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 Great
adaptations

a vast majority of academy award-winning Best pictures, television

movies of the week, and mini-series are adaptations, watched by
millions of people globally. Great Adaptations: Screenwriting and Global
Storytelling examines the technical methods of adapting novels, short
stories, plays, life stories, magazine articles, blogs, comic books, graphic
novels and videogames from one medium to another, focusing on the
screenplay. Written in a clear and succinct style, perfect for intermediate
and advanced screenwriting students, Great Adaptations explores topics
essential to fully appreciating the creative, historical, and sociological
aspects of the adaptation process. it also provides up-to-date, practical
advice on the legalities of acquiring rights and optioning and selling
adaptations, and is inclusive of a diverse variety of perspectives that will
inspire and challenge students and practitioners alike.

Alexis Krasilovsky is professor of screenwriting and Media theory and

Criticism at California state University, northridge, teaching courses in
screenplay adaptation and Film as Literature. Krasilovsky is a member of
the Writers Guild of america, West, and is writer/director of the award-
winning global documentaries Women Behind the Camera (2007) and Let
Them Eat Cake (2014). she is also author of Women Behind the Camera:
Conversations with Camerawomen (1997), and co-author of Shooting
Women: Behind the Camera, Around the World (2015). Krasilovsky’s
narrative film, Blood (1976), was reviewed in the Los Angeles Times as “in
its stream-of-consciousness way, more powerful than Martin scorsese’s Taxi
Driver.” Visit alexis Krasilovsky’s website at www.alexiskrasilovsky.com
 Great
adaptations
Screenwriting and
Global Storytelling

alexis Krasilovsky
First published 2018
by routledge
711 third avenue, new York, nY 10017

and by routledge
2 park square, Milton park, abingdon, oxon, oX14 4rn

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2018 alexis Krasilovsky

the right of alexis Krasilovsky to be identified as the author of this work

has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, designs and patents act 1988.

all rights reserved. no part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced

or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: product or corporate names may be trademarks or

registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

a catalog record for this book has been requested

isBn: 978-1-138-94917-1 (hbk)

isBn: 978-1-138-94918-8 (pbk)
isBn: 978-1-315-66926-7 (ebk)

typeset in sabon
by HWa text and data Management, London
 Contents

ForeWord Vii
preFaCe iX
aCKnoWLedGMents Xiii

PArt I: IntroducIng AdAPtAtIon 1

Chapter 1 Creative issues: Where do ideas Come From? 3
Chapter 2 Career issues: Writers’ and producers’
standpoints 32
Chapter 3 the ethics and aesthetics of adaptation 49

PArt II: APPlyIng ScreenPlAy PrIncIPleS to

AdAPtAtIon 57
Chapter 4 plot 59
Chapter 5 setting 66
Chapter 6 Characters and Character relationships 71
Chapter 7 dialogue 77
Chapter 8 structure: Heroes and Heroines – Where are
We Going? 82

PArt III: A SurvIvAl guIde to AdAPtAtIon 111

Chapter 9 the process 113

v
vi Contents

PArt Iv: renewIng the SPIrIt In MythS And

FAIry tAleS 123
Chapter 10 Fairy tale Factors: From spindle to Kindle 125
Chapter 11 the Beasts: From Cocteau to Cable 134

PArt v: globAl StorytellIng revISIted 141

Chapter 12 stories without Borders 143
Chapter 13 regional vs. international perspectives:
Universalizing regional stories 153

PArt vI: Modern PerSPectIveS on roMAnce 159

Chapter 14 Love and romance adaptations 161

PArt vII: brIngIng uP the clASSIcS 167

Chapter 15 From ancient Greece to Hollywood and
nollywood 169
Chapter 16 Chunhyang, orpheus, and other Myths 182
Chapter 17 Keeping it Literary in China 193

PArt vIII: eMbrAcIng And rethInKIng Structure 197

Chapter 18 timing the times 199
Chapter 19 alternative Focus topics for the story of
Malcolm X 211

