I found tonight’s recitation to be very intriguing. The contrast of how film and literature each exhibit a point of view was a very interesting concept to analyze. I had never really considered the differences each struggle with until tonight.
I was disappointed that there was not a discussion about the adaptation of books to films. This seems like it should have been an integral part of the lecture. A juxtaposition of how a book like Fight Club – with such a complex point of view and ambiguous focalyzer – gets adapted to film would be interesting to analyze under the guise of tonight’s lecture. While a book may take four pages to explain the way a scene looks or a character feels, a film has the ability to do this instantaneously. The part of Fight Club, for instance, where Edward Norton realizes that he is Brad Pitt, (which takes several pages to explain) is done in seconds in the film.
I found the interaction between subjectivity and point of view to be extremely provocative. In the philosophical sense, subjectivity is of supreme importance in understanding different perspectives (ontological subjectivity, axiological subjectivity etc.). Likewise, in literature and film, only through acknowledging a character’s outlook – done through the visual or mental understanding of their sense of being – can their role be interpreted purely.
Additionally, I feel compelled to comment on the Columbus clip that was shown. Did anyone else notice how when he first reached land, Columbus knew he had discovered the “new world� Didn’t Chris think he was in India (hence, Indians)?
There’s actually a very rich subset field of film studies devoted to adaptation. And asking questions about point of view is a good way to get beyond what many people first think of when watching a film adapted from a novel: how faithful the film is to the original source.
Most film scholars argue that so-called fidelity issues are not nearly as interesting as looking at how the film version does what film does best: visual imagery, gaps in time and space, and subtle shifts of point of view. So, you’re example of Fight Club is a great one. Most people, when considering Fincher’s movie, look at how the ending has changed from the novel, but armed with our knowledge from the recitation, we can see that questions of perception and knowledge are actually more productive ones to consider.
I understand your point of view as I am often disappointed with the adaptations of many books to film. It’s like comparing apples to oranges in some ways, however: while a visual can condense many pages of text into one moment in a movie, the level of detail found in books is nearly impossible to duplicate in a visual media. Even fairly mindless pap like Harry Potter is missing something in its bigscreen translation.
For example, in the movie snippets we watched of the Dead in class on Thursday, I was disappointed that Gabriel’s lusting for his wife was not made more clear in the final scenes of the film. I felt it was a pivotal moment for his character in the book, and while the movie goes out of its way to make him more sympathetic it would have helped bring some humanity to Gabriel’s lifeless character. You gain a much better understanding of his insecurities and desires in the book, but the movie is much more cohesive by simplifying things.
The movie also seemed to eliminate the idea of multiple perspectives from what I saw in class. The frail aunt is a horrendous singer instead of singing stronger and more beautifully than in years (as she did in the book). The roving camera took no-one’s perspective, instead roaming free of character interaction, giving it a voyeur-like feel. We lose the tapestry of understanding where we learn many differing opinions of a character at a time (Lily, for example), but the overall story is strengthened in comprehension.
Ultimately, movies may be more suited to entertaining than to incredibly detailed character analysis: it would be impossible to create a Raskolnikov without a hundred hours of film, if not more. This does not lesson my enjoyment of film, and I’m consistently amazed at the quality of movies that I’ve discovered, both new and old. For now, I’ll enjoy all the fruits.