The struggles of adaptation
Pencil lead to Celluloid gold
Last Christmas, I was given a book by my parents. It was one I had asked for a few months prior and by all accounts I was lucky to get it. It turns out they had to import it from the US and it was quite difficult to find the specific edition I had asked for, but they pulled it off. And so I was given a beautifully wrapped copy a few days after Christmas when I went home for New Years. The book in question is House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. I wanted it after seeing it mentioned in a few youtube videos as an example of great modern suspense horror, and I felt like pushing the boat out (in regards to my horror aversion). Now, after finally finishing it I have three statements to make. 1) This book broke my mind. 2) You should definitely read it and 3) There is absolutely no way in hell you could make this into a movie.
Not to turn this into an A-Level English literary analysis, but some context on the books story is necessary. The story has four layers and four perspectives. Starting at the deepest layer is Will Navidson, a photographer who moves into a house in Virginia. And one day he finds out that the house is a few centimeters bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. And then the door appears in his living room. A door that leads into an impossible “Five and a half minute hallway” in the outer wall of his home. The filmed record of this event becomes “The Navidson Record”, which becomes the subject of a long form film analysis text by Zampano, an old man who has no real business watching movies for reasons I wont give away. His analysis become the property of Johnny Truant, an L.A tattoo artist and party fiend, who sets about reading and trying to figure out what is really going on with this film analysis of a film that no one can remember seeing. And that annotated film analysis of a film that may or may not exist of a house that defies all spatial logic is what you are reading. And all the 3 previous layers of the story play out at the same time, often on the same page. And parts of the text may be upside down, spaced randomly across the page or written in code. And that's to say nothing of the annotation of models of air extractors that sprawls across multiple pages before turning into a blue cube. And thats just the middle chapters.
Adapting this book into ONE film would be next to impossible. Its possible to maybe adapt the Navidson Record and Johnny Truants story into two separate movies and play them side by side Goodbye to Language style with Zampano's analysis playing over the top in V.O, but that movie would be unwatchable shit that no sane man could hope to follow, but more importantly it would ruin the tone and experience of reading the story in the way the book presents it. Whilst pondering this, I started thinking about the way books are adapted into films and if it is actually possible to make a truly faithful adaptation of a book into a film.
In short, no, no you cannot. Translating any medium into another is going to present certain unavoidable obstacles. For instances there are no real restrictions as to how long a book's story can run, or if there is no one told Tolstoy, but you make a film longer than two and a half hours and you're gonna start losing people. So you either have to cut out sections or characters or split the story into multiple films. Think Lord of the Rings or, appropriately enough, War and Peace. But in splitting up a story, the flow that comes from turning from one page to another is destroyed. And narrative flow is essentially to keep a story engaging. And while yes books are divided into chapters for a reason, namely to give the reader and writer and chance to resurface and breath, you can keep going at your discretion. You can't force a film to keep going after the credits because you want it to (as lovely as that would be).
And its is way to cheaper to just describe an environment than it is to build it. I could describe a building made entirely out of gold, studded with platinum and diamonds and not have to pay a penny. But to build it? Or even just a model? We're looking at a lot of plywood, sequins and spray paint at the very least. You only have to pay for ink with text, not teamsters and prop hands. And while yes some movies really go all out on their sets and produce remarkably faithful locals, such as Hogwarts in the Harry Potter series or the myriad Bond lairs, these were very difficult and expensive and there were many sacrifices and cuts made. And we also can't get away that ever reader is going to interpret a setting in a way wholly unique to themselves. And you can't please everybody, especially if the book in question has been selling like hot cakes.
In a similar vein, you have to be very careful with your casting choices or else people will kick off. And by people, I usually been teenagers and man/woman children who get overly protective of fictional characters supposed appearances. A lot of people will start to sound real racist if a character is a few shades different than they imagined when they read, regardless of what the author had in mind. For example the character of Rue in The Hunger Games was played by Amandla Stenburg, who is biracial. The character in the books was described as having “dark brown skin and eyes.” Do you see any real discrepancy in that casting choice? No? Well some people did and kicked off online about how their precious Rue was not supposed to be black. Did it affect the film's success? Again no, but it did attach a racially charged footnote to the films legacy which it can never really scrub off. Whilst it was not actually that impactful in the grand scheme, it does show that the process of adaptation is a battle between the intent of the author, the director's vision and the audience's imagination.
