Objecting to Abjection and The Privileged or; Glenda the Good Witch (well, it rhymes with witch)

James and the Giant Peach, 1996 and The Wizard of Oz, 1939

It was suggested to me that a comparison of what kind of figure James becomes in the end of the book and the film would be a great addition to my previous post. However, when I tried to fit it into the post it just felt out of place. So, I pushed the idea aside, passed the fringe of my own thoughts and thought “this is a waste of my time. I’ll just leave you over here with my other forgotten, disregarded and worthless pile of -”

I am sure you get the point.

But then I looked at the idea from another view and thought that a post on the abject could be useful; that maybe I was wrong to delegate the idea to the abject of my mind in the first place; that maybe I should not be so narrow-minded to presume that something that did not fit my idea of “useful” was truly worthless.

I am sure you get the point.

Abjection, is the placing of somebody or something so far out of the public sphere that an actual physical reaction can be felt by just looking at, mentioning or acknowledging it. In our world, and the world of James and the Giant Peach insects are just that. We do not hesitate to kill spiders or even think that they are “up to something”.

James is abjected by his aunts to the same degree. They “beat him” (Dahl 9) and dehumanize him to a “worthless little  nothing” in the film version. So then, as his adventure begins who does James befriend? A collection of abjected insects who all prove throughout the film and the book their worth. Each character helped in one way or another in getting James across the Atlantic Ocean safely. The ending is where the book and film differ. In my previous post I analyzed the film ending and found that James becomes more of a classic hero. He overcomes his own fears and conquers the creature that murdered his parents. The book takes James’ fate in a different direction. The end of the book is really a stressing of the importance of not only written story telling but of oral story telling as well.

…so many of them were always bugging him to tell and tell again the story of his adventures on the peach, he thought it would be nice if one day he sat down and wrote a book. So he did. And that is what you have just finished reading (Dahl 146).

In the end of the book James becomes a figure not of a classical heroic figure who has overcome some great evil but more over of a storyteller who regaled children with the story of how a handful of abjected creatures overcame a great obstacle. Moreover, the insects are accepted into the American culture. They got married, ran for office and became entrepreneurs and musicians. The book then, more than the film, becomes a story of not just James and the giant peach but James, the insects and the giant peach.

So what then is the opposite of the abject? I would say it is the privileged; people who, in one way or another, are seen as more superior than somebody else.   In the 1939 film “The Wizard of Oz”, the privileged is Glenda the Good Witch. She holds all the answers for Dorothy. However, her role is changed by her appearance in Munchkin Land. In the book, Dorothy is not met by Glenda until the end of her travels, who then reveals how to get home again. In the film, Glenda appears just after Dorothy arrives. This is problematic because Glenda has seen Dorothy with the shoes but chooses to not tell her that she could go home right there and then if she so wanted. Watch this scene here for the explanation of why Glenda does not tell Dorothy before sending her on  a life threatening trip:

Glenda and Dorothy become the spokes models for living a “good ol’ American life”. That is, a life where all you need to succeed and be happy is a strong back because the U.S. of A. has everything you need right there in your own backyard … his is quite different then the lesson James learns on his travels (yes he is only happy in the United States, but that is not his home country). James learns that travel and experience helps to nourish the mind and open  it up to new ideas (like befriending and rehumanizing the abject). Dorothy is taught that the world outside of your own home and land is a scary place where the only thing you can learn is that “there is no place like home” (Wizard).

Rhino Clouds, Orphans and Hermione’s Missing Moment of Triumph

James and the Giant Peach, 1996 & Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, 2001

In the last post on Where the Wild Things Are I discussed a couple different things but the most important in terms of this post is the idea of family that the film presents us with. I hesitate to say that Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and James and the Giant Peach work against this idea that even a ruptured family life is as good as a “real” family but both books and films really demonize legal guardians. Moreover, both stories focus on the main characters desperately lamenting the loss of their biological parents as they deal with living some quite horrible aunts and uncles. However, these two stories do elaborate on the ‘orphan’ character that we have seen so often throughout the literary world. It is because of how well Harry and James are able to adapt and survive their new worlds that I hesitate to say that the books and films outright place children from “proper homes” in a higher light. What I mean is that Harry and James make it in the world because of relationships with people who have no real “biologically moral right” to care for and help.

