I’m Always Home. I’m Uncool.

After class today, I was thinking about all of the movies I had seen that had previously been books. Usually, my reaction to these films has always been, “oh, well, the book was way better.” Of course there is always indignation at the filmmaker for cutting out your favorite quip or butchering your favorite line. I had never really thought about the artistic elements of adapting a book into a movie before.

My mission? To go to these next two movie screenings with an open mind and sharp eyes. I’m going to try and figure out what the filmmakers were trying to do with my favorite book.

If anyone else has a favorite book that was turned into a movie (or even just a book that you liked) I’d like to know your thoughts on all of this. I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone speak up in favor of the movie, only ever in favor of the book.

Also, along the same thought process: Harry Potter. The last book is coming out soon, as is the fifth movie. Great if you’re a Harry Potter fan, like me. Even better now that I’m think about adaptation. I have always loved the Harry Potter books, ever since I first read them in the sixth grade (wow, was I that long ago…). The movies I thought were great visually, everything looked just like I saw it in my head, but I was always disappointed with how the plot had changed. I then decided to not even connect the movies to the books, but rather to view them as separate entities. I now judge the Harry Potter films by completely different criteria than I use to judge the books. I now think that that was a bad decision on my part.

Here’s my challenge to everyone who has ever had a favorite book “butchered” by Hollywood: go and watch the movie again, this time keeping in mind what we learned about adaptation in class. I have a feeling that I’m going to be surprised at my increase in appreciation for movies I have previously disliked.

I know that this is beside the point from the rest of class, but I just have to put it out there, as it does involve movies and their creators. I watched the Academy Awards last night, and I have to say, I think it would feel pretty good to be recognized by your peers. Especially if you peers are Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, Stephen Spielberg, and Clint Eastwood. I don’t often think of filmmakers or actors as people. Real, actually, living people. But they, in fact, are. And watching the Academy Awards reminds me of that. Where else are you going to get to see nearly every single big name in Hollywood all sitting together in one place? Not to mention the fact that I will now refer to Martin Scorsese as “Marty” forever in my head. Watching the Academy Awards just makes me think about all the hard work that does go into a film, and the people who make sacrifices to edit, re-edit, re-shoot, break-down, modify, and create just so that we can be captivated for two hours and transported to anther place and time. Filmmaking isn’t all glamorous. It’s a 9 to 5 (and more often than not at 9 to 9) job.

There aren’t words to describe how I feel about this movie. All I can think to say is that it’s so horrific, that it’s absolutely brilliant.

I don’t know who cast this film, but all I can say is: good job. Elizabeth Taylor looks at least five years older than the girl who plays Beth. Beth, who ought to be thirteen, looks around the age of an eleven year old. And Amy, who ought to be twelve, well… just isn’t twelve. Not to mention that “Amy” was taller than all of her classmates, and looked a great deal older than all of them. Oh, just thinking about Amy at the school house makes me want to watch it all over again.

Now, I’m really hoping that this movie has some redeeming qualities, but I’m not holding my breath. So far, this film has to be the worst adaptation of Little Women in the history of forever. It appears as if the good, Christian morals of the Marches have flown out the window. The girls ran out to buy things and forgot about the letter from their father. Okay, wait, let me just say that again, so that it really sinks in: They ran out to buy themselves things, and forgot about the letter from their father who is off fighting a WAR. And the Christmas breakfast? A VOTE? A VOTE about whether or not to do the good thing, or let the Hummels starve to death? Wow. I have a feeling that Mervyn LeRoy’s only knowledge of Little Women was what he saw in Cukor’s version, and what might have been described to him, in rough detail, about the novel itself. Although, I have to admit, watching Amy feed the Hummel children was probably one of the greatest things I’ve seen in a good long while.  I will say this, in defense of the movie: the setting (although at times looking exactly like the Cukor version – i.e. the Laurence’s house) is fantastic. Everything looks like it came directly out of a picture book. Very calculated, almost theatrical. I loved it. So it didn’t have that authentic 1860s vibe, but it sure did look pretty. I just want to spend the rest of my life watching this horrific version of my favorite book. It’s like a train wreck. I just can’t look away or I’m sure I’ll miss a severed limb.

We didn’t get to talk about Amy today in class, so I thought I’d blog about her.

I think that Amy is one of the most interesting characters in Little Women. She is the character that everyone loves to hate (and on a very rare occasion, although I don’t understand it, love to love). I think that I am not alone in saying that I had a strong desire to toss Amy herself into the fire after she burned Jo’s manuscript.

