[HPFGU-Movie] Adapting books to the big screen (WAS watered-down characters)

[Morgan D.]

Answering to Lita's post on book adaptations:

> The general rule of thumb in film is that one page of a
> (formatted) script equals one minute of film time.  Most
> scripts are in the 110-115 minute range. Note--those are
> *not* numbers for production scripts, which are an entirely
> different animal. The screenwriter doesn't add in any of the
> cinematic stuff. (There are ways to sort of "lead" the
> reader into seeing some specific shots, but the screenwriter
> does not put in any type of camera movements or editing
> directions.)

That kind of depends on the screenwriter -- or are you referring
specifically to Hollywood standard screenwriters? There are some who
will indeed only write dialogues and the basic action, and use only
small phrasing tricks to induce a camera shot ("John gives Mary the
flowers" being different from "Mary receives the flowers from John" or
"the flowers pass from John's hands to Mary's", etc.)  But in the kind
of production where the screenwriter knows he'll be more involved with
the filming itself, it's common to find scripts describing camera
position and movements to the last detail, and even establishing
precisely how many minutes and seconds each scene is supposed to take
on screen. Not to mention those who don't write any script at all and
prefer to work with storyboards all along. 


> Having said that, though, it's extremely difficult to adapt
> a novel into film--probably because the two are completely
> different mediums. Film is visual and novels are very
> internal. Even the narrative structure gets handled
> differently. In general, it's a very bad idea to strictly
> translate a novel into a script simply because most novels
> don't work cinematically. There's just too much
> "stuff"--what makes sense on the written page just can't all
> be fit coherently into a movie.

I totally agree. And that's why I was taken aback when I heard boastful
comments from Columbus and company that PS would be completely faithful
to the books. Mind you, I hadn't read any of the HP books then. My
thoughts at the time were, either those HP books are the poorest excuse
for literature ever, or those guys are digging their graves.

Of course, the two HP movies made so far are NOT completely faithful to
anything. On the other hand, I have a feeling they couldn't completely
let go of the idea that they had to be. The result, in my opinion, is a
dreadful in-between. They have put as many scenes from the books as
they could fit in a two hours gap, and ended up losing any depth the
characters could have had -- because there's no time for that! No time
for non-informational dialogues, no time for developing Harry as a
"narrator" (hence the superboy feel on movie!Harry), no time for
telling who all those people are after all. 


> In fact, I've heard that one of the best ways to adapt a
> novel is to *not* read the novel yourself right off the bat,
> but to have someone else read it and then tell you the
> story. Read the novel *after* you've done your first draft
> of the script, when you're ready to revise. (I should
> probably point out that it's expected that you'll go through
> several drafts--probably only your original framework from
> your first draft would remain if you did it like this.) That
> way, you'll focus on the important stuff and what the book
> is *really* about and not get caught up in all the details
> of the book. I realize that's probably horrifying to most
> people in any kind of fandom <g> but I think it does make a
> lot of sense. (I myself am originally from the comic book
> fandom, which is probably one of the more...uh...fanatical
> ones out there.)

That is a great way to developing a movie script from an existing story
(as long as the scriptwriter does go through the trouble of writing a
dozen versions of it; sometimes the final script is simply that first
version of a story told by someone else... Irk.) 


> What I find to be the biggest flaws in the movies from a
> screenwriting perspective, is that I don't think the movies
> are a good adaptation of the books. I don't feel that the
> movies are about the same things as the books. That is, that
> while I think a lot of the events (and lines) are the same
> as in the books, they don't mean the same things. In fact,
> I get the impression that the movies aren't really "about"
> anything other than "look at this cool wizarding world,
> kiddies." In a lot of ways, I think the moviemakers were so
> concerned with sticking in as many details from the books as
> possible that they didn't worry enough about translating the
> spirit of the characters to the movies.

Again, I absolutely agree with you. I should add that I've always seen
the HP books as mystery books, so my expectations for an adaptation to
movies would be similar to the adaptations of Agatha Christie's books
-- something that has been tried over and over with very few successful
results. Mystery stories require lots of time. Time to introduce you
all the characters (so the spectator can have enough choices of
suspects) and develop these characters, even the minor ones (so the
spectator can wonder about their motivations); time to mention all the
plot details (and offer also a bunch of other details that are
irrelevant, to induce the spectator on the wrong track); time to
explain carefully what happened after all. No wonder JKR's books are
getting longer as the plots get more complex -- she NEEDS the time to
build those plots, and time in books translate in lots and lots of
pages.

And time is precisely what you don't have in commercial cinema. Two
hours for a standard story, two and a half for a sure blockbuster,
three only if your audience is pretty mature. And it's obvious to me
that Warner Bros didn't have a mature audience in mind when they
decided to film HP. AND, what is the saddest part, there is a dreadful
tradition (in US, but also in other countries) of offering young
audiences movies, TV shows and cartoons that do not present any
intellectual challenge for kids. Sorry if this is a pretty broad
generalization, but it's my experience with that medium gender -- the
exceptions are few, or are eclectic enough to aim for both young and
mature audiences at the same time. Kids aren't expected to guess the
plot or analyze the characters in any way; they're just supposed to
stare in awe and exclaim, "WOW, did you see that?!"

As an example of Warner Bros' option for a "kiddie" movie, I'd like to
mention the trip to Hogwarts on the Ford Anglia in CoS. The most
fascinating and meaningful thing for me in that scene from the book was
that the journey was *boring*. Yeah, yeah, flying cars, isn't that
amazing, but then Harry is getting used to magic stuff around him,
there's nothing to keep him interested for the whole duration of the
trip. Would the movie show a boring trip? Well, of course not! They
have to show the car almost colliding with the train and Harry almost
falling from the car and some other thrilling almost-happenings to keep
the audience staring in awe. Wouldn't want the kids to fall asleep in
the middle of the movie, would they? 


