Universi^ Micrdrilms International Griffith, James John
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PLEASE NOTE The negative micwfllni copy o f this dissertation was prepared and inspected by the school granting the degree. We are using this film without further inspection or change. I f there are any questions about the content, please write directly to the school. INFORMATION TO USERS The following explanation o f techniques is provided to help clarify markings or notations which may appear on this reproduction. 1. The sign or “target” for pages apparently lacking from the document photographed is “Missing Page(s)” . I f it was possible to obtain the missing page(s) or section, they are spliced into the film along with adjacent pages. This may have necessitated cutting through an image and duplicating adjacent pages to assure complete continuity. 2. When an image on the film is obliterated with a round black mark, it is an indication o f either blurred copy because o f movement during exposure, duplicate copy, or copyriglited materials that should not have been filmed. 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Universi^ Micrdrilms International Griffith, James John ADAPTATIONS AS IMITATIONS: AN EVALUATIVE STUDY OF RECENT FILM ADAPTATIONS OF NOVELS The O hio State University F University Microfilms InternStiOPâl soon. Zeeb Read, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 Copyright 1984 by Griffith, James John All Rights Reserved ADAPTATIONS AS IMITATIONS: AN EVALUATIVE STUDY OF RECENT FILM ADAPTATIONS OF NOVELS DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University James John Griffith, B.A., M.A. The Ohio State University 1984 Reading Committee: Approved By Professor Morris Beja Professor James L. Battersby Professor Robert W. Wagner Advised Department of English Copyright by James John Griffith 1984 thanks to my parents and Kathy TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENT .............................................. ill VITA ................................................. iv INTRODUCTION ............................................ 1 CHAPTER I- Why? The Case of Looking for Mr. Goodbar......... 74 II. Damned if You Do, and Dammed if You Don’t: The Adaptation of Deliverance...... ............... 135 III. Back Where We Started: 2001 : A Space Odyssey . 202 APPENDIX: AUTHORS AND AUTEURISM ........................ 257 LIST OF REFERENCES.................. 279 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Several people are responsible for whatever academic growth I have achieved. Mi. Charles Eisele first made me appreciate and want to write good prose at Vianney High School. Then, an off-hand but fortuitous remark by Daniel Greenblatt at the University of Missouri made me realize that my interests in film could be included in my literary studies. Once I set out to write this dissertation, help came from many kind of friends— and some strangers. Amy R. Weissbrod allowed me to examine some cutting continuities owned by MGM. Jerry W. Carlson of DePaul University, and Dennis Aig, James Phelan, Lisa Kiser, and Tom Hendricks— all of Ohio State University— helped me answer questions and find resources. Of my reading committee, I could not ask for more. One reason I came to Ohio State was that it had a Department of Photography and Cinema; Professor Robert W. Wagner has been that department to me. Professor James L. Battersby has been the master for my apprenticeship in literary theory, and Professor Morris Beja has been an excellent guide in my attempts to put the other two fields together. All are scholars and gentlemen. Lastly, however, I turn to those to whom this work is dedicated : they saw that I got started, and she saw that I got finished. 17 September 1951...........B o m — St. Louis, Missouri 1973........................ B.A., University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 1973-1976 ................ Teaching Assistant, Department of English, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 1975 ................ M.A., University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 1976-1983 .................. Teaching Associate, Department of English, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1984 ................ Lecturer, Department of English, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio PUBLICATIONS Review of How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman, dir. by Nelson Pereira dos Santos. Take One, 7, No. 4 (1979), 12. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: English Modern Literature and Film. Professor Morris Beja Literary Theory. Professor James L. Battersby Film Theory. Professor Robert W. Wagner INTRODUCTION As a question becomes more complicated and involved, and extends to a greater number of relations, disagreement of opinion will always be multiplied, not because we are irrational, but because we are finite beings, furnished with different kinds of knowledge, exerting different degrees of attention, one discovering consequences which escape another, none taking in the whole concatenation of causes and effects, most comprehending but a very small part; each comparing what he observes with a different criterion, and each referring it to a different purpose. — Samuel Johnson The Adventurer. No. 107 Churchy La Femme: "Okay. Go ahead and ask me a question." Basil McTabolism, poll-cat: ". .No, what we got is answers. You get a choice of our best answers. • That * s only fair." Churchy: "Why do us public always get the hard part?" — Walt Kelly In Daniel Blum's A Pictorial History of the Silent Screen, there is a still from IMF's 1914 production of Jane Eyre. Irving Cummings as Rochester is in the center of the frame arm in arm with his bride-to- be-, Jane, played by Ehtel Grandin. They and their guests are startled by someone's interrupting the wedding service— but it is not Mason, as in Charlotte Bronte's novel; rather, insane Mrs. Rochester (played by a Miss Hazeltone) has come forward to show who occupies Rochester's mind and attic.^ Bronte has two consecutive scenes— at the church where Mason interrupts the wedding by charging that Rochester still has a wife, and in the attic at Thornfield where Rochester admits as much but shows her to be more like a "clothed hyena" than a woman— that effectively block Jane from marrying and cause her to leave Thomfield. In this film version (a four-reeler^ of about an hour's length), the two scenes are collapsed, apparently obviating the need for Mason's character. Apropos of the nearly axiomatic discussions of adaptations, we could say that this film is a typical example of diluting the novel's impact by shortening and simplifying the action. I would never argue that the film's one scene is not shorter than the novel's two. What I do question, however, is whether the action and impact are simplified. Certainly, the film as a whole may be simplified— it may be barely recognizable as Bronte's story— but to frustrate Jane and send her from Thomfield, the action here seems adequate. In other words, despite the infidelity to the original, the dramatic effect of the shocking discovery seems to be preserved for the most part. Of course, by focusing on this one action, I have only raised, not settled, the issue of adapting novels to the screen. Novels have been brought to the screen, so the possibility of attempting adaptations is obviously not the issue; rather, the possibility of faithfully transferring a work from one medium to another is the issue. Great novelists have joined the debate since nearly the beginning of film- making. Tolstoy was excited by the cinema because it seemed capable of surpassing written effects: "It is a direct attack on the old methods 3 of literary art. But I rather like it. This swift change of scene, this blending of emotion and experience— it is much better than the heavy, long-drawn-out kind of writing to which we are accustomed. It is closer to life."^ But speaking of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. Virginia Woolf cites what she believes to be an insurmountable limitation of the silent adaptation: "The alliance is unnatural. Eye and brain are torn asunder ruthlessly as they try vainly to work in couples. For the brain knows Anna almost entirely by the inside of her mind— her charm, her passion, her despair. All this, which is accessible to words, and to words alone, the cinema must Many twentieth-century novels— and much critical literature supports them— meet the attack Tolstoy mentions and emerge unbeaten in the battle for which is "closer to life." Nonetheless, Woolf's assertion that some written works are beyond adaptation to the screen has virtually become a given of film criticism. One typical view of adaptations is that they are the products of businessmen, not artists. In a recent article, Richard Corliss writes that "The Seventies