Tiff

I’ve been putting off writing this post because what I have to say is annoying. I’ve never been one of those people to nitpick when it comes to Harry Potter films, but due to the nature of what I discuss in this blog (book to movie adaptations), I must be one of those people. If you would like to read an excellent review written by a non-reader (of Harry Potter, not in general) friend of mine, Brandon Lee Tenney, try this on for size.

Put simply, I was disappointed with the movie. When re-reading, there were four things I knew I wanted to see onscreen – both for their hilarity and importance: Cormac McLaggan, the second Quidditch game, the Felix Felicis episode, and Voldemort’s ancestry. Of course, two of these were explored. McLaggan was priceless, and Daniel Radcliff was also surprisingly funny in ultra-confidence mode. I just really wanted to see Tom Riddle’s family realized. I wanted to see what actors would be chosen, what these people would look like apart from how I imagined them. The Quidditch game would have utilized Luna (as the commentator) so that she needn’t have been used to find Harry in the train, a role that was supposed to be occupied by Tonks. McLaggan is also in this game, taking Ron’s place after he is accidentally poisoned. He bosses the team around, gets into fights with Harry during the game, and eventually ends up knocking Harry out with a Bludger. Poor Tonks and Lupin were relegated to a scene that didn’t even occur in the novel (Burrow on fire), or any of the novels, for that matter. And for people who don’t read the books, all of a sudden Tonks is calling Lupin “sweetheart.” I think I would be confused.

There were other, little inconsistencies, but the one that bothered me the most, and that seems a glaring mistake is the end. The cave is a terrifying scene, as it should be. But when Harry and Dumbledore got back to the castle, it was so quiet. Silent. In my mind, the action should only become more intense. For God’s sake, these are Dumbledore’s last moments. A battle is supposed to be waging at this point, no matter if it parallels the much larger battle of the seventh book. There is plenty of time for silence in the next two movies where it will serve an ominous and disquieting purpose. Hogwarts should not have gone down without a fight. Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville and Luna, not to mention a few Aurors and professors are attempting to defend the castle as best they can against the dark magic of the Death Eaters. And by the way, there is not a chance, even remotely, that Harry would have just stood by while Dumbledore died defenseless. Dumbledore knew this, which is why he froze Harry directly before being disarmed by Malfoy in the book. Harry has hated both Snape and Malfoy from the very first, and was suspicious of them throughout the entire novel/film, so why would he give them a chance in the end? He is “Dumbledore’s man through and through,” and it simply isn’t plausible that such a usually impetuous, courageous boy would watch his last powerful ally overcome in such a manner.

The movie itself was not bad. I do feel that the climax happened in the wrong part of the plot, and a little too early, but as much as was wrong with the film as an adaptation, there are some redeeming moments. There were wonderful scenes that came directly from the book, when I felt that my imaginings were visualized onscreen. The narration could have been used to describe these parts. There were also lines that came verbatim from the book. As a reader, all of these conditions are really gratifying. I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy most of the movie. I felt the beginning (the bridge and Ollivander’s shop, after Harry and Dumbledore) to be really excellent. We see what is only really discussed in dialogue as the goings on since the last book. Now, when a novel is made into a blockbuster, it has to be assumed that non-readers will be in the crowd. Explanations have to be thoroughly thought out. So although Harry, Ron and Hermione only ever saw Malfoy alone poking around in Borgin and Burke’s, the moviegoer must eventually understand his intentions in the Room of Requirement. I thought this very well done, and so I won’t fault the screenwriters or David Yates. All in all, it was only ok as far as adaptations go. I’m reviewing The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring next! Reading LOTR again is like cozying up in a soft blanket. I know and love the characters so well that the experience is just so comforting (although I must also undergo the terror over again). I’m excited…look for it in the coming weeks.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a great novel. It is a fairly easy read, very clear and straightforward. Along with other writers during this time (that I know of, and excluding Norman Mailer), like Kurt Vonnegut or George Orwell, Philip Dick employs a very plain language. This is not to say that any of these men wrote simplistic literature, but that their writing is simply easier to read and comprehend. It doesn’t run circles around you and make no perceivable sense like some Modernist poetry from the first half of the twentieth century. Published in 1968, it seems to me very plausible science fiction. It is not impossible that we could experience another, completely destructive world war like World War Terminus, which in the book has lead to a perpetual fallout of radioactive dust: “The morning air, spilling over with radioactive motes, gray and sun-beclouding, belched about him, haunting his nose; he sniffed involuntarily the taint of death” (8). This dust has killed off all living things, although it works a bit slower on humans. It has given animals an incredible amount of significance. To find a live one means a stipend from the government, but this is so rare that there are animal dealers who sell them at astronomical rates. Social status depends so much upon owning an animal that there is a market for electric animals. The owning of an animal occupies Rick Deckard’s (main character) mind constantly. It is an obsession.

