\u201cIntroduction: Adapting to Adaptations\u201d
\nBrian Attebery<\/p>\n
The theme of the 34th international conference on the fantastic in the Arts, held in Orlando in March of 2013, was Fantastic Transformations, Adaptations and Audiences. Guests of honor included scholar Constance Penley, who did some of the first work on fan communities and their transformation of film and television into unauthorized new texts; Kij Johnson, who has written not only fine fantasy and science fiction but also game scripts and comics; and the ubiquitous Neil Gaiman, who travels gracefully among various media and genres and has been involved in adapting his own work for tv and the movies. Many of the papers at the Conference testified to the importance of studying adaptation and cross-media publication and invoked a number of theories of adaptation and what is often now called \u201cremediation\u201d (a wonderfully slippery term that suggests both transplanting from one medium to another and remedying what is missing in one form with expression in another). This issue of JFA<\/em> includes something from each of the three guests as well as articles that arguably intersect with their work.<\/p>\n At the end of 2013, a pair of movie releases complicated and darkened the picture of adaptation from book to film. One was the second installment of Peter Jackson\u2019s The Hobbit<\/em>, which is J. R. R. Tolkien\u2019s The Hobbit<\/em> on performance-enhancing drugs: bloated, clumsy, and full of roid-rage. The other was Saving Mister Banks<\/em>, a fictionalized account of the negotiations between author P. L. Travers and studio head Walt Disney over the adaption of Travers\u2019s Mary Poppins<\/em>. The film, made by Disney Studios, implies that Travers should have simply let Disney take over and transform her book and character as they wished. Despite a nuanced portrayal by Emma Thompson as Travers, the film reinforces the notion that the author did not know what she was doing and that, as adaptation theory suggests, we should let go of the notions of the primacy of and faithfulness to an original text and simply view each as an equal partner in an intertextual dialogue.<\/p>\n All well and good, but what if the adaptation is inferior on its own terms, as an aesthetic object and as an act of expression? We need a theory of bad adaptation, which I am by no means qualified to formulate, but I\u2019ll make a few suggestions here.<\/p>\n There are movies far worse than The Hobbit<\/em> or Mary Poppins<\/em>, and some of them come from good source material. In the field of fantasy, for instance, there is the Sci-Fi Channel (as it was then called) and its inept production of Ursula K. Le Guin\u2019s A Wizard of Earthsea<\/em>, about which Le Guin has written with fine wit and anger. Even worse was a movie that did not even dare call itself The Dark Is Rising<\/em>, though it was originally billed as an adaptation of Susan Cooper\u2019s classic novel, but rather ended up being called The Seeker<\/em>.<\/p>\n Both Le Guin and Cooper expected changes to their work. Le Guin had had good luck with a 1979 PBS dramatization of her novel The Lathe of Heaven<\/em>, and Cooper, who co-wrote the play and film Foxfire<\/em> based on Eliot Wigginton\u2019s compilations of Appalachian folk tradition, was well aware of the artistic choices that must be made in translating ideas from one medium and genre to another. But the product in these cases was simply bad. The televised Legend of Earthsea<\/em> was a great disappointment to fans of the book, although a few viewers who had not read it found value in the special effects and some of the acting. Seeker<\/em> was a critical and commercial flop. In both cases the adaptors presumed to lecture the writers on what they really intended:<\/p>\n \u201cMiss Le Guin [sic] was not involved in the development of the material or the making of the film, but we\u2019ve been very, very honest to the books,\u201d explains director Rob Lieberman. \u201cWe\u2019ve tried to capture all the levels of spiritualism, emotional content and metaphorical messages. Throughout the whole piece, I saw it as having a great duality of spirituality versus paganism and wizardry, male and female duality. The final moments of the film culminate in the union of all that and represent two different belief systems in this world, and that\u2019s what Ursula intended to make a statement about. The only thing that saves this Earthsea universe is the union of those two beliefs.\u201d (Sci Fi <\/em>Dec 2004, quoted in Le Guin)<\/p>\n In other words, we know what Le Guin meant to do. We have kindly remedied her mistakes.