PArt IX: cenSorShIP 219

Chapter 20 retelling, Limited 221

PArt X: Future AdAPtAtIonS 231

Chapter 21 Future adaptations 233

seLeCt BiBLioGrapHY 241

indeX 246
 Foreword
on adaptation

the Columbia University professor sidney Morgenbesser used to compare

the three leading schools of philosophy to the three leading schools of
umpiring the game of baseball. picture a man in black standing behind the
home plate. Here are the ways he decides what is a strike, and what isn’t:

• one: i call them as i see them.

• two: i call them as they are.
• three: they are because i call them.

in some ways, the work of a screenwriter adapting a book is not at all

unlike the work of Morgenbesser’s umpire:

• one: i call them as i see them. Meaning: i look for the truth of the
book, its essence rare – and i work to preserve that truth even as i
sell everything else down the river. i here think of that pre-eminent
adapter of literary novels, ruth prawer Jhabvala (Howard’s End, The
Remains of the Day, The Golden Bowl) who would read the book,
then put it utterly aside, and refrain from opening it during the entire
process of writing and rewriting the screenplay.
• two: i call them as they are. Meaning: i just take the book and make
it a movie, simple. perhaps the greatest exponent of this approach
was John Huston, who adapted Hammett’s Maltese Falcon in the
most literal sense. as Huston described it, and i quote “You simply
take apart two copies of the book, paste the pages, and cross out what
you don’t like.”
• three: they are because i call them. this assumes a kind of reverse
influence, one that would have delighted Borges and inflamed Harold
Bloom. that the screenplay not only adapts the book, but in some
sense changes it forever. Can one really read the pages of Harper
Lee except through the spectacles of Horton Foote? as a thought

vii
viii Foreword

experiment: close your eyes and say the words ‘atticus Finch.’ Can
you do that without seeing Gregory peck?

this, then, is the paradox of adaptation. the adaptation leaves the

book untouched: the copy of Moby-Dick on my nightstand written
before the movies were invented, was widely read even as ray Bradbury’s
adaptation was being filmed, and will exist when all the celluloid in the
world has turned back into dust.
But the adaptation also transforms the book. rips the binding, shreds
the pages, pulps them, and by wild alchemy transforms them into light,
flickering light. the adaptation can betray the book, but it can also bring
it to life for audiences far larger than those who frequent libraries and
bookstores. the adaptation can change peoples’ lives – in a way that the
best films, the best books, always have. the power to make us realize
that the world is far more troubling, and far more beautiful, than is
conventionally sold to us, is what books and films do best. and more: the
great adaptation will often complete the circle — lead the viewer back to
the book, make the introduction, and then gently close the door from the
outside.

— Howard a. rodman
president, Writers Guild of america West
professor, school of Cinematic arts, University of southern California
artistic director, sundance screenwriting Labs
 preface

adaptations have been my passion ever since childhood, first manifesting

at the end of a graduate seminar on dante’s The Divine Comedy at Yale
University. i was an undergraduate, over my head. i didn’t think i could
write papers in italian (although i’d done just that at the University of
Florence the year before), but i had the chutzpah to think i could turn
it into a film, with each rung of hell shot on a different platform of the
new York subways. Little did i know, i’d left the filter holder out of
the Bolex camera when filming in the woods, streaking purgatory with a
thick vertical stripe that didn’t even match the tree trunks – although the
storyline was still cohesive.
a dozen films later and finally in the Writers Guild, i’ve grown a bit
more confident about both my filmmaking and my writing. inspired by the
passion for adaptations of master filmmakers like truffaut and Kurosawa,
i’ve shared the craft and alchemy of transforming literature into film and
television with my students at California state University, northridge for
over twenty years. But while students from australia, China, india, Japan,
Mexico, nigeria, norway, senegal, and thailand have flocked to southern
California eager for a break in Hollywood, there are actually more films
made per year in india’s Bollywood and nigeria’s nollywood than what
we make in the United states. and some of my international students –
particularly from China, France, Japan, Mexico, south Korea, and peru –
study with the intent of bringing back our lessons to their home countries.
after traveling to film festivals in 25 countries with my last two
films – both global in scope – i’ve learned to broaden my scope of how
adaptations should be taught. But i grew up thinking that Hollywood was
the center of the film world. Ford, Hawkes, and Welles were the canon,
and if we wanted to go international, we could add renoir. Whether
the works of Western masters or the product of studios that we called
“sausage factories,” most of the films had storylines that borrowed from
the plot summaries of tried and true literary and dramatic work from
america and europe, relying on aristotle for structure.

