Edited and with an introduction by atgers Depth of Field Series James Narerhore hates Aon, Ma jn Aon, Rabe ons, Ses tons Richard Abed, Sere Fim Jo Belen ed, Movies and Mass Cure Mathew Berti, , Coiling Holywood: Censorship and Regulation in the Studio Ea Joh Thornon Cael, Bestonic Medi and Technocuare ep Film Adaptation James Naremore, ed, Flim Adapaton ‘alee Sith, Represerting Backes Issues in Film and Video Jane Steger el, The Studio Sytem Lunds Wiliams, ed Viewing Postion: Ways of Seeing Fim | Rutgers University Press ow Banik, Nw eseyLibay of Congres Cataloging in Puletion Date ono fre Flim dapat fed and with oss it anti ye Neer ttlades biblopphicalelerences and index RANG 920139 fh abe ape SAN OSIA6 2619 pak ae Pmepatons 2 Mtoe pete and newness Ss, enigoT is NOT 30 rouareai—val mae sh Coepng in Pb ym for he ook vail om he Bash ary “This caltetoncpyiht © 2000 y Rags, The Ste Unvesiy. Fstop so nota eer plese ee epg of tach apse ‘bts eee ‘Nop hc yb odd a tized an om a by any meas, elect oPsechmia oy soy ngrmason sores alee, witha wie Pe ‘Sis Rot te pubis eee eon Buen Umveraty Pes 10) pe Ries rene, Pexenwa, M5654 99. The only exec oth feohinon are {ined O'S copie tm Manat inh Unie Sater of Amiens: For James Naremore, Amy Rubin, and hr sons, Alexander and PatriceAndré Bazin Adaptation, or the Cinema as Digest ‘The problem of digests and adaptations i usually posed within the framework of literature. Yet literature only partakes of « phenomenon whose amplitude is much larger. Take painting, for instance, One might leven consider an art museum as a digest, for we find collected there & selection of paintings chat were intended to exist in a completely dle ‘ent architectural and decorative context. Nonetheless, these works ofa are still orginal. But now take the imaginary museum proposed by ‘Malraux. It efracts the original painting into millions of facets thanks to ‘Photographic reproduction, and it substiutes for that original images of Afferent dimensions and colors that are readily accessible to al. And, by the way, photography for its part is only a modern substitute {or engraving, which previously had been the only approximate “adapta tion’ available to art connoisseurs. One must aot forget thatthe adap tation and summary of original works of at have become so customary and so frequent that it would be next to impossible to question thet! existence today. For che sake of argument, | shall take my examples from the cinema, ‘More than one weiter, more than one critic, mote than one film: _maker, even, has challenged the aesthetic justification forthe adaptation ‘of novels to the seen; however, there are few examples of those who take actual exception to this practice, ofatiste who refuse 0 sll theit books, or to adapt other people's books, or to diect such adaptations ‘when producers come along with the right blandishment, So thei the oreical argument does not seem altogether justified. In general, they make claims about the specificity or distinctness of every authentic lic rary work. A novel ise unique synthesis whose molecular equilibrium is automatically affected when you tamper with its form. Essentially, no detail ofthe narrative can be considered secondary all syntactic charac teristics, then, are in fact expressions of the psychological, moral, ot Tonaated by Aan Phe nd Bert Carl Copyright © 1987. Fan Bz ot Wek by Ber Candle. Reproduced Sy persion Reane Rae metaphyseal content ofthe work. Andié Gide’ simple pasts? are ina thoy, inseparable from the events of The Pastoral Symphony (191), jst Bs Camus’ presen perfect ace tnheret inthe metaphysical ama of ‘The Stange (1982) em when ti posed in such complex terms, howeres, the prob tem of cineratie aspttion is not absolutely insolvale and the histo zy ofthe cinema already proves that this problem bas often ben solved {various ways shall ite ony incontestable examples here: Malraur’s Man's Hope spot, sa. Sierra de Terel, 1939), Jean Renot’s A Dey in the Country (986, ster Maupassant, andthe recent Grapes of Weath Utbao, tected by John Ford, Hom Steinbeck. I find it eaty to defend ven qualified sueess such a8 The Pastoral Symphony (1949, directed by Tean elannoy) Iti tr that nor evrything inthe fm isa succes, ‘lets certainly nor due to what some consider the inelable aspect ofthe oriial. 