Books into Movies, Spring 2004: Final Examination
There are two questions
Question One (85%). Identify the source of the following passages from the books we have read and then discuss the ways in which the passages were adapted for the screen. If they were not adapted or were differently adapted, suggest why this might be the case. You should examine, in the passages from the books, salient aspects of theme, character, plot development, and symbolism. Feel free to add to this list of “salient aspects” if you deem it necessary. If you can, identify the page number but remember that a simple identification counts for less than your ability to discuss book and adaptation with subtlety and precision. Even an ingenious mistake will score some points. Note that half a dozen quotations are taken from the film scripts (specifically from portions that we have discussed) not the books.
Please answer the questions in sequence (that is, if you are uncertain about one ID, leave sufficient space so that you can go back and answer that section of the question. Your answers will thus run 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc.). Please write only on the right hand page of each “opening” in your blue books so that I can write commentary on the left hand page. If you feel that there is a connection between different passages/films, please point them out briefly.
1 As the handcuffs clicked on his wrists I said my last word to him.
2 “Deaf bitch.”
3 “We’re going to break up civilization so we can make something better out of the world.”
Whispers:
“We look forward to getting you back.”
4 “I haven’t won,” he said. “I’ve lost.” I watched him striding off on his overgrown legs after the girl. He caught up with her and they walked side by side. I don’t think he ever said he a word to her. It was like the end of a story.
5 The girls were stunning; very tight black skirts to just above the knee with an extension at the back so they could walk, black sleeveless tops, hair held up, except the fringe, as near to the Ronettes as they could manage, black high heels, loads of black eye shadow, very red lipstick.
6 My guest was lying sprawled on his back. There was a long knife through his heart which skewered him to the floor.
7 Food consumed today:
2 pkts Emmenthal cheese slices
14 cold new potatoes
2 Bloody Marys (count as food as contain Worcester sauce and tomatoes)
1/3 Ciabatta loaf with Brie
coriander leaves-1/2 packet
12 Milk Tray (best to get rid of all Christmas confectionery in one go and make new start tomorrow)
13 cocktail sticks securing cheese and pineapple
Portion Una Alconbury’s turkey curry, peas and banana
Portion Una Alconbury’s Rasperry Surprise made with Bourbon biscuits, tinned raspberries, eight gallons of whipped cream, decorated with glace cherries and angelica
8 . . . and what do women have to worry about? A handful of cellulite? Join the club. A spot of I-wonder-how-I-rank? Ditto.
9 “If we are going to use you as our decoy, your message must go to Lime straightaway–not after you’ve hung around in this zone for twenty-four hours. As I see it you were brought here for a grilling almost as soon as you got back into the Inner City; you heard then from me about Harbin; you put two and two together and you go and warn Cooler. We’ll let Cooler slip for the sake of the bigger game–we have no evidence he was in on the penicillin racket.”
10 The first one out of here gets a lead-salad-sandwich.
11 Tits and Ass. Tits and Ass. Tits and Ass. Tits and Ass. Blah de Bloo. Blah de Bloo. Blah de Bloo. Blah de Bloo. Huh?
12 “It’s all right for you with your bloody Cambridge First,” I whispered sniffing. “I’ll never forget the moment when I looked at the notice board and saw a D next to French and knew I couldn’t go to Manchester. It altered the course of my whole life.”
13 I never knew the old Vienna before the war, with its Strauss music, its glamour and easy charm–Constantinople suited me better. I really got to know it in the classic period of the Black Market.
14 The stuff in the fridge at home, it was Marla’s collagen trust fund. Whenever her mother grew any extra fat, she had it sucked out and packaged. Marla says the process is called gleaning. If Marla’s mom doesn’t need the collagen herself, she sends the packets to Marla.
15 “I thought you said she was thin.”
16 I lost the plot for a while then. And I lost the subplot, the script, the soundtrack, the intermission, my popcorn, the credits, and the exit sign . . . And when I came around after a couple of months, I found to my surprise that I had flunked my course . . .
17 In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed–but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce . . . the cuckoo clock.
18 A tiger can smile.
A snake will say it loves you.
Lies make us evil.
19 The only occupants of the carriage were an old shepherd and his dog–a wall-eyed brute that I mistrusted. The man was asleep, and on the cushions beside him was that morning’s Scotsman. Eagerly I seized on it, for I fancied it would tell me something.
