Would you like some HAGGIS with your fries? (National Treasure 2 reference, anyone?) www.fanpop.com
If you haven’t heard of Fast Times at Ridgemont High then
chances are you live under a rock (stoned, so to speak, but ask Sean Penn's Jeff Spicoli about that). I'll sell it to you this way: think The Breakfast Club meets Dazed and Confused. Still not convinced? Well there's pre-eminent, pre-Oscar winning likes of Sean Penn, Forrest Whittaker and
Nicolas Cage (Calvin's note: also Jennifer Jason Leigh who is fab). The film very nicely captures the specific atmosphere of 80’s usa
(when it’s pop culture influence was at it’s peak, in my opinion anyway) very
accurately, and almost transports you there, mixing elements of stoner humour and coming-of-age issues as per my earlier comparison (even if it is way less
thought provoking if at all) and of course because the movie does such a
brilliant job at capturing high school life in the 80’s.
Now I feel I may have praised this film a little more than what it deserves. Though it’s safe to say this is Sean Penn’s worst performance I have seen, it
would be kind of like complaining about Ryan Gosling in his Mickey Mouse Clubhouse days. Seriously though, this film is
filled with terribly flat performances I mean it all feels way too amateur-ish,
even for a film that begs not to be taken too seriously. All in all the movie
is fun if you’re into nostalgic American high school films (well nostalgic if
you’re 50 years old actually), and even if that’s not to your tastes it's not a bad film at all. Is it a must-see though? Nah.
RATING 3.5/
MISHIMA
From sffs.org
This film (on paper at least) looks incredibly interesting. Mishima is a Japanese biopic based on the works of one of Japan’s most
celebrated writers, and if that isn’t enough to pique your interest let me add that
it’s directed by Paul Schrader (director of American Gigolo (Calvin's Note: VERY underrated film), and the writer of Raging Bull (Calvin's Note: VERY overrated film, in my opinion Ordinary People and The Elephant Man both were/would've been more deserving of that coveted 1980 BP Oscar win) and Taxi Driver). And let me also add that the executive producers are, wait for it, wait for it,
George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola (if you don’t know who they are then
you’re on the wrong blog). All of that as I said bodes very well, but
unfortunately the film itself isn’t even half as interesting in fact I have
never seen a biopic as strangely constructed and uninformative.
It’s hard to think of anything good about this film really except for the
visually innovative narrative style and some stunning imagery, the structure of
the film however may appeal to some people but it was too strangely unorthodox
for me. Even after all this bashing (I tried) if you still want to watch this
film it might help to know that the great Roger Ebert classified this as a
‘great movie’ (Calvin's Note: respect Ebert the man but I personally found some of his choices and opinions...well, just didn't agree with some of them) and most film critics would disagree with my views but hey, why be pretentious about the medium of film which I love?
I should've probably done a post of the akin on Halloween, but never mind. Here, my personal list of my top 5 favourite psychological horror films, more suited perhaps to a brooding Friday evening than the histrionics of Halloween.
Hon. Mention 1: The Wicker Man
One of the main reservations I had with putting this excellent 1970s British thriller on the list is that I've grown to appreciate it less as a psychological horror, and more of just an old-fashioned, enjoyably campy detective story. Edward Woodward's terrific lead performance shows DiCaprio a la Shutter Island how to properly carry this sort of motion picture with the right balance of nerviness and empaty. The direction is certainly very understated but does very well in hitting the right notes of discomfort at the right moments, and the intentionally excruciating soundtrack does equally well in conveying that sense of disorientation to the proceedings.
Hon. Mention 2: Stoker
Quite possibly one of the most underrated horror films of recent years. It's certainly not subtle by any stretch of the imagination, and yes that ending is a love-or-hate affair, but I personally adored it. It's sort of like a modernized, gorier version of Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt with more emphasis on the chills than thrills. It's brooding, the colour schemes implanted by director Park Chan-Wook work wonders in showcasing this unconventionally conventional suburbia our characters inhabit, and it's sense of style extending to the excellent trio of performances by Mia Wasikowska, Nicole Kidman, and particularly the normally bland Matthew Goode. Well worth a watch.
Hon Mention 3: Rosemary's Baby
Mia Farrow is probably one of the more underrated 'name' actresses of our times, probably due to the fact that she was on continual occasions miscast against her abilities and talents, for example in the role of Daisy in The Great Gatsby. In Roman Polanski's terrific 1969 thriller though, her unassuming, naïve style of acting works just as well here as it did in Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo, here with more of an edgier, darker bent. One of the best things about Rosemary's Baby is that it doesn't take itself too seriously. It's suspenseful but Polanski knows when to have a bit of tongue-in-cheek fun, for example casting noted comedienne Ruth Gordon in one of the most grotesque reimaginings of the kindly old lady stock character, yet at the same time bringing the exact right amount of brooding, ominous chill to every jarring experience Rosemary has, making that infamous ending hit hard with all the power it should.
