Practicing Adaptation: One Screenplay, Five Films
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Practicing Adaptation: One Screenplay, Five Films Jennifer Oey Submitted for the degree of PhD The University of East Anglia School of Art, Media, and American Studies ©March 2016 This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author and that use of any information derived there from must be in accordance with current UK Copyright Law. In addition, any quotation or extract must include full attribution. 2 Abstract In this thesis I examine the relationship between a screenplay and the films made from it. I test the hypothesis that a film based on an original (not adapted from an existing text) screenplay is an adaptation of this screenplay. In order to investigate the potential range of adaptations that occur during the process of film production, I commissioned a short screenplay which was made into a film five times, by five different production teams, each entirely independent of one another. Utilising these films as my primary set of data, I engage in comparative analysis of the screenplay to the five films and of each of the five films to one another. My framework for analysis is grounded in adaptation studies, which has engaged in close comparative analysis of novel to film, but has not made significant inquiry into the discrete phase of adaptation between screenplay and film. Additionally, I argue that an investigation into the relationship between written and filmed creative work is ideally conducted by engaging with practice and practitioners. My thesis is therefore comprised of dual written and filmed components. 3 Table of Contents Abstract 2 Table of Contents 3 List of Film Stills, Filmed Data, and Filmed Component of Thesis 4 Preface 5 Acknowledgements 6 Introduction 7 The Box Screenplay 16 Chapter 1: Literature Review 20 Fidelity 23 Medium-Specificity 31 In Practice 34 New Work, New Practices 39 The Films 41 Chapter 2: A Practice-Based Methodology and Method 44 Methodology 44 Method for Creating the Data 58 Method for Analysing the Data 67 Chapter 3: Findings: An Analysis 73 An Overview of Key Observations 74 Section I – The Original Script Compared to the Finished Films 76 Section II – The Finished Films Compared to One Another 87 Conclusion 99 Bibliography 107 Appendix A: An Interview with Alexander Gordon Smith Appendix B: Collated Directors’ Production Journals/Notes 4 List of Film Stills Figure 1………………Stephen Philipson’s The Box: Pendulum Clock Figure 2………………Stephen Philipson’s The Box: Adam’s Entrance Figure 3………………Tania Freimuth’s Burrows Road: Eve Alone on Park Bench Figure 4………………Tania Freimuth’s Burrows Road: Eve with Adam on Park Bench 5 Preface This is a creative and critical thesis that examines the relationship between the screenplay and its film. My research and findings are presented in written and filmed form. Because both my research and the presentation of my work span two different platforms there is, for the sake of clarity, an optimum order for consideration of the components. My research entailed an examination of ‘what would happen’ if a screenplay was made into a film by more than one production team simultaneously. Five short films were produced based on a bespoke screenplay written for this thesis. The screenplay entitled, The Box, should be read after reading to the end of the Introduction. After reading the screenplay which is inserted directly following the Introduction, the five films made from this screenplay should be viewed before reading Chapter 1. Having read up to the end of Chapter 3, the filmed thesis entitled, What If: An Examination of Adaptation should be viewed. At this point, the remainder of the written thesis can be read. 6 Acknowledgements There are a number of people I would like to express my gratitude to for their various contributions over the past three years. Thanks to Brett Mills, my supervisor, for challenging my assumptions. The academic elements of this study were made possible by a studentship from the University of East Anglia. I am grateful to Martin Barker for generosity of time, sound advice, and enthusiasm for the project and hearty encouragement when I very much needed it. I am indebted to Anna Blagrove for being my running buddy and for not running away from me when I droned on and on, kilometre after kilometre. And also for her sound and pragmatic council issued forth when I finally stopped talking long enough for her to interject. Huge thanks to ‘Guru’ Sarah Ralph for her decisive guidance and, on more than one occasion, knowing the magic words to make everything better in an instant. Thanks to Sarah Elsegood who is most excellent at her job and who I have referred to more than once as my PhD Fairy Godmother. I’m thankful for