ix
x preface

By the time i started studying film in the late 1960s, my generation

felt that experimental cinema was all that mattered, and that kowtowing
to narrative formulas meant selling out. our main role model for
such endeavors was Jean-Luc Godard. as for aristotle, as my feminist
consciousness grew, i was surprised to discover that aristotle thought
of women as the flower pots in which male semen would bloom;1 i
couldn’t help but also question whether his thinking about plots was
also antiquated. But it wasn’t until the 1980s, when i began to write and
direct global documentaries, that i fully realized the provincialism of my
Yale education.
“Global” means more than high-budget action films with mega-stars
distributed in markets all over the world, or a way of raising funds from
different countries for another blockbuster. it can also be an approach
to international filmmaking honoring other cultures – not just as angry
alternative cinema that screens in hip college courses, art houses, and
festivals in europe. For example, in Caméra Arabe (1987) egyptian
filmmaker Youssef Chahine says,

For me, the third World is england, France, the U.s. i’m the First
World. i’ve been here for seven thousand years.2

While it can be fascinating to study the significance of trade routes of

the Black sea region dating back to the first millennium bc or earlier to
the myth of Jason and the argonauts, and to trace how that impacts the
economics of action films distributed globally from Hollywood (and the
international co-production financing currently behind it), what i find
more pertinent to global study is the crisscrossing of other cultures and
their potential for global resonance today. no longer can the one-size-
fits-all “Hero’s Journey” be the only template for storytelling. as robert
Cooper points out in his book The Breaking of Nations, “what we consider
universal values are not so universal.”3
Going back to ancient Greece as the creative bedrock isn’t far enough,
knowing that tragedy may have made its way from indonesia across the
trade routes to Madagascar, and only later up to aristotle’s home turf.
trans-pacific trade routes from asia to the americas also carried stories
with them. the trade route across the Black sea that gave rise to the
story of Jason in search of the Golden Fleece,4 which is a bedrock story
of the “Hero’s Journey,” is just one of many trade routes that brought
cultural, religious, and economic changes to various regions of the world,
and along with them, more stories. But let’s not call these “other” stories;
we need to transcend being someone’s “other” in today’s world.
For example, africans may have travelled to the americas from the
Mali empire – whose timbuktu was a major center of learning with
25,000 students at its height5 – as early as the fourteenth century, two
hundred years before Columbus.6 think of the ramifications of the
african ink road, the silk road, and other trade routes to the underlying
interconnectedness between countries and continents,7 centuries before
 preface xi