Others: The Birds, Peeping Tom, The Red Shoes, Psycho
5. The Omen
From kimt.com
There's something oddly compelling about watching Gregory Peck, who as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird represented with every inch and word exuded the embodiment of the perfect father, having a very bad time with the kids in 1976's The Omen. That fantastic soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith itself is enough to set the viewer off-kilter, and the various shocking horror set-pieces (David Warner having a very bad hair day, Leo McKern's monologue, THAT hospital scene) are very memorable. What's best about it all, however, is how wonderfully restrained it all is. Each bloody moment is counteracted with a quiet drama scene to examine the repercussions of the horror, and Billie Whitelaw's amazing turn as the nanny Mrs Baylock, who is hellbent on gettin Peck's Robert Thorn out of the way to make his son into the next Antichrist, perfectly shows this balance of the quiet and loud moments that make the brooding horror underneath, work all the better.
4. Don't Look Now
From bbcamerica.com
Based on a Daphne du Maurier short story, this tale of a grieving couple who travel to Venice to get over the recent death of her daughter, only to find mystery and paranormal hints of her around every corner. Directed by the incomparable Nicolas Roeg, it's first and foremost an intensely moving domestic drama, with Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie doing a fine job in handling the heavier moments, examining the psychological fallout of losing a child on a couple's psyche. Sutherland in particular shows hints of his incredible portrayal of a grieving father in Ordinary People seven years later with his fantastically understated turn here, and also acts as a terrific stylistic anchor to Roeg's style. We start off with a graphically depicted, unnerving death scene in the English pastoral landscape before moving to the beauty of Venice, where we slowly build up to the film's final horrifying image; but preceding that we get beauty. Beauty in the form of a tastefully exquisite sex scene between Christie and Sutherland, the views of Vienna, Roeg embracing the sublime loveliness of these scenes before, at sporadic and jarring intervals, popping through his own little touches to the film that are all the more immersive for them. You feel as if like you've gone through the whole gamult of horrible things our protagonists' have gone through, strangely carthatic though also incredibly haunting.
3. Misery
My favourite of all the Stephen King horror adaptations (as for overall I'm torn between this and The Green Mile). First and foremost it's just a very underrated film in just how intelligently it's filmed: the story of a bed-ridden author (played by James Caan) and his biggest fan Annie Wilkes (the marvellous Kathy Bates), and how subtly knowing and witty the dialogue is with regards to the whole discussion of horror-story writing. Beyond that it knows how to balance humour (in the form of Richard Farnsworth's well-meaning but somewhat bumbling sheriff) without making it seem out of place by merging it well with the horrifying bits: Bates' Wilkes is a masterclass in depicting manical obsession but also knows when to tone it down to put the audience and Caan's Paul Sheldon off guard, but Caan is equally good in an almost wholly reactive performance.
2. The Silence of the Lambs
From oscarchamps.com
I suppose there's really not that much I can say about this film is there, besides, well, watch it if you haven't. Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter was my first experience of the actor after I'd watched his excellent routines as the proper English gentleman in the likes of The Remains of the Day and The Elephant Man, and it's terrifying to see the actor tear down this convention with the tics and mannerisms of a most cruel, maniacal madman, but retaining that certain air of class. Jodie Foster too is very good in like Caan, a reactive performance to all the grotesque madness around her, and Jonathan Demme shows how it's done by turning the dial of horror and suspense up to 11 when necessary with that booming soundtrack and unforgettable images, and toning it down when focusing on the actors themselves. Watch The Silence of the Lambs, you won't regret it.
1. The Innocents
From classicfilmsreloaded.com
In my opinion, the finest horror film of all-time, period. Based on Henry James' The Turn of the Screw, director Jack Clayton takes us into the classic imposing, brooding mansion of the titular 'innocents' children through the point of view of Deborah Kerr's Miss Giddens. I could go on and on about how my favourite actress of all-time excels in this role but that'd be giving a whole lot of the fun away. Yes, The Innocents is fun to watch in the basest sense, insofar as it's a rollickingly immersive experience where you watch every that can go wrong, firstly exhibit the prospect of going wrong: part of the fun is how Clayton's direction constantly wrong-foots you in and out of suspense, catching you completely unawares with the scares when they do come. Past that it's a fascinating exploration of the whole 'fish-out-of-water' mentality shown but rarely delved into in horror films, where Giddens' relationship to the children is gradually revealed to be more than just a mentor's role. It's the whole ambiguity of this governess' relationship to the mansion and its inahbitants that make The Innocents such a compelling watch that even having watched it numerous times like myself, it never ceases to thrill.
As the Rotten Tomatoes score dwindles day by day and my ears resonate with an ever-increasing influx of reservations and criticisms of 007's latest outing, I thought it an appropriate time as any to do a little feature on why exactly Spectre is my favourite Bond film of all-time; and do my best to explain why some aspects of the film which have been subject to criticism, are in my opinion some of its most excellent features.
