The Issue of Fidelity in Film Adaptations

Films based on written texts are almost always judged according to their faithfulness to the original. The issue of fidelity has been a battle-ground for film theorists since the beginning of film theory as an established discipline, that is, when film became worthy of being studied by specialists. The debate is still active and some suggest that adaptation and film, in general, is an art-form inferior to literature. However, film and literature, are two different mediums of story-telling and thus, extremely difficult to decide if one is better than the other although criticism still has supporters of this criterion as essential for judging the value of a film adaptation. Many criticisms complain the lack of embodiment of the critics ideal of fundamental narrative, thematic and aesthetic features of its literary source (54). However, Robert Stam, in his Beyond Fidelity: The Dialogics of Adaptation, affirms that a more pertinent criticism should be based in contextual and intertextual history, and not on fidelity. Criticism, he continues, should pay more attention to readings, critiques, interpretations, and rewritings of prior material, (76). He also thinks that a total fidelity is impossible because we have two different ways of narrating and the intertextuality between novels and films. Also bored with the discussion of fidelity in film adaptation, Linda Hutcheon states: Of more interest to me is the fact that the morally loaded discourse of fidelity is based on the implied assumption that adapters aim simply to reproduce the adapted text (7). A novel tells the story through written language whereas the film, through images and sounds, and that is why changes from one medium to another are inevitable. What the book describes in general terms, the film gives it a specific appearance. Also, filmmakers possess more instruments to convey a story than a writer does; music accompanying the action and the audiences view on the actors are some of them. Filmmakers use these means as assets to improve the experience of the story but at the same time they change it precisely by those very means. Film adaptations have evolved from Stroheims first of attempt to adapt McTeague, a film that initially that had sixteen hours, to present day adaptations equally long, that have a range of two hours, such as, Lolita, Don Quixote, A Cock and Bull Story or Pride and Prejudice. 1

Stroheims first intent was to do a literal adaptation of Frank Norriss novel using transposition (a technique that proved impossible), while recent directors use interpretation, that is, interpreting the text by contracting the message to the most important and letting the camera tell the story. For example, in Joe Wrights adaptation of Jane Austens Pride and Prejudice, the director finds himself in the almost impossible position of transposing from a very well-known book to screen meanings and ideas through image and sound. In the film sequence of the Assembly Ball, the relationships between the characters are rendered in terms of dance relationships. Ball-dance steps and traditional English music are both designed to convey a faithful depiction of the 19th century English society and the tension between Elizabeth Bennett and Fitzwilliam Darcy. As far as the music is concerned, the tension and excitement is enhanced by the original score of Dario Marianelli which takes the sound and style of the 19th century and transfers it to piano music alluding to the romantic character of the protagonists relationship and announcing the tensioned scenes they will participate later in the film. While Jane Austen had a more difficult task alternating dialogue with narrative description to communicate the same thing, the director had the advantage of the simultaneity of the film. Furthermore, any reader of Pride and Prejudice will notice various important changes in this adaptation; for instance, with the first scene of the film that does not appear in the book, where Elizabeth is seen walking home while reading a book. This scene is used as an interpretation of various references of the books author which communicates some of Elizabeths important characteristics - she likes to read and the fact that she is alone outside the house suggests the discrepancy between her and the rest of the typical characters of the 19th century England; that she is an outsider in her own world. Moreover, within the spectrum of fidelity there is also the matter of what the director and scriptwriter/s are faithful to. Some of them choose to be faithful to the plot believing that this is the key to a successful adaptation. Ideally, an adaptation would concentrates on both the plot and the spirit of the novel and the majority renounce the idea of focusing exclusively the plot because they need to compress a several hours/days read in only two hours of film and they resort to condensing plotlines or

change them as the directors of Orlando and Pride and Prejudice did with the endings of both films. On the one hand, in Orlando, Sally Potter, that was both director and scriptwriter, not only chronologically structured the plotline, creating a catalogue that coincides with Woolfs narrative techniques , but also added various scenes that were not in the book - she brings the protagonist in the 20th century society continuing Orlandos odyssey through time. By adding the final scene she makes the story closer to the audience; making the film to reach the contemporary public giving them a chance to relate with the themes circulating the book. On the other hand, in Pride and Prejudice, Joe Wright and Deborah Moggach, for commercial reasons this time, make two endings: a standard ending and one for American audience. The American ending shows Darcy and Elizabeth after the wedding, in a typical in your face happy-ending, enjoying each others company away from the prejudices of the 19th century society. Similarly, his treatment of Lady Catherine is changed in the books ending. After her visit to Longbourn to convince Lizzy not to continue her presumed liaison with Darcy she disappears completely from the film. In the epilogue of the book, however, it is told that Lady Catherine comes to a grudging acceptance of the marriage (Bluestone, 142). This detail might be of great importance for the understanding of the social conflict that the author so eagerly tries to reveal in the novel. It is obvious that Wright intended to convey this conflict throughout the film; however he failed to see the necessity of showing Lady Catherine, as a representative of the loosing high- class, accepting the marriage at the end of the story. Since the author saw fit to highlight this aspect, why not show it in the film? In addition, regardless of their position on the fidelity issue, critics use the spirit of the novel criterion to value an adaptation if the filmmakers evident intention was to depict a relatively close-to-the-truth version of the book. That is, to what extent have the filmmakers achieved rendering a view according to what viewers think about the topic they are trying to tackle? Although most of them should have in mind the fact that there are different readings of the same work of literature, they fail to understand that there is not a singular vision of a text that can be taken and translated into film. However, there are films that put aside the plot in order to focus exclusively on conveying the atmosphere and the true spirit of the original story which seems to be an 3

