Discussing Children's Literature in Film
For my course on Children's Literature in Film, my classmates and I discussed six sets of classics and their accompanying films and then selected one additional book/film for our final project. Below are the discussion posts I made for each film, highlighting various aspects of film technique, adaptations and fidelity to text, and the greater societal/cultural impact or significance. A full PDF version of all compiled assignments is below!
Week One: Charlotte's Web
"Participating in 'reading' these two films has solidified this idea for me. I think both movie versions embraced the term 'adaptation'; they evolved the source text, enhancing the story and advancing it in a new medium. The films cannot be solely compared to how closely they followed the book. Alternatively, they are unique artistic expressions, filled with conscious choices made by the filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, editor, and director. The two can never be divorced from the other, but the films should be considered on their own merits...
Week Two: Where the Wild Things Are
"When translating a classic like Where the Wild Things Are to the screen, it seems that the filmmaker has to maintain the basic components of the story, keeping in line with the major plot events and character personalities. Whatever they add cannot contradict or challenge what’s been written, especially if fidelity is an aspect the filmmaker is striving for. Because of the brevity of Sendak’s classic, Jonze understandably had to incorporate new story lines, dialogue, and characters/character depth..."
Week Three: Wizard of Oz
"This kind of popularity almost immortalizes the original, but the definition of the original is different to people. Regardless if people first think of the book or film, Baum’s story continues to withstand the test of time. I think the fact that the film was so popular at the time, and continues to appear on lists of the best films ever made, have established the MGM movie as a classic in our popular culture. And as I mentioned, this overshadows Baum’s original book. There is so much more to the story of Dorothy in Oz that gets overlooked or ignored because it’s not included in the MGM film..."
Week Four: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a place of high highs and low lows, with elements of magic and fun that would be difficult to find anywhere but in a children’s book. Dahl’s world of hyperbole, vice, and excess is reinterpreted in the 1971 film to be normal. For example, the exaggerated descriptions of the physical appearances of the characters are understandably not taken literally from the book: Charlie and his Grandpa are not facsimiles of skeletons, and not all the richer kids/families are fat. There are still fantastical elements of the story, but they are almost told through the eyes of an adult. This was never more clear to me than when I noticed that the title of the film is Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, not Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. This interpretation removes the story from firmly inside a child’s fantasy to occurring in an adult world..."
Week Five: The Little Mermaid
"Andersen’s little mermaid is very unlike Ariel. Her obsession with the surface is not repressed or prohibited; since she is able to travel to the surface as she pleases, it is not a hidden desire that results in conflicts with her father like in the film. Further, Trites analyzed how in Andersen’s story the little mermaid essentially saves herself. The story has her acting as the master of her own fate: she seeks out the sea witch, she accepts the prince’s love for another, she casts away the knife instead of killing the prince, and finally she transcends as an air spirit showing that love was not the only way to achieve her desire for an immortal soul..."
Week Six: Harry Potter
"The relationship between culture and literature is much more complicated than I ever imagined. Children’s literature doesn’t exist just for art’s sake; there are economic incentives and monetary drives that influence the publishing market. An additional level of difficulty is added when you consider book sales in relation to award winners, and books that appear constantly on top sellers or best of the best..."
Final: A Bear Called Paddington
"I have been challenged, dissuaded, persuaded, and convinced to varying degrees about fidelity and adaptation over the past six weeks. As I mentioned above, my concluding thoughts have brought me to understanding that a film does not need to be wholeheartedly attached to the original text, but yet it also can’t diverge too far from it, either. A small degree of fidelity is necessary, especially when it relates to children’s literature and children’s classics. On the other hand, the filmmaker is an artist in his or her own right; they make choices and produce a work that is entirely their own. This adaption is theirs. They might have used the building blocks found on the pages of the novel, but they built something very different from the original author..."