Beckett on Film: A dialogue amongst cinema, television and theatre∗
Gabriela Borges PUC-São Paulo / CAPES/MEC Brazil CICCOMA / FCHS / University of Algarve Email: [email protected] or [email protected]
Índice vity to create new visual metaphors from the theatre language. 1 The Project1 The project raised some very interesting 2 Challenges of Production3 questions, which I will discuss in this pa- 3 The Films4 per. Firstly, these audiovisual products bring 4 Bibliography6 a new understanding of Beckett’s works to new generations as they become more popu- Abstract lar and accessible. These audiovisual works also contribute to enlarge the critical scope The Beckett on Film project was a co- of Beckett’s oeuvre, as they highlight the use production involving the Irish public televi- of technology to represent memory and time, sion channel RTÉ, Channel 4, Irish Film Bo- important themes both for Beckett and film ard and the production company Blue Angel studies. for the adaptation to the cinema and poste- Secondly, I will point out the importance rior broadcasting on television of all 19 plays of cinema and television convergence in the written by Samuel Beckett. Many renow- beginning of the 21st century and the crea- ned cinema directors, such as Anthony Min- tion of a new audiovisual space that promo- guella, Conor McPherson, Neil Jordan, Enda tes dialogue amongst various media and sti- Hughes, Atom Egoyan, Damien O’Donnell mulates the development of European audio- amongst others, were invited to propose their visual industry. adaptation of a play. However, the Beckett Estate imposed some conditions to the adap- tations, which challenged directors’ creati- 1 The Project
∗Texto publicado nos Anais do I Congresso In- The Beckett on Film project, premiered in ternacional de Cinema Europeu Contemporâneo CI- 2001, consists of the intersemiotic transla- CEC, Universidade Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, 2005. tion to cinema and posterior broadcasting on television of all 19 plays written by Samuel 2 Gabriela Borges
Beckett. They were first produced in 1991 by However, Becket was very interested in the Gate Theatre Dublin for the Beckett Fes- the audiovisual media, in 1938 he even wrote tival and were exhibited along with Beckett’s a letter to the Russian master Sergei Eisens- radio plays. Due to the great success on the tein requesting to study cinema with him stages of London, New York and Melbourne, but never got a reply. He wrote and di- Michael Colgan, the Gate Theatre artistic di- rected many audiovisual works, in 1963 he rector, and Alan Moloney from Blue Angel wrote the script of his only film entitled Film, Films, proposed the realization of the pro- which was performed by Buster Keaton and ject to the Irish public radio and television directed by Alan Schneider. He also wrote network, RTÈ to be produced in partnership radio and television plays for the British Bro- with Channel 4 and The Irish Film Board. adcasting Corporation (BBC) and directed This project raises a controversial discus- them for the German television Süddeust- sion in relation to both Beckett’s artistic cre- cher Rundfunk. ation and the critic of his oeuvres. Bec- Many authors argue that the plays crea- kett only allowed very few adaptations of his tive processes were influenced by the tele- works to different media, as he thought that plays written and produced in the same pe- the medium is so important for the perfor- riod, in the same manner that the television mance that the adaptation would not express plays creative processes were influenced by its essence. In 1963, the French television Film. When working on television, Beckett RTF adapted the radio play All That Fall, had the possibility to enhance his minimalist translated by Beckett himself into French vision and explore the fragmentation of cha- with the title Tous Ceux Qui Tombent, and racters’ bodies in a way that would not be directed by Robert Pinger. Beckett was very possible in theatre, but at the same time he unsatisfied with the production because “it innovated the theatrical language from what was a play for voices and not bodies”, and he learned with his experimentations on tele- it would not work in a medium that shows vision. the characters. For Beckett, “to act is to kill Considering that all 19 plays were written it”1. After watching the adaptation, Beckett2 in English and French over 31 years of work, wrote to his Curtis Brown’s agent, John Bar- it is possible to perceive the development of ber, saying that he allowed the French tele- a poetics, which embraces what Beckett con- vision to adapt All That Fall in a weak mo- sidered to be both aspects of the cancer of ment and it was a disaster. Then, when Ing- time: habit and its subsequent repetition, and mar Bergman asked for permission to adapt memory related to human ageing and morta- the radio plays All That Fall and Embers to lity. It is presented through a constant pro- cinema, Beckett refused. cess towards minimalization and abstraction, with regards to stage setting, lighting, cha- 1 KNOWLSON, J. Damned to fame. The life of Samuel Beckett. Londres: Bloomsbury Publishing, racters performance and narrative. 1997, p. 505. The stage settings present only a few props 2 KNOWLSON, J. Damned to fame. The life of and do not represent a defined space for Samuel Beckett. Londres: Bloomsbury Publishing, the action in a realistic or naturalistic sense. 1997, p. 779. The stage setting of Happy Days (written in