indispensable element when adapting a novel. This occurs in Michael Winterbottoms adaptation of Laurence Sternes metafictional novel "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman." Winterbottom deliberately compresses the plot to only a few scenes of the actual story in order to render the essential ideas that Sterne wanted to pass on and that the novel is unfilmable. He does that by making a film-within-a-film, as it is generally known using the behind-the-scenes process of making the film as a metaphor for the actual book and the books digressive nature. In fact, this is a film how about a group of filmmakers trying to film the unfilmable novel. Since the book is probably unfilmable, the film about the book seems to be the same. To be exact, it is a film about the making of a film based on a novel about the writing of a novel, which attaches another within the film to the already existing film within-the-film. Here is what the director says about the adaptation of Tristram Shandy in an interview for the Spanish newspaper El Pas:
The book, doesnt adjust to the traditional concept of narrative. It disperses in various directions, without following a straight line, and interpolating passages connected tangentially with the central story. This is one of the aspects of the project that attracted me most. Films, in general, are incredibly conservative inasmuch the structure and form. Here, I deliberately avoid the lineal structure...

(2007)

The director also alludes, as the Woolf/Potter endeavour, to the impossibility of capturing a life in one narrative be it written or filmed, although he started from a source-text that apparently is narrated by the protagonist; hence, the fruitless efforts of knowing the absolute truth about a person. Point of view is also a requirement for the faithfulness when making an adaptation. This is usually rendered by the camera focus and movement, and Joe Wright does it outstandingly in Pride and Prejudice. For example, in the first scene of the film, the director is trying to suggest that Elizabeth is a Romantic character by showing her being alone and happy during a walk in the middle of nature and participator / observer role in regard to her family and implicitly, society in general. Similarly, along the novel, Jane Austens characterisation of Elizabeth as lively, sportive, manner of talking towards the end of the book, (378- 88) the director, using his own narrative techniques, gives us hints of that liveliness and sportive manner 4

by the rapid moves of the camera. He doesnt stop at Elizabeth, though. It is obvious the contrast he is trying to make between the gentry (embodied by Lady Catherine and her surroundings) and the laymen (the Bennetts). At Rosings, the camera moves slowly and we can rarely see close-ups, scenes with which the director tries to render the stiff and impersonal atmosphere imposed by the English high society of the time; whereas, when the camera is at the Bennetts it seems as if it moves freely, with more fluid movements, suggesting the less charged atmosphere that surrounds people of lower status. Thus, Wright transfers Austens omniscient narrative voice, that throughout the book makes assessments and shares opinions unknown by most of the characters apart from the ones she chooses and the reader, by using the camera, he remains faithful to the books point of view. Joe Wrights job to make the cameras point of view coincide with the novels omniscient narrative is not an easy one; however, it is believed that the subjective narrator is the most difficult to be transferred onto image, whatever the source may be. In Gaspar Nos Enter the Void, there are scenes where the director is outstandingly using the first person narrative by placing the camera in the protagonists head. Although this film is not a book adaptation, I think that it is possibly one of the best samples of rendering the subjective narrator of a story. It is an innovation that can surely help a director to be faithful to any first person narration. Furthermore, the matter of the costumes and decors are of equal importance in an adaptation, especially in a Period film. When endeavouring to a realistic representation of a story, as Wright states when he is quoted by Anne-Marie PaquetDeyriss, costumes and appearances of the actors should be faithful. Some changes are brought but mostly on the important characters; for example: Bingly and Darcys hair, womens dresses. These are over- modernized versions of early 19th century England costumes and physical appearances but not obvious enough to track the audience off from following the story. Consequently, if we are to consider how written texts have been adapted into films throughout the history of cinema, and how criticism has evolved at the same time, it is safe to say that film (adaptation) is as an important an art-form as any other, including literature, especially nowadays when literature is more and more influenced by film. However, fidelity in adapting a book should not stand in how similar to the 5

book the adaptation is. Besides, there are two types of story -telling mediums in discussion, and a literal translation from book to film would hinder the creative freedom of the filmmakers. As Robert Stam states in his book, film adaptation is not just a unique linear translation of one original novel. In change, it is part of a larger cycle of related works and it is constantly growing. To put it differently, one persons idea of how a novel should look like on screen may differ completely from anothers; hence, there cannot be a unanimously accepted version of a text but better adaptations.

References: -Bluestone, George. Novels into Film. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1957. -Gmez, Lourdes. Adaptar lo inadaptable. http://www.elpais.com/articulo/cine/Adaptar/inadaptable/elpepucin/20070323elpepicin_ 5/Tes 28 Jan. 2011 -Hutcheon, Linda. A Theory of Adaptation. http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0705/15connor.php 28, Jan. 2011 http://staff.washington.edu/cgiacomi/courses/english497/abstracts/Abstract_J.html. 31, Jan. 2011

Filmography: Wright, Joe. Dir. 2005. Pride and Prejudice. Universal Pictures. Potter, Sally. Dir. 1992. Orlando. Adventure Pictures Winterbottom, Michael. Dir. 2005. A Cock and Bull Story. BBC Film, Baby Cow Productions. No, Gaspar. Dir. 2009. Enter the Void. Fidlit Films Stroheim, Erich von. Dir. 1924. Greed.