The Impact of Cinema on the Diffusion of Literary Works in English Language

The Impact of Cinema on Literary Works in English

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UNIT 61

THE IMPACT OF CINEMA ON THE DIFFUSION OF LITERARY WORKS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Abstract of Educational Requirements and Unit Relevance

ABSTRACT The Organic Law of Education 2/2006 amended by LOMLOE 3/2020 requires us to achieve Stage Objectives i) in CSE and f) in Baccalaureate, both referring to the learning of a foreign language which develop the multilingual key competence, a referent for all stages of the educational system. Decrees 82 and 83 (of 2022 provide the curricular elements specific to English in our region for CSE and Baccalaureate respectively, a specification of those outlined in Royal Decree 217/2022 and Royal Decree 243/2022. In Appendix II of said Decrees, we will find within Block C of the Basic Knowledge for all stages, "the foreign language as a means of interpersonal and international communication, as a source of information and as a tool for personal development" and "the artistic, literary heritage of target language speaking countries." Thus, we can highlight the relevance of the concepts in the present unit, which aims to provide an insight into the impact of cinema on the diffusion of literary works in the English Language.linceenglishsecondary@gmail.com

Unit Index

INDEX

1. INTRODUCTION 3
2. THE PROCESS OF ADAPTATION. 3
3. THE CINEMATIZATION OF LITERATURE 4
4. THE CINEMATIZATION OF NOVELS 4
5. THE CINEMATIZATION OF DRAMA 6
6. CONCLUSION. 6
7. BIBLIOGRAPHY 7

EXTRA RESOURCES 8 SUMMARY 8linceenglishsecondary@gmail.com

Introduction to Cinema and Literature Interrelationship

1.INTRODUCTION From the early magical experiments of George Méliès' Le Voyage dans la Lune in 1902 to the recent release of major bestsellers like Where the Crawdads Sing and new, refreshing takes on classics like Peter Pan, the relationship between cinema and literature has always been closely intertwined, proving to be, on the whole, a successful symbiosis for both arts. "Literature and Cinema are understood to have an interrelationship through which contents and aesthetic results flow in both directions, enriching both media." (Gonzalez, 2018). There is something inexplicably special about seeing the story and characters you've imagined and built up in your head for so long, physically play out on the big screen in front of you, and of course, the reverse is true, the cinema-going public discovering literature after having seen the film. The present unit aims to provide a useful introduction to the impact of cinema on the diffusion of literary works in the English language by first looking at the process of adaptation and then separating literature into genres in order to see the relationhships between both arts. The information for this unit has been taken from Cristopher (2015) and González (2018).

The Process of Adaptation from Literature to Film

2. THE PROCESS OF ADAPTATION. The main similarity between the two arts lies in narration, which becomes the discourse (Gonzalez, 2018). However, despite this similarity, it is clear that there are many differences when transferring literature to the big screen. In this section we are going to look at the process of "adaptation" or "transference", or how novels are adapted to the big screen but first of all we shall look at these differences.

• Film is conditioned by time restrictions. Films last about 90 to 180 minutes, whereas the literary work is not limited by a number of pages if the author has not been ordered so. Studios, directors and screenwriters are thus forced to edit out many important elements from a novel in order to improve the pacing and abide by the typical length of a film
• Cinematographic versions of novels may still need to reveal the author's "seal"
• Writing is a very imaginative form of communication. Writers create a world of fantasy (or reality), providing readers with the ability to visualize everything imaginable on the written page.

. Film is a visual medium and relies heavily on the idea of progression. With audience's attention spans particularly low, films must always be on the move. . The film industry is all about profit. Studios will find the means to do what is necessary to assure the film is as commercially successful as possible.

Manzoli's Transference Types: Subtraction and Addition

Manzoli separates transference into two types in terms of quantity, subtraction and addition (from Gonzalez, 2018). Subtraction entails that paragraphs describing landscapes, extensive interior monologues, images and even events included in the printed work will be omitted. Characters, often the more minor ones, may also be eliminated. In addition, there are certain conditions posed by each culture that can have an influence on what is acceptable or not from the perspective of what is being seen on screen, also leading to the subtraction of certain elements. Regarding addition, some cinematographic authors freely include elements that do not exist in the literary work; these might be scenes, characters or other elements, whether it is to provide the cinematographer's "seal" or to increase interest in the cinematographic version with details that will appeal more in this highly visual medium.

