Madame Bovary: From Book to Screen - Essay Example

? OF THE OF PROFFESSOR Madame Bovary: From Book to Screen Hypertextuality is the term used to indicate the relationship between two texts, one is called hypo-text (from which a new text is generated) and the other is called hypertext (which is a modified form of previous text). This Hypertextuality has also an impending appliance in cinema, especially in those films which are derived from already existing texts, such as novels, short stories, plays etc., in a way more specific and precise than that suggested by term intertextuality. Filmic adaptations of novels are hypertext generated from hypo text. This transformation of a text from a book to a screen takes place by selection, amplification, concretization and actualization (Stam 209). For all the movies we watch and their hypo text novels we read, there is always an ongoing comparison between the hypo text and its adaptation. No adaptation can be similar to its hypo text, but the argument needs to look past the surface that whether the movie was accurately adapted to its hypo text or does it make any significant changes. Though, the quality of an adaptation is also an important part, but this question requires consideration that whether any important aspect of the novel or hypo text was left out or considered useless while making its adaptation. Whether the director visually presented the storyline as it was in the novel or has he changed the setting or any character’s attributes, which create a drastic change and also whether the film is realistic, but true to the hypo text. Although there are some aspects in the novels or text that are on purpose played down in a movie, for example any scenes of murder or suicide, if they are too violent and obscene. Film producers and directors sometimes change such scenes to give it a nicer or at least a normal look. Each Genre has its own means of expression, its own strengths and weaknesses, although, this barely arguable claim allow us to see the difference between conception vs. perception (Donaldson 234). In the case of Madam Bovary, The filmic adaptation of the novel was quite good. The awesome attentiveness of Jennifer Jones’s performance as the lead role is the source of eminence for Vincente Minnelli’s melodramatic 1949 adaptation of Gustave Flaubert’s novel. The movie begins with the trial of Flaubert for obscenity in the year 1857, and the author defends himself and his book. Author then tells the story from his point of view, purifying its style and narrative into a story about a young woman’s ruined romantic dreams. As stated by Sander’s (2006), “More obvious concerns are those texts where the author is appropriating the known facts of a particular event…..in order to shape its fiction”. There are differences between the movie and the novel, but they were needed to make to make the movie acceptable to the audience. As it was released in the year 1949, in a more ethically firm America and when infidelities of women were considered a very obscene act. Naturally, Minnelli could not picture in detail whatever happened in the novel. Flaubert’s received a lot of criticism due to Madam Bovary, as it was considered morally and ethically, a shocking and upsetting writing, which endangered the society’s principles. It was a story about a woman, who was willing to do anything for fame and fun, a woman who was unfaithful to her husband and didn’t care whether he knew about her acts or not. Emma was fascinated with the aesthetics, which becomes apparent by her adolescence behavior at the convent where she indulges into sentimentality rather than devotion to God, which she was supposed to learn. Emma’s character dwells in beauty as it offers her haughty ideas of aspiration. She tries to overcome her complexes by spending so much time and money to buy many items for improving her appearance. Her lover’s good appearances were in contrast to Charles’s negligence. The shakiness of Flaubert’s ethics is understood in the outset. Most important thing in the novel is the most crucial as well i.e., the trend of beauty. So far, depiction of appearances and character’s indulgences are a bit easy to picture for the screen, but the real challenge lies in executing the task aesthetically. The beauty becomes dangerous because its approval lies outside the limits of ethics, but it’s also non-ethical in its innocence. The assertion or the argument between the aesthetics and ethical represents the main correspondence between the characters and the readers. The narrator’s shifting signals have the effect of trapping the reader in their own version of predicament between ethics and aesthetics. The aesthetics of the performance claims the ethics of the chronicler’s managing the characters of the story or handling of the narrative situation by the performer or the reader. For example, in Madam Bovary use of the first person narration is a kind of friendship invitation between the reader and the storyteller or Flaubert’s presence defending his case in the court, creates a kind of artistic relationship between the reader/viewer and the storyteller. Flaubert’s novel was more of alluring aesthetically then the movie, but Minnelli’s version was strong on ethical grounds. The novel was released in the year 1856 in France and the movie was released in 1949 in America. There is difference of almost a century between making of the film and publishing of the novel as well as the place of hypo text’s release. Even after 93 years, the audience and the readers were still unable to digest all the adulterous acts of Emma Bovary. She was still, after such a long time and in such a different place, considered a sinful and morally disgraceful character. Emma was lured by aesthetics, even though her story is played out in nineteenth century. Her ethical obligations are to her husband, but her aesthetical inclination is towards her love of fame and beauty. If Minnelli would have depicted every detail of the novel into the motion picture, then he might have faced the same charges as Flaubert did. Some