1 do ot cae much for Pree Blznchar®s sting ut do thin tht Michele Morgan's beau eyes—which ae able to como heate the blind Gertrude's innermost thowghts—and the omlpreent tot ofthe ironically serene snow ae acceptable substiewes for Cide’s Simple pass All i takers for the fmmalers to have enough visual Imagination to crest te cinematic equivalent ofthe syle ofthe oi hah and forthe ene to have the eyes to se se To be srs then of aeptaon come wih he flowing warning: that one not confuse prose style with grammatical ulosyn {anes or, move generally sill with formal constant, Such confusion i Gidespeatand unfortunately, not merely among French teachers "For mot sg, 4 vse manietaion, ofa, which absolutely insparble fom the narrative concent of which ts in a Thannes of speaking an scordng to are’ seo he word he met iyses, Under these citeumstanes faithfulness to a frmy iterary or ‘heres ilusory: what mates isthe equivalence in meaning othe forms? The style of Malraux’ i scompletely identical o that of his books eventhough we ate dealing herewith two dferen artistic forms, Cinema on the one hand and iterature onthe oir The ease ofA Day ‘the Conntry is suber: sfaiehl tthe api of Maupassant short Sry tthe sme ne that netomat of Rens ms: This isthe eration of one work in another exeito’s cow SStousness. And theres ot a person who wel deny the beauty of the feule took somebody like Maupssan, but avo someone ike Renoir {both of them, lan and Auguste to achieve “The hat liners wl eopond thatthe above mentioned examples prove only tht its perhape nox metaphyseal impossble to make a Eneratic work inspited bya literary one, with sulin fathulnes to {he oii ofthe ginal and with an Sethe intelligence that permis th to consider then the equi ofthe book bu ehey wills sy that this is no longer the kindof “adapration” I was taking about at the Aptatn, oF Gm Ds beginning ofthis chapter. They wil say that A Day in the Country on screen i diferent work from the noel and is equal or super 09 model because Jean Renoir, ins orn ight an ats of he same rank 2 Maupassant and because he hs of couse benefited tom the work of the wnter, which 1s anterior this own, They wil claim that We examine th countless American and European novels that ae adapted tothe seren every month we wil ce that the films are something com pletely diferent from the novels, that they are the condensed verions Sumntaies, film “digest of which I spoke eae. For intance, take aesthetically indefensible films such ae The Idiot (1946, diected by Georges Lampin} and For Whom the Bell Toll (194, dneced by Samm Wood or those never-ending “adaptations” of Balsa, which seem to have more than amply demonstrated thatthe author of The Human Comedy’ isthe least "cinematic" ofall novelist. To be sur, one must fst know to what end the adaptation i designed: for the nema or ot its audience: One must alo realize that most adapters care lat more aout the later than sbout the former “The problem ofadapaton forthe audience is much more ev dent in the ease of ao. Indeed radio isnot quite an at like the eine tai is fist and foremost a means of reproduction and transmission. ‘The digest phenomenon resides not 0 much in the actual condensing oF simplification of works asin the way they are consumed by the listen, ing public, The cultural interest of radio~precisely the aspect of i that sears Georges Duhamel>—is that i allowe modefn man to ive ina taviroament of sound comparable tthe warm atmosphere cested by central eating. Ao forme ldhough Ihave had a taio se for bee & {year now feo the need to sun kon a soon as et home often | even ite and work withthe idiom st my companion: Right now a orite this ancl, {am listening to Jean Visoldsexcllem daly morning brondeaston the great msctns Farle today, while was shaving Jens Rontand” juggling with chromosomes, told me why ony female cts [oe wis mallet an be ofthe cl stacey and dom Femember who explained to me wile I was having Scsklast how, through simple scraping wih an, the Asc carved extardnary mask of polished quarts that one cam see at the Musce de T Homme? Jules Romainy’s? appalling hoak on extraocular vision was Hell seiusly adapted for radio. Radio has crested an atmogpherc culture that is as omnipresent 4s humidity in the ae Por those who think tat calture canbe ateved aly through hard work, the ease of physical acess that radi allows fo ‘works of at isa east as antagonistic othe nature