Difficulties in Screening Books - Essay Example

Introduction (Multi-modal Text) The major difference between books and films is that visual images stimulate our perceptions directly while books dothis indirectly through imagination. The first sentence “Christie Malry was a simple person” implies several meanings, in fact, different meanings to different people. In the novel “Christie Malry’s Own Double Entry,” the author is trying to shape the reader’s thoughts and this requires a mental image where readers use their imagination of what their own interpretations of “a simple man” is. A simple man can mean someone who is simple in his tastes or wants, a person who choses to live his life simply without any trappings. It is a readers own individual interpretation of what he reads that fixes that mental image. In the case of Mr. Malry, an example of this simpleness is evidenced by a lack of feeling any real outrage towards the supervisor who had berated him for being absent without any notice due to the sudden death of his mother. Christie was merely annoyed but not angered by this supervisors unfeeling and unsympathetic attitude towards his mothers death and compounded by deliberately calling him names (Johnson 39). Watching an adapted film version of the novel would give us a chosen actors image who was styled from wardrobe to make-up by the special effects team to fit the director’s vision or perceptions of “a simple man” and the end results depend a lot on the director’s perceptions. Written text from a book or novel can have a richness of descriptions that can never be captured on film. The best that can be done will be an approximation of that richness. Another issue is the material that can be converted from book to film and to determine which portions of it are relevant to be included in the film. Who will decide then which parts to include and which parts to exclude since the time in a film is short and will not allow everything in the book to be included? Discussion For this coursework, I chose to explore the pros and cons of creating adapted film of the novel “Christie Malry’s Own Double Entry.” There will always be debate as to which view will ultimately prevail. However, it is generally agreed that the spirit of a text or written word is always equated with the spirit, thought and intent of the author rather than the viewer (Ryan 223). This is the very essence of quality in literary art and is always associated with authorial intent. In instances of books brought to the screen, film directors always tend to ask themselves if this is what the author wanted. A question is how to remain true to an authors spirit or whether to take some artistic license during the films production. An important related question often in these cases is whether film audiences will like the final production output. There are two kinds of audiences when making adaptations of a book: those who had read the book and those who had not. It can be said that the spirit of the text remains regardless of the form it takes and this had been exemplified in cases where a film adaptation was made very quickly after a books publication and the result is where readers can more accurately remember characters and narrative incidents in the books than what was shown on the films (Geraghty 104). Classic book adaptations in general encourage faithfulness to it. This very spirit of the author is exemplified by a passage in the novel that Christie is of average height and weight with an admission no amount of descriptive text can ever hope to make a complete description of the main character of Christie. Author Johnson invites us to have imagination that implies we characterize Christie as someone similar to us. This way, the author solves his own problem of how best to describe his character by asking us to make our own descriptions. Besides, the author said time is running out with, Christie remarking the novel is short (Johnson 40). A main difficulty in transforming book into film is how to convey an idea in the book to a scene in the film that can be easily understood by audiences. There is a big danger here if the director and scriptwriter are not careful. Certain ideas put on the film can be misconstrued by an audience (especially those not familiar with the book). An example are the self-arguments going on inside Christies mind when he realized the beauty of the double-entry system (after taking up an accountancy course) and decides to use this system to settle perceived injustices he got from society as a whole. He comes up with the idea certain people had limited his choices and decides to take some form of revenge. In this portion of the novel, he takes offense at an office block and gets his sense of reward by making an unsightly line scratching the building with a coin (Johnson 24). This act can be seen on film but what cannot be conveyed to an audience were the debates in his mind. Other ideas in the novel can easily be reflected on film, such as Christies growing sense of anger and shown in bigger acts of revenge that now target whole society and not just specific individuals. This increasingly growing angst has jumped from mere bomb hoaxes to planning large-scale retribution by mass poisoning of Londons water supplies which are portrayed on film but putting thoughts to film is difficult. One way to circumvent this limitation is hiring actors who are “perceptual thinkers” and very good at putting thoughts into their own personal feelings and style (Semsel, Xia & Hou 158). Some things just simply cannot be adequately captured on film no matter how good a director is. Sometimes, the novel loses representational authority when made on film and it is the novel that gets edited instead of the film. Film researchers are often forced to change the novel to suit directorial requirements. A frequent complaint among literary purists is directors often take compromises with the material. These directors also often assume (quite wrongly) that their intended film audiences are ignorant of their source (Griffin 296). This adaptation of the novel (the act of adapting it) such as inventing creative dialogue and changing the plot in the novel (like certain scenes in different sequences) can cause confusion among viewers. There are three basic ways of translating a printed work into script form: just follow the book closely, select only a few key scenes or write an original screenplay based on the book. This is due to the visual nature of the film that by necessity time is shortened to key episodes. This means certain paragraphs or entire pages in a book can be condensed into one quick shot by the film maker (Manchel 1305). In the film, Moran who plays the character of Christie, dressed simply conveys the concept of “a simple man” and this is further reinforced by making him speak to himself at times wishing only for sex and money, common everyday things ordinary persons want, so this makes characterization and definition of what constitutes “a simple man.” Humour is injected by the fact that although Moran (Christie) is daily exposed to lots of money while working in a bank, all those riches are not his to begin with and he has to be content with a simple life. This is an example of how Christie is shown takes artistic challenge while trying to remain true to the authors spirit intent. We can say that any adaptation (film, stage or television) opens up different aspects of the main characters or protagonists in the novel. Film media allows characterizations through inventive casting (choosing who can best portray a character among several qualified actors). A good scriptwriter can enhance a novel, in cooperation with the director, such as giving the novels plot a new twist through a series of flashbacks, quality editing and engaging dialogue. In Christie Malry, film directors have a good opportunity to really portray his descent from mere anger to murderous intentions by sudden swerves in the book but this abruptness also presents problems (Gibson 93). Conclusion The film version of Johnsons novel provides rich opportunities for a director to employ various cinematic techniques because the novel has plenty of text which are self-reflexive which can be interpreted precisely to suit an intended audience. But if the novel is updated or re-interpreted in a large way, it will lose its very essence which was discussed in the early pages of this paper. The authors spirit or intent will be lost. The novel is episodic in nature as evidenced by the sudden swerves, jumping from one chapter format to another format, from one theme to another theme and as shown by the authors penchant for radical surprises in his narrative techniques. This is the challenge for the film maker, making the novels complicated plot understandable to the audience without losing the authors original meaning. Johnson himself expressed the view that the novel has been superseded by the cinema as delivery mode for story telling in modern times which was why he wrote in short disparate rhythms. Voices, tones, modes and perspectives can change suddenly in the novel characterized by the sudden swerves mentioned earlier as if he had intended his books made into films. It is the view today that language as the major medium for representation and common communication is slowly going from the written text to the visual form (Dijk 257). Works Cited Geraghty, Christine. Now A Major Motion Picture: Film Adaptations of Literature and Drama. Genre and Beyond. Lanham, Maryland, USA: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008. Gibson, Andrew. Postmodernity, Ethics and the Novel: From Leavis to Levinas. Florence, Kentucky, USA: Routledge, 1999. Griffin, Susan M. Henry James Goes to the Movies. Lexington, Kentucky, USA: University Press of Kentucky, 2001. Johnson, Bryan Stanley. Christie Malrys Own Double-Entry. New York, New York, USA: New Directions Publishing, 1985. Manchel, Frank. Film Study: An Analytical Bibliography. Vol 2. Madison, New Jersey, USA: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1990. Ryan, Marie-Laure. Narrative Across Media: The Languages of Storytelling. Lincoln, Nebraska, USA: University of Nebraska Press, 2004. Semsel, George Stephen, Xia, Hong & Hou, Jian Ping. Chinese Film Theory: A Guide to the New Era. Santa Barbara, California, USA: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1990. Stam, Robert & Raengo, Alessandra. Literature and Film: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Film Adaptation. Hoboken, New Jersey, USA:Wiley-Blackwell, 2005. van Dijk, Teun Adrianus. Discourse as Structure and Process. City Road, London, UK: Sage Publications, Ltd., 1997. Read More

