Parenthood

After watching the movie version of Parenthood I wanted to reflect on the concept of form. As we talked about in class television programs have a lot of time to develop their characters. They can introduce them and allow their relationships to develop overtime instead of solving their problems immediately. In this way I almost feel like TV shows are more like novels than films ever are. By having a lot of time to progress we can understand things more thoroughly.

This seems like it could be the reason people tend to respect novels more than movies. They have more time to explore relationship and get deeper into things than film can in an hour and a half. It also makes it important to seriously consider the difference between forms and why it should be difficult to compare pieces with different forms.

Even the case of the two different versions of Parenthood brings up these discrepancies. While they share much of the same characters and much of the same themes, they are very much their own pieces. The TV version develops slowly and gives itself time to get to know the characters, while the film starts and finishes things immediately. This begs the question, what really makes adaptation? Is it the same name and the same story? But even if these are the same the forms are different the time period is different and the setting. If all these are different why does story matter so much for adaptation rather than other elements of literature and film?

Parenthood

Awesome, I can use the blog. :)

Anyway -- don't hate me, but the first time I watched Parenthood on TV, I didn't like it. I thought it was melodramatic. But maybe I just needed to see the pilot, because I liked it yesterday. It's interesting to know that it was a movie first; I didn't know that. Or wait -- does it have completely different characters (or at least actors)? Because I think I have seen part of it. It's interesting that the director felt the need to come back to it. Also interesting because he's dealing with current issues on the TV show -- like autism and sperm donation -- that might not have been as relevant when the movie was made. Maybe that was why he came back to it.

Talking about TV yesterday made me think about soap operas, and how they're so far from having a story that's encapsulated in one episode. I mean, they wear the same clothes for like a week. And have the same storylines for months. And while a lot of it is crazy stuff like baby switching, Days of Our Lives is dealing with autism right now. Yeah. So maybe TV is trying to stay current that way; blogs + the guy in my TV guide are of the opinion that TV is more cutting-edge than film. But doesn't it all play to the masses?

--Meghan.


OK, so watching the movie, the plot was similar. But I noticed that things seemed to be taken less seriously, and this kind of plays into what I said above. I think the TV show was really kind of taking a stand on the issues, while the movie was more about being comedic.

The Adaptation of Parenthood

I think one of the most interesting aspects of adaptation is editing. When re-telling an old story, what do you take out? What gets left in? As I haven't seen the movie yet, I went onto the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) website and read a little about the film. I also watched the original trailer. In the pilot, Amber's boyfriend is only seen in the opening minutes, as Sara drags her daughter away from him. I have seen a few more episodes and do not remember him returning. He seems to be a more integral aspect of the film version, even being included in the family photo of the trailer. What was the choice made in terms of that characters appearance (or lack thereof)? As Ron Howard and his team were involved in both the film and the television series, what was their motivation to edit this character?

here you go: product placement in 30 Rock

The Violent Inevitability of Adaptation

Adaptation presents multiple forms of adaptation and evolution in all of their ugly, violent, bodily glory. The stream of consciousness voice over from Charlie Kaufman shows his distraction from the task at hand, usually thinking about muffins, sex or feeling bad about himself instead of writing. In some ways, this illustrates all of the small, practical things that go into producing a work of art, be it a film or a novel. When one only sees the finished product, especially a high production film, it's easy to forget the random events that lead to the final product. Adaptation aptly compares this process to natural selection, showing the viewer how a final script is the random “evolution” of any number of ideas.

The film also makes a convincing argument against fidelity in adaptation. Kaufman is presented with, ostensibly, an “unadaptable” text. This mirrors some of the assumptions about adaptation as a form that we have discussed in Leitch's article, namely, that works of art are tied to their medium and can't be translated into new symbolic forms. The film presents a solution to this “problem:” adaptations are not derivative works, but artistic expressions of their own. Just like natural selection, the process of adaptation inevitably creates something new, perhaps better suited to its environment. As Susan Orlean says in the movie, “change is not a choice.” Adaptation as a process will always create a new product, no matter how faithful it is to the original text.

Adaptation also muddles up the boundaries of textual adaptation. Charlie and Donald discover that Orlean's book is also a partial fabrication rather than a faithful reproduction of real events. Orlean is shown to “adapt” her experiences in Florida into a marketable best seller that portrays Laroche as a lovable freak, while glossing over her relationship with him. Furthermore, we see Charlie trying to adapt his own experience adapting Orlean's book into a film script, blurring the lines between product and production even further. Ultimately, the film seems to suggest that adaptation—literary and evolutionary—is simply unavoidable and continually recreates the world around us.

I found something I thought was very interesting in Hutcheon’s book that I would like to share with the class. It is located in Chapter 1, under a section entitled Adaptation as Product. In the last paragraph of this section Hutcheon recounts some history behind Sydney Lumet’s film Dog Day Afternoon. Based on an actual bank robbery in the early 1970s that was covered live on TV as well as a Life magazine article that spawned its screenplay, the successful and critically acclaimed movie went on to heavily influence how the actual bank robber, John Wojtowicz, remembered the event. In other words, Wojtowicz could only make reference to the film in order to describe what actually happened to him. Hutcheon concludes: …the film became, for him, as much the text to be adapted as was the lived event preserved in either his memory or the media coverage (18). I find this fascinating: that the visuals and narrative of a film can, in effect, replace an actual event it was based on, even for those actually there. I think this truly shows one of the most interesting (and frightening) capabilities of adaptation. How does/could it be used as an instrument of power? Can film resignify historical events for political, cultural, or economic motives? Obviously, this doesn’t happen in all situations since we constantly hear complaints about the historical accuracy of films based on true events—the most recent film that pops into my mind involved in this debate is The Hurt Locker which instigated some complaints from EOD veterans about how they were being depicted in it. But as again Hutcheon points out with Dog Day Afternoon, such resignfication can happen. What are the conditions, though, that allow it to happen? Are they discernable? Does Susan Orleans now remember her book through the lens of Charlie Kaufman’s adaptation of it? Just some food for thought.

Adaptation

Adaptation has always seemed pretty lifeless and normal to me. It's something I rarely think about. This movie portrayed adaptation as failure, success, tragedy, etc... The whole spectrum of emotions was applied to the process of adaptation, which was something I had never considered.

I generally don't like Nicholas Cage. Except maybe for comedic value in Con Air when he has a mullet and southern accent. That was pretty good. He plays a lot of tough guy roles though, and that bothers me because I have a hard time believing he is a tough guy. To me, he never seems to fit those kinds of roles. Sooo when I watched the trailer for Adaptation, and it had TWO Nicholas Cages, I was worried. In the end however, I was surprised to realize that I had enjoyed the movie. I think Nicholas Cage had more fitting roles in this movie, or at least roles that were more believable. Or maybe double negative equals positive, sooo the 2 Nicholas Cages cancelled each other out.

Anyways, I just joined the class and I wasn't sure if there guidelines we were supposed to adhere to when writing in this blog, so I apologize if this was not the kind of stuff we were supposed to post.