ofthese works as any tampering with thet form Even i i well fendered or inepaly per. formed on radio, the Fith Symphony i no longer Beethoven's work when you listen tit while in your bathtub music must be accompanied bythe tual of attending «concert, by the sacrament of contemplationasketin However, one can also see in radio the spreading of culture 1o everyone — | the physieal spread of culture, which isthe first step toward ts spicitual ascendance, Radio comfortably provides, like one more modern conveni- | ence, culture for everyone.” It represents again of time anda eduction | ‘of efiory, which isthe very mark of our era. Alter all, even M. Duhamel | will take 3 cab or the metto to ge to the concert hal. The clichéd bias according to which culure is inseparable from lectual elfore springs from a bourgeois, intllecrualistvellex It is the ‘equivalent ina rationalistic society ofthe inititory rites in primitive civ- ilizations. Esoterism is obviously one ofthe grand cultural traditions, and {Lam not pretending chat we should completely banish it from our csi- lization. But we could simply put it back in its place, which should in no ‘way be absolute. There is definite pleasure in cracking or conquering the hermeticism of a work of art, which then refines our relationship to that work of art. So much the better. But mountain cmbing hs not yet replaced walking on level ground In place of the classical modes of cul ‘ural communication, which ae at once a defense of ealture and a secret {ingot behind high walls, modem technology and moder le now more and more offer up an extended culture reduced to the lowest common ‘denominator ofthe masses. To the defensive intellectual moto of "No culture without mental effort,” which i in fact unconsciously elitist, the ‘upand-coming civilisation now responds with, “Let's grab whatever we can.” This is progress—that if chere really i sucha thing as progress AAS far as the cinema is concerned, my intention isnot to defend the indefensible. Indeed, most ofthe films that ae based on novels mere- ly usurp their tiles, even though good lawyer could probably prove that chese movies have an indirect value, since it has been showe that the sale of book always increases after it has been adapted to the screen. And the original work can only profit from such an exposure Although The Idiot. for example, is very frustrating on the sreen, ss lundeniable that many potential readers of Dostoyevsky bave found ia the film’s oversimplified psychology and action « kind of preliminary twimming that has given them easier acces 10 an otherwise dificult novel. The process is somewhat similar to that of M. de Vogte, the author of “abridged” classics for schools in the nineteenth century These are despicable in the eyes of devotees of the Russian novel [but they have hatdly anything to lose by this process, and neither does Dostoyevsky), yet extremely useful t0 those who are noc yet familia ‘with the Russian novel and who thus can benefit fom an introduction toi In any event, I shall not comment further on this, fori has more to do with pedagogy than with art | would much prefer to deal with 3 rather modern notion for which the erties are in large part responsible that ofthe untouchability of a work of at “The nineteenth century, more than any other, firmly established an idolatry of fore, mainly literary, chat is still with us and that has ro, Fara sD made us relegate what has in fact always been essential fr narrative composition to the back of our eitcal consciousness che invention of character and situation. [grant that the protagonists and events of 3 novel achieve their aesthetic existence only through the form that fxprestes them and that somehow brings them 10 life in Out mins Bat this precedence i a vain as that whichis regularly conveyed to collese students when they ee asked to write an estay on the precedence of an szuage over thought, Ie is interesting to note that the novelists who s0 Rereely defend the stylistic or formal integrity of thei texts are also the ‘ones who sooner or later overwhelm us with confessions about the tyrannical demande oftheir charactere. According to these writers, theit protagonists are enfants terzibles who completely escape from theie con trol once they have heen conceived, The novelist is totally subjected to their whims, he isthe instrument of their