Though I'm hardly the biggest Bond fan ever, I do have a great deal of affection for many of them. I liked most of the early Sean Connery ones a great deal; they're a bit dated, admittedly, some of the plotlines and setpieces were rather ludicrous, and boy was some of that dialogue on the nose, but all in all they were very enjoyable entertainments for pure, undemanding amusement--perfectly in line with the source material of Ian Fleming's novels. On Her Majesty's Secret Service was a great directorial achievement, in particular with that astonishingly heartrending ending, and possibly my favourite before Spectre, it's a shame it's all let down a bit by a lacklustre George Lazenby; the Roger Moore ones I didn't much care for, but nor did I find them offensively bad. In fact I appreciated them for what they were: lighthearted, even more campy brainless action flicks with tongue firmly in cheek. Very interesting to compare them to say, the more tonally muted nature of the Timothy Dalton outings, and of course the more gritty, grounded nature of the past four Bond films, Casino Royale,Quantum of Solace, Skyfall and Spectre. Now though I did like Casino Royale and in particular, Skyfall, quite a bit, I didn't see them so much as Bond films as films that happened to have a character called James Bond in them. They were fine action spectacles, had some great setpieces, and one magnificent villain in the form of Javier Bardem's Silva. But I just never got that classic Bond vibe from them which prevented me from loving them, even though in a very technical sense, and script-wise, they were miles ahead over anything from the Connery days.
What differentiates Spectre from the pack then, you may ask? Well, many things, and I suppose a little blog post isn't really sufficient to fit in all of them. But sit down and have a chat with me sometime over a martini, shaken not stirred (by the way fantastic joke in the film's midsection regarding that trope) and I'll give you even more insight. For the timebeing though, forthcoming are my thoughts on why Spectre is my favourite film of the year so far, and the perfect Bond film.
Daniel Craig has finally won me over.
From Daily Mail
I might as well start with both the centrepiece and trump card of the film: Craig, in his fourth outing as the superspy, and his revelatory inhabitation of the role. I walked in expecting to come out with the same feelings towards his tenure as Bond as before: grudgingly accepting, but quietly willing that he'd vacate the spot soon for Henry Cavill, Idris Elba, Chiwetel Ejiofor or Tom Hiddleston etc.
That's right, I wasn't a fan before. Generally I find him to be a bit lacklustre as an actor; my favourite performance of his before Spectre was actually his kinda-comic turn in Layer Cake where, funnily enough, he sort of plays a parodic version of his onscreen 'tough guy' persona, which I wasn't a big fan of in the likes of Road to Perdition, Munich, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It's not that I find him actively bad or anything, just a bit bland in most of them; I appreciate underplaying in acting styles but Craig's method of doing so, up till Spectre, had left me a bit cold. I thought he was very good in Casino Royale in emphasising the streak of violent intensity to his killer, but a bit lacking in terms of charisma. Quantum of Solace wasn't very good and though I appreciated his efforts in it, he just didn't really engage me there either, and really was let down by the film.
In the fantastic Skyfall he has some very good moments, like the scene where he's forced to test out his rusty aim, and his exchanges with Q demonstrated some comedy potential; however, most of the time he's regulated to a bit of a stoic, straightforward action hero (for the film's sake, and it works), and quite overshadowed by Bardem, and Dench. There were hints of a great performance but the very nature of the film didn't allow Craig to explore it as fully as I'd have liked.
Anyway, onto Spectre. Craig's opening scene here is absolutely fantastic as he revels in the role like I've never seen him before. He's as adept at handling the action nature of the role as ever as he kicks ass across Mexico City, but what I particularly liked about him here was the added complexities he gave to both the physical state of Bond all the way through. He's quick, strong and as much of a beast as ever, but Craig does incredibly well in showing how the years have kind of taken a toll on Bond as each action is accompanied not with fatigue but almost a sense of repetitiveness. Indeed the whole physical representation of Bond in Spectre is immaculately handled by Craig as he once again makes for an engaging action lead, but also adds in an extra bit of mechanical-ness to his actions.
It seems like Craig's entirely comfortable in the role now, and I loved how he had a little bit of fun with it; for example, the moment in the opening scene where a sofa saves his life from a deadly drop. There's that usual stoutness with which he reacts to the contrivance, but also an almost fourth-wall breaking sense of wry humour acknowledging the ridiculousness of it all. Having known before that the film would revert back to some of the more OTT, incredulous plot elements of the Connery + Moore films, I was glad to see that Craig followed suit with his performance. He's still a deadly killer, but there's just so much more charm and sass to his portrayal here than in previous films that it makes him so much more fun to watch.