<\/p>\n In the case of The Seeker<\/em>, I can only guess that the screenwriter and director sat down together and made a list of everything people loved about The Dark Is Rising<\/em>:<\/p>\n Its atmosphere of hushed anticipation and mystery. Its vivid evocation of a particular place and time: rural England in the 1960s.<\/p>\n Its complex characterization, especially of the one-time ally and then betrayer of the Light called the Walker.<\/p>\n Its depiction of a large, loving family that is both outside the main magical conflict and utterly necessary to the hero\u2019s ultimate victory.<\/p>\n Its use of English folk tradition to unearth, in archaeological fashion, the pagan midwinter celebration underlying modern Christmas.<\/p>\n Its delicate balance between childhood and maturity and magical and mundane worlds.<\/p>\n Then the filmmakers said, \u201cWe won\u2019t do any of that<\/em>!\u201d<\/p>\n The problem in both cases is not that the adaptations were not faithful; it\u2019s that they were shoddy.<\/p>\n So what causes a project to go wrong, rather than, as in Jackson\u2019s and co-screenwriters Phillipa Boyens\u2019s and Fran Walsh\u2019s extended edition of Lord of the Rings<\/em>, mostly right? What\u2019s the difference between these and films that actually eclipse their source material, like Gone with the Wind<\/em> or Casablanca<\/em> or Alfonso Cuaron\u2019s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban<\/em>, which tightens and intensifies J. K. Rowling\u2019s novel?<\/p>\n Here\u2019s my theory. Bad adaptation second-guesses its source material and its creator(s). Bad adaptation pays no attention to the audience\u2019s reactions to the original. Remakes of previous adaptations that don\u2019t look at the source are nearly always disasters (e.g., the 2002 film of The Lathe of Heaven <\/em>that aimed only at dumbing down the earlier PBS version). Adaptations go wrong when they try too hard to be faithful and don\u2019t exploit the potential of the new medium, but they go even more badly astray when the adaptors do not love the source. In the case of Mary Poppins<\/em>, I would claim that the charms of the film are outweighed by the fact that it now prevents new readers of Travers\u2019s novels from appreciating her quirky, unsettling vision. I liked the movie when it came out, but I already knew the books and knew that there was much more substance there. I thought Julie Andrews strove mightily to overcome serious miscasting, and found the songs to range from blandly inoffensive to actively irksome (I know that not everyone agrees with me). My students these days actively dislike the book\u2019s lead character and are unprepared for its complex tone\u2014tart and tender and comic and frightening\u2014and its mythic resonances, which the Disney people evidently were either deaf to or actively disliked. One would never know that the smiling technicolor Poppins derives from a character who is quite literally a demigoddess, and an alarming one at that.<\/p>\n A totally self-indulgent game is to bypass the actual filmmakers and assemble an imaginary cast and crew for the movie that should have been. My ideal Mary Poppins<\/em> is directed by Michael Powell\u2014shall we say in 1948, shoehorning the production between his afterlife fantasy Stairway to Heaven <\/em>and his dark fairy tale The Red Shoes<\/em>? The screenwriter is Robert Pirosh, an adaptable Hollywood writer who contributed to the Marx Brothers\u2019 A Night at the Opera <\/em>and to The Wizard of Oz <\/em>and co-wrote the 1942 I Married a Witch<\/em>. For original songs, we have a newly teamed pair of songwriters named Michael Flanders and Donald Swann; they haven\u2019t yet produced such great songs as \u201cHave Some Madeira, M\u2019Dear,\u201d and \u201cThe Reluctant Cannibal,\u201d but let\u2019s give the young guys a chance. Most importantly, Mary Poppins is played by Beatrice Lillie. Lillie was a comedienne who combined broad humor with a serious, slightly offended demeanor. Her looks were odd: sharp nose, long chin, button eyes\u2014very much like Mary Shepard\u2019s illustrations of the Poppins books, in fact. She excelled at sending up sentimental culture: look on the web for audio or video recordings of her performance of \u201cThere Are Fairies at the Bottom of My Garden.\u201d Sung in what she called her \u201cmezzanine soprano,\u201d the Victorian song, a favorite of her mother\u2019s, becomes a riotous and rather bawdy send-up of everything twee and precious. Most importantly, she was P. L. Travers\u2019s own choice for the role. The old gal did know what she was doing.