And let us not forget that the very name “book adaptation” makes some people cringe half to death. Me especially, I was a fan of the Eragon and Alex Rider books as a kid and what did I get? The a long and boring fantasy movie with John Malkovich for 3 minutes and a distinctly meh spy movie where the bad guy from Iron Man 2 makes computers and Major Winters from Band of Brothers tries and fails at a Russian accent. And both of them cut and condensed huge chunks of the story that they really should have kept in. And let us of course not forget Dune. Actually, lets forget Dune for now, that will get its turn later.
Whilst the previous examples were both total bombs, it is worth saying that a good few book adaptions have been run away successes. Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Kingsmen the Secret Service (technically a graphic novel but hey) and The Ten Commandments are all book adaptations that have all changed the game in some way shape or form. Making a film based on a book is easy. Adapting a book is. Adaptation is usually defined as the way something changes or is changed to better suit a new situation. In this case, that means shaving off the parts that would be impossible to film, stretching somethings and shrinking others and make some tough calls to get everything underway. If you follow the story beats, keep the characters and reach the same end as the book, you can at least say you tried your best. And while I can't speak for everyone (despite how much I act like it), audiences will appreciate it.
Whilst every book fan reacts with equal parts excitement and trepidation when they hear “movie deal” we all love knowing that the stories we love have been recognised. It tells us that other people love the same characters and stories we do, and we'll be able to share our passions and interest with both them and so many others, if only for a few short weeks. And yes the bad movies sting all the more when you hold the original text in such high regard, it makes the good ones all the more joyful. And that's what it should be about for the audience. Joy at seeing the characters and events you imagined come to life. Sure they don't look quite the same, and that building is quite as big as you thought and a couple scenes were cut for time, but it's that character! In that building! Doing that thing they did! On a screen! Adaptation is a risky business, fraught with pitfalls and risks and the occasional dead end, but it gives access to a wealth of stories and experiences that people keep coming back to again and again. And if great art can feed into great art, then mores the betters I say.
And whilst we're on the subject of beloved Y.A novel adaptations, I'm still waiting for those CHERUB movies Muchamore. Make it happen!
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| The book that made me lose sleep (but in a good way) |
Not to turn this into an A-Level English literary analysis, but some context on the books story is necessary. The story has four layers and four perspectives. Starting at the deepest layer is Will Navidson, a photographer who moves into a house in Virginia. And one day he finds out that the house is a few centimeters bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. And then the door appears in his living room. A door that leads into an impossible “Five and a half minute hallway” in the outer wall of his home. The filmed record of this event becomes “The Navidson Record”, which becomes the subject of a long form film analysis text by Zampano, an old man who has no real business watching movies for reasons I wont give away. His analysis become the property of Johnny Truant, an L.A tattoo artist and party fiend, who sets about reading and trying to figure out what is really going on with this film analysis of a film that no one can remember seeing. And that annotated film analysis of a film that may or may not exist of a house that defies all spatial logic is what you are reading. And all the 3 previous layers of the story play out at the same time, often on the same page. And parts of the text may be upside down, spaced randomly across the page or written in code. And that's to say nothing of the annotation of models of air extractors that sprawls across multiple pages before turning into a blue cube. And thats just the middle chapters.
Adapting this book into ONE film would be next to impossible. Its possible to maybe adapt the Navidson Record and Johnny Truants story into two separate movies and play them side by side Goodbye to Language style with Zampano's analysis playing over the top in V.O, but that movie would be unwatchable shit that no sane man could hope to follow, but more importantly it would ruin the tone and experience of reading the story in the way the book presents it. Whilst pondering this, I started thinking about the way books are adapted into films and if it is actually possible to make a truly faithful adaptation of a book into a film.