More importantly, Craig handles the humane aspects of Bond very well here, the main surprise I had regarding his portrayal. I'll get more onto his onscreen squeeze in a bit, but I really liked for example, his scene with Monica Belluci. Technically speaking it was very much extraneous stunt casting, wholly unnecessary, but come on, it's a Bond film. Tell me how many of the sex scenes from the Sean Connery era were REALLY necessary? Anyway I loved Craig's method of seduction here which showed the usual rough edge and animalistic allure he has (not going to lie, Craig is a very good looking guy), but also an added bit of tenderness and genuine care to not let any more innocent lives go to waste. Craig in one film, manages to find an arc for Bond that I felt he was short-changed with the previous 3 films.
Christoph Waltz was awesome (albeit differently to how I expected)
From The Independent
Yes, he is a bit lacking in screentime (although compared to say Donald Pleasance, he has oodles). And he doesn't get an awful lot to do. In fact most of what he does is monologue, monologue, monologue. But hey, it's Christoph Waltz. Hans Landa. Dr King Schultz. You LIKE hearing him talk. Do you want to spend time watching him blow stuff up, shooting people, actually doing stuff, or would you rather listen to him so eloquently, so beautifully menace Bond and literally everyone else around him from within the shadows, in that exquisitely campy Blofeld (oops) attire, working on a torture machine, and digressing about his villainy, his past with Bond and everything in between with an almost metatheatrical edge of knowingness?
Blofeld is a mastermind. He doesn't need to be doing anything; he's not really out for revenge like Silva, he's not desperate to save his own skin like Le Chiffre. He's got the whole world in his palm, and Spectre is on the rise; what more is there to do than just have fun? And boy does Waltz have fun. In fact, not since Inglorious Basterds have I seen such relish to each and every word that flows out of the Austrian actor's mouth as you, the audience, become utterly convinced that he's been behind every single mishap and tragedy Bond's encountered in his life. The aforementioned torture scene where he to put it bluntly, trolls and trolls Bond, with all assortment of physical pains and barbed comments, and a little kitty cat, it's incredibly silly
Also, in a sense I have a feeling (with the way the character's arc ends in the film) that we'll be seeing more of him soon; so Spectre may well have been a mere set-up for even more Waltz villainy. If so--that's a BINGO.
The Bond girls were classic Bond girls: in other words, fantastic.
From The Guardian
I've mentioned how I didn't find Bellucci's scene as wasteful as others have. If you think about it she's essentially done the whole 'decoy' Bond girl act quite well, there's always at least one of them in a good Bond film, and I actually thought she was very good within those constraints. Anyway onto Lea Seydoux, my official new favourite Bond girl of all-time, surpassing Diane Rigg's Tracy Bond from On Her Majesty's Secret Service. She's a stunner, firstly, but more importantly she's an incredible actress. She starts off her character arc as Madeline Swann with that icy doctor routine that's really quite effective in establishing her independent nature. Even when kidnapped she's no helpless damsel in distress; unlike Eva Green in Casino Royale whose otherwise excellent performance I felt was slightly derailed by her becoming that very trope, Seydoux maintains that underlying strength of character through all her scenes. When she gets emotional it's properly moving; the scene where she watches footage of her father's suicide completely broke my heart. It's been a while since we've had a female Bond lead who's not only sexy and resourceful but carries sufficient depth to make the emotional beats of the
When she's flirty and playful it works equally well as her character really is a bit of a mess. A complex mess is what Seydoux makes out of her, and I thoroughly enjoyed and was even entertained by her whole routine as she shows so many different sides to this apparent cold individual; I really hope we do get to see more of her in the next film (although it's not really the norm for the series).
The supporting cast is great.
From thecelebrityauction.co
All hail Ralph Fiennes' big comeback. After a fantastic comedic lead turn in The Grand Budapest Hotel last year he's just splendid as M here. A properly intimidating authoritative figure to be sure, but this time round he gets to show a bit more than in Skyfall. He gets the juiciest punchline in the film and in between the action gets a whole lot of opportunity to make the character his own, and it's just wonderful. Speaking of wonderful, how good is Ben Whishaw? The talented chameleon has been a bit underutilized thus far in films like Suffragette but here his Q has once again, some fantastic chemistry with Craig, as well as some standalone moments that are hilarious. His response to finding out Bond's location, his reaction to threats against his two cats, are all comedic gold, and he brings the right sort of gravitas to the more serious moments too. Naomie Harris and Rory Kinnear don't get much to do, but are solid as always. Andrew Scott is the most obvious secondary villain ever, but nothing wrong with that--he milks it for all it's worth and I thoroughly enjoyed him hamming it up. David Batuista is the only member of the cast who I thought was underused. He's actually very well utilised as far as his physique and athletic prowess is concerned, and I'll get onto his highlight moment in a second, but Guardians of the Galaxy has convinced me that he can do so much more than punch faces in.