wills. lam not doubting this for a minute, but then writers must recognize that the true aesthetic reality of a psychological or social novel lies in the characters or theit environment rather than in wha chey call is style. The style sin the Service af the narrative: i isa election of i, s0 to speak, the body but ‘ot the soul. And itis not impossible for the artistic soul to manifest, itself through another incarnation, This assumption, thatthe style isin the service of the narestive, appears vain and sacrilegious only if one refuses to see the many examples of it thatthe history of the ars gives ous, and if one therefore indulges in the biased condemnation of cine ‘matic adaptation, With time, we do see the ghosts of famous characters rise far above the grest novels from which they emanate. Don Quixote and Gargantus dwell in the consciousness of millions of people who have never hod any direct or complete contact with the works of Cervantes and Rabelais. I would like to be sure that all those who con: jure up the spirit of Fabrice and Madame Bovary have read (or reread, for ‘ood measure) Stendhal and Flaubers, but lam not so sue. Insoar asthe Style ofthe orginal has managed to create a character and impoee him fon the public consciousness, that character acquires a greater autonomy, Which might in certain cases lead as far a8 quasi-trnscendence ofthe ‘work. Novels, as we all know, are mythmakers, “The ferocious defense of literary works Is, toa certain extent, sesthetcally justified, but we muse also be arate that crests ona athe recent, individualistic conception of the “author” and of the "work" a conception that was far from being ethically rigorous in the seventeenth, century and that started to become legally defined only a the end ofthe tighteenth. In the Midile Ages there were only afew themes, and they were common to all the ars. That of Adam and Eve, for instance, is 10 bbe found in the mystery plays, painting sculpeure, and stained-lass win dows, none of which were ever challenged for transferring this theme from one artform to another. And when the subject of the Rome Prize for Painting is "the love of Dephnis and Chloe," what else is it but anaMlaptation? Yet nohody is claiming that copyright has been violated. In iustification of the artistic multiplication of works with biblical and Christian themes during the Middle Ages, it would be wrong to say that they were pat of «common fund, «kind of public domain of Christian civilization: the copiers of imitators had no more respect for the chan ‘ons de gests, the Old French epic poems, than they did for religious lit erature. The reason is that the work of art was not an end in itself the ‘only important criteria were its content andthe effectiveness of is mes sage. But the balance between the public's needs and the requirements for creation was such in those days that all the conditions existed to guarantee the excellence ofthe arts, You may pethaps observe that those days are over and that it would be aesthetic nonsense to want to anachronistically reverse the evolution of the relationship among the Creator, the public, and che work of ar. To ths I would respond that, on the contrary, itis possible that artists and critics remain blind tothe birch of the nev, aesthetic Middle Ages, whose origin isto be found in the accession of the masses to power [ota least chet participation int} tnd in the emergence ofan artistic form to complement that accession: the einem, But even if this thesis is a rather risky one that would require additional arguments in ite suppor, it remains true thatthe relatively new artof cinema is obliged to retrace the enti evolution of at on its town, at an extraordinarily quickened pace, ust as a fetus somehow fettaces the evolution of mankind ina few months. The only diference is that the paradoxical evolution of cinema is contemporaneous with the dep seated decadence f literature, which today seems designed for an fudience of individualist elites. The aesthetic Middle Ages ofthe cine ‘ma finds its fletions wherever i can close 2t hand, in the literatures of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Ie can also create its own fic- tions, and has not filed to do so, particularly in comic films, from the first French ones to the American comedies of, ty, Mack Sennett and above all Challe Chaplin. The defenders