I think that Amy is an absolutely fantastic character, because she is the one that is most true to life. I know that she has reminded me more than once of my own little sister. She’s that spoiled cousin, or baby sister, or playmate we all had at one point in our lives. I also think it’s interesting that I never seem to feel pity for her. I felt sorry for Jo when Amy burned her manuscript, but I didn’t feel at all sorry for Amy when Jo told her she couldn’t go with them to the theater. I never once felt bad that Mr. Davis hit her, or that he made her toss all her limes out the window, and I always hated how she complained about going to Aunt March’s when Beth was sick. I quite literally wanted to shake her myself.

But the MOST interesting thing about Amy, at least to me, is her lack of involvement with her family. Every other character seems to interact/care more about the Marches than Amy does. As a child, all Amy cares about is her art and herself. She hardly shows any affection towards her sisters, and acts above Beth (who is nothing but good to her) although Beth is older than she is. Amy always tries to be above her family in one way or another. The best example I can think of is her dinner party for all the girls in her art class. She had to get all the expensive, delicate food that she thought they would be used to rather than realizing that it would be best to be plain. And, here’s the kicker, Amy wasn’t even there when Beth died. She was in Europe.

Stubborn. Proud. Childish. Stupid. Arrogant. Self-serving. In a word: Amy.

I am not ashamed to say that I am one of those people Dr. Campbell was talking about who border on obsession with the book Little Women.

I have read Little Women ten times since first picking it up in fifth grade. The first copy I read (I do have another copy, simply because the first one is old, and precious) was a cloth-bound deal that my Great-Grandmother stole from the Concord (ironically where the March family is said to live in the 1994 version of the film) Library in New Hampshire sometime in the early 1950s.

I feel an overwhelmingly strong connection with this book. Each word is comforting and familiar to me. And I can identify with the March family all too easily, seeing as they are a model of my own. I have a twin sister who embodies both Meg and Beth at the same time, right down to Meg’s vanity of her hands (my sister is strangely obsessed with her own hands, and quite vain of them, something I have never understood about her or Meg) nad Beth’s fear of unknown people (another thing I have never quite understood about my sister). My little sister is Amy in nearly every sense of the word, the only exception being that she has red hair, not blonde. And I, as many people who have read the book before me, am most closely tied to Jo, probably because I was a tomboy as a kid, and the fact that I am currently a scribbler. It was actually Little Woman that made me realize my dream to become a writer.

At the risk of sounding absolutely insane, I am going to put myself out there and say that I am attached to this book like I am to nothing else in the world. And I’m not sure what it is. I think the writing is wonderful, the characters are absolutely perfect and believable (they are the sort of people you can get to know and root for), the lessons hidden (and more often than not, blatantly in-your-face) within the book I believe to be important, and Alcott’s commentary within the book can be absolutely hilarious. Yet, I still don’t know what it is about this books that drew me in at the tender age of nine.

The one thing that baffles me most about my love for Little Women is the fact that it is completely not my scene. I am not a religious person. As a matter of fact, I am an atheist. But the constant Christian morals and biblical references do not bother me in the least. I hate female main characters, and never write stories that have them. My favorite author is Stephen King. And I think that a movie is made infinitely better with an explosion or two.

So why am I so utterly, completely, and totally hooked to this book? The world may never know.

Talking about shot duration in class today reminded my of the film clip/shot analysis I had to do for 245. I chose to look at a (4 ½ minute) clip from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. In this clip Joel (Jim Carey) has a conversation with his neighbor, goes into his apartment, puts on pajamas and takes a pill from Lacuna Inc., the company that is going to be erasing his memory. The two men who are going to erase his memory (Elijah Wood and Mark Ruffalo) enter after Joel has fallen asleep in his kitchen, and they move him to his bed. Joel then begins to relive memories of his ex-girlfriend, Clementine (Kate Winslet) from the most recent to the oldest.

I took a leaf out of Dr. C’s book and made a spreadsheet:

The events leading up to the string of one second shots are Joel’s conversation with his neighbor, Frank, about his ex-girlfriend (although this is unknown to Frank). Joel then leaves Frank to go to his apartment where we have the string on one second shots: Joel opening bag containing pajamas, Joel putting on pajama pants, Joel putting on pajama top, buttons pajama shirt, rummages through paper bag, removes pill bottle from bag, fills glass of water, opens bottle and puts pill in hand, Joel takes pill. The next shot that follows is the longest one that we’ve had yet: 17 seconds. Following the rapid-fire single-second shots, this is a break for us to catch our breath.

