Rear Window

Wednesday wasn’t my first time seeing Rear Window, but it was the first time I’ve seen it since reading Cornell Woolrich’s It Had To Be Murder. I have to say, more than any other movie we’ve watched so far, reading the source text really affected the way I looked at the movie and the decisions made in it.

Let’s start with the differences in the main character in both versions. The book version of Jeff isn’t necessarily what I would call manly, while Jimmy Stewart’s Jeff spends the movie in a submissive position, but doesn’t necessarily seem to have a submissive personality.

The Jeff in the book has a keen sense to detail, but in the way that a celebrity gossip columnist might. He follows along intently with these stories, inventing them as he goes.

Stewart’s Jeff is a photographer, explaining his keen sense to detail, and seems more stoic in his people watching.

This is a key theme explored in the movie, Jeff’s need for excitement and action. It’s pretty much the motivation behind his character. He wants it in a woman to, which is why it takes a screwy situation like this to make him fall in love with Grace Kelly (who I fell in love with pretty much instantly).

I’m not sure if I’m articulating this well, but I’m saying there’s a subtle sense of femininity in the book’s Jeff that doesn’t exist in Jimmy Stewart.

Sam is split into two different women, probably to maintain the sense of humor and lightness of Sam without compromising Lisa’s sex appeal.

Grace Kelly is both a damsel and the “hero” (not main character, but heroic in the sense that she does most of the action in the movie). Since Jeff is confined to the chair, we mostly have his credibility built up through stories, so that the character doesn’t come across as too weak or helpless. This keeps Kelly from upstaging Stewart since Lisa is basically proving to Jeff that she can hang.

Interesting that Thorwald, who survives in the movie, instantly confesses to the crimes. Almost a little bit too easy, like Hitchcock wanted to give Jeff some closure and validity.

Actually, it was a pretty happy story all around. Suicide Suzy ends up with the piano player, that weird lady gets a new dog, and Lisa and Jeff end up together. Pretty sunny for a film about a man murdering his sickly wife.

All in all, Rear Window is a masterpiece, but it compromises a lot of the tone of the original work. Perhaps it wouldn’t have been as good as a movie that way, and I certainly can’t complain about all the nice long shots of Grace Kelly, but you can’t help but wonder.

Gunga Din

Gunga Din is an adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s poem of the same name. This marks the first time in class that we’ve watched something adapted from a poem, and much like a comic book, it’s the opposite of adapting from a novel. Whereas with a novel a screenwriter has to condense the story, with shorter works like comics, and even more-so poems, the writer is almost forced to appropriate rather than simply adapt.

That’s my fancy new film word, appropriate, which we learned in class. It basically means taking the idea and using it to convey intentions that didn’t exist in the original text.

And while the original poem almost unarguably has political undertones, the movie almost inherently takes on more meaning because of it’s length and range.

Some of the themes that were explored were friendship, marriage, masculinity, racial intolerance, and true courage (one of the central themes of the poem). We also have what I can only imagine is one of the earliest examples of a bromantic comedy.

The titular character, Gunga Din, is portrayed as a minor character at first, which is to be expected given the time period. To have a movie with an Indian main character in 1939 would have been controversial, if not commercial suicide.

Nevertheless, Gunga Din in the movie is actually more of a hero than he is in the poem, which I can only assume is to make up for the fact that he really isn’t of much importance till we’re through most of the movie. Inserting the poem was a nice touch, but it didn’t really makeup for the fact that Gunga Din just wasn’t really about Gunga Din.

Another text that was said to have influenced the film was Kipling’s short story collection Soldiers Three. I mention this, but I really can’t speak much to it because I haven’t read it. Still, I think it’s interesting that the writer’s looked to Kipling’s other works rather than to outside sources.

In closing, the best part of the film was painted Sam Jaffe. What a riot.

Ghost World

Ghost World is in my opinion one of the greatest comic book adaptations of all-time (along with American Splendor), so I’m coming in to this film with a bit of bias. That being said, I did read the book before I saw the movie, and I have been a Daniel Clowes fan for quite some time. So, while it helps that Clowes developed the script himself, I came in to this movie just like every other die-hard comic fan comes into a movie adaptation of one of their favorite works, ready to shit all over it (Like I did with Watchmen, From Hell, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, etc.). What I walked away with was a newfound respect for the story and for comic adaptations in general.

Let’s start this critique by talking about some of Clowes’ strength as a comic writer that carry over to film.

Clowes is excellent at creating characters that are genuine and honest, but also oblivious to themselves. This presents us with characters that are unknowingly self-depreciating, but believable at the same time. Basically, Clowes subscribes to the idea that just because a character is a stereotype or a cliche, that doesn’t make them one-dimensional. He also manages to romanticize the same behavior he is mocking, no easy feat.

I suspect this is self-depreciation reflects back on Clowes in some way, since he’s always written characters that are (sometimes loosely) based on his own life and experiences.