There were two columns about the Portland Place Murder, as it was called. My man Paddock had given the alarm and had the milkman arrested. Poor devil, it looked as if the latter had earned his sovereign hardly . . .
20 How I met Tyler was I went to a nude beach. This was the very end of the summer, and I was asleep. Tyler was naked and sweating, gritty with sand, his hair wet and stringy, clinging to his face.
22 But they didn’t exist any more. Somewhere in the quarter of an hour Jimmy had been negotiating with Dave from Eejit, The Commitments had broken up.
Outspan and Derek were the only ones still at the platform. The rest had gone.
23 . . . and when the Prince came home that night, she had changed into an old Hag. (So of course he was very surprised.) “Where is my beautiful wife?” he asked the Hag. “And what have you done with her?” And she said “I am your wife.” (That’s right.) “I can be beautiful during the daylight hours so that you and your friends can admire me, or I can be beautiful at night, so that you can enjoy me by the fireside, and so on. But for one-half of the day I must be this ugly old Hag that you see before you.” A “hag” is an ugly old lady. Well, how do you think that is spelled? Well, how does it sound. That’s right. And so she told him . . .
24 It was February, and the gravediggers had been forced to use electric drills to open the frozen ground . . . It was as if nature was doing its best to reject . . .
25 “‘Barrytown.” ‘Barrytown’? Fucking hell. Is there no end to your arrogance?”
It’s not because of me. It’s the Steely Dan song. And it was in The Commitments.”
26 Marla’s heart looked the way my face was. The crap and the trash of the world. Post-consumer human butt-wipe that no one would ever go to the trouble to recycle.
27 A kettle hummed softly on a gas ring. She said, “Would you like a cup of tea? Somebody sent me a packet last week–sometimes the Americans do, instead of flowers, on the first night.”
28 As he spoke, his eyelids seemed to tremble and to fall a little over his keen grey eyes. In a flash the phrase of Scudder’s came back to me, when he described the man he most dreaded in the world. He said that he ‘could hood his eyes like a hawk.’ Then I saw that I had walked straight into the enemy’s headquarters.
29 “Well, at this point, we don’t know.”
30 “Yes, I am actually . . . No, no plans.”
31 It all began on New Year’s Day in my thirty-second year . . .
32 I WILL NOT
33 “The Black Stone,” I cried, and I sat down in the chair so recently vacated and looked around at five badly scared men.
34 “Rat Tat Tat Tat Tat. Ka POW! AK AK AK AK AK AK AK Ka Pow.”
35 –NIGH’ TRAIN-----
AN ALSATIAN IN EVERY CARRIAGE-----
NIGH’ TRAIN-----
LOADS O’ SECURITY GUARDS-----
LAYING INTO YOUR MOT AT THE BACK-----
NIGH’ TRAIN-----
GETTIN’ SLAGGED BY YOUR MATES-----
NIGH’ TRAIN-----
GETTIN’ CHIPS FROM THE CHINESE CHIPPER-----
OH NIGH’ TRAIN-----
CARRIES ME HOME-----
THE NIGH’ TRAIN-----
CARRIES ME HOME-----
36 I love making love with you.
37 5. Architect
A surprise entry at number 5,
I know, but I used to be quite
good at technical drawing
at school.
38 -----Righ’, lads, give us a month an’ this’ll be us.
He let the needle down.
-----Deadly, said Derek.
39 Now I can remember Patrick Madden, dead on the floor, his little figurine of a wife, just a little girl with a chignon. His wife giggled and tried to pour champagne between her dead husband’s lips . . . Mrs. Patrick Madden held her two bloody fingers up, the blood climbing the cracks between her teeth, and the blood ran down her fingers, down to her wrist, across a diamond bracelet and to her elbow where it dripped.
40 ----It’s better than Catch 22, isn’t it?
I don’t think so, Mickah.
41 “Well, thank goodness I managed to calm Julio down,” she said gaily after a pause. “What a to do? Are you all right, Daddy?”
“Your top–Mummy–is inside out,” said Dad.
42 The rest of the evening is like the end of a film. The entire cast is dancing . . .
43 1 a novel
2 ...........
3 ...........
4 ...........
5 ...........
44 THE #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER (v.g.)
45 You morons!
Question Two. Propose an addition to the syllabus and briefly explain your reasons. Ideally your short essay should discuss a book that has already been made into a film but you may, at a pinch, discuss a book that has yet to be made into a film or a movie that has been made from a book which you have as yet to read.