by Linda Seger
If the narration is in the first person, the translation will usually be easier. Some narration can be adapted into dialogue, some even into images. But this will depend on how much of this narration is inner dialogue that could become talky, how much is simply philosophizing, and how much, with some reworking, can be dramatic and relational.
The film Deliverance handled this translation well (James Dickey wrote both the book and the screenplay). Much of the film dialogue expands on narration and images in the book, like Lewis’s comment on the building of the dam: “You know what’s going to happen, they’re going to rape the whole landscape … . It’s the last chance to see the river … the end of the line … . Sometimes you have to lose yourself before you find anything … . Machines are going to fail and the system’s going to fail—and then survival. Whoever has the ability to survive.”
Dialogue in the film picks up the idea of the “nine-fingered” backwoods people with the line “Talk about genetic deficiencies. »
Lewis says, “I don’t believe in insurance, there’s no risk.”
The wilderness-versus-civilization theme is highlighted with the line “What law? Where is the law?” as the men decide what to do with the dead body, and reflect on the new rules in the wilderness.
Story choices become one of the best indications of the adaptability of one form to another. Action is the key to drama, and if most of the story is reflection, pondering, and philosophizing, either by writer or character, there will not be sufficient action to move the story and engage the audience.
Character choices can provide some of the action, but in novels and stories there can be both active and reflective choices. Novels are particularly good at conveying the subtle, small, inner choices that characters can make that both reveal character and inspire transformations. Although these more subtle choices can add shading and detailing to a character, they are not strong enough to rely on as the major focus of a film.
If the character choices are active, there will be a better chance of success, since the choices will contribute to the story and action of the film. If they are inner and reflective, the translation may be more difficult.
Film is an image medium. It relies strongly on the picture to move the story, reveal character, and express the theme. Sometimes a novel may contain few images, and yet can potentially make an easy translation into film because the images are implied. Other novels may contain a great deal of description, but none of it strong enough to create vital cinematic images.
FINDING THEMES IN TRUE-LIFE STORIES
In a novel or play, the original author has already interpreted the material. The theme is usually apparent and has already been worked out. In a true-life story, finding the theme is more difficult because a life contains more potential themes than any book or play. If a screenwriter options a published biography, the original author has already made some thematic choices, which makes the screenwriter’s job easier. But many films are based on more than one book, and some are based on interviews and research material that must be sorted through and refined by the writer.
In these cases, the story you decide to tell will depend partly on the theme you want to express. Where is the meaning in a life? What do you want to say about this person’s choices? What issues do they raise? Will you focus on the person’s triumph over adversity, thereby making it a “triumph of the human spirit” story? Will you focus on his or her rise and fall, thereby showing that “crime doesn’t pay” or “power corrupts” or “ambition unchecked leads to disaster”? Will you show his or her struggle to succeed in order to show that “determination pays off”?
Clarifying the theme means continually sorting through story material to see what events can prove your theme. If you choose “ambition unchecked leads to disaster,” you will be selecting incidents that show an ambitious person being brought down. Perhaps there will be incidents showing ambitious choices made to the detriment of integrity or honesty. Perhaps there will be a subplot showing how professional ambition ruined a person’s family life or friendships.
As with novels and plays, you’ll also be looking for images, dialogue by or about the person, as well as the person’s own reflections about life to discover and express the theme.
NONFICTION MATERIAL BASED ON AN IDEA
In most cases when you’re adapting nonfiction material based on an idea, you’re adapting the theme. You are looking for the idea within the book or article and creating an original screenplay that expresses this idea.
Sometimes you might decide to option a book because the title is snappy and evocative and could make the project salable. With a psychological self-help book you might find a case study that could be the jumping-off point for creating a character or situation or even a story line.
These are the most difficult adaptations because you’re trying to conform to a particular idea and yet you’re writing an original screenplay. You don’t have the guidance of a story and characters, but you also don’t have the freedom of creating an original screenplay because you’re trying to stay true to a particular idea and often to a particular title.
The more creative you can be with this material, the better chance you have of making this kind of adaptation work. I’m sure that Dr. David Ruben did not expect Woody Allen to create the anxious talking sperm for his adaptation of Ruben’s Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex but Were Afraid to Ask, and yet this is one of the most workable nonfiction adaptations because Allen did not allow the content and style of the material to limit him.
Another workable adaptation was the television movie of Having It All based on Helen Gurley Brown’s book. The idea of a woman having job, husband, and happiness was explored in the film through a main character who not only has a successful job but a husband on each coast. This is not what Helen Gurley Brown had in mind as an example of “having it all,” but her idea served as a leaping-off place for creating a comic approach to the material.
If you decide to do this kind of adaptation, think of it as creating an original screenplay. You will probably need to do a certain amount of brainstorming about what the theme means to you personally and what it might mean to audiences. You might think about characters you know who exemplify this idea or story lines that might work with the idea.