Both James and Harry come to live with extended family (who are out and out hostile from the start of each book) because of some truly horrific and bizarre deaths. James parents were on a trip to London when “both of them suddenly got eaten up…by an enormous angry rhinoceros” (Dahl 1). This happened when James was four years old. Harry Potter is left on the doorsteps of Number Four Privet Dr. following the murder of his parents and subsequent (temporary) defeat of Lord Voldemort. This happened when Harry was only one. I point out the ages because I feel it really defines the difference between James and Harry. James remembers his parents and is now living with the knowledge that he has lost something in his life. Harry on the other hand has no recollection and yet he (perhaps because we have seven books of development) laments even more because there is a hole that has always been missing in his life. What this means for these two characters is that one is trying recapture something that he lost while the other is trying to find something he never had. It is either accident than or pure genius by Dahl to have an escaped Rhino devour James parents because it is something that has to be physically recaptured. The film version allows James this closure (at least as much closure as possible for a boy whose parents were eaten by Rhino). At the climax of the film, just as the group reaches New York City the rhino returns to claim the last member of the Trotter family. What this does for the film and more so for James is to allow him the chance to face the creature that had ripped apart his family. Roald Dahl does not allow James the same chance in the book. By doing so the filmmakers have placed James in a surprisingly profound scene wherein the rhino that took away his parents has literally become a force of nature, something presumably unstoppable. All of James’ trials on the Peach has led to this moment and he utilizes the tools he has and fights back with the Rhino; not with violence, not by slamming the peach into the thundercloud but by words and the sheer will to overcome the thing that has looming over his entire childhood.

Of course, whether or not the cloud looked like a rhino is besides the point. I think James sees the rhino as a force of nature because it allows him to make the random death of his parents less pointless. James lives in a world of horror, he is wrapped up int it and like the film genre of horror his life “revolves around proving, disclosing, discovering and confirming the existence of something impossible” (Carroll 171).  For James, what is impossible is proving that his parents death was brought on by more than just a senseless rhino devouring them in the streets of London in broad day light. One change in the film related to this issue is the continued living of Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker. What I mean is that the filmmakers decided to not kill off James’ aunts which adds to the senselessness of his parent’s death. James now (in the film) has to deal with that not only were his parents killed by a rhino but that his aunts, who are horrible, child abusing people manage to live. So, if his aunts are allowed to live than surely something more than a rhino killed his decent, good-hearted parents? For James, his parents death are from a force of nature, not by any one thing.

Which brings us to the deaths of Lilly and James Potter at the hands of just one thing; Lord Voldemort. The 2001 film by Chris Columbus is perhaps the second closest adaptation from book to film next to “The Wind in the Willows”. There are some things omitted to get Harry into Hogwarts quicker and some other changes to keep the three main children in as many scenes together as possible (for example, in the book it is Neville not Ron who gets the detention in the Forbidden Forest). I will only mention Harry briefly because although he is main character his portrayal in the film is pretty much spot on in terms of his characterization in the book. In this film as well as the  others in the series we get a very deep sense of the hole in Harry’s life. Unlike James who at least has some brief memories with his family (which drive many of his motivations) Harry has nothing except for flashes of green light and his mother screaming out seconds before the killing curse strikes her. He is taken in by equally abusive extended family who swore to “stamp [the magic] out of him”(Rowling 43). What this means for Harry is that throughout the series he is looking for a family to call his own. What Harry does not realize until later is that he found family in the first book, his friends and the Weasleys. In this sense, the book and film promote the same message as the “Where the Wild Things Are” film; a ruptured family can be mended by others.

The character that I think loses the most from book to film adaptation is Hermione. Hermione is essentially the moral compass of the group. She constantly informs Harry and Ron that they should not be breaking the rules but she at least takes things a little easier as the book and series press on. She is also a perfect example the studious young girl whose point in the book and film is to ultimately serve Harry (Humphreys). What this means is that Hermione is often left out of the action, or when she is present she there to only instruct Ron and Harry; this happens in the scene where they battle the mountain troll in the washroom. However, in the climax of the book as the three heroes make their way to the final chamber each character is given a chance to shine. Harry does so a couple of times (catching the key and battle Quirrell), Ron leads them in a game of chess and Hermione solves a riddle wherein there are seven bottles in line with different liquids inside:

Death lies before you, while safety lies behind,

Two of us will help you, whichever you would find,

One among us seven will let you move ahead,

Another will transport the drinker back instead,

Two among our number hold only nettle wine,

Three of us are killers, hidden waiting in line.

