Alice thought to herself… Now you will see a film… made for children… perhaps… But, I nearly forgot… you must… close your eyes… otherwise… you won’t see anything.

-----------------------------

The study of how children’s literature is adapted – or perhaps, re-interpreted – for adults is a topic in which I am becoming increasingly interested in. I think there is something so remarkable, exciting and terrifying about returning to a favorite childhood narrative, only to find it warped or twisted beyond the familiar - changed somehow, so that it speaks to us more as grown-ups than small children. This is exactly how I felt when watching Jan Svankmajer’s Alice (1988) after watching Disney's Alice in Wonderland (1951) (which I had not seen since I was a kid). I really, truly feel that Svankmajer’s Alice is intended for an adult audience – I definitely will acknowledge that watching this would have sent me running to hide under the covers if I had seen this when I was a child. Even now, at age twenty-three, it still frightened me a little! 

While I did watch Disney’s Alice in Wonderland when I was younger, it was never my favorite Disney movie. I remember thinking Alice’s way of speaking (her diction, tone and mannerisms) were boring, too stiff and formal for my young ears. I never quite understood why the Mad Hatter and the March Hare were interesting, nor could really see what the lure of the White Rabbit was to Alice. The Queen of Hearts was ugly, but I think I knew that Disney would never actually show a head being cut-off, so she never scared me. I do remember liking the Cheshire Cat, if only because I’ve always been a cat-person. Despite the absurdity of the story, the characters and the plot, it’s always been for me an enjoyable movie. I found myself liking it more now as an adult, although that could plausibly be because I greatly enjoyed reading Lewis’s stories (I never read them as a kid). The Disney version is also entertaining: lots of brilliant color, and light-hearted, good-natured (albeit absurd) fun. We as the audience are delighted and thrilled to take part in Alice’s adventures in a Wonderland that is happy, bright, and interesting, full of catchy songs and exciting exploration. We see Alice as pretty, smart and full of emotion, and her ending is a happy one: she wakes up from her dream and everything is back to normal.

However, returning to Svankmajer’s Alice: WOW. I kept thinking I could do something else while the movie was playing – other homework, perhaps, or tidying up my apartment – but found myself unable to do so because of the lack of dialogue. Thus, forced to keep my eyes on the screen, I sat on the couch, fidgeting the whole time, taking glances at the clock and wondering how much longer this nightmare would continue (because, yes, it did feel like a nightmare to me). The constant repetition of the little girl’s mouth narrating the dialogue was like fingernails on the chalkboard to me. The tea party scene – which I had to suffer through again in class when we watched it then – dragged on, and on, and on, and on, with no end in sight. The slow, languid pace of the film heightened the unease I felt while watching, and I kept thinking to myself Why is Professor Hatfield making us watch this? Why, why?! The little girl playing Alice was cute, but somehow forbidding. Her clothes became dirty and tattered, she shrunk into a frightening doll (which totally reminded me of Chucky!) and her ending is not “happy” (at least I didn’t think so): she wakes up in her room, amongst all these possessions that have appeared in her dream, and finds that the stuffed white rabbit is gone for real. The scissors (a strangely haunting motif) she wields at the end make her seem like a creepy little kid, one I should run away from if I ever end up in a zombie/horror movie. Alice is devoid of emotion, a passive observer in her Wonderland, which perhaps is less a land of wonder and more like a house of horror. Seeing Svankmajer’s decrepit, decaying and dull world, I wanted to leave the nightmare and return to Disney’s pretty, sing-a-long vision!

Those are, of course, my own personal and perhaps hyperbolic feelings on the film. I know Alice is considered to be a cult classic, with a plethora of praise from critics, but it just made me feel uncomfortable. I think these feelings stem partly from my American-action-movie, bland cinematic upbringing, but also because of Svankmajer’s style of using ordinary objects in terrifying ways, which was the one element I did actually like and took notice of when watching and comparing the two films. Disney did this in part with the sequenced of birds created from pencils, umbrellas and horns as Alice cries, but they were cute, funny and – most importantly – non-threatening. Svankmajer instead has his heroine pull a sharp tack out of a jar of jam, find a rabbit who licks the sawdust from his open belly, wrestles with socks wriggling into holes like snakes – all these images are designed to send chills down our spines. This is why I believe that Svankmajer’s Alice is really for an adult audience. I think that when elements that would have entertained and excited us as children become startlingly horrible motifs, that is where differences lie between a story for children and a story for adults. Simply put, Disney’s version is made to delight and fascinate children and Svankmajer re-interpreted the story to provide a darker, more sinister take for adults.

(916)

Alice (Neco z Alenky). Dir. Jan Svankmajer. First Run Features, 1988. Film. 

"Keep your eyes open. Bless me, what do they teach them at these schools?"

-----------------------------------------

My group - which consisted of myself, Tenny, Amanda, Michelle and Jennifer - presented this week on the book The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe from The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, as well as the 2005 movie, directed by Andrew Adamson and released by Walt Disney Pictures. 