Another thing Clowes does well is tie his loose serial into a full fledged story without losing the spirit of the original work. Perhaps a better example of this is his work on Art School Confidential, a short serial collection that Clowes turned into a mostly original screenplay. But this might speaks more to the strength of the source material, which is just another pat on Clowes’ back in both instances.

But Clowes’ greatest strength as a writer is the ability to put the reader in touch with the uncomfortable, which I believe is achieved in both the movie and the book. This comes to a head in the scene in the porn store with Steve Buscemi, where the viewer feels as uncomfortable with Enid’s behavior as poor Seymour seems to.

One strength I believe the movie has over the book is that, while both carry a lonely and morbid tone, the movie presents its sad characters (like Seymour) with more humanity than Clowes’ books ever have. I wouldn’t call this deviation an unnecessary one either, since as we discussed in class today, comics as a medium allow for stylistic choices that only work in that context.

That being said, Ghost World is much more accessible than Clowes’ comics, which is a stylistic choice I very much respect. To give in to the temptation to make this movie an “indie” comedy, or basically to try and make the movie exist in its medium in the same sort of alternative pocket that the comic exists in its medium, would’ve been a colossal mistake.

Do I have any complaints? Well, the dialogue that was lifted straight from the comic comes off as a little bit plastic and doesn’t really capture the humor it had in its original context. I’m not sure if this is a failing on Clowes’ part or on the acting, but considering Wes Anderson’s success with making strange dialogue work, I would most likely argue the latter. Although, I would still argue that the strange dialogue does serve its purpose, even if it does make our heroes a little bit less likable.

All in all, I think this is a great movie on its own, a great book on its own, and a great adaptation that really captures the essence of the source text. By taking liberties with his own work, Clowes adapts the comic in the best possible way I think it could have been, and shatters that stereotype about writers adapting their own work into a new medium.

Ghost World is a great film that I suggest to anyone, comic fan or otherwise.

Drive

Drive is a film staring Ryan Gosling, adapted from the book, Drive, written by James Sallis. It tells the story of a mysterious (less mysterious in the book) stunt driver who isn’t named. He makes his money by day working in an auto mechanic shop, and by night doing high risk getaway jobs for Bryan “Walter White” Cranston.

Everything is going great til he gets involved with a young woman and her son. When the boy’s father comes back into the picture, at first you think he might cause trouble for Gosling, but instead he decides to help the father out of his debt he owes to a criminal organization.

So, there you have the basic premise, which exists in some form or fashion in the book as well. Except the book opens with the driver getting into this mess, and maintains the adrenaline till the end. The movie gives him some peace and allow you to see him living happily rather than as the tough badass he portrays for most of the movie.

What’s interesting is that we’re actually given less details about Gosling’s past in the movie, but still feel like we get to know the character better. It also gives us more to be vested in than the book and creates a more round, if somewhat more mysterious, character. And that’s what works about drive, the ambiguity.

This stretches to the scenes descriptions as well. While Drive takes liberties left and right with scenes and characters, it doesn’t seem to contradict the source material. This is because the text is loose and lacking in description, which allows the movie to come into its own and still feel very much like a traditional adaptation.

Another interesting, and in my opinion necessary, liberty taken is going from a non-linear story to a linear story. Where Sallis’ novel does its share of jumping around, the movie provides us with a pretty traditional timeline. The story is best suited to be told from front to back, because it is a front to back story. It isn’t avant garde or experimental literature, despite its best efforts, and thus it wouldn’t transfer as well. It’d be like making Dirty Harry non-linear

Speaking of Dirty Harry, let’s talk about how much this character owes to Clint Eastwood. Drive could have been pitched to Clint back in the early 70s. The character is almost a stereotype that Clint often plays, sharing the calm demeanor, big heart, and even the lack of a name.

But was it Sallis who wrote the Driver as Clint or was it the scriptwriter(s)?

Sallis’ Driver plays a little more like your typical action hero. By focusing on this subplot with the woman and child, and even having the Driver try to help her husband, we see a range of emotion and compassion without Gosling ever having to so much as crack a smile.

Let’s talk about what didn’t work: first of all, the awful soundtrack. Yes, it was awful. And it gave the entire movie a cheesy vibe. It undercut not only the romance and compassion, but also the cool, sleek, badass feel to the character. And the lyrics about proving to be a real human being. Give me a break! It was, and I’m sorry if I seem a little harsh here, probably the worst use of music in any movie I’ve ever seen.

Another thing that plagued the movie was the overuse of slow motion and paused dialogue. It wasn’t particularly bad acting by Gosling, but he obviously wasn’t given too much to work with. Which may make his performance that much stronger, because he kind of pulls it off.

So in closing, while the book doesn’t feature the awful music, that’s about all it has going over the movie, which was a decent little flick. One day it will probably be remembered in the same way Dirty Harry is remembered now, a competent, well acted, entertaining action movie. As a book, it just serves to disappoint.