Choose, unless you wish to stay here forevermore,

To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four:

First, however slyly the poison tries to hide

You will always find some on nettle wine’s left side;

Second, different are those who stand at either end,

But if you would move forwards, neither is your friend;

Third, as you see clearly, all are different size,

Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides;

Fourth, the second left and the second on the right

Are twins once you taste them, though different at first site (Rowling 207).

Hermione solved the riddle (can you?) which allowed Harry to move on and her to retreat for help. On the very next page though Hermione deprecates herself by brushing of her deed and claiming that there are more important things than books and cleverness, such as bravery and friendship (Rowling 208). This moment is a little sad because Hermione does not seem to notice her own worth but we, the readers, at least have proof on the previous page of her importance. However, that riddle is cut from the film but her quote is left in which I find very troubling (maybe more so because I am a fan of Hermione). It is only a quick line (like Mole’s quick line in “The Wind in the Willows”) but I find it quite damaging to the character. It would have been very nice to see Hermione have her moment where her cleverness does not come off as being a byproduct of a “know it all” and instead detrimental to the success of Harry conquering Lord Voldemort.

Overall, “James and the Giant Peach” is a fairly close adaptation of the book. It does leave out the entire sky battle but I really enjoyed the addiction of the rhino in the cloud storm because of what it added to the story James parent’s deaths. “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” is a very close adaptation with only a few minor changes here and there to better suit the film medium.

You Got a Problem. Eat It.

Where the Wild Things Are, 2009.

This post will focus more on how the plot changes has shaped and flushed out the characters more than the the post on The Wind in the Willows did for two reasons. Firstly, the book by Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are, is about the shortest book on the course list which means there is a limited plot and only one real character Max. Secondly, the film adaptation is considerably longer (coming in at approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes). What this means is that the plot has been measurably deepened and characters have either been added or greatly flushed out. The dramatization of Max is done especially well as he acts just the way I imagine he would. Moreover, the Wild Things (besides being visually stunning) become truly unique characters who are struggling just as much a Max to exist.

If you have seen this film than this post may be a little more accessible because unfortunately there are not a lot of clips available on line, and if you haven’t seen the film then I will do my best to describe it to you (oh, and go see this film). The trailer will give you a good feel for the film though so watch it here (I’ll wait again). The song playing is “Wake Up” by Arcade Fire (I know you were going ask anyways, it’s a fantastic song and incredibly fitting).

The film stays loyal to the look of The Wild Things, as each of the wild things seene in the picture to the left also appear in the film. In the film each character is given a name and voice which allows each character a certain amount of agency in the story. Because of this agency, Max, who is the only voice in the book, is suddenly met with much more resistance to becoming “King” and after being crowned must solve the issue central to all of the Wild Things: how to make everybody okay? Interestingly, it is two characters without voices that Max poses that question (“How do I make everyone okay?) to. In this world, where everybody has a voice and is free to use it, a certain degree of credence is lent to creatures (Bob and Terry,  a couple of owls) who have no voices. Though Max admits that all he can hear when they speak are chirps he nonetheless engages them in a question that is center to his reign as king. Max tries to reconcile the group but he only makes things worse before they slightly begin to mend just as he leaves the island.