www.bocc.ubi.pt Beckett on Film 3
1961), for instance, presents the protagonist had total freedom to choose the casting, as Winnie buried in a mount of sand up to her the producers hoped they would hire renow- waist in the first act and up to her neck in the ned actors and actresses with whom they had second one. Most of the time, the actors’ per- worked before in order to add credibility and formances are emphasized through the use of prestige to the project. spotlights surrounded by darkness. The cha- Colgan3 reports that a “bible” was writ- racters of Play (written in 1962-3) are positi- ten for the directors with categorical instruc- oned inside urns and only their heads can be tions: cuts in the text and gender definition seen focused on the spotlights. In Rockaby were not allowed. For instance, if “beach” (written in 1980), there is only a rock chair, were written on the script, there had to be on which W sits, and in Footfalls (written in a beach, as adaptations or scenes inspired 1975), just the phantasmagoric figure of May in other authors, or even in Beckett’s other is lit while she walks from one side of the texts, would not be accepted. The challenge stage to the other. was to adapt an unaltered theatrical text to The narratives of the plays are not based the screen, using only audiovisual medium on the Aristotelian unity of action, with be- resources, that is, camera movements, fra- ginning, middle and end and they are cyclic ming, editing, sound effects and lighting. as, for instance, in Play. In the same man- The translation of a text from one sign ner, the dialogues do not correspond to acti- system to another may preserve its main ons such as it appears in Waiting for Godot characteristics, which Santiago4 nominates (written in 1953) and the characters present as the “prison-form” in literature. Howe- themselves immobilized. In fact, the whole ver, the translated text has to be an aesthe- idea of drama as a mimetic representation of tic text independent from the original. In the reality is questioned when the imitation of an case of theatre, not only texts with monolo- action becomes the proper theme of the play. gues and dialogues are part of this “prison- Therefore, the adaptation of Beckett’s form” but also scenes instructions, which plays by renowned cinema directors embo- build the action visualized by the author. Ra- dies the dialogue between theatre, cinema mos5 points out that instructions and dia- and television, challenges directors’ creati- logues have equal importance in Beckett’s vity and presents a new understanding of plays composition and if they were not res- Beckett’s poetics. pected, the performance and the meaning of the play could be jeopardized.
2 Challenges of Production 3 COLGAN, M. Beckett on film website. [En linea]. Dublin: Blue Angels Films, 2001. The Beckett Estate, which holds the copy-
During the performance, the written thea- metaphors through the use of camera move- trical text becomes oral and corporal com- ments, lighting, sound effects and editing. It munication, in which the presence of the seems that directors’ creativity was one of body is indispensable to the space of fiction6. the main points of the project’s success, as This space of fiction built by the actor is de- some plays suited very well the specificities nominated theatricality and it presents itself of the audiovisual language, especially, con- in a new and different form in each perfor- sidering the use of both camera and sound mance. Yet, it only happens effectively if resources. the audience knows of it, that is, the perfor- mance requires one to perform and one to 3 The Films watch it. In the footage, the image captured from The films were released in cinema festivals the performance presents a fragmented space all around the world and received very good of fiction and intermediates the presence of appraisal from public and critics. As many the actor. In addition, the editing can reor- of them were shorts films, they were bro- ganize the temporal linearity in its own way adcast together with directors’ interviews in and preserve it ad infinitum. The stage, as special programmes on television. All the 19 a medium, provides the space amongst th- films and interviews are available on a DVD ree walls, lighting and sound for live perfor- box along with the documentary “Check the mance, while the audiovisual medium pre- Gate: Putting Beckett on Film”, a stills gal- sents the space through camera angles, mo- lery with commentary and a souvenir pro- vements and frames to emphasize gestures gramme. However, it is important to bear in and expressions of characters performance. mind that, although films were very well re- In addition, audio, lighting and editing can ceived by cinema viewers, when they were reconfigure performances’ space and time. broadcast on television the audience rates Certainly Beckett subverted the rules of were so low that some channels did not show what was considered as theatrical drama in all of them. Yet, in 2002, the Beckett on Film the 1950’s. Moreover, his works express project was awarded the Best TV Drama at a dialogue amongst media perceived in his the South Bank Award Ceremony. own creative process, which includes refe- Another aspect to be considered is that rences and experimentations using resour- Beckett’s works explore the medium of ci- ces from different media, and in the inter- nema, as they experiment with technology to semiotic translation of his works for cinema represent memory and time. The film Play, and television. However, the question is directed by Anthony Minghella, was apprai- whether the Beckett on Film project mana- sed by critics, mainly because of its fast ges to transpose theatrical language singu- editing of interchanging monologues and its larities to the medium of film and moreo- use of the camera as an audiovisual tool ver, to what extent the films build new visual to express the power of the play spotlights. The camera acts as an element that pro- 6 ZUMTHOR, P. Performance, Recepção, Lei- tura. São Paulo: Educ, 2000, p. 45-50. vokes the three talking heads, W1 (Kristin Scott-Thomas), W2 (Juliet Stevenson) and
