adapting to the right medium

Last night, I watched John Krasinski’s film adaptation of David Foster Wallace’s Brief Interviews with Hideous Men.  I should say up front that I have never read the book.  My previous experience with the content was from another adaptation, a theatrical production that John Krasinski knew as well.

So this should be an interesting post… comparing two adaptations into different media without knowing the source material.  And I must distinguish between the quality of the adaptation and the appropriateness of its medium.

I’ll begin with the theatrical adaptation.  Picture yourself, if you will, at Brown University. In addition to the official theatre department productions and the various plays put on by student groups, occasional enterprising students mounted shows independent of any producing body.  These often happened in the upstairs space of the student theatre—a rehearsal room come lobby come rec room—dark and poorly maintained. In the early 2000s.

It was in this space that Chris Hayes (now Washington editor of The Nation) directed an adaptation of Brief Interviews.  Just a serious of monologues performed with a chair, sparse lighting, and pages in hand if the actors had not memorized their parts.  It was a who’s who of the best male acting talent at Brown.

I went to see the production with two girlfriends, fully intending on going to a party afterward.  Our experience in the theatre that night was so raw and powerful, disturbing, dare I say it—hideous—that our plans for the rest of the evening were abandoned.  We returned to my dorm room to drink rum into oblivion in silence.

Chris Hayes’ production was unapologetic.  It put forward a number of men’s stories for the audience to judge and to judge themselves by.  I can’t say whether it had the same feel as Wallace’s work, but I can say it is in my top five most affecting nights in the theatre.

John Krasinski performed one of the monologues that night.

So it was with a great deal of anticipation that I watched his film adaptation yesterday (with an associate producer nod to Chris Hayes). 

Alas.

By giving the interviews a framing device—Julianne Nicholson is a grad student interviewing men while coping with her own ex-boyfriend’s infidelity—the content was diluted.  Cheapened.  Context robbed the monologues of their ferocity.  And this particular frame left me feeling like this was supposed to be a romantic comedy that never got romantic or comedic.

The monologue performed by Dominic Cooper’s character in the movie was the climax of the theatrical production for me.  It’s brutality has only ever been rivaled for me by Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman.  But with the context of an angry student trying to fight a bad grade (or is he really reaching out for help?), it became overwrought.  John Krasinski’s monologue about the hippie rape victim becomes insipid when it is his excuse for cheating on his girlfriend.  Alas, the frame was poorly crafted.  The movie, disappointing.

But I wonder whether it would have been possible to create any film adaptation that would do the work justice.  A modern American movie version cannot allow a series of disjointed monologues and any plot threading them together softens some of the ragged edges. 

And then there is the lack of being present in a movie.  Theatre’s power is in its presence.  In the audience being in the room and sharing the experience with the performers.  Theatre makes the audience complicit in the production.  It implicates them while film distances.  (I am now thinking of Oskar Eustis making the same argument in a dramaturgy class at Brown.)

I write about Brief Interviews here, not because I felt like ranting about a disappointing movie, but because it has led me to think about medium.  Film was the wrong medium for an adaptation of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men.  On the other hand, I have read plays and thought, “why is this a play and not a novel?”  

There are stories and experiences better suited to particular media and that is something, as a writer, to think about.

trying to come up with a pun on Inception

Two movie-related posts in a row, what's up with that?

Sorry, I know this blog is intended to be about writing and writings, but a girl can't help it if other art forms also elicit a strong reaction every now and again.  My husband and I went to see Inception last weekend and the movie has been rattling around my brain for three days now.  

While watching the film, I loved it.  How often does a movie come along that is simultaneously this much fun and this mentally engaging?  I felt the entertainment hemisphere of my brain limber up and do the acrobatics necessary to keep up with Christopher Nolan's matryostka of a movie. Fun. Fun, fun.

My husband and I agreed on this enjoyment and gave it two thumbs up.  Then we spent the subway ride home contemplating separately before we discussed it.  And here's where Inception gets interesting: while we both thought we figured out the plot, we had very different interpretations of what happened.

This, I have to say, is not a flaw in my book.  It's great.  Like modern art and classical music.  How often do movies open themselves up to that kind of interpretation and personal resonance?