This brings us the biggest change in plot and in turn characterization: an almost overbearing sense of gloom and depression. Wherein the book Max travels to Where the Wild Things Are as a form of escape from his bedroom, the film presents us with a different catalyst. We are shown that Max’s parents are no longer together and the mother has brought her boyfriend over for dinner. Max reacts badly to being ignored and bites his mother on the shoulder before running out of the house in the middle of the night. Max runs away and carries all of the shame of actions, his depression from his parents separation and the weight of knowing the world will be consumed by the sun (his teacher reassuringly reminds the class that mankind will mostly likely be extinct from disease or war before this happens). Max carries all of this onto the boat “and he sailed off through night and day and in and out of week and almost over a year to where the wild things are” (Sendak).  He arrives on the shores of where the wild things are and all of this baggage lands with him and begins to spread out across the island. It is not hard to imagine the events of the island as Max’s imagination attempting to sift through, organize and understand everything that he is going through. Characters begin to reflect Max’s own thoughts and feelings. Carol is a wilder version of Max, something Max could become if he does not begin to better deal with his anger. KW the plays the more calmer side of Max, and the opposite of Carol. Other characters share traits or seem to have insight into Max such as the Goat who knows that Max is not actually a powerful, magic King. He is the manifestation of Max’s guilt of not only lying to those around him but to himself as well.  Max eventually recognizes that his tantrums at home are causing more problems than they solve (like Carol’s tantrums) and he finally departs the island and heads home.

The film and book both provide the reader and viewer with “tools for living”. These tools can be learned by children and adults alike. When this is realized the film becomes less about a boy having an adventure and more about the lessons one can learn from it. As discussed above Max learns that his tantrums are problems that his mother is simply trying to deal with. So to though, the mother learns that Max is acting out for a reason and not to just be a “wild thing”. Todd McGowan, in his book The Real Gaze: Film Theory after Lacan, he summarizes the thoughts of a few different theorist’s ideas on film and the connection to the psyche. Like Max living out his problems through fantasy; making connections between the wild things and himself, McGowan demonstrates that film works much the same way. “Like the psyche, film has the ability to create – or make manifest – connections between related ideas or images” (McGowan 31). I mention this because I feel it can deepen the viewers experience with not only this film but film in general. Moreover, I see this as filmmakers providing us, the viewer, with “tools for living” in the same way children’s books do. By making these connections between the process of film making, the viewing of the film , one can leave the film with more than just the idea of being entertained. McGowan goes on to explain that fantasy films are of immeasurable importance because of what a fantasy world is able to do to an audience. Fantasy allows the viewer to see not their own reality but the fantastical structures that created the reality in which they live (McGowan 32). In other words, structures we follow and live by that are not physical are suddenly shown to use in a different way.

I think this same experience happens to Max in the film in terms of a family structure. A family structure is not really a physical structure, it is more or less an understanding that there are parents and children; a with that certain power relationships and dependence take place. For Max though, this fantastical family structure has been ruptured by the separation (or whatever has caused him to be living with only his mother and sister). In order to understand not only his place in this ruptured structure but recognize his mother’s and sister’s places as well Max must venture into the fantastical world itself. As he does he is met by a pack of wild things who live and act like a family unit but do not seem to be physically related in anyway. Max learns that the “boyfriend” can be part of the family as well and that he (Max) must adjust his position in his family structure.

I really enjoyed the film despite it being quite depressing almost the entire way through. It is beautifully shot and the Wild Things look incredibly life like. I can not say the film follows the book all that closely and yet, at the same time, it does. It obviously expands the short book into a 1 hour and 45 minute film which means some liberties were taken with which way the story and characters should unfold.

‘Ello, ‘ow’s that ‘ole of yours Mista Mole or; Don’t you dare drop those H’s!

The Wind in the Willows, 1983.

This being the first blog entry of Adapting Mediums I feel it is necessary to preface this post with a brief message of how this blog will function. The main focus will be on the differences and similarities of the characterizations from book to film. Moreover, some film theory will be used to analyze how these changes surface throughout the film. For more information about the blog check out the “About Adapting Mediums” page.

Kenneth Grahame’s novel The Wind in the Willows is a hallmark of children’s literature. The popularity of the story perhaps owes much to the wonderful illustrations by E.H. Shepard. His illustrations are the most well-known and most commonly circulated illustrations of the colourful creatures living just of the Thames.

 

Now, despite my enjoyment of the world Grahame created and the creatures E.H. Shepard helped to bring to life there are some problematic issues in the story. First (and briefly as this will not be a gendered reading of the story) is the lack of female characters. There is really only one, the jailer’s daughter whose only role in both the book and the 1983 stop motion film is to help secure the escape of Toad so he can run off and help his male friends violently and enthusiastically reclaim his trophy case of a house, Toad Hall.