The action, drama, and humour are incredibly well merged
From Entertainment Weekly
The tone of Spectre hearkens back to that of the old Bonds, whereby the plot is essentially a sequence of 'moves' from place to place, in contrast to the more plot-driven nature of the previous three films. The nature of how the film leaps around both tonally and schematically could've gone awry had it not been for Craig's excellent handling of it in the lead role. There's a homage to From Russia with Love with Batuista enacting the Robert Shaw mode of silent intimidation (nowhere near as good as Shaw but then again that was Robert Shaw, and Batuista's still a beast). We bounce from one pictaresque location to another, sometimes simply for the sake of it. And it's great.
The whole existence of Spectre itself is a large pill to swallow and Mendes, sensibly, makes no mistake of hiding it. It's a classic Bond villain hideout which, merged with Waltz's tenuously close to the fourth wall approach, is just a deliciously extravagant touch.
Non-Deakins cinematography is still beautiful
I won't put any pictures here, just go see the film.
Sam Smith's 'Writings on the Wall' is my all-time favourite Bond tune
Move over McCartney, Durand Durand, Sheena Easton. Though he's been malinged a fair bit by the internet community I stand by Smith. It's just so perfectly fitting to that highly stylized opening credits, the lyrics just give the film such a sense of incredible grandeur, the way it's played in the leadup to the love scene between Craig and Seydoux is just scintillating.
In short: Spectre blends together the finest 'campy' elements of the old Bond films with some of the gritty realism of the new ones, is very innovative and intelligent in its mixing of the two, and is just a fun watch but also a deeply impactful one between the lines. See it if you haven't seen. Re-watch it if you have, and don't quite share my enthusiasm--my mission is to try and make as many people see Spectre for the masterpiece it is.
Cinematic adaptation of the written word is always tricky for the creative team behind it, particularly that of a beloved novel. Running time, censorship, marketability and even purely artistic decisions are among the many problems of transferring the written word onscreen which can easily clash with the fanbases over the whole finished product. What to have, or have not, from the books is not simply a petty case of inclusion and exclusion, nor even necessarily a mark of the film's quality (or lack thereof). A lot of time the whole issue comes down to adaptation fidelity. We like having an idea how an adaptation of our favourite book is going to look like on the silver screen; we want to identify with the characters like we did in the books, be engrossed in every literary details represented onscreen, every nook and cranny of the fictional world created brought to life. One can only begin to imagine the neuroses a filmmaker must endure when adapting any piece of work onscreen; Spike Jonze's terrific 2002 film Adaptation is probably a pretty good reflection of the painstaking process a writer must go through when finding some way, any way to infuse the cinematic into the literary.
Adaptation Distillation
It's a big issue, this whole relationship between novels and their film adaptations, so I think a good starting point would perhaps be with the most recurrent problem most people seem to have with adaptations, adaptation distillation. In layman terms, this is the cutting down of the source material--so to speak, 'distilling' certain aspects of plot and character through the filter of the film lens, screenwriters' hand and directorial choices, usually to make for a reasonable running time. Rarely is there an adaptation of any sort that does not 'distill' its source material, one way or the other. The main exceptions usually being short stories like A Christmas Carol, Brokeback Mountain, and some of Stephen King's adapted work. These require, instead, adaptation expansions, which are additions to the original text to lengthen the running time or add more plot elements (for example the inclusion of new characters into The Hobbit series to stretch one book into three films, any Dr. Seuss film, the excellent thriller Don't Look Now which changes a short but haunting Daphne Du Maurier story into a very in-depth character study of a grieving couple).
Full-length novels, however, would require an incredibly expansive miniseries - which is rarely an option - to fill in every single detail. Even a nearly four-hour long epic like Gone With the Wind required the cutting out of certain subplots and characters to manage it within even that hefty running time. It's not so much an issue of artistic licence as it is of pragmatism. Budgetary constraints aside, most people just wouldn't go out of their way to watch a film that pores over every single detail of its adapted source; this sort of limited scope would probably only appeal to the fandom of the novels. David Lean's two adaptations of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations and Oliver Twist are good examples of striking the balance between faithfulness and marketability of length and style. Elements of the original novel are changed—the latter even goes so far as to entirely remove the Rose Maylie subplot—but this doesn’t matter, it still successfully retain the atmospheric, barely controlled chaos of London presented by his prose and the characters perfectly embodied onscreen, particularly Alec Guiness who is unrecognizable as both Fagin and Herbert Pocket. Lean was a director who always had a firm, visionary outlook for all his films, and in his own class in imbuing his own style into films. I'll get more onto artistic licence in a bit, but Lean's Dickens adaptations, as well as some of his later, larger-scale work, most famously Bridge on the River Kwai, Dr Zhivago and of course, Lawrence of Arabia, show that there is a way to strike the balance between cutting down and adding on your own style and flair.
Not only a masterful actor, Sir Laurence Olivier was also a talent at 'cutting' Shakespeare down into an audience-friendly medium of film, while retaining the original spirit.