My next point of awe: it is an incredibly well structured movie.  As a writer, structure scares the hell out of me.  Yes, I know, it is pretty much the muck in which Christopher Nolan frolics.  But it is also impressive to create this intricate, this layered a movie and have the audience still keep up.

That all said, the disappointments (and here we have spoilers, too):

Ariadne: If you are going to create this much of a mind fuck, you need an exposition fairy.  I get that and appreciate that Nolan did not pretend this character was anything else.  But here is where I am willing to suspend my disbelief of the impossible but not the improbable: Why does this character magically understand the depth of Cobb's psychological problems and their implications before even his closest friends?  All of her other questions and hypotheses make sense to me.  An intelligent person in her situation could make the mental leaps.  But this, no.

The lowest dream: Is this limbo or another level of dream state?  Because if it is limbo, why isn't Cobb as old as the old Asian dude by the time he finds him?  And if it is not limbo, how did the old Asian dude end up in Cobb's dream world?  (Yes, I know that this incongruity is in direct opposition to my praise of Nolan's structure, but what the hell.  I was still impressed.)

I have discussed the movie with friends who disliked Mal and disliked the ambiguity of the ending.  I have to say that I shared neither view.  I loved Mal. (Marion Cotillard is kind of delicious in everything, no?)  I loved the movie's explanation of her thoughts and motives as well as Cobb's interactions with her.  She is so pure in her purpose and yet quite multidimensional for a figment.  And, while I have a strong opinion about what "really" happens in the ending, I like the ambiguity.

So, what do you think?  Stellar structure and thought provoking fun?  Crap dialogue and plot holes the size of falling vans?  In the end, I think that any art that leaves the audience having such heated conversations and contemplation days later has done its job well.

the devil is sending young women the wrong message

I first saw The Devil Wears Prada in a pre-screening event in NYC some years ago.  I adore Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci.  While I didn't love her at the time, somewhere around Brokeback Mountain I finally admitted to myself that I like Anne Hathaway.  And Emily Blunt was, come on, perfect for this role.  It seemed like a fun, innocuous way to spend an evening.

I left the theater furious.  Then some years passed and I pretty much forgot about the movie.  Until I found it while flipping through TV channels.  I thought, "it was pretty cute. I'll give it a second chance."

No, no.  Just as angry after the second watching.

Here's my beef:

Anne Hathaway's character, Andy, moves to NYC in the hopes of becoming a journalist and scores a pay-your-dues craptastic job as an assistant to the "devilish" editor in chief of a fashion mag.  Since little Andy hates fashion, she thinks she is above it all until she gets sucked into the seductive world of clothes, parties, and being--um--really good at her job.  Along the way, she supposedly loses sight of herself and what is important to her.  

After being forced to work late on her boyfriend's birthday to attend a gala, Andy rushes home to apologize to him instead of staying the extra half hour when a mentor journalist offers to introduce her to editors of the kinds of magazines that she dreams of writing for.  She says no!  She goes home to mopey boyfriend instead!  

This is where the movie first veers off course for me.  Isn't the whole point of craptastic dues-paying jobs and missing loved ones' birthdays precisely for that moment?  What is the point of her work if she doesn't go meet the editor?  Boyfriend is going to be unhappy no matter what.

Then... Emily Blunt's character (did I mention she is my favorite in the movie) fucks up and Andy picks up the slack.  She is rewarded for this by Meryl Streep's character.  Hooray!  All that crap work is paying off, right?  Well no, at least not according to the moral of this story.  Instead, when Andy realizes that she has stabbed Emily Blunt in the back by succeeding, she walks off into the Paris sunset, unwilling to be a terrible person just to succeed at her job.  Meryl Streep watches her leave with a mix of regret and pride.

WTF?  WTF?

Since when is getting ahead in your job because you are better at it than others "stabbing people in the back?"  Isn't that meritocracy?  Isn't that good?  Effectiveness should outweigh seniority in the workplace.  

Since when is it the right choice to leave your career-making job because your friends miss you?  You're supposed to leave your amazing job and work for shit pay at a no name outfit because you'll have more integrity that way?

Oh, and while all this is happening, Andy's boyfriend is moving ahead in his notoriously cutthroat dues-paying field: as a chef.  But no complaining about that.  No.

The message of the movie is this:  Women who want to respect themselves and be showered with love by friends should not succeed in their careers.  And that is one devil of a moral.