Secondly, the novel and film both work to instruct people (well, men) on just how to be a good English gentleman. We see this through the timid and unsure character of Mole, who, prior to meeting the civilized world of the river Thames, lived underground. It is even more apt that Mole is the one whose eyes are opened to the new world as he the most blind of all the animals. However, in the chapter “Dulce Domum” we learn that Mole, who may appear timid, may appear to be unaware of rivers, “messing about with boats” (Grahame) or the general “civility” of the above ground world, is actually quite the opposite. His home is modest, which Rat adores, and in his front garden is a statue of Garibaldi, Queen Victoria and Samuel. All of this seems to point to Mole being (among other things) quite invested and knowledgeable of the world above. My immediate thought of this characterization of Mole was a positive one. If we are to look at the world of the Thames as upper class (above ground) and lower class (below ground) than having Mole’s garden outfitted with statuary of Queens, religious figures and generals who unified a country really speaks to the idea that upper class does not mean a better class, more educated class than the lower class. Moreover, Mole is able to physically break out of the “lower class” world he inhabits. Badger then would be a type of character that Mole may become. That is, a creature who lives underground, but because of certain advantages, he is able to freely move about the structure of the social order. Badger is revered by all and yet at the same time, lives in a hole in the dangerous part of the world.

The film makes a minor, yet significant change to Mole’s character through the use of one of hand remark that I feel undermines the idea that one (as cliché as it is) should not judge a book by its cover, which is to say, in The Wind in the Willows don’t judge an animal by the hole they live in. We have established that Mole, though from underground, is quite well grounded. He is able to adapt to the world above with relative ease yet does not forget where he is from, a fact that the other animals have no issue with either. There is no real class distinction or class prejudice in the story. However, Mole displays a moment where he reveals his thoughts of class. Watch it here. (you only have to watch up to 2:56 to catch Mole’s remark). I’ll wait…

Did you hear it?

Mole instructs the shabbily dressed young animal to not drop his “h’s” while speaking. It is no secret that people will associate accents with many different things but perhaps the largest is class. Accents are generally separated through geography and geographically is how we organize the world around us. In Accents of English a book published in 1982 (the film is from 1983 so I feel this thirty year old resource is applicable in this case) by John Christopher Wells includes this illustrations to describe the dialects found in England:

Basically, the top of the triangle is the upper class and the bottom is the lower class. The higher up you are the less variation in dialects there are and the further down you travel the more variation you will find. My problem with Mole’s comment is simple. Since moving up from the bottom towards the top of the triangle, he seems to have perceived himself becoming better in the eyes of world. He speaks and sounds just like Rat, Badger and Toad and therefore seems to think he is in such a privileged spot of society that he can fix “problems” like not sounding “right”. If you watch the clip for a few more second the young boy will drop another “h” but correct himself. Mole then, for me, becomes this character full of a sense of superiority based purely on language despite the fact that just a little while earlier he was underground, fumbling about with a broom, a paint can and a ladder and smearing paint over himself.

This “regional variation” of accents are heard by the villains (of course) in the film, the weasels. They too are shabbily dressed and speak with dialects that are distinctly different than Mole, Rat, Badger, and Toad. These differences make the audience, who have already been introduced to the well spoken Mole and Rat (whom have pleasant music surrounding them at all times), as different. And we all know different means wrong and bad…right? The first view we get of the weasels are of their bare, clawed feet followed by a shadow on a tree. Creative choices like this also help the audience in realizing that these are bad animals who are out to harm and take advantage of Rat and Mole.

I find it very interesting that Mole’s little dialect lesson comes not too long after his scare in the Wild Wood, up to that point he thinks the weasels are not so bad and even trusts the one he meets right before entering the wood. It would seem that after his misadventure in the Wild Wood, Mole has a tendency of distrust towards those with “regional variations” and attempts to perhaps course correct the life of crime the young caroler is sure to fall into. Or maybe I am fond of Mole and am trying to explain away his turn to elitism through language that he develops in the film.

Overall, the adaption is actually quite close to the original novel. A couple of the side chapters are omitted and other chapters are collapsed into one another. The film itself is just okay as it does feel very dated mostly due to the almost slow motion like movement of the characters. The characters are clearly based on the illustrations by E.H. Shepard so it was interesting to see his illustrations become mobile(ish).