William Denton wrote: > > On Thu, 30 Jan 1997, Ann P. Melvin wrote: > > : What is an accepted hardboiled novel becomes in its cinematic > : transmogrification a noir film. It is as if the transformation of a > : narrative description of a character into a visual portayal of an > : performer's interpretation of that description subtly changes its > : emphasis from the physical to the psychological. > > Interesting. In some ways, you'd think it would be the other way > around, since you can conjure up images of the characters in a novel > but when you see them in a movie there's no getting around the > actors. What happens in radio adaptations? Bill is right. Reading and listening, (radio), require the imagination in order to internally visualize the appearance of the characters, but with the stage, cinema, and TV the appearance of the character is externally imposed on the viewer, and the audience is forced to accept the casting director's and performer's opinion of how the character should look. Equally, whereas with print and radio the reader/listener can produce in his or her own mind the nuances of personality he or she feels fit the character, in "live", i.e., visual, performances the body-language and stage-business created to round out a character are thrust upon one. There is, as Bill says, no getting around the actors. Hence there is in a visual presentation much more emphasis on non-textual interpretation -- the old picture worth a 1000 words cliche -- an actor portrays a character with a nervous tic or studied mannerism that serves to create an image, one which an author would have to spend considerable length to convey. What it comes down to is that print and visual are two discrete art forms and one can only adapt from one to the other, not copy. The best film from book, (or vice-versa with "novelizations"), is nothing more than a simulacrum of the original, not a clone. So in the director's and actor's decisions to give a character certain mannerisms, habits, etc., over and above the dialogue and incident of the plot serve to increase the psychological interpretation, an interpretation that is unique in that it is that specific interpretation and no other -- the actor gets in the way -- whereas with print and radio there are a myriad of interpretations because every reader/listener fashions his or her own interpretation in his or her own mind. David Skene-Melvin - # RARA-AVIS: To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" # to majordomo@icomm.ca