Monday, 08 June 2009

• Movies Based On Books vs The Imagination

  With a Review of Prince Caspian

              Occasionally when discussing a well-loved classic with fellow literary dabblers one will hear the question, “Have you seen the movie?”  Perhaps the questioner does not intend it, but it gives opportunity for one to get the feeling that their digestion of the work is partially incomplete.  A fuller experience will certainly include “the movie.”  For myself, I am reinforced in the belief that this is an erroneous line of thought.  My experience of the book has time and time again, been spoiled upon seeing the movie. 

              As I read a favorite book, a constantly moving picture, subject to my whim and the author’s skill, is passing through my mind.  If it is engaging, I find myself standing breathlessly in the midst of the action as it swirls into another twist of the plot.  When I revisit my favorite characters as I have been doing of late, I always receive the same sensation.  I seem to be about ten feet away from the protagonist and hovering effortlessly above the ground.  Invisible and inaudible, specter like I glide after them as they live their varied lives.  I am party to all their soliloquies and internal musings.   At times I wish so badly I could step out of my powerless role and simply say hello, or perhaps give a valuable tip.  After having turned the last page and said a goodbye, a dull ache within longs for it all to be true.  Then I must turn back the clock and attempt a solace by re-reading my favorite sections.  The imagination is again given free rein to conjure the scene with perhaps a slight change in detail for added spice. 

              Having read a book and sitting down to see the movie, I involuntarily hold my previous mind picture in constant comparison.  Quite often I find my imagined scene is infinitely more agreeable than that of those writing the stilted choreograph on the screen.  When a familiar situation arises in the movie plot, I listen sharply for those words of conversation as gleaned and stored from the printed page.  It is curiously satisfying to hear them pronounced verbatim a word or two behind me as I simultaneously supply the necessary quotation or the next required action.  But they never have the same expressions or do it exactly in the same manner as they did in the mind’s eye.  Usually they are much more disagreeable or ridiculous.  I realize that it would be nearly impossible to perfectly reproduce a book in a movie’s span and it does require some adaptation.  However when a perfectly good classic is subjected to a disgusting modernization, it almost becomes a desecration. 

              A case in point.  In the second installment of the Chronicles of Narnia, Prince Caspian, C.S. Lewis portrays a good natured, golden-haired lad,  (I am not exactly sure about the golden hair but I always pictured him so.)  who remains sturdy in the face of frightening meetings with the Old Narnians and the subsequent overwhelming odds against the Telmarine army.  He is also in awe of the four kings and queens of old who are called into Narnia by Queen Susan’s horn.

               Not so in the film.  He is rather shown as a brooding snarling sort of personage who immediately conflicts with the High King Peter over leading the army.  When Peter plans and executes a disastrous assault against Miraz’s castle (a fictitious incident), a disgusted Caspian berates him.  Peter sneers that it was he (Caspian) who blew the horn for help because he couldn’t do it on his own.  Caspian retorts through narrowed eyes and a hard face, “My first mistake!”     

              Aaaaaargh!

  Trumpkin, that jolly Red Dwarf, constantly ejaculating, "Beards and Bedsteads!" and the like, and always ready with cheerful cynicism and pishing of Aslan tales but a twinkle in the eye for their Majesties, is transformed into a sullen glowering embittered Son of Earth who stares insolently at their Majesties and offers biting sarcasm at intervals.  

              The visual narrative is also completely overloaded with incidences of the hackneyed “movie stare” of two or more individuals as they slowly move away from each other etc.   Get over it! When does people ever gaze so protractedly at one another while a furious battle rages all around them? Or at any other time? 

              And to top it off completely, Queen Susan falls in love with Prince Caspian! How absolutely and utterly revolting! Why did some brilliant screen writer feel the need to have Queen Susan throw her arms around Caspian’s neck and draw his head down to hers just before returning to our world? And, once more, gaze long and lovingly into his eyes?  Give me a break!  This is most the adolescent rendition of the Chronicles of Narnia I have ever been ashamed to admit I witnessed!   Please excuse me while I go have another good long scream!  An exciting new twist? Absolute rubbish! The most unmitigated poppycock! 

              There are points where the book situation is reproduced almost exactly, and they speak the verbatim lines of text. But it seems a ludicrous mockery in the face of the grotesque wrenching of C. S. Lewis’s original plot. 

    Oh the movie Prince Caspian may be called a wonderful action packed thriller, but its makers have tried so strenuously, they have only succeeded in causing any common sensed viewer to pronounce it ridiculous.  I think I must straightway reread a copy of Prince Caspian in order to cleanse my experience of that fantastically absurd romance and the devastating character assassinations.  If this is modern interpretation, God help us all. 

  I suppose it is entirely my own fault.  The remedy for irreconcilable differences between the imagination and the movie would be to either to watch the movie before reading the book or skip it entirely.  Personally I am inclining toward the latter action. 

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