González's Classification of Adaptation Approaches

González (2018) classifies three possible approaches to the adaptation of literary works to the big screen, regarding the degree of attention to the original literary work. We shall see examples of each in the following section. First of all, the film may be freely inspired by the literary work. Some elements of the literary work are taken but the film follows its own plot. Only one of the themes might be covered by the book used whereas the film develops other aspects. Bridget Jones's Diary is an example: a 1990s update of Pride and Prejudice down to wicked Daniel Cleaver/ Mr Wickham and the hero Mr (Mark) Darcy.linceenglishsecondary@gmail.com Secondly, we can discern the largest category of cinematographic transposition, through which the essence of the book is extracted and turned into a film. Here only key moments, settings or events of the book are reproduced in the film. The maintained elements are considered as sufficient to grant the audience the deep sense of the literary work. Here we may merely state that the majority of titles in the following section fall within this category. Finally, we consider the utopic absolute fidelity to the literary work. Aesthetic and cultural factors prevail in these films that literally reproduce the extracts from the literary work in the form of dialogues kept in the original language showing an absolute respect for the literary work and an effort to force the cinema to fit literary conventions. Here we may quote the 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, in Colin Firth played Fitzwilliam Darcy (the example of Bridget Jones early taking full advantage of this) Now that we have considered the different transference processes, we shall go on to look at key works that have been transposed to the big screen by genre.