ofseriousnessness inthe cine- ‘ma will name instead examples such as the Western epies and those of the Russian revolution, of such unforgetable pictures as Broken Blossoms (1919, dtected by D. W. Griffith) and Scarface (1982; directed by Howard Hawks|. But there is nothing that can be done to bring back the haleyon past. Youth is transient, and grandeur with ity another feandeur snl ake ie place, sf pechaps a bit more slowly. In the mean: time, the cinema borrows from fiction a certain number of well: ‘wrought, well-rounded, or welldeveloped characters, al of whom have been polished by twenty centuries of literary cure Ie adopts them and brings them into play, according to the talents of the screenwriter and the director, che characters are integrated as much as possible into their hhew aesthetic context. If they are not so integrated, we naturally get these mediocre ilms that ane eight to condemn, provided one doesnot Ade Be Con ws Bi confuse this mediocrity with the very principle of einematic adaptation, ‘whose aim isto simplify and condense a wark from which it basically wishes to retain oly the main characters and situations. Ifthe novelist Js not happy with the adaptation of his work, 1, ofcourse, grant him the right co defend the orignal although he sold it, and thus is guilty of a act of prostitution that deprives him of many of is privileges as the er Bor of the work]. 1 grant hia this right only because no one has yet found anyone better than parents to defend the rights of children until they come of age. One should noe identity this natural right with an 4 priori infalliblity, however Instead of Rafka’s Tol, which was adapted tothe stage by An Gide (1947) from a translation by André Vialate, I shall take the more appropriate example of The Brothers Karamazov, adapted by Jacques CCopeau {Les Frézes Koramazov, 1911), n my defense of the condensed ailatation. The only thing Copeau has done—but he did it mote sil ly than did M. Spaak'” in The Idiot is to extrat the characters from, Dostoyevsky’s novel and condense the main events oftheir story into 3 few dramatic scenes. There is something slightly different about these theatrical examples, however the fat that today's theater-going pubic is educated enough eo have read the novel. But Copeau's work would semain artistically viable even if this were not the ease ‘To take another example, I sulfered when | saw Devil in the Flesh (1947; directed by Claude Autant-Lara), because T know Raymond Radiguer’s book; the sprit and “style” ofthat book had somehow been betrayed. But it remains true ehat this adaptation isthe best one that could be made from the novel snd that, artistically, ics absolutely ju tufed. Jean Vigo would probably have been more fathfal tothe oviinal, but itis reasonable to conclude thatthe resulting film would have been possible to show othe public beeause the teality ofthe book would have ignited the screen. The work of the sereanvriters Aurenche and Bost consisted, soto speak, in "eranslorming” [in che sense that an clew tie transformer does) the voltge ofthe novel. The aesthetic energy 1 almost all there, but i€ is disenbuted—or, pethaps better, diaspatad— diferent according to the demands of the camera lens. And yet, al though Aurenche and Bost have suceeded in transforming the absolute amoralism of the origina into an almost too decipherable moral code, ‘the public has been reluctant to accept the film In summary, adaptation is aesthetically justified, independent of its pedagogical and social value, because the adapted work toa certain extent exists apart from whats wrongly called ite "style in confusion ‘of this term with the word form, Furthermore, the standard diferentia tion among the arts inthe nineteenth century and the relatively recent subjectvist notion thet an author ax identified with a work no longct fit in with an aesthetic sociology of the masses in which the cinema runs 4 relay race with drama and the novel and does not eliminate them, butrather reinforces them. The tue aesthetic diferentiations n fac, ate to he made not among the arts, but within genres themselves: between the psychological novel and the novel of manness, for example rather than between the psychological novel andthe film chat one would make from it Of course, adaptation for the publics inseparable from adaptation for the cinema, insofar