Found in Translation: The Art of Literary Film Adaptation
Adapt(ation): to adjust or modify fittingly.
“The book was better.” Literary film adaptations have taken plenty of criticism over the years due to the misunderstandings between reader and filmmaker. The literary community is incredibly protective of their favorite works, and rightfully so, so backlash is to be expected whenever they feel that a filmmaker is taking unnecessary liberties and making too many alterations that stray away from some of their most beloved stories or characters. However, literary film adaptation, when done correctly, is an art form in and of itself.
My first semester at Cal State Fullerton was one of the rockier tenures in my collegiate career. Unlike most of my English major contemporaries, I wasn’t sure of what I wanted to do with my degree and it sure wasn’t going to be teaching (although, Cesar Castellanos makes it sexy). However, light bulbs illuminated and hovered over my cranium like a Saturday morning cartoon when the always vibrant Professor Cornel Bonca proposes a challenge to his English 300 class. As we continued our studies and observations into the ever captivating [insert sarcasm font] Romantic era of poetry, we primarily focused on Andrew Marvell’s To His Coy Mistress and Annie Finch’s Coy Mistress, the latter being a contemporary feminist response to Marvell’s romantic era Mistress. In the middle of the lecture, Professor Bonca had a light bulb of his own: “if there are any filmmakers in this class, I challenge you to combine these two poems into a short film.” In accomplishing this task, the final essay of the semester would be waived. My smile could not have gotten any bigger that day.
Although film and literature are two different storytelling mediums, most of the time they both implement the same narrative structure: the beginning, the middle, and the end. Due to time constraints, it’s nearly impossible to fit an entire book into a feature-length film (unless you’re Kenneth Branagh and four hours of Hamlet is what you would describe as a “good time”). Capturing the spirit and the essence of the source material is the most critical step to film adaptation. Filmmakers shouldn’t always have to sweat over getting a monologue word for word or casting an actor with specific character features. To adapt is to interpret. Understanding the meaning behind the words, the motivations behind the characters, and translating all of those literary elements in the most truthful and sincere manner onto the screen.
To His Coy Mistress and Coy Mistress are essentially love poems, but not necessarily by the traditional definition. Andrew Marvell’s narrator comes from the perspective of a 17th century man, whose life’s aspiration is to woo women with his gift of poetic recital. In further exploration of the context of this poem, the life span of a 17th century person was very short compared to ours now. Time played a vital part in the process of falling in love. “Had we but world enough, and time” says the man, “this coyness, lady, were no crime.” Annie Finch’s Coy Mistress, however, comes from the perspective of a modern, progressive woman. Not easily swayed by words, the woman counters the 17th century man’s romantic gesture by stating that time allows for love to grow, to bloom, and to “sweeten”. It takes time to love. With the help of a few close friends, I decided to take on Professor Bonca’s challenge and to bring these poems to life, for one night only.
Found in Translation: The Art of Literary Film Adaptation was originally published on The Poetics Project