Also not impossible is that humanoid robots will one day be a part of our society. To my knowledge, they are not currently prevalent, but who knows? They could be out there somewhere. And as they become more advanced, why not more advanced than ourselves, capable of just about anything, and without the one thing that separates adjusted humans from sociopaths - empathy? Especially if they are chafing in their position of slavery and unwilling to part with their lives. Dick presents a terrifying future, one which is scarily realistic.

A little ways into Blade Runner I found myself thinking, “This is a pretty good adaptation….” I was impressed. Sure, there is a lot that is incorrect, but the feeling, the atmosphere, of the film is very appropriate. Now, the version I watched was Ridley Scott’s director’s cut. According to the back of the DVD case, this is slightly different from the 1982 release: “This new version omits Deckard’s voiceover narration, develops in slightly greater detail the romance between Deckard and Rachael (Sean Young) and removes the ‘uplifting’ finale”. From what I am told, there is still another version, and I am unsure as to how this differs even further.

Now I must address the problems – maybe not problems, but inconsistencies with the novel. As I said, I find Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? to be rather believable science fiction. And I feel that the movie goes a bit far at times. It feels like someone tried too hard to make it look futuristic. Especially with things like fluorescent umbrella sticks and strange costumes like the one Zhora (equivalent of Luba Luft in book) wears before she smashes through about fifteen glass windows. The amount of neon lighting is overpowering, which I find odd because I imagined a place more desolate and gray, not so shiny or crowded. I imagined a city lived from rooftop to rooftop, without the bazaar-like ground level where we first find Rick Deckard, the bounty hunter who is to kill the androids. But I must say that the opening shot (one that reminds me of the opening of Alien) is just absolutely breathtaking. Somehow, everything large just looks even more grand in Scott’s movies. He also seems to do well with these enormous settings dark and dripping with water.

The differences in human names and places are not so significant, although they do exist. There is no Iran Deckard – Rick’s wife in the book. Maybe she existed at one time. Photos (as physical manifestations of memories) play a rather important part in the film, especially for the androids with implanted pasts. Deckard also seems to have an obsession with photos (those of his victims and possibly his own). There is also J.F. Sebastian (J.R. Isidore in novel) who is not a chickenhead, or special, unable to pass an IQ test and unable to emigrate to Mars, but a genetic designer for the Tyrell Corporation (Rosen in book). Unfortunately though, he has some kind of growth or aging defect, which still renders him unable to move to Mars like any ’normal’ human. His sympathies for the humanoid robots still exist, but the importance lies in the fact that he has had a hand in their creation, and not because they are simply outcasts like himself. His character is more intelligent but is still taken advantage of – although such is the consequence of the androids being more advanced.

The androids are quite different, specifically Roy Batty (Roy Baty) and Rachael Tyrell (Rachael Rosen). Batty is not nearly as clever or deadly in the novel, where he only exists toward the end and is quickly killed by Deckard. In Blade Runner, he is terrifying from the beginning. In the end, he dies of his own accord; I suppose his time just runs out (android lifespan = four years). And before he gives up the ghost he clearly overpowers and outsmarts Deckard. In fact, Batty saves Deckard’s life. In the movie, where it is not so apparent in the book, humans are completely dominated and are out of their minds with fear of the androids. Rachael Tyrell, an android with an implanted past, is in my opinion a much less compelling character. The awkward love scene of the film is nowhere to be found in the book. In one of the greatest gets I’ve ever read, Rachael sleeps with Deckard so that he will have trouble retiring Pris, an android who is supposed to be the same type as Rachael. Of course, he has fallen in love with her. The Rosen Corporation hopes that his seduction will swear him off of the further bounty hunting of their robots. Instead, Rachael Tyrell is soft and helpless, not at all what the other androids are like. She and Deckard attempt to run away together in the end, and although we don’t see what actually happens, we have an inkling that she will probably die.

Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? New York: Ballantine Books, 1968.

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1990.

Eliot, T.S. “The Hollow Men.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. New York: Norton & Company, 2007, 1599-1602.

Apocalypse Now was Francis Coppola’s monster film of 1979. There is, of course another version which was released in 2001 (Apocalypse Now Redux), but which I did not watch. It was written by John Milius and Francis Coppola as an adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Standing alone as a film, I believe it is far too tedious. Coppola turned a 70-page story into a two and a half-hour movie. He says in the commentary that he wanted the movie to be as big and as spectacular as possible. He said that ‘movies are what they are about.’ So the making of Apocalypse Now as well as the movie itself should be like the American presence in Vietnam: big and expensive with air-conditioning, lots of expendable money and quality food. There is one way this condition is amended, though. But should we give movies conditional reviews? Saying, “Apocalypse Now is too long and drawn out, and by the end almost not worth watching” fills me with a twinge of guilt because the film is about Vietnam. I feel as though this status, about a rather tender piece of American history, protects it. Although it is concerned with fictional characters, we know these people could have easily existed, especially the PBR Streetgang (the young soldiers on the navy patrol boat). As what feels like a dedication to the men who fought in this awful, terrible war, I can’t truthfully say that watching the movie is a waste of my time. It is now a historical piece – watching Apocalypse Now is like an investigation of sentiment. We view the Vietnam War through whatever out history books taught us. But watching this film allows us a new perspective – we see it in the same way as those who lived through it (maybe not the war, but the time).

