Film Adaptation: Why does it always suck?
Jul. 27th, 2007 02:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
omorkaFirst, a confession. Actually, two, one relevant and one not. The irrelevant one is that yes, I bought a Welsh-language version of "Bright Eyes" off of iTunes, and yes, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bassfingers, you can point and laugh. The relevant one is that I saw the animated film of Watership Down long before I read the book; I remember being nothing short of fascinated with Fiver's shamanic journey down the Down, led by the Black Rabbit, to find the wounded Hazel back in my preteen years (we'd taped it off of the television once; by the last time I saw it, the tape was clearly degrading, with skips and snow). I've mentioned the importance of Frith and Inle in my personal development previously. I don't think I read the novel until I was in my first or second year in college, and while I certainly enjoyed it, my mental voices were very much the ones of the film.
There are a few things the film does better than the book. The primary one, for me, is to show, rather than tell, what is happening to Fiver in his seer-trance moments. Adams clearly does not do that himself; Fiver is an other for him, in a way that his rabbit-ness does not even reach. Fiver's trances in the book are usually relayed through Hazel's perspective; the only one we see from Fiver's perspective for more than a moment is, in fact, the prophetic dream that becomes the "Bright Eyes"/Black Rabbit sequence in the movie, where it has become much more hallucinatory (and leaves out Fiver's brief glimpse into human, as opposed to lapine, nature, but I think that was necessary). Since I emphatically do not see Fiver as an Other, the view through his eyes of some of those moments was a great strength of the film for me.
There are other nice touches - the camera's trek backwards from the Down to Sandleford at the beginning is fascinating, especially once you've seen the film once (or if you've read the book) and thus know what the camera is sliding past. The Cat's moment is spectacular. And it's nice to have mental images for the different rabbits, although honestly, I do so little visualization while reading it really wouldn't have bothered me not to.
There are a lot of cuts from the book that were necessary just to trim it to time. All of the El-ahrairah stories except the creation myth in the opening, for instance, had to go; there just wasn't time, although I think there was one exception, about which more in a moment. I'm willing to more grudgingly give this to the conflation of Holly's escape from the destruction at Sandleford and his escape from Efrafa; giving him two such sequences, with the hutch escape and the "Bright Eyes" sequence in between, would have eaten significant time and possibly been confusing. The Efrafa sequence has been shortened significantly, somewhat confusingly - I think they could have tightened the writing on that part - but again, probably necessarily; the film has chosen to focus on three of the larger cast from the book, the three primary characters of Hazel, Fiver, and Bigwig, and having Bigwig on an extended adventure of his own without the other two would have come too close to making him the singular hero of the film. I disagree with the choice to make Hazel's run on the farm for the hutch rabbits completely fruitless, instead of a partial success as in the book, but I can imagine an argument that with the reduced group, two does might have seemed sufficient and the run on Efrafa would be harder to justify. Hazel's one moment of second-sight (actually second-hearing) is given to Fiver; again, I disagree with the decision but I can see why it was made. I have similar feelings about Blackavar not surviving the Efrafan attack on the Down.
However, I have two big beefs with what was cut, and a third with a writing choice necessitated by the cuts.
First: the escape from Sandleford is unnecessarily confusing and untrue to the book. In the movie, the escape is made with a group of rabbits in the mid-teens, and everyone who has been named escapes from the Sandleford Owsla. The movie has a group about that big start out, then get cut back to eight or nine by the Owsla, with Bigwig joining only as they leave. They also clearly have a doe with them when they leave, which they didn't in the book; this appears to be solely for the purpose of losing her to a hawk for added drama on the trip. (By the way, that's probably more true to life than the book - while single buck rabbits often wander around on their own, they don't typically go on migratory treks without does.) If they just wanted a smaller batch to keep track of (reasonable if they wanted to keep voice-actor fees to a minimum), they could either have had some rabbits never speak on-camera or started Hazel's group at only eight or nine. Both the Owsla and the hawk serve to make Hazel appear like a less effective leader.
Second: the Warren of the Bright Snares is cut to nonsense. Nothing that makes it a true obstacle remains in the film; it's not clear why it's such a strong temptation to stay there for Hazel and Bigwig, nor is the reluctance of the Bright Snares rabbits to explain anything ever made clear except in one throwaway line. Strawberry is nowhere to be seen, presumably because they didn't want yet another speaking role. The warren itself is presented as slightly creepy, the Bright Snares rabbits are clearly mistrustful of the newcomers, and their own poet/dreamer/shaman makes no appearance at all, thus making Fiver's almost violent reaction seem unmotivated. We never see the Shape, or the dance-greeting of the Bright Snares rabbits, and so we don't see their behavior as civilized in a way that contrasts with Hazel's band; also, I should point out that Adams' identification of art other than storytelling with decadence and being tamed makes me uneasy, and I can sort of see why an animator might like to leave it out, but it mars the character development to do so. If the decision had been made that it had to be cut down for time, I think it would have been preferable to have rendered it down to Cowslip's invitation, Fiver's freak-out and refusal, Bigwig's getting fed up and following Cowslip, and then the snare, without them even getting to the warren.
