In the story of Ghost World, by Daniel Clowes, two recent High School graduates—Enid and Becky—see their friendship crumble as they continue to live life beyond High School. Enid considers college and Becky, who has no extravagant plans, is disappointed by the fact that her best friend may be leaving her without consulting. Both girls are outsiders looking in and their adolescent journey to realizing who they are and who they want to be is is filled with comical antics including constant nagging, sarcasm, and romance. Film theorist Brian McFarlane explains that there are four areas of exploration called the “Adaptation Proper.” These areas are called, “Two signifying systems,” “The novel’s linearity and the film’s spatiality,” “Codes,” and “Stories told and stories presented.” I will reference each of these aspects to the adaptation of Ghost World. McFarlane’s idea of Two …show more content…
This involves contrast of the two language systems: Novels, which uses symbols to portray meaning, and films, which use codes to portray meaning. “The film’s story does not have to be told because it is presented” (29). The cinema is also unable to portray past tense in the ways that novels can. McFarlane also explains in “Stories told and presented” that the film is spatial, contrary to the novel’s linearity, resulting in different ways of presentation. McFarlane’s four significant areas of Adaptation Proper allows audiences to see different lenses between novel and film adaptations. Clowes’ novel and the film adaptation portray each of these four significant areas successfully. Clowes’ graphic novel is unique in that the reader has to sometimes assume what happened or has happened, making the reader interpret what happens. The visual and verbal codes were both prevalent in this
When a novel is adapted into a graphic novel, a spectrum of possible interpretations allows for new meanings. Due to the intermedial character of the graphic novel, the translation from text into a graphic novel differs from an adaptation from text to text. Graphic novels have a medium-specific language that consists of a combination of words and images, both following their own rules and conventions. These two channels of the graphic novel, the visual and the textual, enable the author of the adaptation to express her- or himself not only through words but also through images and make them decide what is expressed in images, what is left in words, and what is left out altogether.
This is done so the character development is clearly shown, the duration of the film can be limited and so the film can be kept interesting and engaging for the audience. The plot in the film is changed slightly from the novel it is based on to show the development of characters. Some settings are excluded or changed to limit the time of the movie. The character’s characteristics are slightly altered so the movie is kept interesting and engaging for the audience. By modifying these aspects of the film the producer is able to keep the audience engaged whilst showing character
Film and literature are two media forms that are so closely related, that we often forget there is a distinction between them. We often just view the movie as an extension of the book because most movies are based on novels or short stories. Because we are accustomed to this sequence of production, first the novel, then the motion picture, we often find ourselves making value judgments about a movie, based upon our feelings on the novel. It is this overlapping of the creative processes that prevents us from seeing movies as distinct and separate art forms from the novels they are based on.
As humans, we make up stories to entertain ourselves. For hundreds of years these stories were written down in books, but with the advent of new technologies, these stories can now be expressed with film. Books and films both tell a story, but a movie can express the story in a very different way. With camera movements, lighting, and score, filmmakers have a wider range of tools to use than authors. When a book is made into a film, it keeps some elements from the original and undergoes changes, in addition to being expressed further with film techniques.
Picture books unlike novels have a very limited amount of words to inform the reader about the characters and the plot (Scott )(ou dvd no7). The use of a picture to complement and enhance the story is paramount, combining with the experience of the reader to disassemble meaning from the picture (Nodelman, 1999). Moebius quantifies this inherent ability into the elements of colour, perspective, position and size with finally line and capillary to create a code. It is possible to use this code to explore and evaluate some invisible and intangible concepts in Voices in the Park and The Tale of Peter Rabbit.
While watching film adaptations, a familiar phrase that is heard is “That’s not how it happened in the book,” majority of the time, adaptations have few similarities to the book. There is always bound to be differences between the book and the film due to the fact that books use words to tell a story, while on the other hand, movies use images and video to tell the story. Henry James published his book Turn of the Screw in 1898 and the film The Others was adapted in 2001. This essay will compare and contrast the film The Others and the book Turn of the Screw with gothic elements such as the supernatural, the behavior of the female protagonists, and the setting.