Two books that have been optioned by several producers and writers over a long period of time have been The Great American Man Shortage and Women Who Love Too Much. No one, however, has yet found the right approach to the books in spite of the good ideas and the strong “hook” within both the titles and the material.
APPLICATION
The Phantom of the Opera is rich with themes. There are the psychological themes of obsession, revenge, betrayal, power, manipulation, and courageous love. There are universal themes of good against evil and dark versus light. There are mythic echoes of the Beauty and the Beast story, the Faust story, the story of Oedipus, of Orpheus, and the hero’s journey.
The setting of the play and the dialogue imply other themes of illusion versus truth, about masking and unmasking one’s true nature, about seeing into the heart. And many images are carried through sound, particularly through the music and the lyrics.
All of these themes suggest images; any number of them would be workable for a director. The journey image was beautifully shown in the play, as we watched the Phantom leading Christine to his lair, moving back and forth across the stage as if through a maze. (I understand two doubles were used to achieve this effect.)
The contrast of the color and brightness of the stage with the darkness and concealment of the Phantom’s lair is both thematic and imagistic. This contrast is further reinforced through the lyrics of the Phantom’s song—“The Music of the Night”—when he calls upon Christine’s “dark side” to respond to his music.
There are several images in the play that suggest illusion versus truth and could be further expanded upon. Christine disappears through a mirror. There are mirrors in the dressing rooms. A theatre
implies curtains, frames, and a difference between reality and illusion.
There are a number of mask images. Not only does the Phantom wear a mask, but the second act of the play begins with the song “Masquerade” as the chorus sings about the spectacle of the colorful masks that disguise the truth. There is no lack of images, dialogue, and music that can reinforce this theme.
Although all of the above themes are carried through images, dialogue, and story movement and should translate well into film, the chosen theme also needs to be personal. We need to be able to identify with the events and see their significance for our own lives. To understand the personal theme, we must look at the focal characters: the Phantom, Raoul, and Christine.
These three characters all take a journey in this story. The Phantom’s journey takes him into some degree of light and love, and then into increasing darkness and revenge. Christine’s journey takes her from seduction to escape. And Raoul’s journey takes him into love and heroic action to save his beloved.
Some of these journeys echo myths and fairy tales. Most fairy tales show a heroic journey as one character overcomes any number of obstacles that get in the way. Many myths have images of entrapment, manipulation, and overcoming evil. When exploring a theme such as this, one might explore it by researching fairy tales that echo each of the characters, perhaps by reading some material on the meaning of myth such as Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces or The Power of Myth or by watching sections of the Bill Moyers series on Campbell. Clarifying the myth can help a writer pull out elements that may be latent in the story, but can be developed.
When looking for myths that can help us understand the Phantom, we might think of the Beauty and the Beast story or the Grimms’ fairy tale “The Man in the Bearskin.” In these stories, though, the character’s ugliness covered up a good soul. The Phantom thinks of himself as having a good and loving soul; in actuality, his soul is tortured, despairing, enraged, and vengeful. This suggests a personal theme related to the Phantom about the potential of both love and hate to change our actions and our souls. It also suggests some identification between audience and character. Recently I spoke to someone who had seen the play six times and asked him what kept drawing him to it. He emphasized the compassion he felt for the Phantom, the feeling that we have all felt ugly and unworthy at some point in our lives and have probably all experienced unrequited love.
Christine is under the power of both sides of the Phantom’s soul. At its most basic, the story is a horror story about the Phantom’s obsession with Christine, about how he terrorizes her and about her rescue by the heroic and loving Raoul. It is also about the shattering of her illusions. Christine is a key character who has something to teach us about our own experiences and reactions to obsession, darkness, or manipulation.
We can experience several areas of identification with Christine. Most of us have at some time felt under someone’s spell. We don’t always see clearly. Many of us have probably been in love with people who weren’t good for us. Perhaps we felt we could save the beloved’s soul, only eventually to discover the power of their shadow. Many of us can identify with the choices between darkness and light. Like Christine, on some level we also might have had to make choices about whether we’d be “a bride of darkness or a bride of the light.”
There certainly is seduction, obsession, and darkness in our world and in our lives. Although these themes are not all equally clear in the play, they are contained in the material. If the writer, director, and actors can bring these themes into focus, there will be sufficient areas of identification between audience and film.
8
CREATING AND SHADING STYLE, MOOD, AND TONE
Most workable films are realistic. The realistic style is the most accessible to mass audiences, the most easily understood, and the clearest. It’s like real life.
Few films use styles other than realism. Those that do have rarely been box office successes. Think of the black comedies Crimes of the Heart or Prizzi’s Honor, the absurdist (expressionist) After Hours, or the overblown style of Bonfire of the Vanities. Although the first three did receive some critical acclaim, they were not box office successes. However, not all nonrealistic films have failed. Dick Tracy, Roger Rabbit, and Batman have proved that certain nonrealistic styles, done well, can be successful. Many European films have been critically (and sometimes commercially) acclaimed for their use of distinctive style—the existential style of Blow-Up, the exaggerations of Fellini, the symbolism of Ingmar Bergman.
