For the most part, I try to be an optimistic sort of a fellow. That's hard thing to be in an increasingly pessimistic society. So what is it about dystopian novels which I find so appealing? I haven't a clue. Perhaps because I know most of them are going to end on a positive note, x number of pages later, whereas with real life, I have the same belief, but the script's end in not within immediate sight.
In William Sleator's 1974 young adult science fiction novel "House of Stairs", five sixteen year old are brought to a strange prison. It is the future, but we do not know much about this world other than it is a world of scarcity. All the children come from orphanages, but have nothing else in common. Their prison is a huge room with no visible walls, floor or ceiling. There is nothing but seemingly endless flights of stairs which seem to go nowhere. On one landing is running water in a basin which must serve as both sink and toilet. On another is a strange machine with blinking lights which occasionally produces food.
The machine rewards the kids when they exhibit certain behaviors, many of which they discover by accident, and others by experimentation. As the machine begins to require more elaborate and regimented behaviors, it becomes apparent that rewards are more frequent as their behaviors grow increasingly selfish and cruel. Two of the kids realize they are being manipulated and escape as far from the machine as possible. The novel ends with one of the most chilling lines I have ever read in a science fiction novel: "Without hesitation they began to dance."
Despite the chill of that last line, this is a book which had a profound impact on me when I read it first in high school. The social degradation the kids experience has been compared to William Golding's "Lord of the Flies", but I found it ending with a great deal more hope, at least for two of the kids. To me, it is a story about moral agency. The two characters who refuse to be manipulated are seen by the others as well as by their captors, as uncooperative and incorrigible failures. But in the end they still have the ability to chose their behaviors for themselves.
I'd like to see House of Stairs adapted for the screen, but I doubt it ever will be, as least not adapted well. Hollywood talks down to teens, doesn't think they can understand concepts of freedom of choice and social order. When books with such high concepts are adapted for screen, those concepts are expunged or replaced with CGI graphics, explosions, brain-numbing music, and adult actors in revealing clothing portraying teenagers in a hurry to grow up.
Children in general and teens in particular have a great desire to move the world in positive directions, but seldom are given the tools or permission to do so. If Hollywood truly listened to youth, they would learn that youth want better things than what the evening news offers them, that they rail against injustice and seek relationships that have a deeper meaning than "entertainment" shows offer. Perhaps one reason why dystopian novels are currently so highly popular in the young adult genre is because however frightening that literary world is, people their age not only have choices, but the courage and ability to make those choices. As much as I disliked the Twilight novels, I can say this: the characters therein did make positive choices (even though they felt compelled to do two dozen incredibly stupid things before they reached that point.)
Bookstores are filled with literary pabulum. Best seller lists suggest that there are many with strong appetites for the banal. But what about longevity? What about books that might not sell 17 million copies this year but nonetheless are in print decades later, enduring because they have a point, and not simply a glossy cover? What about books which require the exercising of a bit of gray matter over books that require no more brain function than watching a soap opera?
And if those books can require intelligent thought, why not movies?
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
Book-into-movie wish list: "A Wrinkle in Time"
Since the publication and extraordinary success of the Harry Potter series, children's and teen novels are option for film as soon as they achieve any kind of fan base whatsoever. Some of these films never come to fruition, but it's nice that so much imaginative fiction is at least being considered for the screen. Of course, all too often filmmakers get dollar signs in their eyes and don't really have a love for the source material, merely the money they think they can make off an already established fan base.
Nonetheless, I still hope. I believe storytelling on the page and storytelling on the screen are two vastly different things. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. There are limitations to both. Being different mediums, don't expect an entirely "faithful" adaptation to even my favorite books. And what I deem the most important aspects of a story is seldom going to be what the screenwriter does or even the person sitting next to me in the movie house. For instance, I was mildly disappointed in the movie adaptation (2003) of "A Wrinkle in Time" (1962), my all-time favorite juvenile science fiction novel, by my all-time favorite juvenile writer, Madeleine L'Engle. In fact, in an interview she gave in-between the release of the movie and her death in 2007, I learned that she thought they messed up the story more than I thought. Perhaps because I had waited not-too-patiently for someone to adapt my favorite book since I had read it the first time nearly 30 years prior, I was more willing to make allowances for what they got "wrong". I'm sure I'd be more sensitive if it was my own story they messed up.
