JULY 2004
A D A P TAT I O N
Lost in Claire Lees Ingham looks at why some
E
The Hours: Paramount/Miramax
16
veryone knows that adapting a novel is much easier than starting with an original idea, don't they? There's already a 'buzz' about the material, a built-in audience of admirers. Producers and commissioners love something that they can hold in their hands. Turnaround times are quicker and budgets are larger. With less invention needed and a 'way-marked path' in terms of plot, structure and character development, a screenwriter should have an easier time all round - right? Unfortunately, the myths about adaptation mean that hundreds of writers every year embark on screen 'translations' of texts that leave the source material lying dead on the page. The main reason why this happens is that writers forget that storytelling for prose and storytelling for the screen are entirely different crafts with different audience expectations and different inbuilt experiences. A reader may skip long passages of description, read the end of the novel first, or skip back several pages to remind themselves about a character or situation. A screen audience expects to be held fast in the grip of a story and its characters for as long as the piece lasts or at least until the next commercial break! Those adaptations that appear to be little more than literal 'translations' of the original source material often fail to excite because the writer shows very little awareness of what should be exploited for the screen and what should be removed. This is often explained by the writer as an attempt to remain 'faithful' to the source material. However, I would suggest that the most successful adaptations are not those which 'lift' the story from the page accurately, but those which ensure that our experience of the story remains true to the spirit and intention of the original writer. On a long plane flight almost a year ago, I read first Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Hours and then David Hare's screenplay adaptation. My impression of the screenplay was that Hare had remained entirely faithful to the book, using dialogue and action that I remembered well. When I returned to the novel
Adapted life
July 2004
adaptation screen adaptations fail to excite and why good adaptation often means not staying faithful to the source material. however, I was surprised to discover that Cunningham actually uses very little dialogue and that scenes which I had 'remembered' were actually Hare's inventions. Even Hare's approach to the order of events in the story was different, yet his narrative choices felt entirely in keeping with Cunningham's attempts to draw thematic links between three leading female characters across space and time. If the best adaptations are not direct 'translations' of prose material, how does a screenwriter assess which elements of a novel can be exploited for the screen effectively, which need to be altered and which should be removed? The first thing I would suggest is that a screenwriter should do what a reader/assessor does when a novel first arrives at a production company: read the book carefully, make a synopsis of the story, attach a few sentences about the instant appeal/hook of the project and then break the novel down, assessing the structure, characterisation, theme, visual style and audience appeal/pitch. Only by really getting to know the source material well and examining how and why it is effective can a screenwriter begin to assess how an adaptation might work and/or if the material is suitable for adaptation to the screen. How do you make a start on a personalised 'report' as a first step in the adaptation process? First, I would suggest trying to summarise the story in a one-tothree sentence premise. Imagine which elements of the plot you would concentrate on if you were telling the story to a friend or colleague. What might interest them about the story and what other information - genre/location/era etc - would need to be provided in order to give the story an immediate context? Next, the synopsis of the book's plot: can the story be summarised in no more than two to three pages? Summarising all 1200 pages of Stendahl's The Charterhouse of Palma in two pages, as I had to, may seem like torture. What an exercise like this does though is to concentrate your mind on the important parts of the plot. What are the active questions of the narrative? Which questions remain open until the end of the book and which are answered as the novel unfolds? Where are the turning points, the reversals
and the climaxes? What is really at stake for the characters and why should we care? What this exercise should also do is to alert a screenwriter to a plot that is more slight than originally thought. Has the novel been uncomfortably easy to summarise? Is there enough incident and/or character action to sustain a film or television screenplay? This may be the point at which you decide to continue with the prospect of adapting the novel or to turn your attention elsewhere. After an industry reader has made a summary and a synopsis of a book, they are usually asked to give a 'general comment' or 'introduction' to the rest of their report. For a screenwriter making a personal 'adaptation report', this is a useful place to outline what is good and attractive about the novel. What are the strengths of the work and more importantly, especially if the work is a period classic, why does it resonate now? Why will a contemporary audience care about the characters and their situations?