The rest of the shots vary in length, but seem to have similar patterns: one long shot followed by shorter shorts. The longest short (21 seconds) takes place almost in the middle of this sequence of shots, and that is the shot that contains Joel’s first re-encountered memory (relevant, for my paper, not for this blog)

Coming around the corner its Burlesque and Demythologization, followed by Recuperation of Myth as Myth, with Nostalgia trailing. Here they come; it’s a close finish… and, oh it looks like it’s going to be a photo finish with Burlesque and Demythologization, Recuperation of Myth as Myth in second, and Nostalgia bringing up the rear.

Yes, looks like the smart money was on Burlesque and Demythologization in Miller’s Crossing. After having seen the film in its entirety, I think that it is more of a Burlesque/ Demythologization film than anything else. The film was VERY self aware (you can tell from the very characteristic “gangster” types, Albert Finney’s fantastic scene with a Tommy Gun, the low camera angles when we see our “Jeff,” and not to mention that absolutely hilarious scene between Mike Starr and Gabriel Byrne), and it had a clear message, at least the message that I feel as though I got.

Everything in this film was over the top. Maybe not satirical, farcical over-the-top, but definitely over-exaggerated (I think that the two best scenes to explain what I am saying are the two aforementioned scenes… which, incidentally, I could watch over and over again and never get tired of them). And the Burlesque quality of this film definitely demythologized the original Alan Laad/Veronica Lake Glass Key. Being in the dirty politics business isn’t as glamorous as all those wonderful soft-focus shots would leave you to believe. It’s full of gangsters with Tommy Guns, friends and lovers turning on one another, sex, violent riots, the mayor and chief of police being wrapped about your little finger, hangovers, and seeing dead bodies decomposing.

So far my favorite scene in Miller’s Crossing has to be the sight gag with the dog. The scene with Tom and Verna in Tom’s apartment where the sence ends by Verna saying “you’re a real son-of-a-bitch, Tom.” The scene then cuts directly to a shot of the dog looking at the dead body. Oh, Coen Brothers… 

 Okay so far (from the first thirty minutes) this is the score:

Burlesque – take all the “hard-boiled” detective stuff from The Glass Key (sex and violence) and multiply it by about 10. The sex (way more in-your-face than in the world of Mr. Hammit) and violence (he threw is glass at her… what?!) are definitely being amplified. Not to mention that we see way more of Ned/Tommy’s vices.

Nostalgia – So far, not really getting much nostalgia here. I mean, there is the Prologue, with all the gangster/”hard-boiled” talk…

Demythologization (MythBusters, Film, Text, and Culture Edition) – The over-exaggeration of sex and violence, may not be over-exaggeration at all. Maybe, the Coen Brothers are showing us the real Glass Key world that the first movie was too afraid too. The glamour is definitely non-existent.

Recuperation of Myth as Myth – Seems to me that the basics are all still there: the sex, the violence, the drinking, the women, the gambling, the Coen Bros haven’t discounted any of that. In fact, they seem to be embracing it more. So far it looks like this is a tied game.

All this talk about genre in out FTC books has got me thinking. Here is a quote that I believe can help to clarify what I’m going to say: “When is a musical not a musical? When it has Elvis Presley in it” (Altman 681). 

And another one I just think is funny: “Genres were always – and continue to be – treated as if they spring full-blown from the head of Zeus” (Altman 682). 

So far it looks like all this talk about genre is a huge fight about semantic v. syntactic. Now I’m not going to say which is right or wrong. I have my own theory. I think that deep down, we all know innately what makes up a genre. Like the quote about Elvis. Okay, so his movies have lots of music in it. But we know those aren’t musicals. Musicals are like Singing in the Rain or Chicago or Newsies. And innately we all know this. I think it’s too difficult to try and list what belongs in a genre and then gauge films by some time of genre chart (think to the great scene in The Dead Poet’s Society where Robin Williams has the class rip out the first page of their textbooks, the one with the chart on it for gauging the poem’s greatness). Besides, movies almost always fall into more than one genre. A perfect example, and those of you who took 245 with Dr. C ought to remember this: Citizen Kane. It’s a biography… no, wait, it’s a mystery… no, wait, it’s a romantic comedy… a thriller… and the list goes on and on. To use a more contemporary example: the TV show Firefly (and it’s movie companion Serenity). It is quite obviously a Western. The Capitan, Mal Reynolds, is the perfect cowboy; stoic, troubled past, a desire to help people in need, an air of aimlessness, not always morally correct, never shows his true romantic interest. This list could be longer, but I think you get my point. He dresses the part, walks the walk, and talks the talk. Oh yeah… but this all takes place in the future, in SPACE. Does that mean it’s not a Western? In my mind: of course not. There’s both the semantic argument (cowboys, outlaws, desert-like atmosphere) and the syntactic (good v. evil). And when we see it we think Western. I don’t really think Sci Fi, although they are on a spaceship hopping from planet to planet.