Due at least in part to our politically correct society, many of the religious aspects of the book were left out of the movie. I find this a bit ironic, but perhaps understandable. Perhaps the movie makers didn't want to open up any cans of worms. The author's works have been criticized and banned by some as being too religious (although religion in her fiction is generally only mentioned peripherally) and by others for her belief in a universal salvation (the very idea that God might love all His children!) This in itself didn't spoil the movie for me, although i don't understand why Hollywood is so shy about having characters express religious belief unless done so in a fanatic manner - do they truly believe that their audiences cannot accept the disparate beliefs of a fictional character without having their own beliefs threatened? Perhaps some do. But that is a topic for another post.
No, my biggest disappointment was the way the characters were presented. At 12 or 13 I fell in love with Meg Murry, my first "book crush". In the book she was awkward and very unsure of herself, bespectacled and not much liking herself, afraid to use the talents her parents had always insisted she possessed. I could relate to her somewhat, especially the first time I read the book. The movie portrays her as sullen but mostly self confident. The movie missed the point here: it was Meg's weaknesses which allowed her to triumph in the end; her weaknesses were actually her strengths. Her youngest brother Charles Wallace, which admittedly would be a difficult character to bring to the screen, is in the movie a bit of a snot, which wasn't the case in the original story. His weaknesses are his downfall in both book and movie, but I think more realistically portrayed in the book. Meg's twin brothers Sandy And Dennys are supporting cast in both mediums, but actually serve a purpose in the book, whereas in the movie they appear to be afterthoughts, little more than props. Actually, most of the characters suffered from this malady. Meg's schoolmate Calvin, and the three mysterious old women Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which are all more fully developed, believable and sympathetic characters on the printed page than on the screen. In adapting the tale for a more modern audience, the movie makers lost much of the soul of the characters.
Unfortunately, the movie fared no better with setting. In portraying the world of Camazotz, a world which has traded away war and poverty and sickness for extreme conformity and lack of agency, the movie portrays a dark world reminiscent of George Orwell's 1984 or Tim Burton's Batman. What makes Camazotz terrifying in the book is how it looks so similar to our own world, so comfortingly familiar -- but a closer look under the surface shows something horribly wrong under the facade. And when then the children meet IT, the ruler of Camazotz -- well, the actual literary description of a brain setting atop a dais might not itself sound terrifying, but the evil is nonetheless palpable. In the movie, IT is reduced to 1950s "B" movie schlock. Here is where the storytelling medium of celluloid falls short -- it cannot conceive a way to portray evil without giving the appearance of ugliness or monstrosity. It has a difficult time portraying evil as benign as it often appears in reality.
So, whereas "A Wrinkle in Time" wasn't a bad movie, it wasn't a good one, either. It had its moments. But it could have been done better, and perhaps someday it will be, leaving its message of unconditional love intact. Of the book's four sequels, I think "A Wind in the Door" (1973) and "A Swiftly Tilting Planet" (1978) would lend themselves best to the screen. Both have messages which are sorely needed in today's world, not just by children, but also by adults. In an age when bullying runs rampart and differences are extolled but seldom truly accepted, we need the message in A Wind in the Door that the individual is lovable and an important part of the whole. And amid the fear and worry of our present day of a planet seemingly tilting out of control, A Swiftly Tilting Planet's message of small changes having lasting generational impacts would be most welcome.