Identity is important to everyone. It affects how others see you, as well as alters their judgement of you. In the novel Anil’s Ghost by Michael Ondaatje, identity and the character’s search for it both play a major role in the development of key characters and the plot. The identity of Sailor, the skeleton being studied throughout the novel by Anil and Sarath, plays a significant role in advancing the plot. The theme of identity is also apparent in Anil. She defies the identity that both her family and society attempt to place upon her. Her actions, both in the past and throughout the novel, display Anil’s distaste for roles and identities placed upon people, especially herself. Additionally, Anil’s decision to take her brother’s unused name,
Joe Simpson’s Touching the Void is a book written about the hardships the two friends, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, faced high in the mountains of the Peruvian Andes. Throughout the book, the author explains the dangers of alpine style climbing as well as the effects it had on the two climbers, physically and emotionally. This book is as realistic as it gets when reading about the risky situations that climbers can be put in while alpine style climbing. I feel that is exactly the message that the author, Joe Simpson, is trying to convey to his readers and the climbing community; the truth about what happened during their trip, as well as the importance of looking after ourselves, including the determination it takes to survive.
I chose to do this essay on the idea of story adaptation, and why changes are made to a story. I originally wanted to look at it just in terms of Apocalypse Now, and how the story of Heart of Darkness was updated to fit a different environment and time period, while still being true to many of the events, characters, ideas and themes presented in the story. I was curious about what changes were made, and what that indicated about how the director, and maybe society as a whole, felt about some concept that maybe were no longer acceptable or satisfactory.
Two men are undercover in the Massachusetts State Police, and the Irish mafia. Crime and violence pursue after things are discovered. Two moles are then placed within the police and mafia to find out who their enemies are. A lesson about gangs is they are not as simple as they seem to be. They’re complex and consist of structure, violence, and corruption.
Another example is when Chance watches television. In the book, the narrator explains that when Chance changes the channel, he feels like he is changing himself. As he changes the channel, he gets caught up in all the different images he sees. In the movie, all you see is a man watching television, which doesn't explain too much. In the movie, the only time we find out what Chance thinks of television is when he is talking to someone else.
Phillips, Gene D. Conrad and Cinema: The Art of Adaptation. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 1995.
Movies like “Haunting in Connecticut” or “The Grudge” are fairly well-known and it is understood that they revolve around the concept of hauntings. Hollywood makes hauntings out to be nothing more than a vengeful spirit out for blood, however hauntings are so much more than that. In order to better understand the concept of a haunting and in turn to better understand the local legend of Gibbs Bridge, a firm grasp of exactly what traits a haunting encompasses is essential. The book Visions Apparitions Alien Visitors by Hilary Evans clearly states what the characteristics of haunting consists of in chapter 1.7. She says, “Hauntings are characterized by the place where they are seen which they appear to frequent.” (Evans, 98). Evans points out
The Dilemma of a Ghost is a short play written by the Ghanaian writer, Ama Ata Aidoo. The story is about a young Ghanaian man, Ato, currently studying in America. Here, he meets and falls in love with Eulalie; an African-American girl who lives in America. When he returns home with his new bride, Ato is torn between his family’s traditional custom against his wife’s western culture. His marriage and his wife’s behaviour become sources of great criticism from both family members and the Ghanaian community at large. The writer uses various scenarios to point out the difference between the African traditional culture and the modern western culture.
Adaptation of any kind has been a debate for many years. The debate on cinematic adaptations of literary works was for many years dominated by the questions of fidelity to the source and by the tendencies to prioritize the literary originals over their film versions (Whelehan, 2006). In the transference of a story from one form to another, there is the basic question of adherence to the source, of what can be lost (Stibetiu, 2001). There is also the question of what the filmmakers are being faithful to or is it the novel’s plot in every detail or the spirit of the original (Smith, 2016). These are only few query on the issue of fidelity in the film adaptation.