the instantaneous exchanges of the internet. the indonesians are also

thought to have sailed back and forth to south america many times between
5000 and 1500 bc, which has additional transcultural and transnational
implications. Looking further back, recent anthropological discoveries
trace the migration of east africans to europe, asia, and the americas,
making our world far more “global” than ever before considered.
Both as a professor and as a writer, i take immense pleasure in stretching
boundaries, whether they pertain to hybrid genres, or morphing from
manga to feature, from feature to musical, or from television in one country
to television in another, or digging into transnational influences. Boundary-
stretching is a practice that has inspired many writers and is sometimes
a factor of their universal appeal. For example, José emilio pacheco, the
Mexican author who won the Cervantes prize in spain, wrote a poem in
spanish that included “american poet ezra pound’s translation of Japanese
version of an ancient Chinese poem,” as well as contributing to the screenplay
of the Mexican film, El Lugar Sin Limites (Hell Without Borders, ripstein,
1987), based on José donoso’s novel, set in Chile. the poem, published in
his collection Miro la Tierra (I Look at the Earth) was pacheco’s reaction to
the Mexico City earthquake, universalizing a tragic theme.
By studying Bengali poets, novelists, and filmmakers recommended by
trina Lahiri, a screenwriter friend in Kolkata, the world of adaptation
opened up, full of exciting transmigrations of influence. Knowing what to
glean from your adventures in intertextuality and tapping into the myths
and story-telling techniques that are the bedrock of a myriad of cultures
are secrets to success in screenwriting for today’s world.
this book exists to honor diverse cultures rather than to insist that
there is only one way to approach storytelling – the overly formulaic
Western way. and in the West, the storytelling contributions of women
and minorities are enriching our perspective. By addressing the collective
spirit of our times and the coexistence of globalization with national
identities, i hope to show that adaptations have the power to ultimately
contribute to world peace.
Los angeles, California
March 10, 2017

notes
1 aristotle, Generation of Animals, trans. by arthur platt (London: aeterna
press, 2015). as discussed in Caroline Whitbeck, “theories of sex
differences,” in Women and Philosophy by Carol C. Gould and Marx W.
Wartofsky (new York: G.p. putnam’s sons, 1976).
2 Youssef Chahine, interview in “Caméra arabe: the Young arab Cinema,”
special features dVd, Asfar al-sath Halfaouine: Child of the terraces,
directed by Ferid Boughedir (new York: Kino on Video, 2003).
3 robert Cooper, quoted in steven erlanger, “are Western Values Losing their
sway?” New York Times, september 12, 2015.
4 antoine Faivre, The Golden Fleece and Alchemy (albany, nY: state University
of new York press, 1993).
xii preface

5 “Lost Library of timbuktu,” Understanding slavery initiative, accessed Ma

30, 2017, www.understandingslavery.com/index.php?option=com_content
&view=article&id=378&itemid=233.
6 While many of ivan Van sertima’s claims in They Came Before Columbus:
The African Presence in Ancient America (new York: random House trade
paperbacks, 1976) have been contested, other sources discuss the possibility
of emperor abukari ii of Mali giving up his throne in order to lead an
expedition across the atlantic ocean in the fourteenth century, such as: The
Legacy of Timbuktu: Wonders of the Written Word, international Museum
of Muslim Cultures in partnership with the Mamma Haidara Memorial
Library, november 28, 2006.
7 such as the “migration of myths between the Mediterranean and indonesia
by way of arabia … in the pre-islamic period.” Carl Kerenyi, Eleusis:
Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter, trans. by ralph Manheim
(princeton, nJ: princeton University press, 1967), 136.
 acknowledgments