I read the seven books of the Narnia series maybe about five or six years ago. I actually never read any of the stories when I was a kid - I didn't even get Wardrobe as assigned reading in school, as so many people do! I did see the movie in theaters when it came out in 2005 and have always enjoyed the film adaptation, so it was nice to return to the story and movie for this presentation.

When we met to discuss our presentation, we decided that it was best to start out with some background information on Lewis, the series as a whole, the story and the characters, as well as some insight to the major themes and binaries. Unlike with the previous group's presentation on Alice in Wonderland, the class had not been introduced to the world of Narnia until this week, so we wanted to provide some context, both historical and story-wise. Thus, we each took a topic to focus on. 
 

I choose to make my PowerPoint slides and presentation on the binaries, major themes and archetypes that appear in the story. I wanted to do this because this - for me - is where the real story is, hidden within the narrative. The binaries of good versus evil, of ordinary children versus extraordinary heroes, as well as the themes of gluttony and salvation, are what really interested me in the story. Additionally, the edition of The Chronicles of Narnia that I have includes a short section in the back of "Excerpts from BEYOND THE WARDROBE: The Official Guide to Narnia". These short essay excerpts included lots of good quotes from Lewis himself. For example, in the short section about the White Witch, Lewis is quoted as saying " 'The Witch is of course Circe... She is... the same Archetype we find in so many fairy tales. No good asking where any individual author got that. We are born knowing the Witch, aren't we?' " To see that Lewis acknowledged the Witch in Wardrobe was an archetype following the great tradition of Greek mythology allowed me to connect this fantasy tale of four children to the greater narrative framework of literature. I also tried to provide some information about the rest of the series - because it is so much more than just the one book.

We agreed that our PowerPoint presentation should be short - after all, PowerPoint is often so boring. However, we really felt that it was necessary to provide some information about Lewis (as Michelle did) and the story (as Amanda, Tenny and Jennifer did) because Professor Hatfield provided similar information when the class started the Alice in Wonderland unit, and we feel that sort of information really helps in understanding the story. We each did our separate parts, and Michelle volunteered to compile them together to make it easier to present as a well.

We also picked two scenes - where the four children first enter Narnia and the resurrection scene (although that scene was plagued by human error, since I didn't check where we needed to start from). We choose these two scenes to focus our class discussion on because the children entering Narnia was such a pivotal moment in the story, as they first enter this fantasy world through the portal. Additionally, we felt the resurrection of Aslan was interesting - not only because of the religious implications and interpretations of it - but because it was shot in such a close adaptation from the novel. There weren't a lot of major changes with this scene, and we thought it would generate some thought about the adaptation process from book to movie.

I think our presentation went wonderfully! It seemed to me that the class was interested in discussing some of the aspects we brought up, as well as some things that Professor Hatfield pointed out. I felt that each member of my group researched and presented exactly what we agreed on. I'm glad I got to work with such a wonderful group! 

(725)

 
Lewis, C.S. The Chronicles of Narnia. New York, NY: Barnes & Noble, Inc, by arrangement with HarperCollins Publishers. 2010. Print  

"Because you're her mother. Mother is God in the eyes of a child."

So far in this course, we’ve been discussing adaptations from literature to film, and while this is most common form of adaptation is media today, I am more interested in the adaptation of other genres that don’t get much significant study, such as comic books and video games. Which is why I’m focusing on the Silent Hill movie that was released in 2006, loosely based in part from the first game in the Silent Hill franchise - Silent Hill (1999), released for the Playstation.

I should note here with great emphasis and honesty  that I have never played any of the games themselves personally. I have watched my roommate play most of them, so I understand the characters, various devices used in-game, general play style, and general story arcs. Additionally, I own the movie myself, and have watched it several times only to discuss with my roommate the differences, so I feel that while I don’t have a 100% grasp on every little detail in the game series, I am knowledgeable about it enough so to speak about the differences. I liked watching my friend play the first Silent Hill game, mostly because he would play in the dark – which, let me tell you, made the cut scenes WAY more frightening) – and was excited to see the movie when it came out. I’m not that much of a gamer. I’ve played World of Warcraft for several years (which is also getting a movie adaptation soon!) but online games are much different than console gaming, of which I’ve found myself never quite becoming accustomed to the joystick and triggers. I prefer to watch others play, if nothing more than for the storylines. The Silent Hill series – including the games and the movie – are interesting because there are a wide range of interpretations and ideas one can have.

First, because I’m much more familiar with the movie, I’ll give a basic outline for those who haven’t seen it: the movie begins with Rose and Christopher and their daughter Sharon, who we learn is adopted. Sharon has been having nightmares and crying out the name “Silent Hill”. In order to discover more about why her daughter is experiencing these terrors, Rose takes Sharon – without Christopher – to a town she finds called “Silent Hill”, only to engage in a police chase with a motorcycle cop (Cybil) and crashes her car atop a mountain road. She awakens some time later to find Sharon gone. Strange ash is now falling from the sky, blanketing everything in sight. She searches the town of Silent Hill after seeing a girl who looks like her daughter, only to encounter abandoned and decaying buildings, a cult of religious fanatic who find safety in a church, and horrific, mutilated monsters that spawn after the town warps into a twisted, demonic unreality. She eventually teams up with Cybil, who has also crashed on the road, in order to find her daughter and discover the secrets of the town, which center around the strange girl named Alessa (who looks identical to Sharon) and a cult ritual that went horribly awry years ago that was intended to “purify” Alessa but instead split her soul in two, and her evil side is what is making the town as it is. Meanwhile, as Rose and Cybil race around the town avoiding monsters amidst the falling ash, Christopher has also come to Silent Hill, but all he can see is a decaying ghost town, deserted from the coal fires that still burn underground that render the area uninhabitable, void of any people - or monsters.

