Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film
Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film
Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film
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Adaptation<br />
A more common resource, however, has been to take<br />
works that, for reasons <strong>of</strong> literary style, plot, or characterization,<br />
are more amenable to being ‘‘tampered with’’<br />
and are less complete or self-sufficient in their original<br />
form, or that belong to literary genres such as detective or<br />
gangster fiction, thrillers, westerns, or science fiction,<br />
which are <strong>of</strong>ten considered to be marginal in terms <strong>of</strong><br />
literary respectability and are thus less likely to arouse<br />
indignation if they are ‘‘betrayed’’ in the process <strong>of</strong><br />
adaptation. Many <strong>of</strong> the finest American films fall into<br />
these categories, as do those <strong>of</strong> the French New Wave<br />
works that were based on Série noire (1979) or pulp<br />
fiction.<br />
ADAPTATION IN THE SILENT PERIOD<br />
The earliest narrative films were rarely more than three to<br />
five minutes long, gradually extending to approximately<br />
twenty minutes by 1910, and then increasing steadily to<br />
a standard feature length <strong>of</strong> ninety to one hundred<br />
twenty minutes by the end <strong>of</strong> the silent era. Partly to<br />
avoid copyright payments and partly to exploit audience<br />
familiarity with already existing subject matter at a time<br />
when a coherent story could rarely be told on film without<br />
the use <strong>of</strong> copious intertitles or the services <strong>of</strong> a<br />
lecturer within the auditorium to explain the plot, the<br />
first adaptations were almost invariably taken from classic<br />
authors such as Shakespeare, Dickens, George Eliot<br />
(1819–1880), and Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) in<br />
Britain, and, on the Continent, Émile Zola (1840–<br />
1902), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832),<br />
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), Alexander Pushkin (1799–<br />
1837), and others. The sheer length <strong>of</strong> most <strong>of</strong> these<br />
works, however, prohibited any attempt at completeness,<br />
and standard practice was to choose well-known extracts<br />
or scenes that were relatively self-sufficient, such as the<br />
‘‘Dotheboys School’’ scenes from Nicholas Nickleby or<br />
the shipwreck scene from The Tempest. As films gradually<br />
increased in length, valiant attempts were made to<br />
squeeze the whole plot <strong>of</strong> a novel or film into a running<br />
time <strong>of</strong> around twenty minutes. Popular titles adapted in<br />
this early period included Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1903),<br />
Frankenstein (1910, and much filmed since, though<br />
never, despite such titles as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein<br />
[1994], with much authenticity), Robinson Crusoe<br />
(1913), Faust (1915), and Don Quixote (1915).<br />
Technically, most <strong>of</strong> these early films were static—<br />
filmed from a fixed camera position, usually in long shot,<br />
and presenting action in tableau-like form. By the 1910s,<br />
however, cinematic technique had become much more<br />
sophisticated, with extensive camera movement, fuller<br />
use <strong>of</strong> screen space and camera angle and distance, a<br />
more naturalistic acting style, and creative editing that<br />
enhanced understanding <strong>of</strong> plot and character rather than<br />
simply moving the action from one setting to another. It<br />
became possible to tell stories on the screen with more<br />
completeness and complexity, though the desire to give<br />
the young medium cultural respectability led to continued<br />
reliance on Shakespeare and Dickens in particular.<br />
Soon, however, more recent ‘‘best-selling’’ works began<br />
to appear on the screen, such as Mrs. Henry Wood’s<br />
(1814–1887) melodrama East Lynne, filmed as the first<br />
British six-reeler (sixty to seventy minutes) in 1913, and,<br />
more controversially, D. W. Griffith’s (1875–1948)<br />
adaptation <strong>of</strong> Thomas Dixon’s (1864–1946) The<br />
Clansman, filmed as The Birth <strong>of</strong> a Nation, one <strong>of</strong> the<br />
longest American features to date, in 1915. By the 1920s,<br />
such works predominated, with adaptations <strong>of</strong> now<br />
largely forgotten writers such as ‘‘Ouida’’ (1839–1908),<br />
Marie Corelli (1855–1924), Sir Hall Caine (1853–<br />
1931), E. Phillips Oppenheim (1866–1946), and the<br />
‘‘sensational’’ novels <strong>of</strong> such writers as Michael Arlen<br />
(1895–1956), whose The Green Hat was filmed as<br />
A Woman <strong>of</strong> Affairs in 1928, starring Greta Garbo<br />
(1905–1990); while the endlessly prolific Edgar Wallace<br />
(1875–1932) may well hold the record for being the<br />
most frequently filmed English-speaking author ever.<br />
In Europe the epics <strong>of</strong> the Polish novelist Henryk<br />
Sienkiewicz (1846–1916), such as Quo Vadis? (filmed in<br />
1912), helped to provide material for the influential<br />
Italian historical dramas, and the novels <strong>of</strong> Selma<br />
Lagerlöf (1858–1940) were crucial sources for the great<br />
films <strong>of</strong> Victor Sjöström (1879–1960) and Mauritz<br />
Stiller (1883–1928) in Sweden, particularly the former’s<br />
Körkarlen (The Phantom Carriage, 1921) and the latter’s<br />
Gösta Berlings saga (1924). In France Jean Renoir’s<br />
(1894–1979) Nana (1926), Jacques Feyder’s (1885–<br />
1948) Thérèse Raquin (1928) and Marcel L’Herbier’s<br />
(1888–1979) L’argent (Money, 1929) were all based on<br />
works by the still controversial Zola. L’Herbier also<br />
filmed Luigi Pirandello’s (1867–1936) Feu Mattias<br />
Pascal (The Late Mathias Pascal, 1925) and Feyder<br />
adapted both the best-seller L’atlantide (Lost Atlantis,<br />
1920) by Pierre Benoît (1886–1962) and Crainquebille<br />
(Bill, 1922) by the then prestigious Anatole France<br />
(1844–1924). What is probably the greatest French film<br />
<strong>of</strong> the 1920s, however, was a different sort <strong>of</strong> adaptation:<br />
every word <strong>of</strong> Carl Theodor Dreyer’s (1889–1968) La<br />
Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (The Passion <strong>of</strong> Joan <strong>of</strong> Arc, 1928)<br />
was scrupulously based on the original transcripts <strong>of</strong><br />
Joan’s trial, and the austerity <strong>of</strong> the filmmaking style<br />
exactly matched the sparseness <strong>of</strong> the dialogue.<br />
FILMING CLASSIC FICTION:<br />
1927 TO THE PRESENT<br />
While few people today would care whether The Green<br />
Hat was in any way betrayed by its transformation into<br />
38 SCHIRMER ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FILM