<\/p>\n My version would not have made as much money as the Disney film, but it might well have been a classic work of fantasy and a fit companion piece to the original book, rather than a barrier to entry. Ultimately what we ask of adaptation is that it invite audiences to look beyond the text at hand toward other versions, other crystallizations. Every reading of a text is, after all, an interpretation\u2014a translation. Adaptation opens the way for further adaptation; if some members of the audience try their own transformations, the world is made richer, as when John Milton wrote his famous piece of Bible fan-fic, \u201cParadise Lost.\u201d<\/p>\n We start the issue off with Neil Gaiman\u2019s Guest of Honor address, accompanied by Peter Straub\u2019s moving introduction. The published title of the talk was \u201cThe Pornography of Genre, or the Genre of Pornography,\u201d although it isn\u2019t really about that at all, except where it is. It\u2019s about the power of stories and the uses of genre and ultimately about the fact that, as Gaiman says, readers and writers are collaborators and co-creators, no matter what the genre or the medium.<\/p>\n Kij Johnson did not give a speech, so in order to suggest her contributions to the Conference and to the various genres she employs, I subsequently posed ten questions and she kindly agreed to answer them. Our email conversation is reproduced here, following ICFA President Sydney Duncan\u2019s introduction to Johnson\u2019s reading. Constance Penley\u2019s scholar\u2019s address was primarily a tour of her recent collaborative Melrose Place<\/em> project that can\u2019t be reproduced here. Instead, we offer a transcript of the fascinating and wide-ranging conversation that took place earlier between Penley and Karen Hellekson, along with Hellekson\u2019s introduction to the luncheon address.<\/p>\n Anca Rosu\u2019s essay \u201cFood Fantasies in George R. R. Martin\u201d concerns a text that is multiply immersed in issues of adaptation. Each of the installments in Martin\u2019s saga is in some ways an adaptation of those that preceded it: each converses with and changes the meanings of its predecessors. In addition, because HBO began its dramatization midway through the publication of the books, the TV series necessarily intervenes in the reception and probably the composition of the final volumes, especially because Martin, who spent several years as a TV writer before returning to the world of print, has been actively involved in the production. Rosu\u2019s article does not discuss the televised version of Martin\u2019s fantasy. Her interest is in food as a form of social discourse and cultural expression, and though television would seem to offer a richer sensory experience than words, it is less effective in conveying taste and touch. For those, we would need to turn to another kind of adaptation mentioned by Rosu: the spin-off cookbooks.<\/p>\n Gina Wisker\u2019s essay concerns a writer who is now best known for novels and stories adapted for film by Alfred Hitchcock and Nicholas Roeg. Wisker does not look directly at any of those works by Daphne du Maurier: Jamaica Inn<\/em>, \u201cDon\u2019t Look Now,\u201d \u201cThe Birds,\u201d or Rebecca<\/em>, but at the less-familiar time-travel narratives \u201cSplit Second\u201d and The House on the Strand<\/em>. Simply calling them time-travel narratives already suggests something of their intertextuality. Any such story, says Wisker, necessarily adapts H. G. Wells\u2019s The Time Machine<\/em> and other previous time fictions as well as interacting with scientific and poetic investigations of the way we perceive ourselves in time. The conversation now includes not only Du Marier but also Audrey Niffenegger and Stephen Hawking and Doctor Who<\/em>. And, as only storytelling can do, it loops back into the past to pick up Mark Twain and T. S. Eliot and Albert Einstein. As Wisker suggests, stories are our time machines.<\/p>\n Greg Conley\u2019s article on Algernon Blackwood asks, more or less, \u201cWhen is a horror story not a horror story?\u201d The answer, according to Blackwood\u2019s \u201cThe Willows\u201d and \u201cThe Man Whom the Trees Loved\u201d is when the dangerous alien entities are not malevolent but instead are motivated by an evolution-driven morality that is radically unlike that of humans. I suspect that this perspective might be applicable to other Blackwood stories as well, including one called \u201cAncient Sorceries,\u201d the inspiration for the 1942 film Cat People<\/em>. In that case, the most important elements of the fiction crossed over into the movie unscathed, and might account for the movie\u2019s distinctive mixture of horror and allure.<\/p>\n Works Cited<\/p>\n Le Guin, Ursula K. \u201cEarthsea Miniseries: A Reply to Some Statements Made by the Film-Makers of the Earthsea Miniseries Before it was Shown.