Third: The removal of the El-ahrairah stories has some serious repercussions. The most obvious is that Dandelion's role is reduced to a cipher; he's their storyteller, clearly a very important cultural role for rabbits (as it is with any group with an oral history), but in the film there are just two references to him telling stories without him actually doing so. What we actually see of him is that he's a fast runner; that's it. The removal of the story of the King's Lettuce further impoverishes the Bright Snares sequence. And we get very, very little sense of rabbit mythology at all. Frith, El-ahrairah, and the Black Rabbit of Inle are all almost interchangeable in the movie - Hazel bargains with his life with Frith, instead of El-ahrairah with the Black Rabbit; the character who invites Hazel to join his Owsla at the end seems to be both El-ahrairah (who makes the offer in the book) and the Black Rabbit at once. Now, I have no problem with the Prince of the Thousand Enemies being a psychepomp, and thus guiding rabbit-souls to the otherworld when the Black Rabbit is busy, or taking his share of the fallen like Odin. But I'd like the three spiritual figures to have their roles; mashing them together is entirely to Christian - or worse, Newagey - for wild rabbits. (Or for civilized ones, apparently, since in the book the Bright Snares rabbits seem to be either atheists or deists.) I think it actually weakens the "Bright Eyes" sequence for that to be potentially El-ahrairah leading Fiver to his brother, tricking Inle out of a soul, rather than the Black Rabbit silently refusing to take a rabbit before his proper time.
One of the themes of the book is of the trickster as leader, a combined archetype much less common than the warrior-leader (that's Woundwort, and would have been Bigwig if he were Chief Rabbit) or the aristocrat-leader (the Threarah, and perhaps Cowslip, although he explicitly says he's no chief). El-ahrairah is the Trickster-Leader writ large, and part of the theme of the book is that Chief Rabbits who follow his lead tend to be successful and leave behind strong warrens. Cunning and trickery, and the ability to take advice from others, are more important than size and strength. And while the movie manages to communicate this well, mostly through the conflict with Woundwort, it lacks strength due to what was cut.
I realize that animation is expensive, and was perhaps even more so at the time, but an extra ten minutes in Bright Snares, telling "The King's Lettuce" and playing out the repercussions, could have helped immensely. It's a good adaptation, but it's deeply flawed. And perhaps it's time for someone to have another go at it, with a new adaptation from the book. (Although if Mike Batt and Art Garfunkel are willing, they can keep the song.)
bassfingers, you can point and laugh. The relevant one is that I saw the animated film of Watership Down long before I read the book; I remember being nothing short of fascinated with Fiver's shamanic journey down the Down, led by the Black Rabbit, to find the wounded Hazel back in my preteen years (we'd taped it off of the television once; by the last time I saw it, the tape was clearly degrading, with skips and snow). I've mentioned the importance of Frith and Inle in my personal development previously. I don't think I read the novel until I was in my first or second year in college, and while I certainly enjoyed it, my mental voices were very much the ones of the film.There are a few things the film does better than the book. The primary one, for me, is to show, rather than tell, what is happening to Fiver in his seer-trance moments. Adams clearly does not do that himself; Fiver is an other for him, in a way that his rabbit-ness does not even reach. Fiver's trances in the book are usually relayed through Hazel's perspective; the only one we see from Fiver's perspective for more than a moment is, in fact, the prophetic dream that becomes the "Bright Eyes"/Black Rabbit sequence in the movie, where it has become much more hallucinatory (and leaves out Fiver's brief glimpse into human, as opposed to lapine, nature, but I think that was necessary). Since I emphatically do not see Fiver as an Other, the view through his eyes of some of those moments was a great strength of the film for me.
There are other nice touches - the camera's trek backwards from the Down to Sandleford at the beginning is fascinating, especially once you've seen the film once (or if you've read the book) and thus know what the camera is sliding past. The Cat's moment is spectacular. And it's nice to have mental images for the different rabbits, although honestly, I do so little visualization while reading it really wouldn't have bothered me not to.
There are a lot of cuts from the book that were necessary just to trim it to time. All of the El-ahrairah stories except the creation myth in the opening, for instance, had to go; there just wasn't time, although I think there was one exception, about which more in a moment. I'm willing to more grudgingly give this to the conflation of Holly's escape from the destruction at Sandleford and his escape from Efrafa; giving him two such sequences, with the hutch escape and the "Bright Eyes" sequence in between, would have eaten significant time and possibly been confusing. The Efrafa sequence has been shortened significantly, somewhat confusingly - I think they could have tightened the writing on that part - but again, probably necessarily; the film has chosen to focus on three of the larger cast from the book, the three primary characters of Hazel, Fiver, and Bigwig, and having Bigwig on an extended adventure of his own without the other two would have come too close to making him the singular hero of the film. I disagree with the choice to make Hazel's run on the farm for the hutch rabbits completely fruitless, instead of a partial success as in the book, but I can imagine an argument that with the reduced group, two does might have seemed sufficient and the run on Efrafa would be harder to justify. Hazel's one moment of second-sight (actually second-hearing) is given to Fiver; again, I disagree with the decision but I can see why it was made. I have similar feelings about Blackavar not surviving the Efrafan attack on the Down.