Another good example of this are Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh adaptations of Shakespeare's plays, which always make clear 'that it is an can only be, a pale version of the Shakespearean text' (Deborah Cartnell, The Shakespeare on Screen Industry, from 'Adapations: From Text to Screen, Screen to Text', 1999, Routledge: London and New York). They take various creative licenses--for example race-bending casting, increased British propaganda in Olivier's Henry V, stunt casting in Branagh's Hamlet--and cuts here and there to make it more appealing to the silver screen (although it should be noted that Branagh's version of the play is essentially the whole text in all its entirety onscreen), but still retain the Bard's original spirit through their faithful, respectful treatment of the source material.
Retrospective v.s. On-the-go Distillation
Though their characterizations were modified slightly, the general dynamic of the Fellowship remained unchanged post-adaptation.
So we've established that distillation itself is inevitable. The area requiring a bit more in the way of decision-making is what to distill, what to cut. Sometimes there are obvious things that can be cut, other times, however, it becomes a little less clear, and not just as a matter of fan appeasement, but as a matter of making the whole plot click. A crucial aspect of the cutting resides in determining how important the plot points are as cogs in the machine; whether removing it will remove more than just flavour and style to the novel but in fact, dig the unsuspecting filmmakers into a hole. In these situations, hindsight is crucial. The Lord of the Rings cinematic trilogy was filmed long after the books had been completed, and the parameters of Tolkein's whole fictional universe had been firmly established. With all this effectively set in stone, Peter Jackson and his entourage were thereby given a complete overview of the finished, all-encompassing whole of the trilogy to work with, and from this vast scope to then tinker with minor and major details here or there to make the story manageable for motion picture. Trimming downs and even complete excisions of certain scenes, as well as some significant realignment of plot points (moving the Shelob attack to Return of the King), was all done with the benefit of hindsight.
It's completely subjective whether it all 'works', so to speak, and I would never go so far as to say the trilogy is a completely faithful interpretation of the novels. The relative side-lining of Éomer's role, Tom Bombadil's excision, the removal of some of Gimli's more dramatic heft as a character to make him more of a comic relief character etc. differ from the novel significantly; but one thing Jackson and the scriptwriters did ensure was that even in places where the film and source material varied, they would all be means to a similar ends and conclusion. They took the recipe for a cake and modified it in bits and places, but always ensuring that nothing was missing, and that the final product would be realised in a similar fashion.
Could've been a much more powerful moment had they stuck to the books.
These 'retrospective adaptations' as I call them, have the benefit of hindsight, which the equally (if not even more so) global phenomenon that is J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, did not have. The escapades of the Boy Who Lived were filmed while Rowling was still working on the second half of her seven-book series. With guidance from Rowling herself and some luck they did manage to dodge some bullets (Matthew Lewis was definitely a stroke of luck for the casting crew, the exclusion of Peeves the Poltergeist didn't hurt them too much, and while they perhaps could've done without Grawp they didn't overuse him either) and didn't miss out too many plot points. However one can't help but think had they waited till the books were completed, how much more time could've perhaps been spent on the backstory of house elves Dobby and Kreacher (especially the latter), setting up Peter Pettigrew as not just a proverbial scoff for levity, but instead a full-fledged character in his own right, and what could've been done to smooth out other scruples fans like myself had with how some plot elements were brushed over, in favour of too much time spent on inconsequential love triangles and Quidditch matches.
It would've been very difficult for the filmmakers to, on the go, discern which and where to cut stuff; most of the time they stayed with playing it safe and focusing all characterization on the central trio, which worked to an extent, but also resulted in many of the more fan esoteric elements of the book being as developed as they could've been. Remus Lupin and Tonk's storyline might not have been as crucial to the plotline as say, the Deathly Hallows, but it would've been nice to have a bit more build-up to the emotional payoff their final scene with Harry requires of us.
The 'Skeleton' Adaptation
Another problem that faces adaptations, is when plot elements are so far removed from the source material that the originals seem to become mere skeletons of the original plot. Some critics argue that the act of transferring a character onscreen intrinsically simplifies him or her; and while that point must be held to a degree of contention, it is true that sometimes the act of going from page to screen must conform with certain 'changes necessary for dramatic effect in another medium, those required to conform to the producer's personal fantasies and his notions of what the public wants, and to meet the taboos of the Production code, and tailors it all to the screen personalities of the actors who will play the star roles' (H. Powdermaker, Hollywood the Dream Factory: An anthropologist looks at the movie makers,1951, London: Secker and Warburg, p. 153). A particular example of this would be the adaptations of the work of Raymond Chandler—or more specifically, Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, who has been portrayed onscreen multiple times in various adaptations, most notably in The Big Sleep (1946).