In short, no, no you cannot. Translating any medium into another is going to present certain unavoidable obstacles. For instances there are no real restrictions as to how long a book's story can run, or if there is no one told Tolstoy, but you make a film longer than two and a half hours and you're gonna start losing people. So you either have to cut out sections or characters or split the story into multiple films. Think Lord of the Rings or, appropriately enough, War and Peace. But in splitting up a story, the flow that comes from turning from one page to another is destroyed. And narrative flow is essentially to keep a story engaging. And while yes books are divided into chapters for a reason, namely to give the reader and writer and chance to resurface and breath, you can keep going at your discretion. You can't force a film to keep going after the credits because you want it to (as lovely as that would be).
And its is way to cheaper to just describe an environment than it is to build it. I could describe a building made entirely out of gold, studded with platinum and diamonds and not have to pay a penny. But to build it? Or even just a model? We're looking at a lot of plywood, sequins and spray paint at the very least. You only have to pay for ink with text, not teamsters and prop hands. And while yes some movies really go all out on their sets and produce remarkably faithful locals, such as Hogwarts in the Harry Potter series or the myriad Bond lairs, these were very difficult and expensive and there were many sacrifices and cuts made. And we also can't get away that ever reader is going to interpret a setting in a way wholly unique to themselves. And you can't please everybody, especially if the book in question has been selling like hot cakes.
In a similar vein, you have to be very careful with your casting choices or else people will kick off. And by people, I usually been teenagers and man/woman children who get overly protective of fictional characters supposed appearances. A lot of people will start to sound real racist if a character is a few shades different than they imagined when they read, regardless of what the author had in mind. For example the character of Rue in The Hunger Games was played by Amandla Stenburg, who is biracial. The character in the books was described as having “dark brown skin and eyes.” Do you see any real discrepancy in that casting choice? No? Well some people did and kicked off online about how their precious Rue was not supposed to be black. Did it affect the film's success? Again no, but it did attach a racially charged footnote to the films legacy which it can never really scrub off. Whilst it was not actually that impactful in the grand scheme, it does show that the process of adaptation is a battle between the intent of the author, the director's vision and the audience's imagination.
And let us not forget that the very name “book adaptation” makes some people cringe half to death. Me especially, I was a fan of the Eragon and Alex Rider books as a kid and what did I get? The a long and boring fantasy movie with John Malkovich for 3 minutes and a distinctly meh spy movie where the bad guy from Iron Man 2 makes computers and Major Winters from Band of Brothers tries and fails at a Russian accent. And both of them cut and condensed huge chunks of the story that they really should have kept in. And let us of course not forget Dune. Actually, lets forget Dune for now, that will get its turn later.
Whilst the previous examples were both total bombs, it is worth saying that a good few book adaptions have been run away successes. Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Kingsmen the Secret Service (technically a graphic novel but hey) and The Ten Commandments are all book adaptations that have all changed the game in some way shape or form. Making a film based on a book is easy. Adapting a book is. Adaptation is usually defined as the way something changes or is changed to better suit a new situation. In this case, that means shaving off the parts that would be impossible to film, stretching somethings and shrinking others and make some tough calls to get everything underway. If you follow the story beats, keep the characters and reach the same end as the book, you can at least say you tried your best. And while I can't speak for everyone (despite how much I act like it), audiences will appreciate it.
Whilst every book fan reacts with equal parts excitement and trepidation when they hear “movie deal” we all love knowing that the stories we love have been recognised. It tells us that other people love the same characters and stories we do, and we'll be able to share our passions and interest with both them and so many others, if only for a few short weeks. And yes the bad movies sting all the more when you hold the original text in such high regard, it makes the good ones all the more joyful. And that's what it should be about for the audience. Joy at seeing the characters and events you imagined come to life. Sure they don't look quite the same, and that building is quite as big as you thought and a couple scenes were cut for time, but it's that character! In that building! Doing that thing they did! On a screen! Adaptation is a risky business, fraught with pitfalls and risks and the occasional dead end, but it gives access to a wealth of stories and experiences that people keep coming back to again and again. And if great art can feed into great art, then mores the betters I say.
And whilst we're on the subject of beloved Y.A novel adaptations, I'm still waiting for those CHERUB movies Muchamore. Make it happen!
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