Writing this book would not have been possible without the support of
California state University, northridge, where i’ve taught screenplay
adaptation and film as literature for over two decades, and my students,
whose passion and scholarship challenged us all to expand our knowledge
of this subject. My profound thanks to two of CsUn’s department of
Cinema and television arts Chairs: dr. John schultheiss for helping me
to make the transition from teaching film production (and screenwriting)
to teaching media theory and criticism (and screenwriting), and prof. Jon
stahl for encouraging me to experiment by adding television and new
media studies during my recent years of teaching screenplay adaptation.
Both schultheiss and stahl facilitated my travel to festivals and conferences
around the world, which strongly strengthened my global approach to
adaptation. a research fellowship from the Mike Curb College of arts,
Media and Communication enabled me to further expand my global
exploration of adaptation, and a sabbatical from the university enabled me
to complete the manuscript. some of the many international film festivals
which screened my film, Women Behind the Camera, also broadened my
mind to films from other countries, particularly the international Film
Festival of india (Goa), the Female eye Film Festival (toronto, Canada),
and the Flying Broom international Film Festival (ankara, turkey).
i am grateful to Louise Hilton, research specialist, Margaret Herrick
Library, academy of Motion picture arts and sciences; dean arnold,
Music & Media supervisor, and Lindsay Hansen, Music & Media
Librarian, oviatt Library, California state University, northridge; Hilary
swett, archivist, shavelson-Webb Library, Writers Guild Foundation; and
the many librarians at the Los angeles public Library for facilitating my
research. a warm thanks to Michael C. donaldson, esq. for his input
regarding the legalities of adaptations, and to my colleagues: prof. dianah
Wynter, for our discussions of film as literature, which we both teach;
dr. ah-Jeong Kim for introducing me to the Korean classic Chunhyang
and its adaptations; dr. Frances Gateward, for lending me her copies
of Chunhyang’s adaptations; dr. Jacob enfield, for demonstrating how

xiii
xiv acknowledgments

virtual reality adaptations work; dr. Maria elena de las Carreras, for
introducing me to argentinian adaptations; dr. Hamidou soumah for
translating a French interview with senegalese filmmaker djibril diop
Mambéty; and nancy Hendrickson riley for her friendship and support.
special thanks also to Bond emeruwa, former president of the directors
Guild of nigeria, and film critic shaibu Husseini for their assistance
regarding nigerian adaptations; to May Wu, for her research and
translation of material regarding the Chinese screenwriter Lu Wei; and
rana Minakshi for her suggestions regarding adaptations from assam.
More than a thousand CsUn students have studied adaptation and film
as literature with me over the years. i am grateful for their inquisitive minds,
their capacity for scholarship as well as creativity, and their many challenges
to the status quo. among the many who excelled in their contributions to our
studies in adaptations are Jamie Burton-oare, ellen Chen, danielle Foster,
Josiah James, tiffany Katz, and Frances tull. several research assistants and/or
instructors’ aides also stand out for their exceptional contributions: LaVeria
alexander, Lara ameen, Mallory Fencil, Linda Fitak, Michael Gonzalez,
sarina Grant, Lori Harris, andrea Harrity, alli Hirshfield, atesha Jones,
alexandra Karova, Katherine Moe, and deborah parsons. robin swicord
(The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)’s visit to my adaptation class was
deeply encouraging. i am especially grateful to my former students tiago
augusto souza Barreiro for his research in Brazilian adaptation; rosalinda
Galdamez for her Mexican and south american television research;
roberto Lazarte for his research in peruvian film adaptations; robert taylor
for his suggestions regarding australian adaptations; and Gwen alexis for
her stimulating questions and her advocacy. i am also grateful to my son,
thomas Finney, for introducing me to additional films throughout the years
– both the hero-driven action films that were so important to his childhood
and adolescence, and the more obscure but inspiring classics of his young
adulthood as a budding filmmaker and scholar, studying at the University of
California, san diego, and Calarts.
special thanks to trina Lahiri for her inspiring words of wisdom from
Kolkata; to my friends satene Cat, Kristin Glover, and Caroline Fitzgerald
for their encouragement and support here in Los angeles; to my friend and
technical expert reseda Mickey and CsUn’s equipment systems specialist
Caleb Fahey for keeping my computers running; to sheni Kruger, emily
McCloskey, and simon Jacobs, my editors at Focal press/routledge; and to
John Makowski, editorial assistant at Focal press/routledge.
Finally, i would like to thank tery Lopez, director of diversity of the
Writers Guild of america West, and the many hard-working members of
WGa’s diversity committees, especially those of which i am a member –
the Committee of Women Writers and the Committee of disabled Writers.
it is their passion for change in an industry that has long discriminated
against women and minorities that buttressed my resolve to write this
book, in hopes that a sea change – at least in the world of adaptation –
will be imminent.
 Part I

