Adaptations, arrangements and reinterpretations

[Nick Armstrong]

I've been giving quite a bit of thought to this subject since pondering the pros and cons of the current 'Great Expectations' dramatisation on BBC TV and reading the reactions of various members on the thread about it.

Also because my last cultural activity of 2011 will be an evening with godson and family on Saturday at the new Sherlock Holmes film with Robert Downey Jr.

I love the original Conan Doyle stories very much, though not as much as Dickens's novels. Yet although the current TV adaptation of Dickens (and indeed the forthcoming second series of the Cumberbatch 'Sherlock' starting on New Year's Day) and the Guy Ritchie 'vision' of Conan Doyle do a certain amount of violence to the originals, broadly speaking I'm very keen on them all.

But I took a great friend who adores the Holmes stories to see the first of the Ritchie films (because I'd already seen it and thought it was great) and he hated it with a passion, it was all he could do to stay in the cinema, and was grumpy for the rest of the day

I think my enthusiasm is because, whilst excising or changing certain (in fact, many) details, good reinterpretations and arrangements are true in some sense to the energy and atmosphere (at least in part) of the original, and add some rich visual aspects proper to the medium of the adaptation.

In the musical field, I find that I often prefer arrangements to the originals... I've played the CD of Bach arrangements of organ pieces (Slatkin / BBCSO - arrangements by Elgar, Respighi, Schoenberg et al) far more than I have to the original pieces... I'm sure there are other examples I can't think of at the moment.

And I find myself in the almost unheard-of situation of being about to purchase a disc of ... Liszt! The organ version of his B minor sonata (or at least the extracts played by AMcg in Saturday's CD Review) I found completely entrancing http://www.amazon.co.uk/Liszt-Organ-...5158952&sr=8-1

So fired by these musings, and galvanised by the catalyst of Anna's

you cannot muck about with Dickens

I wondered if others have thoughts about how far it is permissible to muck about with great originals, and whether others share my apparently rather indulgent attitude to adaptations and reinterpretations, even when I passionately love the source material.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

"Adaptation" and "reinterpretations" are different ways of working. I find it difficult to watch a filmed adaptation of a novel that I love because I'm constantly noticing what they've got "wrong" and the characters and incidents they've felt they could miss out, which are almost always the subtle details that I think give the literary version its special quality.

In many ways, I prefer a complete reinterpretation of the elements of the narrative of a novel: I'm enthralled by the current Great Expectations because so much is not in Dickens that it gives a new "slant" on the characters and a different way of telling the story. (There was a film with Robert de Niro and Gwynneth Paltrow a few years back that I also enjoyed for its own sake.) I like its use of colour and monochrome, its colder view of humanity and the exploration of the individual characters (particularly Miss Haversham and Estella) away from Pip's interpretation of them that is the driving force of the Novel's narrative. And Dickens is still there on the bookshelf whenever I want it, in the film version of my own imagination - far better than any "faithful" filming (or Radio reading) of the text: "better" actors and scenery!

For me, the further away the adaptation is from the original, the more I'm likely to warm to it than to a version that's almost, but irritatingly not quite, as I conceive the work from the text.

[Anna]

I haven’t read much Conan Doyle, nor have I seen any of the films. I enjoy the Benedict Cumberbatch tv drama but don’t expect it to bear any resemblance to the ‘real’ Sherlock Holmes so not being conversant with the books I doubt if the films would disappoint.

I don’t mind reworking of films (The 39 Steps for example) or adaptations ‘loosely based’ as long as I know in advance so therefore I don’t expect it to stay true to the original and contain the original characters/dialogue. Then I think you can enjoy it on a different level, it’s when you are expecting the original that disappointment sets in - as with Great Expectations because I anticipated a straightforward retelling of the story. If I'd known in advance of the pruning of vital characters then I would enjoy it purely as a costume drama based on a story by Dickens and not feel cheated by no mention of "Wot Larks!"

[Bryn]

Three of my favourite film adaptations/arrangements/reinterpretations are of the same work, Shakespeare's The Tempest, i.e. Wicox's Forbidden Planet, Greenaway's Prospero's Books, and Jarman's The Tempest. All three are true classic versions, as far as I am concerned.

[salymap]

Not the classics, just John le Carre, but I don't like the sound of the new film of TTSS. Someone has made Peter Guillam gay, and goodness knows what Smiley is. Probably beat Anne and she ran away. I know the book and the original BBC production too well to change my idea of them all.

I think we have a Sherlock Holmes arranger on these MBs, I would love to hear from him.

[Serial_Apologist]

I think where a filmed or play version achieves as authentic reading of a novel as period knowledge allow, matters to do with dress, speech, language or dialect articulation, household interiors, exteriors, architecture, modes of transport, should help convey a feel otherwise lacking if one has not been primed in such things - which many are not.

I think music comes under a different category.

[Norfolk Born]

Sherlock Holmes = Jeremy Brett. Simples!

[amateur51]

Sherlock Holmes = Jeremy Brett. Simples!

Stuff & nonsense sirrah!

Sherlock Holmes = Rassle Bathbone

[mercia]

no, no

Sherlock Holmes = Clive Merrison

[amateur51]

no, no

Sherlock Holmes = Clive Merrison

Not Douglas Wilmer, mercia me ol' shubunkin?

[cloughie]

Stuff & nonsense sirrah!

Sherlock Holmes = Rassle Bathbone

Sorry Am51 but its got to be Norman Shelley, with Carleton Hobbs as Watson.

[amateur51]

Sorry Am51 but its got to be Norman Shelley, with Carleton Hobbs as Watson.

Not Gielgud and Richardson, cloughie?

[Nick Armstrong]

Rassle Bathbone

"Razzle Bathbone" would be the perfect name for the star of the sort of Sherlock Holmes adaptation we're not talking about here!

[cloughie]

"Razzle Bathbone" would be the perfect name for the star of the sort of Sherlock Holmes adaptation we're not talking about here!

Surely it would have to be Herlock Sholmes

[Nick Armstrong]

Surely it would have to be Herlock Sholmes

Razzle would be the actor... The character's name? Well yes... or Surelick... No! Modesty forbids (let alone French Frank!)