www.bocc.ubi.pt Beckett on Film 5
M (Alan Rickman), buried in the urns. The tener and directed by Charles Sturridge. Lis- film of Krapp’s Last Tape (written in 1958) tener once loved Reader, who is a mysterious was directed by Atom Egoyan and presented messenger of someone already dead. as protagonist John Hurt, an Irish actor who In the films of That Time, Ohio Im- performed several of Beckett’s plays. In this promptu and What Where (written in 1983) film, Egoyan used the audiovisual techno- the same actor interpreted different roles. In logy to enrich the contrast between memory these cases, audiovisual technology was very and recorded memory and to question the hu- useful to follow Beckett’s specific instruc- man incapacity to communicate. The use of tion to use actors as alike as possible. In a lighting and Hurt’s performance favour the post Star Trek atmosphere, unlike Beckett’s film, which also originated an installation proposal, What Where was shot in a kind entitled “Steenbeckett” (2002) in the Mu- of futuristic library with letters printed on seum of Mankind in London. Nevertheless, walls. This film, which was also adapted by both Play and Krapp’s Last Tape have far Beckett for the German television Süddeust- too many props, which pollute Beckett’s mi- cher Rundfunk in 1986, was appraised by nimalist universe. Play’s setting appears to public and critics, mainly for the modernity be a Dantesque cemetery and Krapp’s Last of the theme that questions the control soci- Tape’s an office loaded with books and old ety we live in, and the performance of Scot- materials. tish actor Gary Lewis in the roles of Bim, The film of Act Without Words II (written Bem and Bom. It was adapted by the acclai- in 1956), directed by Enda Hughes, used the med director of the film East is East (1999), film reel as a metaphor of the action, presen- which won the BAFTA award for Best Bri- ting itself as one of the most creative pieces, tish Film, Damien O’Donnell. as it managed to translate all the mime and Despite the fact that a few of Beckett’s grace of characters A and B to the audiovi- scholars have not approved this project be- sual medium. Not I (written in 1972), which cause Beckett often prohibited adaptations was originally translated by Beckett himself of his plays, it is important to bear in mind for the BBC in the 1980’s, was directed by that these films became a paradigm in the Neil Jordan and performed by Julianne Mo- studies of his works. The new generations ore as the verborragic Mouth. Newspapers’ will have a different perspective of Beckett’s critics acclaimed it, but it is not as interesting theatrical and audiovisual works. If on one as Beckett’s adaptation as it has the beauty of hand the performance liveness, so characte- a glamorous and perfect mouth instead of the ristic of the theatrical language, is lost; on scatological mouth proposed by Beckett. the other hand, the texts become more ac- That Time (written in 1974-5) was direc- cessible and popular when they are broadcast ted by Charles Garrad, featuring Niall Buggy in a medium that reaches millions of people. as the face of A, B and C surrounded by spo- Therefore, the Beckett on Film project not tlights, which represents the memory of dif- only enlarges the critical scope of Beckett’s ferent periods in the life of a man. The film oeuvre at the beginning of a new century, in of Ohio Impromptu (written in 1981) was in- which the way of understanding the world terpreted by Jeremy Irons as Reader and Lis- and analysing art changed radically in con- www.bocc.ubi.pt 6 Gabriela Borges sequence of the development of new techno- guages, such as theatrical, cinematic, televi- logies, but also highlights some possibilities sual and digital. with regards to the convergence amongst va- rious media. 4 Bibliography In Great Britain, Channel 4 has encou- raged the innovation and experimentation BALLOGH, A. M. Conjunções, Disjunções in the form and content of its programmes Transmutações. Da literatura ao ci- and has been responsible for the conver- nema e à TV. São Paulo: Annablume, gence between the so-called quality televi- 1996, p. 36-41. sion and art house cinema since its founda- BECKETT, S. The complete dramatic works. tion in 1982. The channel can finance up a to 95% of its programmes or films and runs 2 ed. London: Faber and Faber Limi- their distribution and divulgation. During ted, 1990, p. 220-3. the 1990’s, independent production compa- COLGAN, M. Beckett on film web- nies began to produce 25% of the program- site. [En linea]. Dublin: mes, which motivated the substitution of TV Blue Angels Films, 2001. programmes for films, as these were chea-
www.bocc.ubi.pt