> Because, let's face it, Wood in the movies is (other than
> his looks, I guess) fairly forgettable. The character is
> simply exposition in the first film.

Well, this is where I'm forced to disagree. You see, when I first saw
the PS movie, I hadn't read any of the books. And I must say that there
were only two characters I liked in the whole movie, only two I was
able to remember the names after leaving the theatre (besides Harry's,
which is in the title, duh!), and those were Wood and Snape, in THAT
very order. I remember telling my mother -- who HAD read all the books
-- afterwards that my favourite character was Wood, and she didn't even
remember who I was talking about.
"The captain of the team of that flying broomsticks sport," I reminded
her. 
"Oh, Oliver!" she exclaimed. "But he's not very important in the
books."

*giggles* If I took about a year to decide to read the books, it had
something to do with the thought that one of the only two characters I
had cared about in the movie was described as "not very important" in
the books. And unbelievable as this might sound, Biggerstaff's looks
had only a small part in my liking of Wood's character. Honestly, I
liked him because he felt real in a movie where most characters felt
like caricatures. He was the only character I felt any identification
with -- that's why I could remember his name, and had pretty much
forgot Hermione's, Ron's, Dumbledore's, Hagrid's and Quirrell's. (And
considering he was on for so very little time, you can imagine how I
felt for the rest of the movie.)


> All the Weasleys other
> than Ron are similarly flat. Which is a shame, because
> there's only a limited amount of time they can be
> used--there was no reason to make what time they had so
> bland. The important thing was not to have all those
> background characters around, but to have *interesting*
> background characters.

The CoS adaptation suffered a lot from not developing Ginny and Percy.
They're there, sure, in the background. But the way they made it, when
Ginny is revealed to be the "criminal", an audience who hadn't read the
books are forced to ask around, "Uhn, Ginny who?" (my sister did that).
And those who don't know who the "criminal" is beforehand have no one
to suspect -- JKR put a lot of effort in dropping sidetracking clues
that pointed to Percy, but in the movie none of them was left.
(Although they did go through the trouble of mentioning a Miss
Clearwater in one scene -- I can't imagine why, since she means NOTHING
to the movie plot.)


> thalia chaunacy wrote:
> > well, why are you making a movie? because the plot's exciting and
> the
> > characters are interesting, right? i don't think anyone can tell me
> the
> > plots of PS/CoSmovies weren't exciting or that the characters were
> boring.
> 
> Well, I would have to disagree with you somewhat here. While
> I wouldn't say that the movie!plots were boring, I do think
> that they had enough flaws to keep them from being terribly
> exciting. And I would have to say that the movie!characters
> as written are fairly boring.

I can easily say I found both PS and CoS movie plots "exciting" in a
cheap way (lots of dangerous action and shiny special effects, no
psychological drama) and full of plot holes, and that I found almost
all the characters EXTREMELY boring.


> What makes the movies work is that they are visually
> *amazing* (and, IMO, have a talented cast). 

They have a very talented cast working on a shallow, unchallenging
text, in my very humble opinion. Feels like a waste of talent to have
all those great actors there, displaying hopelessly bidimensional
characters. (Honestly, the only reason I could think of for having
someone like John Cleese playing Nick was if they were going to give
him the chance to show off his humorist skills in the Deathday Party.
As it is, Nick's character could have been completely cut without
damaging the plot of the movies. I mean, seeing him pull his
half-severed head to the side wasn't THAT interesting to justify his
existence.) 


> I don't think
> either the plots are the characters are particularly
> interesting in and of themselves--neither inspires much
> emotional attachment unless you already have one in place
> from reading the books. What the films do is visually make
> the world come alive. I've noticed that that "aliveness"
> encouraged me to overlook a lot of the flaws of the
> movies--probably because I'm something of a film geek. :)
> But when I look at it from a screenwriting perspective, I
> see a lot of flaws--and not just from the adaptation
> perspective.

Over the years of studying cinema I managed somehow to master a useful
trick. I sort of turn off my critic persona while I'm watching a movie,
so I'm free to enjoy the experience as candidly as possible -- and
yeah, staring in awe in all the right moments. Only when I leave the
theatre I enter critic mode and start analyzing the script, the
decoupage, the edition, the sound. (Having a critic grumbling in your
head while watching a movie is the most irritating thing ^__^)

Where it comes to taking a fantastic world from literature and making
it visually alive, the HP movies were pretty much successful (it's my
opinion that they did a terrible job of building a believable phoenix,
but that's me). Understandably, when I think of the places described in
the first two books, I now picture them very similar to their
equivalents in the movies. On the other hand, I keep picturing the
characters very differently from their portrait in the movies (Snape
and Wood being the only exceptions), because they have not convinced me
as characters, no matter how splendid those actors are.


> But as a kid's action flick (which, let's face it, is what
> the movies are intended to be), both movies work very well.
> Which, to be cynical, really isn't saying much. :)

I do not understand why a kid's action flick has to be so shallow, but
I got your point. I suspect they had very un-ambitious gouls about the
storytelling in those movies, so the fact that they reached those goals
doesn't say much at all. 


> I have to say that I've given some thought as to how I would
> adapt PoA, but I won't go into that now. I think I've ranted
> enough for one day.... :)

Oh I'd love to hear it and compare notes! ^__^

Morgan D.
Hogwarts Letters - http://www.hogwartsletters.hpg.com.br

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