\u201d Ursula K. Le Guin\u2019s Website<\/em> 13 Nov 2004. Web. 12 Feb 2014<\/p>\n Introduction: Adapting to Adaptations Neil Gaiman: An Introduction, by Peter Straub<\/em><\/p>\n The Pornography of Genre, or the Genre of Pornography Constance Penley: An Introduction, by Karen Hellekson<\/em><\/p>\n A Conversation with Constance Penley Kij Johnson: An Introduction, by Sydney Duncan<\/em><\/p>\n Ten Questions for Kij Johnson The Uncrossable Evolutionary Gulfs of Algernon Blackwood Food Fantasies in George R. R. Martin Starting Your Journey in the Past, Speculating in Time and Place: Daphne du Maurier\u2019s The House on the Strand<\/em>, \u201cSplit Second,\u201d and the Engaged Fiction of Time Travel Lindsay Myers\u2019s Making the Italians: Poetics and Politics of Italian Children\u2019s Fantasy Cynthia J. Miller and A. Bowdoin Van Riper\u2019s 1950s \u201cRocketman\u201d TV Series and their Fans: Cadets, Rangers and Junior Space Men Patricia Allmer, Emily Brick, and David Huxley\u2019s European Nightmares: Horror Cinema in Europe since 1945 Simon Riches\u2019s The Philosophy of David Cronenberg Kyle W. Bishop\u2019s American Zombie Gothic: The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Walking Dead in Popular Culture Heidi Slettedahl Macpherson\u2019s The Cambridge Introduction to Margaret Atwood <\/em>and Gina Wisker\u2019s Margaret Atwood: An Introduction to Critical Views of Her Fiction Jean-Noel Bassior\u2019s Space Patrol: Missions of Daring in the Name of Early Television David Sandner\u2019s Critical Discourses of the Fantastic, 1712-1831 <\/em>515 Mar\u00eda del Pilar Blanco\u2019s Ghost-Watching American Modernity: Haunting, Landscape, and the Hemispheric Imagination <\/em>520 Marc Lucht and Donna Yarri\u2019s Kafka\u2019s Creatures: Animals, Hybrids, and Other Fantastic Beings <\/em>524 Danny Shipka\u2019s Perverse Titillation: The Exploitation Cinema of Italy, Spain, and France, 1960-1980 Campo Ricardo Burgos L\u00f3pez\u2019s Otros seres y otros mundos. Ensayos en literatura fant\u00e1stica Mike Ashley\u2019s Out of This World: Science Fiction But Not as You Know It Robert Boenig\u2019s C. S. Lewis and the Middle Ages Liisa Ladouceur\u2019s Encyclopedia Gothica Billee J. Stallings and Jo-An J. Evans\u2019s Murray Leinster: The Life and Works David Layton\u2019s The Humanism of Doctor Who: A Critical Study in Science Fiction and Philosophy Ulf Abraham\u2019s Fantastik in Literatur und Film. Eine Einf\u00fchrung f\u00fcr Schule und Hochschule. [The Fantastic in Literature and Film. An Introduction for Schools and Universities] Valerie Estelle Frankel\u2019s Buffy and the Heroine\u2019s Journey: Vampire Slayer as Feminine Chosen One Editor\u2019s Introduction \u201cIntroduction: Adapting to Adaptations\u201d Brian Attebery The theme of the 34th international conference on the fantastic in the Arts, held in Orlando in March of 2013, was Fantastic Transformations, Adaptations and Audiences. Guests of honor included scholar Constance Penley, who did some of the first work on fan communities and their transformation of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-728","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=728"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":729,"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/728\/revisions\/729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Articles<\/h3>\n
\nBrian Attebery<\/p>\n
\nNeil Gaiman<\/p>\n
\nConstance Penley and Karen Hellekson, Transcribed by Seth Thomas<\/em><\/p>\n
\nKij Johnson and Brian Attebery<\/p>\n
\nGreg Conley<\/p>\n
\nAnca Rosu<\/p>\n
\nGina Wisker<\/p>\nReviews<\/h3>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Felice Italo Beneduce<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Mark Bould<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Matthew A. Cicci<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Trevor Cunnington<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Charlie Ellb\u00e9<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Anya Heise-von der Lippe<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Jacob Horn<\/p>\n
\nRev. by Paul Kincaid<\/p>\n
\nRev. by Jacquelynn Kleist<\/p>\n
\nRev. by Gabrielle Kristjanson<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Rob Latham<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Lola L\u00f3pez Mart\u00edn<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Daniel Lukes<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by T. S. Miller<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Amy J. Ransom<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Amy J. Ransom<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by L. N. Rosales<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Simon Spiegel<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Katherine E. Whaley<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"