Jim,
Re your comment below:
> 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.
I can't really imagine why an adapter, presuming that he
wasn't himself dehumainzing, misogynistic, racist, etc.,
etc., etc., would want to adapt a work that was so
antithetical to his beliefs.
You don't need to adapt MEIN KAMPF, to use an extreme
example, in order to show up Hitler for the evil son of a
bitch he was. You can adapt any one of thousands of books
that already have that agenda.
And, by the same token, if you're a committed, church-hating
atheist, you don't need to adapt the Bible or the Koran in
order to further your anti-religion agenda.
> 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.
Altman took a comic military novel about a pair of
authority-flouting Army surgeons and turned it into a comic
military film about a pair of authority-flouting Army
surgeons. I'm not sure I see where he was vilating the
novel's spirit.
If Hooker (or part of the collaborative team that wrote as
Hooker) hated the film, maybe it wasn't so much that it
violated the spirit, as that it did a better job than the
novel did.
> 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.
Altman and Aldrich, on the basis of their films, and on the
basis of their comments on those films, despised the novels
they were adapting. That being the case, I think they
shouldn't have made the films. It happened that the novels
they despised were hard-boiled private eye stories.
That's what it has to do with hard-boiled or noir fiction.
Though, as you suggest, it has a much wider
application.
JIM DOHERTY
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