The Cinematization of Literature by Genre

3. THE CINEMATIZATION OF LITERATURE

The Cinematization of Novels

3.1. THE CINEMATIZATION OF NOVELS An important concept is that of genre. Within a vast variety of different genres, we may highlight certain genres that have been more successfully transformed from the page to the screen. The literature of antiquity has provided endless inspiration for cinematic epics. The Bible has spawned such films as The King of Kings (1961), David & Bathsheba (1951), The Robe (1953), Samson & Delilah (1949), and The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) among countless others. The story of the prophet Moses was most memorably filmed by Cecil B. DeMille as The Ten Commandments (1956), a film that was an amalgam of several novels that were themselves based on the written word of the Hebrew Prophet himself. There is no doubt that the prestige of classic literature with its ready-to-hand audience of admirers, advocates, and adepts is something that the cinematized versions seek to capitalize on. Indeed, some works may have many such adaptations such as Jane Austen's works or the seventeen different versions of Oscar Wildes' A Picture of Dorian Gray between 1910 and 2007. The 2022 releases of A Christmas Carol or Lady Chatterly's Lover reflect the eternal appeal of the classics to film- makers. The 1960s were a time of ground-breaking new films, and Ken Russell (1927-2011) was a leading exponent of the new wave, who often mixed film with music in combinations of artful surprise, shock and controversial excess. In 1969 his feature film adaptation of D.H. Laurence's Women in Love was a critical and popular success, and is still considered by critics to be among the best of Russell's films (Christopher, 2015) However, it is not only the classics that are adapted to the cinema. Film studios constantly battle and bicker with one another over securing the film rights for any successful form of popular culture, and here thrillers are no exception. In this light we may refer to adaptations of Dan Brown's novels the Davinci Code and Angels & Demons, or the James Bond films, one of the most profitable series in the history of cinema, many of which are adaptations of the 13 thrillers written by Ian Fleming, the first of which, Casino Royale, appeared in 1952. In literary terms the books were generally undistinguished, but the screen adaptations supplied a highly commercial combination of glamour, gadgets and faraway locations, in which the hero saved his exotic girlfriend and the world from evil despots with Russian accents (Christopher, 2015). The successful adaptation of Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch (1992), one of the most critically praised books of the early 1990s, and those of his subsequent novels High Fidelity (1994) and About a Boy (1997) are also provide realistic, amusing explorations of suburban youth culture in the 1970s and 1980s. Adaptations of novels by E.M. Forster, including A Room with a View (1985), Maurice (1987) and Howards End (1992), show the successful adaptation of historical films of upper-class living., through while The Remains of the Day (1993) was basedlinceenglishsecondary@gmail.com on a Booker Prize-winning novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. Beautifully filmed, richly costumed and classically acted, they presented an idealised, romanticised image of English life, and received numerous international awards (Christopher, 2015) Children's literature has also attracted growing public and critical interest and provided cinematizatiobns of popular success such as Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit, Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, based on Roald Dahl's masterpiece, or the 3D production Alice in Wonderland, both by director Tim Burton. But it was the phenomenal popularity of the Harry Potter series has illustrated how, despite the distractions of online entertainments, children can become involved with books they love (Christopher, 2015). Popular and critical success followed, and the Harry Potter film franchise became the highest grossing film franchise of all time, taking over £4.5 billion worldwide, with books and especially films proving attractive to adults as well as children. Horror films came out of the tradition of European gothic novels by way of Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker. Cinema, of all the art forms, is nearest to the dream state - we sit in the dark watching huge figures on a screen enact our fantasies and fears. Horror films deal with our nightmares, the fears of mankind, the horror of the irrational and the unknown, the horror of man himself. The famous 19th-century novel by Bram Stoker, Dracula, based on the historical figure of Dracula in 16th- century Transylvania terrified people in modern-day New York through films such as Dracula (1958), and Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) or Interview with the Vampire (2001). Other terror films like Frankestein (1931) and Mary Shelley's Frankestein (1994) have been based on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) monster as well as Doyle's The Murders in the Rue Morgue. Also based on books are classics such as Misery, The Silence of Lambs, or The Shining. In 2022 Stephen King provided further inspiration to the cinema industry with Firestarter. Science-fiction films have been made since the early 20th century. At the beginning, the main inspiration was taken from Julius Verne's adventures to the moon, into Earth or in the sea, such as Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959). Time travel is as old as cinema itself and hence, we get adaptations from H.G. Well's landmark sci-fi novel, The Time Machine (1985), filmed in 1960, which was published just months before the first cinema show in 1895. Later on, from the comic trip adventures of superheroes like Flash Gordon and from Superman. By 'love stories' or 'romantic movies', one usually means movies where the main interest is in the romantic involvement of the two leads. Such love stories or dramas are commonly successfully taken to the screen. Examples could include Charles Dicken's Great Expectations (1861), filmed in 1946, and Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights (1847), filmed in 1939 and 1992; Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. The numbers of spy 'thrillers', a genre closely related to the detective novel, have declined. They were especially popular during the years of the Cold War, when Graham Greene, John Le Carré, Len Deighton and Ian Fleming were among the most respected and influential authors. The literary genre of crime fiction has probably been the most adapted by cinema. Numerous films are based on amateur detectives or 'sleuths' taken from literature, such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. These stories, set amid the bustling, foggy streets of Victorian London, made Hollywood stars like Basil Rathbone (as Holmes) and Nigel Bruce (as his faithful assistant) starred in fourteen adventures together, many of which, like Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943), were set during World War II. Indeed, recent remakes of Sherlock Holmes stories starring Robert Downy Jr have introduced the novels to a younger audience. The British author Agatha Christie's best-known character, the Belgian detective Hercules Poirot, featured in a number of all-star 'whodunits', including Murder on the Orient Express (1974), originally written in 1934. Regarding the film noir, the most famous Hollywood private eyes were set within the gloomy and threatening atmosphere of WWII. They first appeared in the pages of hard-edged thrillers by American writers like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. World-weary and charming, the private eye solved baffling mysteries in which there were as many murders as there were twists in the plot. Humphrey Bogart played Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon, and went on to star as the equally tough Philip Marlowe in Chandler's The Big Sleep in 1946, originally written in 1939. Several other actors have also played the part of Marlowe, including Dick Powell in Farewell, My Lovely (1944) and Elliot Gould in The Long Goodbye (1973). But