asthe cinema is more “public” than the novel “The very word digest, which sounds at fist contemptible, cen have a positive meaning. "As the word indicates," Jean-Paul Sartre ‘writes, “itis literature that has been previously digested, a literary chyle” But one could also understand it as a literature that has been made more accessible through cinematic adaptation, not so much be: cause of the oversimplification that such adaptation entails (in The Pastoral Symphony, the narrative on screen is even more complex than ‘the one in the novell, but rather because ofthe mode of expression ise, asf the aesthetic fat, differently emulsified, were better tolerated by the ‘consumer's mind. As far as I am concerned, the difficulty of audience {assimilation is not ana pros exiterin for cultural value “Al things considered, its posible to imagine that we are mow ing toward a reign of the adaptation in which the notion ofthe unity of the work of art if not the very notion of the author himself will be destroyed. Ifthe film that was made of Steinbeck’s Of Mice dnd Men {1940, directed by Lewis Milestone} had been successful it could have ‘been so, and far more easly than the adaptation of the same author's Grapes of Wrath) the literary?) criti ofthe year 2050 would find not a novel out of which «play anda film had been "made," bu rather ¢ sin fle work reflected through three art forms, an artistic pyramid with three sides ll equal in the eyes ofthe crite, The “work” would then be ‘only an ideal point at che top ofthis figure, which itself is an ideal con struct, The ehromologicl precedence of one part over another would not bean aesthetic enterion any more than the chronological precedence of fone twin over the other is a genealogical one. Malraux made his film of ‘Man's Hope before he wrote the novel of the same title, but he was ‘carrying the work inside himself al along. Notes “hs nay ws fo published in Fecha 16146 ly 1948 32-40 ‘Sins noe ins wean to bandon of rnc Cotten, dong wich extant HGR Fench oel, meme oe cbt Pogue SRG Reragal en Cla, itr nose Pesce inery ef ‘itr ue, enter lo, Jam Crate, fed Bacce, Een! Bl Banca Lebel fa arabe leans Samo he mon sh de cone a ‘ts tes whl cor alpe 8-99 ln noel eo ‘Ffap tod any ces wars, who esrb ane ln neo Gs ea pe cn 950 whe wa ste nd ced wa eed dart, ore Cinemas Dat nth Unted states i 195] ak te sper what he woul hink of “condensed ver sa he uence i i hw ined eae Ii een ele og time agp the ass that wee mae a the aren Fecey, tnd above ap the photo bums he Acopls ht enya en aya stare cel it sho. 2 Talat note: Bens her usng he erm pase simple in Pench Thi ese does ote I ng for othe spe pse wich ae impr French para tends ob sed mot fe nee gue, wheres ast sm lisa marlin tem forthe ame rane "Bes note Thre retype of oli ae that ae inde real, however, such a thae “imple pase of Ane Cie that saftey were nebula tae ‘etal etng of The Psa Symptons ety at i how yp he ‘yes a ates and a he sli lhe naw. Trlr st: This waste le gen by Honoré de Bala oh called ‘stones sd novels, hus casting his copious Hein = nigh wtlar rey to Dane's Dinie Comedy. io Comedie Humaine was pubaed in sateen vsames by Fare, Palm, Duochee and Het btwn 84) to 14s events leona al STyrsatars noe: Gorges Dame (1884-1966 row sae Soret igre, chive ae elo World War being elected tothe ese gai in 888 He ‘eremembeed or two ples of nv: ie venue de Slavin 192038 andthe pope ‘he Chronique de Pesqle 193¢-4) Wing mth warmth and baer, Duhamel aed See la et ay aac atta nd ded he so ee “Trantor note: Vial wes fou Feach scl 4. Taaers noe: Rowand was 4 well nn Fench lg who much to eel the ay fee "Tar noe Fao anthropological mascara Pris 9. Taator’s note fle Remaes setenyn of Lois engl, 68-197 a French nove, deumatt, pc, nd eying, lee oe Academie range 198, [prose were influenced by Unaaimin thei of onal groupe and collective peychology Benth tbe of warn 194 e ped more lesan pc aves, £Aemt asieVil ndtwosoe, Me Golo ok eae ade at pa lo Dobvhe its eMac 9 aro ‘im moch popes ser the wat imaring elton of ema nce Heres ‘Madecins, Machine! {1959 aed Leaze Ours con ne Vat Coating (9 ‘thee nacraren on mor atl sade nd sanded. 10. Trlr ote Dap and Clot were wo over i a ld Geek pra semace fh ne name strut o Long ph thd cena AD [Dap hm ‘was iin sepberd ened in Gra yh event usta yoy i hae Sek wna Ran sceenuer whe ce Cee i and 98) and La rode sion 07