However, I have two big beefs with what was cut, and a third with a writing choice necessitated by the cuts.
First: the escape from Sandleford is unnecessarily confusing and untrue to the book. In the movie, the escape is made with a group of rabbits in the mid-teens, and everyone who has been named escapes from the Sandleford Owsla. The movie has a group about that big start out, then get cut back to eight or nine by the Owsla, with Bigwig joining only as they leave. They also clearly have a doe with them when they leave, which they didn't in the book; this appears to be solely for the purpose of losing her to a hawk for added drama on the trip. (By the way, that's probably more true to life than the book - while single buck rabbits often wander around on their own, they don't typically go on migratory treks without does.) If they just wanted a smaller batch to keep track of (reasonable if they wanted to keep voice-actor fees to a minimum), they could either have had some rabbits never speak on-camera or started Hazel's group at only eight or nine. Both the Owsla and the hawk serve to make Hazel appear like a less effective leader.
Second: the Warren of the Bright Snares is cut to nonsense. Nothing that makes it a true obstacle remains in the film; it's not clear why it's such a strong temptation to stay there for Hazel and Bigwig, nor is the reluctance of the Bright Snares rabbits to explain anything ever made clear except in one throwaway line. Strawberry is nowhere to be seen, presumably because they didn't want yet another speaking role. The warren itself is presented as slightly creepy, the Bright Snares rabbits are clearly mistrustful of the newcomers, and their own poet/dreamer/shaman makes no appearance at all, thus making Fiver's almost violent reaction seem unmotivated. We never see the Shape, or the dance-greeting of the Bright Snares rabbits, and so we don't see their behavior as civilized in a way that contrasts with Hazel's band; also, I should point out that Adams' identification of art other than storytelling with decadence and being tamed makes me uneasy, and I can sort of see why an animator might like to leave it out, but it mars the character development to do so. If the decision had been made that it had to be cut down for time, I think it would have been preferable to have rendered it down to Cowslip's invitation, Fiver's freak-out and refusal, Bigwig's getting fed up and following Cowslip, and then the snare, without them even getting to the warren.
Third: The removal of the El-ahrairah stories has some serious repercussions. The most obvious is that Dandelion's role is reduced to a cipher; he's their storyteller, clearly a very important cultural role for rabbits (as it is with any group with an oral history), but in the film there are just two references to him telling stories without him actually doing so. What we actually see of him is that he's a fast runner; that's it. The removal of the story of the King's Lettuce further impoverishes the Bright Snares sequence. And we get very, very little sense of rabbit mythology at all. Frith, El-ahrairah, and the Black Rabbit of Inle are all almost interchangeable in the movie - Hazel bargains with his life with Frith, instead of El-ahrairah with the Black Rabbit; the character who invites Hazel to join his Owsla at the end seems to be both El-ahrairah (who makes the offer in the book) and the Black Rabbit at once. Now, I have no problem with the Prince of the Thousand Enemies being a psychepomp, and thus guiding rabbit-souls to the otherworld when the Black Rabbit is busy, or taking his share of the fallen like Odin. But I'd like the three spiritual figures to have their roles; mashing them together is entirely to Christian - or worse, Newagey - for wild rabbits. (Or for civilized ones, apparently, since in the book the Bright Snares rabbits seem to be either atheists or deists.) I think it actually weakens the "Bright Eyes" sequence for that to be potentially El-ahrairah leading Fiver to his brother, tricking Inle out of a soul, rather than the Black Rabbit silently refusing to take a rabbit before his proper time.
One of the themes of the book is of the trickster as leader, a combined archetype much less common than the warrior-leader (that's Woundwort, and would have been Bigwig if he were Chief Rabbit) or the aristocrat-leader (the Threarah, and perhaps Cowslip, although he explicitly says he's no chief). El-ahrairah is the Trickster-Leader writ large, and part of the theme of the book is that Chief Rabbits who follow his lead tend to be successful and leave behind strong warrens. Cunning and trickery, and the ability to take advice from others, are more important than size and strength. And while the movie manages to communicate this well, mostly through the conflict with Woundwort, it lacks strength due to what was cut.
I realize that animation is expensive, and was perhaps even more so at the time, but an extra ten minutes in Bright Snares, telling "The King's Lettuce" and playing out the repercussions, could have helped immensely. It's a good adaptation, but it's deeply flawed. And perhaps it's time for someone to have another go at it, with a new adaptation from the book. (Although if Mike Batt and Art Garfunkel are willing, they can keep the song.)
