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adaptive colouration
Friday, 13 October 2006 05:01 pmI know that ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
first_fallen believes that one should watch a film adaptation as though it were a completely different text to the book, and she probably saves herself a lot of irritation thereby. On the other hand, she also denies herself the experience of adaptation as a pleasure: the intertextual commentary of film on book or, in fact, book on film, a layering and deepening of significance and texture.
More than this, a good film adaptation gives you the impossible: a re-experiencing of the original text through entirely different eyes. It is my Secret Sorrow that I can never again read, for example, Pride and Prejudice or The Lord of the Rings for the first time: I can't even remember the thunderbolt pleasure of that first immersion, let alone experience it again. However, leaving aside the pretentious arena of lit crit which argues that every reading of a book is a new interaction between text and reader*, a good film adaptation at least gives you the chance to read the book again in a different way. The pleasures of film adaptation as an act of interpretation are legion, a rediscovery of the pleasures of the text in slightly different terms, and in fact quite make up for the number of times the adaptation is clearly being made by an insensitive illiterate. (Don't mention The Time Machine, or anything by Philip K. Dick).
Which brings me, again, to Pride and Prejudice. In a lot of ways it's a good sign if a film version immediately makes me want to re-read the book: I think I'm rushing to prolong the pleasure, as much as to confirm that the interpretations made by the film are actually supported by the book. But even with adaptations of which I wholeheartedly approve, I find it fascinating to consider which aspects of the film production actually stick around to colour my subsequent re-reading of the text. The Pride and Prejudice example is fresh, because I've just re-read it after re-watching the BBC miniseries: I now always see Darcy as Colin Firth when reading, and Susannah Harker as Jane, but I don't mentally replace Elizabeth with Jennifer Ehle, despite the fact that I really enjoyed her performance and thought it was spot-on in terms of the book. I keep Collins, Longbourn and Mrs. Bennet; I lose Pemberly, although the film version was beautiful, and I definitely lose Wickham. (I think my mental Wickham is played by something a lot closer to Jude Law). Same goes with Lord of the Rings: re-reading it, my mental image is of Gandalf, Aragorn and Arwen from the film, but not Galadriel or any of the hobbits. I keep the Shire and Minas Tirith, but not Moria, Lorien or Faramir**. Harry Potter films: I keep Hermione and Ron, but not Harry; Hogwarts, but not Dumbledore. Looking at the list like this, it's a bizarrely patchwork process of mental visualisation.
The interesting thing is that the overall fidelity of the film to the book, and my enjoyment of it as an adaptation, is actually quite separate to the degree to which any one character or set happens to coincide with the mental images I've generated over years of reading. Johnny Mnemonic was a really bad adaptation, but actually I still see Johnny as Keanu. (And it's not really linked to my wayward fancies with regards to actors, either: Alan Rickman adoration notwithstanding, that's not how I imagine Snape when I read.)
Above all, though, this proves that Tolkien Was Wrong. He has himself a lovely rant, in his essay "On Fairy Stories", about the impossibility of even illustrating fantasy properly, because any concrete visualisation will tie the imagination too firmly to someone else's interpretation, and The Imagination Should Be Free. I think he very badly underestimates the extent to which, to a good, solid imagination, all is grist to its mill: the bits that don't work, that conflict with the personal, internal vision, are discarded like so much imaginative chaff.
Right, enough musing. Off to be fed Thai food by jo&stv, to which I can only say, about bloody time, the withdrawal after three weeks without it has been something 'orrible. And they can't have their Pride and Prejudice back, I want to re-watch all the good bits.***
* and you can never spit in the same river twice.
** Faramir was shafted.
*** i.e. most of it.
first_fallen believes that one should watch a film adaptation as though it were a completely different text to the book, and she probably saves herself a lot of irritation thereby. On the other hand, she also denies herself the experience of adaptation as a pleasure: the intertextual commentary of film on book or, in fact, book on film, a layering and deepening of significance and texture. More than this, a good film adaptation gives you the impossible: a re-experiencing of the original text through entirely different eyes. It is my Secret Sorrow that I can never again read, for example, Pride and Prejudice or The Lord of the Rings for the first time: I can't even remember the thunderbolt pleasure of that first immersion, let alone experience it again. However, leaving aside the pretentious arena of lit crit which argues that every reading of a book is a new interaction between text and reader*, a good film adaptation at least gives you the chance to read the book again in a different way. The pleasures of film adaptation as an act of interpretation are legion, a rediscovery of the pleasures of the text in slightly different terms, and in fact quite make up for the number of times the adaptation is clearly being made by an insensitive illiterate. (Don't mention The Time Machine, or anything by Philip K. Dick).
Which brings me, again, to Pride and Prejudice. In a lot of ways it's a good sign if a film version immediately makes me want to re-read the book: I think I'm rushing to prolong the pleasure, as much as to confirm that the interpretations made by the film are actually supported by the book. But even with adaptations of which I wholeheartedly approve, I find it fascinating to consider which aspects of the film production actually stick around to colour my subsequent re-reading of the text. The Pride and Prejudice example is fresh, because I've just re-read it after re-watching the BBC miniseries: I now always see Darcy as Colin Firth when reading, and Susannah Harker as Jane, but I don't mentally replace Elizabeth with Jennifer Ehle, despite the fact that I really enjoyed her performance and thought it was spot-on in terms of the book. I keep Collins, Longbourn and Mrs. Bennet; I lose Pemberly, although the film version was beautiful, and I definitely lose Wickham. (I think my mental Wickham is played by something a lot closer to Jude Law). Same goes with Lord of the Rings: re-reading it, my mental image is of Gandalf, Aragorn and Arwen from the film, but not Galadriel or any of the hobbits. I keep the Shire and Minas Tirith, but not Moria, Lorien or Faramir**. Harry Potter films: I keep Hermione and Ron, but not Harry; Hogwarts, but not Dumbledore. Looking at the list like this, it's a bizarrely patchwork process of mental visualisation.
The interesting thing is that the overall fidelity of the film to the book, and my enjoyment of it as an adaptation, is actually quite separate to the degree to which any one character or set happens to coincide with the mental images I've generated over years of reading. Johnny Mnemonic was a really bad adaptation, but actually I still see Johnny as Keanu. (And it's not really linked to my wayward fancies with regards to actors, either: Alan Rickman adoration notwithstanding, that's not how I imagine Snape when I read.)
Above all, though, this proves that Tolkien Was Wrong. He has himself a lovely rant, in his essay "On Fairy Stories", about the impossibility of even illustrating fantasy properly, because any concrete visualisation will tie the imagination too firmly to someone else's interpretation, and The Imagination Should Be Free. I think he very badly underestimates the extent to which, to a good, solid imagination, all is grist to its mill: the bits that don't work, that conflict with the personal, internal vision, are discarded like so much imaginative chaff.
Right, enough musing. Off to be fed Thai food by jo&stv, to which I can only say, about bloody time, the withdrawal after three weeks without it has been something 'orrible. And they can't have their Pride and Prejudice back, I want to re-watch all the good bits.***
* and you can never spit in the same river twice.
** Faramir was shafted.
*** i.e. most of it.
