In a message dated 8/26/03 12:39:27 PM,
chrisaschneider@earthlink.net writes:
<< A filmmaker
(playwright, comic book writer, etc.) has an obligation to be
faithful, within the limits of the medium in which he's
working, to at least the spirit of the source material he's
adapting. If he has no respect for the source material, he
shouldn't be doing the adaptation. >>
Jim, If the filmmaker believes that
the source material is dishonest or dehumanizing or
misogynistic or racist or, or, or, then he/she has every
ethical right, and maybe some kind of moral duty, to turn the
material on its head and expose its flaws. I don't know if
Altman and Aldrich thought that was what they were doing, but
I can't buy the notion that filmmakers have only two choices
when adapting novels, either follow "the spirit" of the
source material or stay away from the work.
When Altman adapted MASH, he turned
an elitist, sophomoric, sex romp into a funny, macho,
antiestablishment, antiwar, film. That's why the author of
that incredibly mediocre novel hated the movie. Altman had
violated "the spirit" of his work.
However, I'm having a tougher time
each day figuring out whether this discussion really has
anything to do with hard-boiled and noir fiction.
Jim
Blue
-- # Plain ASCII text only, please. Anything else won't show up. # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 27 Aug 2003 EDT