Online Magazine of the Visual Narrative - ISSN 1780-678X
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Online Magazine of the Visual Narrative - ISSN 1780-678X |
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Literature and Film, A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Film Adaptation Robert Stam and Alessandra Raengo |
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Author: Heidi Peeters Robert Stam and Alessandra Raengo, Literature and Film, A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Film Adaptation |
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I've been offered the dubious honor of reviewing Robert Stam's Literature and Film: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Film Adaptation , one of the volumes of his ambitious theoretical trilogy on adaptations. Dubious, I say, because Stam is a voice of authority in the film and literature field, having co-determined the contemporary discourse in which to address the mediatic nexus. Undoubtedly, his contributions have been immensely important in putting adaptations on the humanities map and in clearing the field from the eternal "the book was better" bias. And yet. A nagging voice in my head keeps whispering that the publication of this part might have been less subject to the inherent theoretical needs of the film-and-literature debate than to the inherent editorial laws that command all epic undertakings to be tripartite.
Hinting at the idea that Stam's work might have been superfluous is arrogant, even blasphemic, especially since what he says in this third volume is eloquent, well said and very true. Stam starts off with an excellent analysis of Spike Jonze's and Charlie Kaufman's hilariously meta-adaptational film Adaptation , which enables him to mix thematical close-reading with theoretical observations. From there on Stam in his tongue-in-cheek-tone gradually and systematically explores the pitfalls, prejudices and difficulties surrounding the format of adaptations. He examines the interesting ontological and experiential differences between film and literature and he offers a defense of the phenomenon with the help of major filmic and literary theorists like Derrida, Deleuze, Gaudreault, Genette, Kristeva, Barthes and Bakthin.
After a helpful status quaestionis comes the part in which Stam will offer "some modest proposals for dealing with the narrative, thematic and stylistic aspects of filmic adaptations of novels"(p.31), a model that according to Stam will be "less grandly ambitious than theory, yet more substantive than methodology." Some of us might regret that the line of thought which had started off so bravely with intentions of dialogism and mediatic invaginations does not lead to a new remarkable "Grand Theory" on adaptation, to smashing new insights or sweeping statements, but loses its bravura in an obligatory excursion into the basics of narratology, and in a hasty conclusion not fully capable to root out the clichés it had determined to. It might seem disappointing that this volume is so much of an introduction, and less of the innovative and eye-opening Stam-sequel one might have expected. However, considered in its own right, it offers an interesting outset for anyone ready to explore the field of Adaptation Studies.
Here comes the tricky part. Stam's contribution is and is not to be considered in its own right, since it does not even take up one sixth of the 340-pages long volume. To fill up the remaining 250 pages, he has summoned his adaptational disciples around him to provide for test cases of the "model", adaptational case-studies against different social, ethnic and productional backgrounds. Practically all followers reverently refer to The Master himself within their essays, mostly to his use of bakthinian dialogism and carnivalesque transgression, but let us be fair, since the 50-pages overview does not offer a strict theoretical paradigm, the group of contributors could hardly be called a "School". They are able to pay lip-service to the editor, while writing adaptational case-studies -however interesting- in pretty much the same way as they could have done so ten years ago (and indeed, this has been the case for one article in this volume), while a mix of editorial policies, politeness, and moderation has kept the contributors from engaging in polemics, either with Stam or with each other. Many analyses are still flirting with binary oppositions between the novelistic and the filmic version, while some others get round the problem in mainly ignoring the mediacy of the story. Hardly anyone dwells on "trivial" extra-filmic elements that might influence casting, production or reception, on remakes of adaptations as adaptations, on cognition or reception (e.g. the experiential difference between seeing the filmic adaptation after having read the novel, or after merely having acquired the myth through cultural traces). The case-studies do what they are supposed to do: they deal with "a" specific adaptation, hence circumventing statements on the essence of adaptation as such, hence circumventing the stigma of essentialism. Very clever, but somewhat boring.
The most interesting in this volume are the articles in which solid formal decodings of adaptations are positioned against the social and political background in which they are being consumed. One such example is Alexandra Seibel's The Carnival Of Repression: German Left-wing Politics and The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum , another is Memory and History in the Politics of Adaptation: Revisiting the Partition of India in Tamas , by Ranjani Mazumdar. Both pieces deal with the interaction between a political novel, its filmic adaptation, the historical context out of which both emerged and the political and social context in which they were being perceived. Especially Ranjani Mazumdar's piece is an emblem of insight into the intricate relations between the four poles, as she throws light on the link between media and memory in the construction of national identities. Another essay that is both theoretically original and culturally revealing is the piece by Bliss Cua Lim, called Serial Time: Bluebeard in Stepford . In this essay, Bliss Cua Lim persuasively links the morbid story of Ira Levin's Stepford Wives and its update in the filmic Brian Forbes adaptation to the centuries old Bluebeard tale, proving the myth's recasting to comment on historical nonsynchronisms in intertextuality, on Disney audio-animatronics, feminism and the "Final Girl"-trope in slasher movies. It is too bad that Cua Lim has not considered discussing the recent Barbie-style comedy-remake featuring Nicole Kidman, since I would have liked to know how a gruesome tale on misogyny has become funny in the age of Desperate Housewives, but still, Cua Lim's contribution is most refreshing. Most other essays in the volume are adequate analyses of a certain issue in a particular film/book, but generally they are not bound to be remembered for a very long time.
All in all, Literature and Film has turned out to be a "center-position" book: a decent introductory overview of some major issues on filmic adaptations complemented with decent and less decent case-studies. Not extremely exciting, but since the humanities are always in need of a good overview, Stam's introduction -in photocopied form- will undoubtedly have a promising future ahead in "Introduction to Film & Lit" classes all over the world. Some of he remaining 16 essays, from their part, will collect dust in libraries and serve students who happen to have to write a paper on one of the films discussed very well. |
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