order to establish empathy and to give a familiar context to the story. Once you have a clear idea of what the novel you wish to adapt is about and why a screen version should be written now, the real breakdown and detailed analysis of the novel begins. The first thing to consider is the narrative structure of the book. What kind of structure is it? Is it a simple, linear narrative with a beginning, a middle and an end in that order as, for example, Pride and Prejudice, The Safe House? Or is it more complex? Does it involve long passages of flashback? Does it jump between time zones regularly as in The English Patient? Is it 'bookended' by a different era like Carrie's War? Or does the plot fall into distinct episodes with characters taking 'centre stage' for a chapter at a time as in The Hours? Having established how the structure of the novel works, you need to assess whether this structure will also work for the screen or whether an alternative structure will have to be found. When beginning work on The Hours (2003) - the story of three women each experiencing a single day and living their lives for other people - screenwriter David Hare and director Stephen Daldry decided that an audience might be confused by a story that jumped constantly between three characters. As a result, the regimented 'chapter for each character' structure of the book was modified, and a number of 'holding moments' introduced to punctuate and link each woman's story. These moments established the thematic bonds between the characters and made use of mirrored action, events and behavioural languages. For example, a character putting up her hair in one time zone cuts immediately to a character in another time zone completing the same action. The fractured structure of The English Patient (1996) presented similar challenges for screenwriter/director Anthony Minghella. Michael Ondaatje's novel often leaps between time zones, places and characters scattering images 'across its pages in a mosaic of fractured narratives' (Anthony Minghella's introduction to the Methuen screenplay). It was immediately evident that trying to recreate this structure successfully on screen would be
If the best adaptations are not direct 'translations' of prose material, how does a screenwriter assess which elements of a novel can be exploited for the screen ...? When the BBC/Andrew Davies adapted The Way We Live Now in 2001, much was made of the similarity between the climate of financial speculation 'then' and of the present-day growth of the 'dotcom' industries. The themes of profligacy, excess and their effects on human relationships were treated in such a way that the parallels being drawn between past and present could not fail to be recognisable. In a similar way, ITV's 2003 adaptation of Thomas Hardy's The Major of Casterbridge (screenwriter: Ted Whitehead) took the question 'What's the biggest mistake you ever made?' as the starting point for its trailer campaign. This question invited the audience to make a link between contemporary experiences and the 'mistake' of the nineteenth century protagonist, Michael Henchard (Ciarรกn Hinds), in
July 2004
17
Master and Commander: 20th Century Fox
A D A P TAT I O N
Cold Mountain: Miramax
dskzgjsdkgf ksdhfkhsfhksdkfhskfskdfh
dsjg fjsgd fjsgdjfg sgfjsgd fjsgf jgsdfdsfsd 18
July 2004
impossible. Minghella's approach to finding a new structure for a film involved reading the novel several times and then burying himself in a country cottage with every book necessary for reference except The English Patient. Minghella suggests that this strategy gave him the opportunity to tell himself the story afresh. The result was a two-hundred-page screenplay, which was then edited over successive drafts into a 155 minute film. During an examination of the structure of a novel, a screenwriter should also consider whether the material has any obvious flaws and/or story limitations. Does the plot make sense? Are there holes in the narrative logic? Do reversals happen in the right places? Is the climax of the main story dramatic? These considerations are particularly appropriate when dealing with thriller/crime stories that involve numerous red herrings and continual twists. Often, when analysed, the endings of these types of stories do not appear to 'add up'. In this case, a screenwriter should ask if all the necessary loose ends have been explained? Does the climax work? Does the outcome feel as satisfying as it should? If the answer to any of these questions is 'no', then new events and/or a more satisfactory ending may have to be invented/considered as, for example, in David Pirie's television adaptation of The Safe House (2002), or Rabe/Towne/Rayfiel's movie adaptation of John Grisham's The Firm (1993). The next important area of consideration for a screenwriter should be characterisation. Are the main characters of the novel in question clearly drawn and engaging? Is the antagonist or antagonistic force well defined? Secondary characters should also come under close scrutiny: whilst reading detective novels and writing series 'bibles' for a television company some years ago, it became clear that a particular author rarely used one character to deliver pieces of information when he could use three or even four characters to do the same job! Consequently, when assessing the number and type of characters in a novel, a screenwriter should consider the true function of each person and whether they could be merged with another character or edited from the story completely without loss. Determining what your main character wants (an active, outward 'want' which is explicit from the start of the story) and needs (a subconscious 'need' which is revealed as their narrative unfolds) and finding a way to express this visually, should also be used as a strategy to help to 'lift' characters off the page. For example, in Wings of a Dove (screenwriter: Hossein Amini, 1998), Kate Croy (Helena Bonham-Carter) wants love and money, as represented by Merton Denshaw (Linus Roache) and her aunt (Charlotte Rampling) respectively. However, as the story unfolds it becomes clear that love and money belong to two different worlds