publication of Flaubert’s novel had a description of the court case where he defended himself, saying that the end of the novel could be seen as a moral conclusion for young girls to see the outcomes of the choices Madam Bovary makes. During the trial Flaubert was criticized that Emma Bovary’s enjoyed committing adultery, which was blameworthy. Flaubert’s novel was blamed to endanger the dignity of society. The real accusation against Flaubert was writing against ethics and religion. Considering the fact, Minnelli did a job, which was ethically appropriate and executed it in an aesthetic manner. Although, art can be a two featured sword, it can be ethically appropriate but aesthetically an ignorant piece or vice versa. In general, both ethical and aesthetic aspects are required to describe any act or even any aspect of life (Eaton 269). Marcia Eaton has described various aspects of sentimentality in terms of ethics and aesthetics, which according to her differ as per reaction of the reader or it might be defect of the work itself. In 1949, when motion pictures were not much familiarized with new technology as today, Minnelli did a good job to bring the novel to life. He did cut some scenes due to the same reason of lack of techniques to film them, but captured important parts of the novel. Externalization of the thoughts of characters is an important challenge faced by the filmmaker who intends to adapt a literary work to the screen. Assessing Madam Bovary’s character, this was an important aspect, not just because of her disloyal thoughts, but most of the characters of the novel were not in a habit of expressing their ideas and opinions. Minnelli had to use different voice-overs to cover up deficiency of this genre, which was a better choice than expansion of dialogues. The adaptation succeeded in portraying novel’s some of the better known themes: oppressive lives of nineteenth century women and rebellious spirit of a woman trapped in a marriage to a dull man, dangers of unnecessary consumerism, parsimoniousness and acquisitiveness of bourgeoisie, unfulfilled expectations and desires. It is fair to say that film of the novel has succeeded in giving life to the characters and the stories. There are a few shortcomings of the adaptation such as; change of the storyline or let’s say story of a side character. Hippolyte’s surgery, though took place in the novel, didn’t happen in the movie. Minnelli might have thought it would be too violent to show a surgery of a live person or there might be lack of technology to show such a surgery. If that was the case, director could have done the same thing as he did with the sex scenes, i.e., simply to move the camera somewhere else while operation is taking place. As Hippolyte’s did not play a major role in the novel, this didn’t make much of a distinction in the tale. Only an allusion of Hippolyte’s surgery, which didn’t take place in the movie, but in the novel due to Charles’s incompetency Hyppolyte gets gangrene infection after surgery. Neither Hippolyte nor his surgery was important, but Charles’s competence at his work was an important factor to be depicted by the author. In that way director did better than the author. To back out at the last moment of the surgery shows serious concerns about his behavior. Reinvention of history or rearrangement of few facts in the adaptation to salvage the moral conclusion given by the hypo text is the art of fiction (Sanders 142). Death of Emma Bovary, which was caused by Arsenic, was not that violent as it should have been in the case of arsenic poisoning. It was a typical and peaceful way of suicide, but it didn’t work out her way she wanted it to happen and she died after suffering. It might be filmed this way to show that committing adultery is a painful sin. It leaves the adulterer in pain and misery and even death doesn’t accept the adulteress willingly. This is evoking the method of truth and fiction. (Sanders 142) The movie didn’t change the truth, but illustrated the death of Emma in such a way that it gives a slightly different meaning. There is a correlation between narrator’s tactics and reader’s or viewer’s of its motion picture responses. With a little difference, viewers are determined to admire the artifact, but may remain deeply troubled by its ethical implications. As Sanders (2006) states, “History, literary, or otherwise, is being redeployed in order to indicate those communities, whose stories have not been told before” (140). The story in the movie was told from Flaubert’s point of view as the film began with his court trial. Flaubert is trying to defend himself in the movie and thus, retells the story in a more morally acceptable tone then it really was. According to some critics, the film is the “glossed over” version of actual novel to support Flaubert’s case. “It is forging history into fiction, in an effort to give a voice to the silenced” (Sanders 146). Although Flaubert’s own characterization of his position in relation to his narrative was also considered ethically wrong for he claimed to be in his creation like God, Invisible, but felt everywhere. Works Cited Top of Form Top of Form Donaldson-Evans, Mary. Madame Bovary at the Movies: Adaptation, Ideology, Context. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009. Print. Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary. New York: Random House, 1957. Print. Minnelli, Vincente, et al. Madame Bovary. Burbank, CA: Distributed by Warner Home Video, 2007. Print. Top of Form Eaton, Marcia M. "Laughing at the Death of Little Nell: Sentimental Art and Sentimental People." American Philosophical Quarterly. 26.4 (1989): 269-282. Print. Bottom of Form Sanders, Julie. Adaptation and Appropriation. London: Routledge, 2006. Print. Top of Form Top of Form Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Top of Form Stam, Robert, Robert Burgoyne, and Sandy Flitterman-Lewis. New Vocabularies in Film Semiotics: Structuralism, Post-Structuralism, and Beyond. London: Routledge, 1992. Print. Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Read More