What John Paul Athansourelis calls the 'inherently cinematic quality of Chandler’s fiction' is ultimately upended by the conformities of the silver screen. The opening silhouettes of the two stars of the film, Bogart and Bacall, smoking during the opening credits of The Big Sleep clearly show that these two are to be the main attractions. The character of 'Silver Wig', a heartbreaking subversion of the typical blonde moll in noir fiction in the novel, is reduced to exactly that in the film adaptation; the final bleak twist of the novel is changed into a 'happy ending' with more resolution. One can argue in fact that Howard Hawks and the production team of The Big Sleep took the plot line from the novel and completely changed the tone from a gritty, downbeatin favour a lot of the deeper complexities of the novel and its darker, more sleazy elements are dropped not just due to the censorship of the times, but also due to the box-office necessity of any Bogart-Bacall coupling to be overflowing with innuendo and sexual tension, far removed from the terser and less savoury relationship between the two in the novel.
Edward Norton's narration in 'Fight Club' strikes the perfect balance with the film's tone
Adapting Narrative Voice
Also, Philip Marlowe being the first-person narrator of Chandler’s fiction poses a significant problem for any adaptation as the detective genre is one in which the first-person narrator, if (s) he is present, must act as a channel between reader and writer. Often the best way to go about adaptating this is the more straightforward route of eschewing the narrative voice and leaving it to the visual to convey the scene; for example, 'I recall it being a dusky dawn evening and mama sitting on the porch knitting', instead of having narration over it, just simply filmed and told without a disembodied voice providing commentary. This sort of 'external' narration is much easier to adapt than the 'internal' narration some novels hinge almost entirely upon; 'The Big Sleep' without Marlowe’s voice runs into a hurdle from the outset as it removes so much of the strong sense of vantage the novel provides with his sardonic yet meticulous narrative voice.
Graham Greene's 'The End of the Affair' is another notable example of the difficulty of adapting the narrative voice. It has twice been adapted to film, and the medium does kind of hurt the source material a bit. Every moment that strays from Maurice Bendrix's narrative voice, which writes 'against the bias because it is my professional pride to prefer the near-truth, even to the expression of my near-hate', kind of reduces the impact of the book's conflict between feigned objectivity and Bendrix's passions, as well as eschewing a whole lot of the whole metanarrative flair to Greene's story. The plot of The End of the Affair itself is strong enough to make a good enough skeleton for your typical melodramatic romance, but the near-impossibility of conveying Bendrix's narrative voice alongside it means that a lot of the novel's original power is lost.
There are ways in which narrative voiceover can work onscreen, whether it be in small portions at crucial moments (i.e. To Kill a Mockingbird) or as an extensive framing device (The Shawshank Redemption, Fight Club), but it is definitely a challenge; these successful adaptations have to not only employ is as an expositionary device, but also make it contingent with the fictional universe they are writing in. The narration in TKAM works so well because it feels so of its time; Morgan Freeman's voice simply just feels right reading Stephen King's words even if he's cast very differently to the Red envisaged in the books; Edward Norton's narration as the unnamed narrator in Fight Club is knowingly snarky, and fits right in with the tone David Fincher sets with the film.
Brody and his companions' plights are all the more soundly felt via adaptation.
Conclusion?
So is straying from the source material always a bad thing? Not necessarily. Sometimes taking the skeleton story and employing artistic license with the text, can bring about a masterpiece. Stanley Kubrick took a very serious, understated political thriller novel called Red Alert and turned it into the classic dark satire Dr Strangelove; Stephen Spielberg basically took just the idea of a giant killer shark from Jaws and turned it from a pulpy piece of horror fiction into a magnificent masterclass in suspense and characterization. David Lean, knowing that he could not possibly encompass all the elements of the epic Dr Zhivago into his adaptation, chose to make it mostly just one magnificent epic love story, and an incredibly compelling one at that; Milos Forman provoked the ire of Ken Kesey when he adapted the latter's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, because he had not kept in Chief Bromden's narrative POV, but Forman did his best to maintain the novel's representation of Jack Nicholson's Randle McMurphy as a sort of Christ figure to the asylum inmates, 'big as a damn mountain' through Nicholson's wonderfully grand performance, while still grounding it with the more objective film lens the flaws of the character.
Books and films, as two different forms of media, do (and rightly so) have different rules and expectations. The adaptation fidelity of a film to its original text should not be what it is measured against; rather the quality of the film should be judged in itself, before factoring its source material.
From what it seems so far, based on the screen time/focus devoted in the trailers and all, I think Daisy Ridley's Rey is going to be our 'lead' lead for The Force Awakens. Her reply of 'I'm no one' to queries about her identity just smacks of good old Luke Skywalker in the original trilogy to me: stuck in a rut on a desert planet, handy with gadgets, little droid by her side to accompany her on her travels (love that shot by the way).
And yeah, why not? I have yet to see Daisy Ridley in anything outside of these select Star Wars teasers I've perused on repeat for many, many hours on end, but she seems like a new talent on the rise, which can only mean good things.