and that Kate needs to realise that she cannot have both. In this adaptation, the idea that Kate is torn between two worlds is made visual very simply. Whilst she occupies her aunt's aristocratic house/world, Kate wears expensive clothes, jewellery and allows herself to be 'made-up'. In Merton's natural habitat represented by the newspaper office and the pub, Kate wears simpler clothes and no make-up. This addition by the screenwriter is subtle, simple and entirely visual. In fact it is difficult to imagine the same visual distinction being explained as easily and elegantly on the page. Visual style is also important when considering whether a novel is suitable for adaptation. Does the source material feel cinematic/televisual? Are there scenes and sequences that might interest a director? Is action or colour important? Or is the piece so cerebral (does so much of its substance depend on a character's thoughts) that it will always be better experienced on the page? In my opinion there is arguably a case for leaving Tracey Chevalier's Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003) as a brilliant novel, rather than making it into a less effective film. Ghost stories present particular visual challenges. The late Malcolm Bradbury always included the adaptation of a Henry James short story, Sir Edmund Orme, as an exercise on his MA Script and Screen course at the University of East Anglia. This exercise unerringly proved just how difficult visualisation of the supernatural can be. Should a writer show a ghost and rely on visual effects to carry the moment? Or should terror and suspense be created in other ways? William Goldman faced a similar problem when adapting Stephen King's Dreamcatcher (2003) for the big screen. On the page, King's alien creatures are truly terrifying. On screen, however, Goldman's horrific monsters became little more than out-sized worms! The lesson for the screenwriter is clear: sometimes what is not seen is more terrifying than what is and choosing to adapt a book where supernatural/monster elements are key means that the writer will always be at the mercy of the visual effects team. The use of first person narration can also present interesting choices and challenges. Should voice-over be adopted to capture the engaging/quirky/ distinctive flavour of the main character's narration as, for example, in Bridget Jones's Diary, or should the first person monologue simply be plundered as a source of sharp and pithy dialogue as in The Safe House? Voice-over is rarely thought of as a successful cinematic device, yet in those screen stories where the protagonist seems to have privileged knowledge from a future time, for example American Beauty, Carrie's War, voice-over is often essential to drive the narrative forwards. Identifying the themes of a novel is also an
important step and should allow a screenwriter to invent new visual sequences which still feel true to the spirit of the original source material. For example, in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (screenwriters: Peter Weir/John Collee, 2003) the themes of honour, glory and victory through co-operation are made visual in a dizzying sequence in which the English crew rehearse rolling out the cannons and preparing to attack. Similarly, in The Hours, director Stephen Daldry includes a sequence in which Julianne Moore is literally swamped by waves in a hotel bedroom whilst she contemplates the domestic/family life that is threatening to engulf her. The final piece of analysis that I would recommend a screenwriter to undertake is of the pitch/potential audience and appeal of the source material. Where would an adaptation of a particular novel fit? Who might commission it? Will the prospective adaptation be a classic 'landmark' piece of the kind favoured by BBC1 and ITV, for example, Dr Zhivago, He Knew He was Right, Vanity Fair, Oliver Twist? Or is it a contemporary, 'cutting edge' story more suited to the content and style of Channel 4
concentrated on the 'love story' elements of the novel for his adaptation with a clear eye to attracting a larger than usual female audience than might be expected for a war epic. Any obvious problems that might limit the audience or restrict the broadcast of an adaptation to certain slots should also be identified and addressed at this stage. Murder stories, for example, may need any graphic violence toned down, particularly if the screen adaptation will play before, or close to, the 9 o'clock television watershed. This was something David Pirie had to keep in mind when he adapted Nicci French's best-seller The Safe House for ITV (2002), a novel that opens with a particularly grisly double murder. In order to keep the contents of the novel's opening chapter, Pirie recognised that the murders would have to be handled sensitively. Throughout the development of the project the script also contained a producer's note that any depictions of the murders must be suitable for the programme's anticipated 9 o'clock slot. An industry reader's novel report would usually end with a 'verdict' advising either 'rejection' of the novel as unsuitable for adaptation or a 'recommendation' that the material should be considered for further development. In a screenwriter's personal 'adaptation' report, I would suggest that any 'verdict' should summarise the strengths and weaknesses of the project and identify the greatest challenge that the material will present for the screenwriter. These notes should either provide the starting point for the next part of the development process - re-reading the material, outlining a treatment and inventing any 'required scenes' that did not appear in the original source material - or provide a writer with a strong explanation about why they feel they need to 'pass' on a producer's offer of adaptation work. I hope this article has helped to explode the myth that choosing to adapt a novel is an 'easy option' for a screenwriter In fact, when you consider the pressures of audience expectation, determining what may need to be added or subtracted and the demands of the screen media and film/television markets, I would suggest that the unavoidable truth is that good adaptations are just as difficult to write - if not harder - than original screenplays.
When assessing the number and type of characters in a novel, a screenwriter should consider the true function of each person and whether they could be merged with another character. such as White Teeth? Watching television and film adaptations and studying who is commissioning/ funding a particular kind of material is essential for any professional writer. The potential audience for the piece should also be considered carefully. Is the story aimed at adults or children and should the choice of leading character, or the age at which we meet them, reflect this intended audience? For example, in the 2004 BBC television adaptation of the children's classic Carrie's War, screenwriter Michael Crompton ignores the opening of the novel, which describes the adult Carrie's dreams of her childhood, and creates a new opening sequence in which we are introduced to 'Young Carrie' at the moment of her evacuation from the city, a change which emphasises that it is a children's/family story. Similarly, Anthony Minghella's 2004 big-screen adaptation of Charles Frazier's war epic Cold Mountain chooses to privilege the story of the female protagonist (Nicole Kidman) rather than that of the novel's clear hero, Inman (Jude Law). Whilst this is presumably a nod to Kidman's status as a greater star than Law, I would suggest Minghella also
Claire Lees Ingham is a story/script editor, workshop leader, screenwriter, and the creator of development consultancy Fat Cat Productions. Further details of Fat Cat Productions' Script Consultancy, new Reading Service and Training for Writers and Producers can be found at www.fatcatproductions.org.uk. Claire can be contacted directly at claire@fatcatproductions.org.uk July 2004
19