XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: Troels@ThisIsFake.invalid   
      
   In message    
   Lewis  spoke these staves:   
   >   
   > In message    
   > Wayne Brown  wrote:   
   >>   
      
      
      
   >> Suppose you took two people of similar tastes and writing styles,   
   >> neither of whom were familiar with the story, and had one read   
   >> the book and the other watch the film.  Then you ask each to give   
   >> you a written description of the story.  Ideally, from my   
   >> viewpoint, it would be nearly impossible to tell the descriptions   
   >> apart.   
      
   I cannot agree that this is a valid criterion for the 'ideal'. I   
   firmly believe that the adapting artist must be free to pursue their   
   own artistic impulses and desires -- to make the story their own.   
      
   This has nothing to do with book / film, but adaptations _usually_   
   involve a change of medium (though not always -- Tolkien's retellings   
   of the Völsungasaga and parts of the Arthurian legends are, IMO,   
   examples of adaptations that do not involve a change of medium. His   
   translation of _Beowulf_, however, is not, IMO, an adaptation, but a   
   translation).   
      
   However, while I insist on the freedom of the adapting artist to make   
   their own artistic product, and not to be judged _morally_ for their   
   choices of faithfulness or distance to the original,  _I_, on my   
   side, is of course free to like or dislike the adaptation for   
   whatever reasons I darned well like -- including, if it so strikes   
   me, my evaluation of faithfulness. This, however, is a matter of   
   personal taste, and not a matter of evaluating the adaptation as art.   
      
   > Then you either have a bad book, a bad movie, or most likely,   
   > both.   
      
   While I agree on rejecting the concept of extreme faithfulness as the   
   ideal, I must also insist that this is nonsense. There is nothing   
   that prevents both from being extremely good -- the canons of   
   narrative art are not so very different between storytelling, book,   
   audio play, stage play, and film, so of course it is entirely   
   possible to make two excellent versions of the exact same story.   
      
   This whole idea that book and film should be so fundamentally   
   different in terms of modes of narrative art is, in my considered   
   opinion, patent nonsense.   
      
   > To expect a visual medium to produce the same impressions as one   
   > that is based on a construction in the reader's mind is absurd.   
      
   That depends on what you mean. Do note that the stipulation was "a   
   written description of the _story_" -- not a written description of   
   the physical appearance of the characters or other similar issues   
   (where there must necessarily be a limit to the level of detail that   
   can be included in a book). These, however, are merely extraneous and   
   insignificant filler -- it is the story that matters (the story,   
   including the personality, but not appearance, of the character,   
   really is _all_ that matters), and for that it is of course entirely   
   possible to tell the exact same story in different media, including   
   book and film.   
      
   --   
   Troels Forchhammer   
   Valid e-mail is    
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         Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does   
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     - Charles Darwin  (1809 - 1882)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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