It’s not all so bizarre and questionable. The first half of the movie is very good. I suppose it’s possible that as the film progresses, so every soldier loses a little more of his sanity. The first scene in particular is in my opinion the best, which is funny because Coppola claims it was a completely serendipitous. It begins with the sound of helicopter blades and a still shot of a line of palm trees being tossed about by their wind. The Doors’s ‘The End’ begins playing as a haze of napalm blocks our view of the trees. Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) is introduced, smoking in his hotel room, gazing upwards, probably at the blades of his ceiling fan, which eventually are linked to the blades of the helicopters. There is a montage of images, what we can only assume is Willard’s memory. He loathes being in the jungle as much as he loves it, as much as he needs to be there. He is trapped, physically and mentally, waiting for an assignment. Coppola says that as the making of the film progressed, it became less of what he originally planned – a spectacular war film, a real Hollywood hit – and more a surreality of war.  He also said that for him, Apocalypse Now is really about a conflict of morality. There is a quote from Kurtz toward the end of the film that clearly explains the contradictory actions of the American military: “We train young men to drop fire on people, but their commanders won’t allow them to write ‘fuck’ on their airplane because it’s obscene.”

Because I am sort of stumped by this film, I watched the commentary, as I have already mentioned. Coppola was really, truly concerned with the character ‘Willard’ rather than ‘Marlow.’ Also important was the forward action, the moving toward Kurtz. And as the men get closer to Kurtz (and start dying off one by one), Coppola describes what he saw as a movement back in time, from the present to a time existing before history: from ‘civilization’ to the ‘primitive.’ As they travel further up the Mung River and into Cambodia, the situations become more bizarre – not to mention more dangerous – and every soldier descends a little further into insanity. Speaking of the evolution of characters, the shooting of the film coincided with the actual progression of the film from beginning to end. As the actors took the same journey as the characters, their experience became a bit more real.

If you’re expecting a nice, faithful representation of the novel, Apocalypse Now is not what you’re going to want to watch. There are other adaptations out there – movies like Madame Bovary that are lower budget and what I have classified as ‘educational’ (I believe there is a tv movie [maybe a BBC production?] starring Tim Roth and John Malkovich that I am particularly interested in seeing, although I couldn’t get my hands on it for this posting). But just because Apocalypse Now is not a film you might show to a class full of students who have just read the book, does not mean it is completely unlike Heart of Darkness or that it lacks merit. When Willard passes into Cambodia (where Kurtz has stationed himself) he remarkably begins to experience almost exactly the same circumstances as Marlow and his crew: the heavy fog, arrows (although fake) from unseen archers in the dense forest and spear that kills his captain. And as a movie about Vietnam, its aim will be slightly different than the book. There are the extra characters of Kilgore and all of the sailors on the boat plus extra events such as the USO show and the “asshole of the world.” It is darker in a different way: the occasion of Vietnam makes for a much more vicious story.

I also want to acknowledge the use of T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men.” How could I not? It’s always delightful to discover well-read, intelligent directors. Kurtz, who is known for reading poetry aloud, recites a portion of the poem while Willard is being held in his quarters. I suppose it is rather appropriate, seeing as how a quotation from Heart of Darkness headlines the poem. These hollow men are the same in the Belgian Congo as they are in Vietnam: “We are the hollow men / We are the stuffed men / Leaning together / Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! / Our dried voices, when / We whisper together / Are quiet and meaningless / As wind in dry grass / Or rats’ feet over broken glass / In our dry cellar” (1-10). Traveling into a wilderness uninhabited by what could be called civilized man, whether trading for ivory or fighting an unknown enemy, these men are nameless ghosts fighting for a cause unrelated to them personally: “The eyes are not here / There are no eyes here / In this valley of dying stars / In this hollow valley / This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms” (52-56). In Heart of Darkness Marlow begins his tale by musing on the Romans, and how each man, maybe just some civilian, must have felt as they encountered and conquered territory after territory: “Land in a swamp, march through the woods, and in some inland post feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round him- all that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men. There’s no initiation either into such mysteries. He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable. And it has a fascination, too, that goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination” (4). This is the very center of the Heart of Darkness, and of Apocalypse Now – the fascination of the abomination.