Meanwhile, the storyline of the original Silent Hill game – by which the movie is loosely based on – is similar, although there are some notable differences. You play as Harry, who also must look for his daughter Cheryl after crashing his car near Silent Hill. Cybil and Alessa still make appearances, although their interactions with the main character Harry are different than in the movie – decisions involving Cybil impact the ending much more, for example. The town is covered in snow instead of ash (there’s no reference to any coal fires), while the memorable monsters (Pyramid Head and the Nurses) are mostly taken from the 2^nd Silent Hill game (2001). Like the movie, it is also the workings of a cult that have turned the town into an evil hell, but it’s because of the cult trying to birth their new god through Alessa. A Silent Hill tradition was also started with this first game, as depending on the player’s actions, the ending can be resolved in different ways. Four endings in all are included in this game, varying in degrees from good to bad (which depends on who you save/sacrifice), and a joke ending in which the characters are abducted by aliens.

So, when we discuss the adaptation from one visual media (game) to another (film), it’s both a similar and different conversation that what we would look at from a text (literature) to visual (film).  Linda Hutcheon remarks in Adaptation that “What gets adapted here is a heterocosm, literally an ‘other world’” (14), which I thought was a perfect description of the adaptation process of video games. Gaming allows the individual to become part of the story. In a well-designed game, it’s the player’s decisions, actions and will that directly change the course of the game, thus creating a different gameplay for each person. An individual may watch a movie and be able to come up with the same thoughts or experiences as another, but a game requires more hands-on interaction, a deeper connection with what is happening on the screen, giving a more personal experience. Gaming allows us to become participants in a different reality rather than casual observers, and this is what makes video games so unique.

However, this provides the biggest problem when creating a film from a video game. Trying to compact down a vast universe with complex characters, storylines, secondary-storylines and visual elements – like the Silent Hill series – into an easily digestible, comprehensible (to most) two-hour film (compared to a 12+ hour game), the viewer loses much of the interaction with the story. They are forced back into “casual observer”, pushed further away from the story. We also see this happen with books that have sprawling, imaginative universes, like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings – much of the sub-plots, digressions and secondary elements are dropped in favor of a neatly packaged (and marketable) story. Thus, I think this is the reason why the film’s director and writer made some of the changes to the story in order to fit it for a film. Director Christopher Gans, on the film’s website through Sony Pictures, has answered to a lot of these changes, including why he made the main character a woman and not a man. Gans says that “It quickly became clear… Harry [the game’s protagonist] never acted like a masculine character… we felt it was better to change to a female protagonist and retain all those important [character] qualities.” I myself applaud this change! The film focuses on the female characters – Rose, Sharon, Alessa, Cybil, Dahlia, Christabella – as the saviors and destroyers. In fact, the original script didn’t include the father Christopher; it was only the studio’s worry about a lack of a male lead that prompted the creation of his character (played by Sean Bean). Gans also said that he understands that not every fan of the game will be a fan of the movie, but that he thinks fans “want a movie that they can respect and a film that generates conversation and an exchange of ideas. I want the movie to reinforce the cult and intelligence that surrounds the game… To do this well I had to sacrifice key elements in the game” such as secondary plot-lines and greater reliance on the player discovering secrets and puzzles.

But, just as Gans hoped, I found myself enjoying the film – not because it was a “perfect” adaptation of the game’s storyline – but because it allowed conversation and deeper thought into the binaries of good vs. evil, heaven vs. hell, innocence vs. malice. I found my interpretation – and stop reading here if you don’t wish for the film to be spoiled for you – to be quite different than other peoples: I believe Rose, Sharon and Cybil all died in their car accidents, and their adventures in Silent Hill was their journey to escape hell. Cybil is unable to, and is consumed by the fires of hell. However, when Rose and Sharon leave Silent Hill and return home, only to find that the fog and ash of Silent Hill has followed them, they are unable to see or hear Christopher, who is in the same house in the “real” world. Rose and Sharon, even after their struggles with hell and damnation, are left without a heaven, denied the perfect afterlife. They remain trapped in a limbo state with only each other for company.

(1497)

Hutcheon, Linda. A Theory of Adaptation. New York, NY: Routledge. 2006. Print.

Silent Hill. Dir. Christopher Gans. Sony Pictures, 2006. Film.

”Silent Hill: Notes From Director Christopher Gans.” Sony Pictures. Sonypictures.com, 2006. Web. 1 March 2011. 

< http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/silenthill/productiondiary/index.php>