Film Warm Up 5/4 What TOOLS does a writer have when crafting a novel? How many people are involved in the crafting of novel? What TOOLS does a filmmaker have when creating a film? How many people are generally involved?

Learning TARGETS I can read Act III of The Importance of Being Earnest with my class in order to answer comprehension questions. I can apply concepts of Film Adaptation to my watching of The Importance of Being Earnest in order to apply these concepts to my watching of the film.

Adapted by Mrs. Lackland Notes ON Adaptation Adapted by Mrs. Lackland

“Faithful” When we say an adaption has been ‘faithful’ to the original, the term gives expression to the disappointment we feel when a film adaptation fails to capture what we see as the fundamental narrative, thematic, and aesthetic features of its literary source. This can happen when we have loved a book, but an adaptation has not been worthy of our love.

Variety in possible meaning The words of a novel, as countless commentators have pointed out, have a virtual, symbolic meaning; we as readers, or as directors, have to fill in their paradigmatic indeterminances, or, what we perceive to be at the heart of the novel.

Literal fidelity is undesirable? The shift from a single-track, uniquely verbal medium such as the novel, which “has only words to play with,” to a multitrack medium such as film, which can play not only with words (written and spoken), but also with theatrical performance, music, sound effects, and moving photographic images, explains the unlikelihood of literal fidelity.

Making a film vs. Writing a book A novel is usually produced by a single individual with assistance from a few others, but a film is a collaborative project. The demand for fidelity ignores the actual processes of making films – for example, the differences in cost and in modes of production. Most likely, there’s a crew of at least four or five people and at maximum a cast and crew and support staff of hundreds. With a film, budget is a major concern as well, whereas it’s not so major of a concern when writing a book.

Trust the tale, not the teller Fidelity to what? Is the filmmaker to be faithful to a plot in every detail? That would make a 30 hour version of most books. An author’s expressed intentions are not necessarily relevant, since literary critics warn us away from the ‘intentional fallacy,’ urging us to ‘trust the tale not the teller.” Authors may not even be aware of their deepest intentions. So, to whom is a filmmaker expected to be faithful? The biographical author? The textual implied author? To the narrator? How about the style of the work? To its narrative point of view? Or, to its artistic devices?

Literature is superior to film? Our culture assumes that literary art is superior to film. This assumption is derived from three major prejudices: seniority, the assumption that older arts are better arts, iconophobia, culturally rooted (traceable to the Judaic-Muslim-Protestant prohibitions on ‘graven images’) belief that the visual arts are innately inferior to the verbal arts, and logophilia, which, due to the admiration of the sacred texts, holds all writing to be initially somewhat more elevated than visual art.

Films include A great variety of art Although the character in a novel is a kind of artifact, constructed literally out of words, the film character is made up of photographs, body movement, acting style, and grain of voice, all amplified and molded by lighting, set, and music. Cinema can literally include painting, poetry, and music, or it can metaphorically evoke them by imitating their procedures.

AS a Viewer of an adaptation, What is important to note/look for when watching a film version of a play?