Coffee and chocolate are the perfect after-Campbell-class apertifs in post-FTC blog discussion requirements.  I’m here at Panera because they have WI FI and I have no internet access at home (hopefully a short-term thing).  Anyway, jumping right into adaptations-they’re incredibly complicated, involved processes.  Since it is impossible to relate an entire novel in the amount of time the average person can stand to sit still, it seems that the best strategy is to focus on one aspect of the novel in which to present.  For example, when we talked about “The Glass Key,”  we said that perhaps the romantic angle was foucused upon.  To focus on one aspect means that another aspect is downplayed or even ignored altogether.  If focusing on one aspect means ignoring another, then there is a certain amount of fidelity that has been sacfriced in “adaptations.”  I’m sorry Dr. Campbell, but I feel that fidelity is an important issue in presenting your own work or anyone else’s.  Having a legal background, I see fiduciary duties as being incredibly important in every aspect of responsible living.  So, if it means making a movie tha tstays true to the original, then I’m all for it.  I wonder how authors feel when their works get appropriated in ways they intended. 

I thought our discussion was especially thought provoking because we talked about the ways in which films were a constructed world.  I had never thought of movies of having anything in common with the written word.  However, when Dr. Campbell introduced the concepts of semantic and syntactic relationships, something clicked.  The semantic relationships are easier for me to grasp than the syntactic ones.  Though, I have to be careful not to look for meaning that doesn’t exist.  Semantics are interesting because they provide a vehicle within which to explore the visual aspect of movie-watching.  What I’ve seen of “Miller’s Crossing” so far is very dark and gloomy.  The scenes are dimly lit, the characters are dressed in dark colors and the whole tone is just generally morose.  All of this gloom and doom has to have a meaning, but what is it?  I don’t know.  What I do know is that I feel an overwhelming sense of chilling fear.  It’s not the thrilling and chilling kind of fear that goes on in a “scary” movie.  It’s a kind of primal fear.  It’s very disturbing.  In any event, I’m intrigued thus far and can’t wait to see how the movie pans out. 

I have to say that so far, I am enjoying this movie more than the others.  The dialogue seems easier to follow than in “Key,” and there’s no subtitles!  Having to focus so much attention on these things draws my attention away from the film itself.  It just seems like there’s so much to keep track of when watching a movie. 

 At the beginning of class, Dr. Campbell told us to pay attention to the intro because it was basically the whole film right there.  I thought he said to pay attention to the sounds and so I want to talk about my observations therein.  I noticed that at the very beginning, the ice cubes get dropped into the glass and make quite a loud tinkling sound.  After the cubes are dropped in the glass, they seemed to swirl and rotate like the hat did in the beginning.  The ice cubes were trapped in the glass, but the hat was free to blow about.  Not sure what this means. 

 I also noticed that covering one’s head is important in this film.  Right off the bat, Tommy’s hat is seen blowing around with the leaves.  Tommy appears to go to a great deal of trouble to get his hat back.  The next scene in which covering the head is important is the one in which the politician’s aide is found dead in the alley.  The little boy seems afraid of him until he can muster the courage to remove his toupee.  Once he removes it, he goes on his way and seems not to be afraid anymore.  The hat and the toupee act as walls or masks that the characters depend on for staying hidden.  Interestingly enough, when Kasper loses his temper with the “Irish Boss,” his hat comes off;leaving him vulnerable. 

Finally, I noticed that the rooms are generally dark except for a few very noticeable lights.  In the beginning, there were green, red and white lights illuminating the “Irish Boss’s” face.  Here again, there seems to be a lot of attention paid to illuminating people.  I wonder if this binary of hiding and illumination will play out in the rest of the movie.   

Last semester in my Culture, Context and Compositon class we read an essay by Adorno and the Culture Industry.  In his many ramblings regarding the making of a movie, Adorno states that there is nothing unique in a movie.  He says that everything new or novel, such as the way a lock of hair falls across the forehead of an actess, gets studied and copied relentlessly until it eventually becomes part of the “formula.”  In this way, the culture industry reduces film, and all forms of art (except Avante Garde) to an equation that solves the problem.  The problem as Adorno sees it, is society’s endless need for commodities-even films.  