What is style? And why is style so difficult to adapt from one medium to another?
DEFINING STYLE
Style is the particular way that a film is executed. It’s separate from the content of the material. Style is not the subject matter, the story line, the theme, or the characters; it is the particular way that these elements are presented. Two thousand years ago, Aristotle said, “It’s not enough to know what to say, but it is necessary also to know how to say it.” Before we can begin to understand the problems of translating the style, it’s important to understand exactly what style is, in both a book and a film.
Style is a broad stroke. It gives us the big picture, the overall feel of the film. Tone, mood, and shading are progressively more subtle strokes. Together, these four elements cause a certain emotional response from the audience. In order to understand how these work in literature and film, let’s begin by looking at how they work in areas that are more a part of our everyday life. About the time I was writing this chapter I spoke at a writers’ conference held at a Victorian inn called the Horton Grand Hotel in San Diego. Inside the inn is Ida Bailey’s Bar, named after a nineteenth-century madam who was said to give a spirit of fun (and pleasure) to the area a hundred years ago. The bar also had a claim to fame since Wyatt Earp had once had a drink there.
Most of you have at one time or another been in a room decorated in the Victorian style. In Ida Bailey’s Bar, there are Tiffany lamps, pictures of naked women on the walls, white marble tables, and needlepoint chairs. All the furniture and pictures were carefully chosen to give an overall sense of the Victorian style. Even within this style, the interior decorator could have filled the room with a great deal of furniture or kept it rather spare. But as long as everything in the room fits within that particular style, you would recognize it as Victorian.
The word style is used in many art forms. We hear about acting styles. Are you going to act in the classical style? Are you going to act in the Shakespearean style?
We hear about style in terms of clothes. When we say people have style, it might be that they wear very dramatic clothes, or dress like a Brooks Brothers executive, or we might say a woman is a “Donna Karan” person, or has an “Yves St. Laurent” style.
In art, we hear about the neoclassic style, about mannerism, or romanticism. In literature, some writers write in the naturalistic style, others are Romantics, or satirical. Style is the broad stroke. The way you work with style will begin to set a mood.
RECOGNIZING THE MOOD
Mood creates an emotional response. In Ida Bailey’s Bar, the mood is romantic and nostalgic, achieved through low lighting, furnishings in shades of soft pink, and quiet background music. The mood was conducive to quiet but stimulating conversation. The choices of soft pinks and sprightly music all worked together to create not just a Victorian style, but a Victorian mood.
Other Victorian moods can be created by some change in lighting, music, or color. I’ve been in Victorian-style ice cream parlors, where the mood is gay and fun, achieved by using brighter colors, brighter lighting. And I’ve been in Victorian living rooms with stiff chairs and scratchy materials, where I felt the rigidity that was also part of that period.
RESPONDING TO THE TONE
Tone is generally thought of as “attitude.” We have an attitude toward ourselves, and we have an attitude toward other people. Certainly we’ve heard people say, “Don’t use that tone of voice with me”; “I don’t like your attit
ude”; “Don’t have that chip on your shoulder”; “Don’t be sarcastic”; “Don’t be cynical.” Or maybe you’ve heard the phrase “That person has an attitude.”
We’ve also heard people make statements where the tone wasn’t clear. Was it meant as a joke? Did they mean to be sarcastic?
Tone includes the attitude that we have toward ourselves, the attitude that others have toward us, and even the attitude that an onlooker can have toward any interchange they observe.
Tone can affect mood. What would happen if Ida Bailey in her old role as madam were to walk into the bar? What tone or attitude might she bring? She might exhibit a sense of humor, perhaps setting this tone by flinging her fuchsia boa and tickling the guests. Perhaps she’d be dressed like a madam of a hundred years ago, but she wouldn’t take herself very seriously. Ida might show cynicism, or irritability, which she’d convey by being sharp and curt with the customers, maybe saying, “Talk to me later, I don’t have time for you now.” Perhaps she’d be sarcastic. Perhaps she’d have an attitude toward us where she doesn’t take us seriously, but takes herself seriously. She’d see us perhaps as self-centered, as suckers, as manipulators, as exploiters. She might convey this attitude through an aside to her business partner, perhaps saying, “Overcharge him, he’ll never notice.” Ida might have all sorts of attitudes toward us and all sorts of attitudes toward herself, and those attitudes would begin to slightly color the otherwise romantic mood. We could say they would add another quality to this particular Victorian bar.
SHADING STYLE, MOOD, AND TONE
The mood of Ida’s place and the tone will change according to how each of these specific elements are shaded. Slight changes in the visuals, music, or even the people in the bar will cause changes in the mood and tone. Maybe the interior decorator decides to add more rose color to the upholstery. Maybe she changes the pictures on the wall, or brightens the lights. These small changes in shading will make very subtle differences in the way we feel. We still have a Victorian style. We still have a romantic mood, but the mood has now been shaded. Perhaps it’s shaded a little lighter, perhaps a little more colorfully.