A question is how to remain true to an authors spirit or whether to take some artistic license during the films production. An important related question often in these cases is whether film audiences will like the final production output. There are two kinds of audiences when making adaptations of a book: those who had read the book and those who had not. It can be said that the spirit of the text remains regardless of the form it takes and this had been exemplified in cases where a film adaptation was made very quickly after a books publication and the result is where readers can more accurately remember characters and narrative incidents in the books than what was shown on the films (Geraghty 104).

Classic book adaptations in general encourage faithfulness to it. This very spirit of the author is exemplified by a passage in the novel that Christie is of average height and weight with an admission no amount of descriptive text can ever hope to make a complete description of the main character of Christie. Author Johnson invites us to have imagination that implies we characterize Christie as someone similar to us. This way, the author solves his own problem of how best to describe his character by asking us to make our own descriptions.

Besides, the author said time is running out with, Christie remarking the novel is short (Johnson 40). A main difficulty in transforming book into film is how to convey an idea in the book to a scene in the film that can be easily understood by audiences. There is a big danger here if the director and scriptwriter are not careful. Certain ideas put on the film can be misconstrued by an audience (especially those not familiar with the book). An example are the self-arguments going on inside Christies mind when he realized the beauty of the double-entry system (after taking up an accountancy course) and decides to use this system to settle perceived injustices he got from society as a whole.

He comes up with the idea certain people had limited his choices and decides to take some form of revenge. In this portion of the novel, he takes offense at an office block and gets his sense of reward by making an unsightly line scratching the building with a coin (Johnson 24). This act can be seen on film but what cannot be conveyed to an audience were the debates in his mind. Other ideas in the novel can easily be reflected on film, such as Christies growing sense of anger and shown in bigger acts of revenge that now target whole society and not just specific individuals.

This increasingly growing angst has jumped from mere bomb hoaxes to planning large-scale retribution by mass poisoning of Londons water supplies which are portrayed on film but putting thoughts to film is difficult. One way to circumvent this limitation is hiring actors who are “perceptual thinkers” and very good at putting thoughts into their own personal feelings and style (Semsel, Xia & Hou 158). Some things just simply cannot be adequately captured on film no matter how good a director is.

Sometimes, the novel loses representational authority when made on film and it is the novel that gets edited instead of the film. Film researchers are often forced to change the novel to suit directorial requirements. A frequent complaint among literary purists is directors often take compromises with the material. These directors also often assume (quite wrongly) that their intended film audiences are ignorant of their source (Griffin 296). This adaptation of the novel (the act of adapting it) such as inventing creative dialogue and changing the plot in the novel (like certain scenes in different sequences) can cause confusion among viewers.

There are three basic ways of translating a printed work into script form: just follow the book closely, select only a few key scenes or write an original screenplay based on the book. This is due to the visual nature of the film that by necessity time is shortened to key episodes. This means certain paragraphs or entire pages in a book can be condensed into one quick shot by the film maker (Manchel 1305).

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