This leaves me wondering if Adorno is right about films as byproducts of capitalism.  Are there any unique movies made solely for the artistic expression, or are they simply made to satisfy the demands of a capitalistic society?  If so, wouldn’t genre films lend credence to Adorno’s viewpoints? 

I’m just playing around with inserting video clips.  Can someone let me know if it worked.  thanks.  Carmen

Is anyone else out there wondering just exactly what we’re supposed to read for Friday?  I have read Warshow 703-19 in FTC.  I’m not sure about the other guy though.  I thought Dr. C. said somethig like ‘Bowdy’, however all I could find was ‘Braudy’ and ‘Baudry.’

Listening to all the comments today in class, I realize that there is so much more going on in a film than I had ever realized.  I’m referring to the technical aspects of actually making the film, e.g. the juxtaposition of the Elvis archetype that we discussed with Sanjuro (sp?), the lighting effects in the temple and the huge amount of forethought that has to go into planning the ‘look’ of a scene.  Previously, I had always exalted the written word above the film because it always appeared to me as a more cerebral endeavor.  While I still prefer the written word over the production of a film, I now have a new respect for filmmakers.

ADAPTATION and POLLUTION

Going in a somewhat different direction, I am also intrigued by the concept of books/novels undergoing the metamorphisis from the written word to that of a film.  I’m talking about the term ‘adaptation’ that we have talked a little about in class.  The online version of the OED gives definition 2a of the word as “To alter or modify so as to fit for a new use. “  As a class, we are now modifying films for our own educational use.  Another sense of ‘adaptation’ is to make suitable.  This also poses an interesting question.  Namely, can one alter or change or tweek a film enough to make it suitable to them?  Should it even be the film’s responsibility to ‘adapt’ to me, or to ‘suit’ my needs?  I feel that when I make the condition necessary in order to “get anything out of a film,” I am polluting it with my own requirements.  This reads as selfish to me.  I wonder how many authors, novelists, directors and filmmakers feel that their works have been a victim of pollution.   

“Yojimbo reeks of cheesy, machismo in a way that suggests that men are just all brawn.  Kurasawa must have gone out and killed lots of big game and then shined his sword (phallus) afterward.  The film gushes with archetypes of virility such as weapons, killing and and boozing.  In fact, these things define Yojimbo (can’t remember his name) as they did Ed/Ned in “The Glass Key.”  I’m not advocating killing and violence as ways to pass one’s time, however a little drinking and skirt-chasing are generally viewed as harmless male past times.   “Yojimbo” and “The Glass Key” successfully re-enforce these attitudes.  I think it is remarkable that they were made on two different continents, portraying two completely different cultures, and yet their main characters could have shared an embryonic sac. 

Environment plays an important role in both movies.  In “Key” the indoor environment figures prominently, i.e. the sometimes lavish furnishings and decor.  In “Yojimbo” the environment is the actual physical landscape.  It reminds me of a Clint Eastwood western.  Though I digress.  The desolate, windy, sandy town portrays an atomosphere of doom.  It leaves the people who inhabit it with nothing.  At any moment I expected to see a giant tumbleweed blow across the screen and carry away one of the geishas.  As lavish as the environs of the “Key” were, so was the rusticity of “Yojimbo.”  Yet, despite their obvious differences, the two films proved that boys will be boys.  Ed/Ned may be the coolest, suavest dude he could have been, while Yojimbo was definitely a male bimbo.   

Working on the assumption that keys do double duty as  a phallus, then what’s the importance of a glass key?  A key’s function is to unlock something meant to be private, secret and reserved.  However, if a key is made of glass it could break into jagged shards and ruin the very thing it’s supposed to protect.  Interesting binary.  In “The Glass Key,” the binary is reversed in that Veronica Lake holds the key.   In fact she seems to want to unlock it herself and reveal the mystery.  Yes, she’s a take charge kind of girl who “Can handle ’em both.”