Couple things I learnt about John Boyega's Finn. One, he's going to be played with an American accent by the British-born John Boyega. Two, there is some serious potential with this character, a whole new perspective never before explored in the films of an individual caught between the dark side, and the light, but not in the higher echelons, but instead the lowly level of Storm Trooper to...where, indeed?
I just love the voice the filmmakers/Adam Driver have opted for Kylo Ren. It's the right degree of guttural menace, but nicely differentiated from the legendary character the villain is emulating. Other than his obsession with Vader, much remains unknown, and I'd like it to be kept that way till December.
Oscar Isaac is awesome.
The first-billing placement, it seems, was no mere coincidence; it does seem like Han Solo's going to be playing the most vital role out of the original trio, in The Force Awakens. Can I just say how great it is to have Harrison Ford back as Solo? Already in a few brief snippets I get no sense of phoning it in for the paycheck, nor sense of character fatigue. No, Ford looks like he's ready to rumble.
Some of these shots are just BEAUTIFUL. Also is anyone getting ensemble dark horse vibes from Captain Phasma?
CHEWIE
Again, Daisy Ridley, it seems, will make or break this film. And here she's making a very strong case to root for her.
Nothing new here, just some more footage of Boyega taking up the lightsaber against Kylo Ren. I CAN'T WAIT.
Milton employs his grand style in both
Satan and God’s first speeches with their rhetorical forcefulness; there is
however, a significant difference to how it is conveyed through their respective
styles. Satan’s ‘bold words’, as Milton describes it, employ heightened
language and imagery (‘eternal war’, ‘high disdain’, ‘excess of joy’, ‘glorious
enterprise’, ‘transcendent brightness didst outshine myriads though bright’) to
convey his heightened emotions of ‘high disdain’ for empyreal heaven he has
been banished from. He combats the highest heavens by building up the stature
of his language to match the ‘dire arms’ of God with his ‘glorious enterprise’.
His power and supremacy is asserted through language, there is however also a
hint of excessiveness to his raging rhetoric. God almost seems to be commenting
on Satan’s excessive forcefulness of language when he muses on how Satan’s hate
is that which ‘the main abyss wide interrupt can hold’; his hateful ramblings
have rhetorical force but none of God’s intellect to back it up.
God, speaking from his ‘prospect high’ in
Heaven, uses equally forceful rhetoric as Satan does in describing how his hateful
phrases will ‘redound upon his own rebellious head’, and how he ‘created all
th’ethereal Powers and Spirits’ as ‘sufficient to have stood, though free to
fall’. However unlike Satan whose language is that which God describes as
having ‘all restraint broke loose’, God’s foreknowledge, with which ‘past,
present, future he beholds’, allows him to moderate his rhetoric so as to make
it both forceful, and intelligent. Satan’s overly emotional state of being does
not allow him such moderation. His hatred overflowing the ‘abyss’ is conveyed
through his language overflowing the boundaries of syntax. He is aware that he
lacks the ‘foresight much advanced’ that God has and bemoans it; he is aware
that he has to rely upon the resilience of his ‘unconquerable will…revenge,
immortal hate’, as well as deceit and trickery, to combat the ‘adverse power’
of God and the heavens.
Milton organises the intensities of God’s
rhetoric into bouts of inductive reasoning where he muses over the ‘sole
command, sole pledge’ of man’s ‘obedience’, and explores the themes of free
will defences (‘sufficient to have stood, though free to fall’ man was with
autonomy to choose between right and wrong), displaying an ability to reason
with his analysis of will and reason, predestination, and defending his own
foreknowledge for ‘their will, disposed by absolute decree or high
foreknowledge’. God is also depicted by Milton as assuredly aware of the
seeming contradictions between his foreknowledge, and the ‘unforeknown’ aspect
of the Fall as an acquittal of his foreknowledge; thus he focuses upon ‘they’
almost exclusively in the second half of his first speech to remove himself
from the picture, focusing on how man ‘decreed their own revolt’ and ‘ordained
their fall’.
David Reid sees this act of keeping oneself
‘out of the picture as long as possible’ as being‘noble emotion’, which Satan embraces in IV,
366-373, sustaining a noble sympathy for the ‘gentle pair’ and their/’your’
predicaments. However in Satan’s first speech he is more extremely preoccupied
with himself and shows it through his language, through his repeated use of
‘I’, ‘me’, and interlinking the other inhabitants of hell with him (they
experience ‘equal ruin’ as him, they are ‘joined with me’, he and his fellow
mates are in ‘mutual league’ and are ‘united thoughts and counsels, equal hope
and hazard in the glorious enterprise’). He frequently sees himself in others,
but this is due more to narcissism than equivocation with the people. Satan’s
self-absorption is palatably felt, possibly to compensate for the ‘horrid
silence’ of Hell by loudly, extravagantly making his presence felt to fill out
the empty spaces. He is ‘vaunting aloud, but racked with deep despair’, raising
his rhetoric in order to film the emptiness his powerlessness leaves him with.
