So Much is Lost in Translation Abstract
http://staff.washington.edu/cgiacomi/courses/english497/abstracts/Abst...
So Much is Lost in Translation Beth Howe
In his article “So Much is Lost in Translation,” John C. Tibbetts catalogs and categorizes examples from the upsurge in text-to-film adaptations in the 1990’s. He describes the growing trend in the entertainment industry for converting popular texts and the mounting widespread public interest in films adapted from other sources. With this upswing in literary adaptation, Tibbetts encounters a host of approaches toward the difficult task of translating a story from a textual medium to a cinematic one. Tibbetts spends the vast majority of his article outlining the positive and negative outcomes of various approaches to adaptation, but avoids declaring a definitive philosophy which filmmakers should obey when translating a text to film. Tibbetts begins his article with a disparaging review of the recent adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ The Man in the Iron Mask, a version in which the filmmakers insert the element that one of the main characters secretly fathered another even though no such relationship exists within the text. He cites this film and several others with similar radical reinterpretations as major examples of the bastardization of literature that may occur during its conversion to film. These adaptations demonstrate the desire of filmmakers to make their final product appeal to greater markets, even if it requires sacrificing significant elements of the original text. Tibbetts then lists films guilty of the opposite offense; they are so rigorous in their attention to the text that “the results are fairly choked on their own literary bile.(30)” These films, though accurate, lose entertainment value in their rigid devotion to the text. Tibbetts also includes films such as William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet and Looking for Richard, films which are immersed in their own artistic vision and are not necessarily even trying to maintain the vision of the original text. In place of stating the approaches that are best for adaptation, Tibbetts instead inventories movies based on texts by authors such as Henry James, Jane Austen, Stephen King, Michael Crichton, and many others, then critiques the finished product. Films like Lolita and Leaving Las Vegas receive reprimands for toning down the pessimistic aspects of the text, while Emma and Clueless receive praise for keeping in line with the themes of Jane Austen’s Emma, if not its precise dialogue and setting. Tibbetts praises The Wings of the Dove by Henry James in its 1997 traditional interpretation, but disparages the updated version Under Heaven for not exploring the motivations of the characters. The Scarlet Letter’s concocted feminist retelling and happy ending and the “metatheatrical” setting and visuals of Kenneth
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So Much is Lost in Translation Abstract
http://staff.washington.edu/cgiacomi/courses/english497/abstracts/Abst...
Branaugh’s otherwise textually accurate Hamlet also receive negative reviews.(38) Tibbetts creates categories of film adaptation based not only on their attention to text elements, but also on the filmmakers’ skill in blending the aspects of the text he considers essential with cinematic considerations. The films he compliments retain thematic elements of the source text and keep true to the motivations of the characters involved; though he praises accuracy in setting and dialogue, his accolades are not limited to such strictly-interpreted films. Though he never explicitly outlines a philosophy for a worthwhile adaptation, Tibbetts provides examples of which approaches succeed, fail, or cannot be codified in traditional terms in order to provide insight and prevent important aspects of the literary source from being lost in translation. -"So Much is Lost in Translation" by John C. Tibbetts, from Film Genre 2000: New Critical Essays English 497/8 Course Page
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