them were that Martin Sheen was a HORRIBLE choice to play Robert E. Lee and I felt Ender should have been smaller and younger looking (but the actor did a great job with the part).
In anime, the film version of "Ghost in the Shell" is really quite different from the manga even though it preserved the essential elements of the story. Both were highly enjoyable but they are about as different as PJ's "Hobbit" is from the book. I don't mind the changes at all in GITS because it's really not an essential character element that Major Kusanagi look like a teenage girl whereas Tolkien went to great pains to describe the dwarves' party hoods and how proud and venerable (and OLD) Thorin was -- including a stupendous prominent beard. In contrast, the Rankin-Bass cartoon cut a LOT out of the story and had HORRIBLE depictions of the Elves, Gollum and (IMO) the orcs but somehow really captured the essential spirit of the book with most of the important lines (it probably helped that the scriptwriter ran his script past the Tolkien Estate 8 times before they finalized it).
The 1970s mini-series "Centennial" had to make changes to MIchener's book of the same name but did an excellent job of adapting the book -- the original "Roots" did too, even if the new "Roots" mini-series was perhaps a bit more faithful to Haley's novel. Similarly, the HBO mini-series "From the Earth to the Moon" was more inspired by than an adaptation of Andrew Chaikin's "A Man on the Moon" but was extremely well done and really captured the daring, the danger, the hope, and the tragedy of the early space program. Again, it was more a matter of capturing the spirit than being word-for-word faithful to the book.
|
|
|
Kilidoescartwheels
Valinor
Sep 14 2016, 2:37pm
Post #9 of 9
(253 views)
Shortcut
|
Yeah, word for word could get pretty boring - I mean, why not just read the book then? And film/stageplay is a visual medium, where things can be shown instead of told. "The Spirit" is kind of an elusive concept, possibly meaning different things to different people. I don't know if you've ever read the book, but to me the spirit, or deeper meaning, of the book is how to deal with difference. Kit, the lead character, is VERY different, and she didn't really have a sense of herself when she arrived in Connecticut. She grew up well-off and just never had to think about anything before, but although she's spoiled she's not a selfish person. She grumbles about having to work so hard and conform to her Uncle's standards, but along the way she grows and becomes an adult capable of taking care of herself and others. But she also develops her own standard of behavior and doesn't compromise it. But more important to me is this idea that evil happens when good people become afraid. There's a lot of fear in this book, fear of losing rights and land grants, and then an illness sweeps the town. So some people in the town who probably wouldn't normally hurt anyone are out looking for someone to blame. I don't know if you live in the USA or not, but if you look around right now there seems to be a lot of fear: Hillary's going to take our guns away, Donald is crazy & will get us in another war, etc. etc. etc. Fear of Mexicans and ISIS, Black Lives Matter, etc. Lots of tension and fear/dislike of people who are "different." I guess that's why I'm even thinking about this book right now. I'd even like to add a line somewhere, like "They're not bad PEOPLE," which will sound unbelievable after the trial, but it's true. Good people are capable of doing bad things when they're afraid. Don't know if that makes any sense, but that's kind of where my thinking is on the subject.
Proud member of the BOFA Denial Association
|
|
|
|
|