Selma Purac who offered her commiserations before I even started and, despite this, lent a sympathetic ear and acutely intelligent, hilarious observations throughout. Thanks to Timothy Barnard for the ‘crazy’ book deals, lively communications over them, and for the contribution his translations have made to this thesis. Appreciations to Ed Vollans for plant cuttings and proof-reading. Thanks to Reagan Thomas for always being sensible (when necessary) and helping me find my perspective which was lost on numerous occasions. I am ever grateful to my mother, Agnes Bone, for always encouraging me. To my Dad: I wish you could have known about this. Most importantly, I wish to thank Matthew Knight for always wanting the best for me and helping me to figure out what that is. (All film-related thanks are in the film credits, as is customary) 7 Introduction On two deaths and three births. ‘My movie is born first in my head, dies on paper; is resuscitated by the living persons and real objects I use, which are killed on film but, placed in a certain order and projected onto a screen, come to life again like flowers in water.’ ― Robert Bresson, Notes on the Cinematographer1 Walter Murch ‘likes to quote Robert Bresson to the effect that a film is born three times – in the writing of the script, in the shooting, and in the editing.’ ― Michael Ondaatje, The Conversations2 In this thesis I will engage with both theory and practice in an examination of the relationship between the screenplay and the film made from it. I will examine the hypothesis that a film based on an original screenplay is best described as an adaptation of this screenplay. I explore the set of modifications and contributions made after a film script has been written through an analysis of the end-product; the films. I have conducted a study that engaged five different production teams to make a film from the same ‘original’ screenplay entitled The Box,3 written by Alexander Gordon Smith. By ‘original’, I mean bespoke for this project and, as such, not purposefully adapted from another literary work. The resulting artefacts, the five films, are the focus 1 Robert Bresson, Notes on Cinematography (New York: Urizen Books; London: (Distributed by) Pluto Press, 1977), p.7. 2 Michael Ondaatje and Walter Murch, The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film (London: Bloomsbury, 2002). 3 Alexander Gordon Smith, The Box, (Norwich, 2013). 8 of my examination of adaptation. I will introduce both the written and filmed aspects of my work in this introduction. My filmed work and the written work are inextricably linked because the process of creating them involved a perpetual and pervasive mutual informing. However, to best facilitate a clear and coherent discussion, I will first address the written portion of my thesis and its aims before moving on to discussion of the filmed portion of my thesis. Finally, I will clarify some of the language used in the written thesis, how I define certain terms, and why. THE WRITTEN COMPONENT OF THIS THESIS In this component of my thesis I examine the relationship between The Box screenplay and the five films made from it. I suggest that the screenplay is adapted during the process of pre-production through post-production and therefore the making of a film can be described as an adaptation of a screenplay. This theory will be tested by engaging in a comparative analysis of the screenplay and the five films as well as a comparison of the five films to one another. Through my engagement with adaptation studies literature, which will be reviewed in Chapter 1, I have determined that the comparative analysis employed in fidelity discourse to compare book to film can be applied in my study. Whether there is value in determining if the film is ‘true’ to the novel has been the subject of much debate in adaptation studies.4 However, in an exploration of screenplay to film adaptation, there is no acknowledged pre-existing reputation or value associated with the screenplay as text in the manner that this often exists with the adapted novel. I acknowledge that the scriptwriter may place value on their work and have an investment in whether the resulting film is, in their opinion, faithful to their work. However, for the purposes of this study and applying comparative analysis as used in fidelity studies, this is immaterial. As a result, a comparative analysis of the similarities and differences between The Box screenplay and the resulting films can be a fruitful examination without the fidelity ‘baggage’. 4 See, for example, True to the Spirit: Film Adaptation and the Question of Fidelity. ed. by Colin MacCabe, Rick Warner, and Kathleen Murray (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); In/Fidelity: Essays on Film Adaptation.