Question One (35%)
During the semester we have examined the ways in which film-makers have transformed books into movies. We have debated the concept of "fidelity criticism," namely the theory-- vigorously criticized by many--that movies should remain "faithful" or "true" to the books upon which they have been based. Critics of "fidelity criticism" argue that such movies can never be "true" to these books: as an art form, film proves fundamentally different from such supposed literary originals. These critics maintain that movies can be faithful only to an independent set of cinematic protocols which demand that the "film of the book" is a new creation, one which should be judged in cinematic not literary terms. Does "fidelity criticism"--given the energetic critique of its opponents--continue to make any sense to you?
Bearing some approximation of "fidelity criticism" in mind, however, suggest ways in which you would film (or re-film) one of the books on the syllabus. Discuss a movie that we have watched which was based upon a book. How was this film an (un)satisfactory realization on celluloid of the novel or the play? If you think that the film--say of The Commitments-- was a fully satisfactory transformation of printed page into celluloid, you may want to examine another example--say, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Blade Runner--in which there is a greater contrast between the literary original and its filmic transformation. On the other hand, you may want to explore various ways in which The Commitments could be made more faithful to (or even more interesting than) the novel. Did this film jazz up (or down) Doyle's novel in ways upon which you would want to improve? To put it another way, you might contemplate ways in which a film version that is generally regarded as "faithful" to the original--say Howards End or The Crucible--might be made into a movie that is more exciting (whether visually or in terms of plot, language, and character).
There are different ways of approaching this question. I am more interested in the imagination displayed in your essay than in your devising an approximation of some imaginary "right" answer. There is no right answer. You should, rather, compare the different ways in which a film can be made of a novel or of a play. You should concentrate upon a single "book into movie," but you should also essay wide-ranging comparisons between other novels, plays, and films that we have discussed during the semester.
If you would like to "film" a book that we have not discussed, you may instead tackle another version of "book into movie." If you choose to "film" this alternative short story, novel, or play, then you should provide sufficient details of this work that will make your treatment intelligible to me. You should also tell me whether any film version already exists. Remember that I may have neither read the book nor seen the movie that you have chosen to discuss.
Question Two. (65%)
In the extracts that follow, I haven chosen passages that have faced the complex transition from book to movie. Identify the book from which these passage have come; show why they are important to its plot or imagery, to its language or characterization. You should then discuss how these passages have been realized cinematically (or have, occasionally, been rejected or altered). How do they filmically remain important (if at all)? What has been changed? What has been lost or gained in the transformation?
Given constraints upon your time in the examination room, I know that some of your answers will be longer than others. But you should provide a brief identification of each passage even if you do not analyze it in detail. Please answer the questions in sequence. If you choose to move ahead to another answer, you should leave a space in your blue books to which you can return.
1. At this point, no. So what does she do? She says "Wait a Minute," and she crawls under the bed. From under the bed she pulls this suitcase, and from out of this suitcase comes this World War Two Flak suit.
2. He have his goodness now. God forbid I should take it from him.
3. Thinking that he understood these things, Margaret obeyed him. They laid Leonard, who was dead, on the gravel; Helen poured water over him.
4. I watched him striding off on his overgrown legs after the girl. He caught her up and they walked side by side. I don't think he said a word to her: it was like the end of a story.
5. "In a magazine you come across a full-page color picture of a nude girl." He paused. "Your husband likes the picture; the girl is lying face down on a large and beautiful bearskin rug."
6. I have had a dream past the wit of man to say what dream it was. Man is but an ass, if he go about to expound this dream. Methought I was--there is no man can tell what. Methought I was--and methought I had--but man is but a patched fool if he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was.
7. ----It's better than Catch 22, isn't it?
----I don't think so, Mickah.
----Fuckin' sure it is, said Mickah.
8. What dreadful dole is here!
Eyes, do you see?
How can it be?
O dainty duck! O dear!
Thy mantle good,
What stained with blood!
9. Trail, trail, went her long dress over the sopping grass, and she came back with her hands full of the hay that was cut yesterday--
10. This is a sharp time, now, a precise time--we live no longer in the dusky afternoon when evil mixed itself with good and befuddled the world. Now, by God's grace, the shining sun is up, and them that fear not the light will surely praise it.
11. "My accent," she corrected, "is perfect. It has to be, for roles, for Purcell and Walton and Vaughn [sic] Williams. But my vocabulary isn't very large." She glanced at him shyly.
12. . . . and when the Prince came home that night, she had changed into an old Hag (So of course he was 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 old Hag you see before you." (Pause.) A "hag" is an ugly old lady. (Pause.) Well, how do you think it's spelled?
13. "What a practical little woman it is! What's it been reading? Theo--theo--how much?"
14. For an hour he waited, walking up and down to keep warm, inside the enclosure of the Great Wheel; the smashed Prater with its bones sticking crudely through the snow was nearly empty. One stall sold thin flat cakes, like cartwheels, and the children queued with their coupons. A few courting couples would be packed together in a single car of the Wheel and revolve slowly above the city, surrounded by empty cars.
15. 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.
16. --ALL ABOARD, said Deco.--THE NIGHT TRAIN.
17. I mean a fellow comes to the beach to sit out in the fucking sun, am I wrong?
18. "I do nothing but steal umbrellas. I am so very sorry! Do come in and choose one. Is yours a hooky or a nobbly? Mine's a nobbly--at least I think it is."
19. The eyes of a parrot chained to a perch stared beadily back at him.
20. Why, a very little frog jumped--
21. It fell upon a little western flower,
Before milk-white, now purple, with love's wound,
And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
22. "Fine," Iran said. "I want it to work perfectly. My husband is devoted to it." She gave her address and hung up.
And, feeling better, fixed herself at last a cup of black hot coffee.
23. "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tanhauser gate. All those . . . moments will be lost . . . in time. Like . . . tears in rain. Time . . . to die."