Nonetheless, I still hope. I believe storytelling on the page and storytelling on the screen are two vastly different things. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. There are limitations to both. Being different mediums, don't expect an entirely "faithful" adaptation to even my favorite books. And what I deem the most important aspects of a story is seldom going to be what the screenwriter does or even the person sitting next to me in the movie house. For instance, I was mildly disappointed in the movie adaptation (2003) of "A Wrinkle in Time" (1962), my all-time favorite juvenile science fiction novel, by my all-time favorite juvenile writer, Madeleine L'Engle. In fact, in an interview she gave in-between the release of the movie and her death in 2007, I learned that she thought they messed up the story more than I thought. Perhaps because I had waited not-too-patiently for someone to adapt my favorite book since I had read it the first time nearly 30 years prior, I was more willing to make allowances for what they got "wrong". I'm sure I'd be more sensitive if it was my own story they messed up.
Due at least in part to our politically correct society, many of the religious aspects of the book were left out of the movie. I find this a bit ironic, but perhaps understandable. Perhaps the movie makers didn't want to open up any cans of worms. The author's works have been criticized and banned by some as being too religious (although religion in her fiction is generally only mentioned peripherally) and by others for her belief in a universal salvation (the very idea that God might love all His children!) This in itself didn't spoil the movie for me, although i don't understand why Hollywood is so shy about having characters express religious belief unless done so in a fanatic manner - do they truly believe that their audiences cannot accept the disparate beliefs of a fictional character without having their own beliefs threatened? Perhaps some do. But that is a topic for another post.
No, my biggest disappointment was the way the characters were presented. At 12 or 13 I fell in love with Meg Murry, my first "book crush". In the book she was awkward and very unsure of herself, bespectacled and not much liking herself, afraid to use the talents her parents had always insisted she possessed. I could relate to her somewhat, especially the first time I read the book. The movie portrays her as sullen but mostly self confident. The movie missed the point here: it was Meg's weaknesses which allowed her to triumph in the end; her weaknesses were actually her strengths. Her youngest brother Charles Wallace, which admittedly would be a difficult character to bring to the screen, is in the movie a bit of a snot, which wasn't the case in the original story. His weaknesses are his downfall in both book and movie, but I think more realistically portrayed in the book. Meg's twin brothers Sandy And Dennys are supporting cast in both mediums, but actually serve a purpose in the book, whereas in the movie they appear to be afterthoughts, little more than props. Actually, most of the characters suffered from this malady. Meg's schoolmate Calvin, and the three mysterious old women Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which are all more fully developed, believable and sympathetic characters on the printed page than on the screen. In adapting the tale for a more modern audience, the movie makers lost much of the soul of the characters.
Unfortunately, the movie fared no better with setting. In portraying the world of Camazotz, a world which has traded away war and poverty and sickness for extreme conformity and lack of agency, the movie portrays a dark world reminiscent of George Orwell's 1984 or Tim Burton's Batman. What makes Camazotz terrifying in the book is how it looks so similar to our own world, so comfortingly familiar -- but a closer look under the surface shows something horribly wrong under the facade. And when then the children meet IT, the ruler of Camazotz -- well, the actual literary description of a brain setting atop a dais might not itself sound terrifying, but the evil is nonetheless palpable. In the movie, IT is reduced to 1950s "B" movie schlock. Here is where the storytelling medium of celluloid falls short -- it cannot conceive a way to portray evil without giving the appearance of ugliness or monstrosity. It has a difficult time portraying evil as benign as it often appears in reality.
So, whereas "A Wrinkle in Time" wasn't a bad movie, it wasn't a good one, either. It had its moments. But it could have been done better, and perhaps someday it will be, leaving its message of unconditional love intact. Of the book's four sequels, I think "A Wind in the Door" (1973) and "A Swiftly Tilting Planet" (1978) would lend themselves best to the screen. Both have messages which are sorely needed in today's world, not just by children, but also by adults. In an age when bullying runs rampart and differences are extolled but seldom truly accepted, we need the message in A Wind in the Door that the individual is lovable and an important part of the whole. And amid the fear and worry of our present day of a planet seemingly tilting out of control, A Swiftly Tilting Planet's message of small changes having lasting generational impacts would be most welcome.
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