Introducing Adaptation

Welcome to the world of adaptation! While the movie Adaptation (Usa,

2002), written by Charlie Kaufman, refers to the darwinian principle of
adaptation as well as a screenwriter’s struggles to write one, this book
will focus on the writing process. it’s not just about adapting novels or
nonfiction to film, however: writers also work in television; we write
webisodes and novelizations. For our source materials, we look at short
stories, manga, comic strips, biographies, plays, and a variety of other
media – sometimes more than one at a time. Great Adaptations includes
both faithful and loose examples: Marielle Heller’s The Diary of a
Teenage Girl (Usa, 2015), for example, not only faithfully renders most
of the storyline of the original graphic novel, but animates the drawings
of its teenage protagonist who is a would-be cartoonist. at the other end
of the spectrum, the Coen Brothers were so loose with O Brother, Where
Art Thou? (UK/France/UK, 2000) that they claimed not to have even read
Homer’s Odyssey. in between are all the gradations of the spectrum,
from faithful biopics like spike Lee’s Malcolm X (Usa/Japan, 1992)
which combines some of the real-life characters for dramatic purposes
to Gurinder Chadha’s Bride and Prejudice (UK/Usa/india, 2004), a loose
adaptation that keeps Jane austen’s english storyline mostly intact, but
sets it in a postcolonial jetsetter’s world between amritsar, Los angeles,
and London.
Because so many writers are influenced by other stories, including their
own, even when primarily concerned with adapting one short story, play, or
novel, Great Adaptations also explores the references to myths, fairy tales,
biblical, classical plots and characters, popular culture, and personal history
that give many adaptations their zing, whether it’s iago from shakespeare’s
Othello giving another dimension to sean parker in The Social Network
(Usa, 2010), written by aaron sorkin, or the biblical references that help
make the Wachowskis’ The Matrix (Usa, 1999) so memorable.
part V, “Global storytelling revisited,” explores regional and
international storytelling in both recent films and classics. For example, in

1
2 introducing adaptation

Figure 1.1 Bride and Prejudice (UK/Usa/india, 2004). paul Mayeda Berges’
and Gurinder Chadha’s screenplay updates Jane austen’s 1813 novel without
sacrificing its class issues. image courtesy of Miramax. produced by pathé pictures
international (in association with UK Film Council, Kintop pictures, Bend it
Films, and inside track Films)

Japanese cinema, we examine how Kenji Mizoguchi based his cinematic

masterpiece, Ugetsu (Japan, 1953), not only on ancient Chinese ghost
stories, but on a French short story by de Maupassant, and how akira
Kurosawa strengthened his adaptation of King Lear by overlapping
it with a legendary account of a Japanese feudal lord in the making of
Ran (Japan, 1985). there are also twenty-seven adaptations of Murasaki
shikibu’s great eleventh century novel, The Tale of Genji, ranging from
anime television series, girl comics, and an all-female musical to a loosely
adapted film set in portugal. some of the adaptations in this book are
meant for international audiences and transcend boundaries, while others
are meant to honor national literatures by those who are most familiar
with its classics and best sellers.
When asked if he had a special feeling for books, critic-turned-filmmaker
François truffaut answered, “no. i love them and films equally, but how i
love them!” as an example, truffaut gave the example that his feeling of
love for Citizen Kane (Usa, 1941) “is expressed in that scene in The 400
Blows where antoine lights a candle before the picture of Balzac.”1 My
book lights candles for many of the great authors of this world: Chinua
achebe (nigeria), angela Carter (UK), saratchandra Chattopadhyay
(india), Janet Frame (new Zealand), Yu Hua (China), stieg Larsson
(sweden), Clarice Lispector (Brazil), Mario Vargas Llosa (peru), naguib
Mifouz (egypt), Murasaki shikibu (Japan), and alice Walker (Usa) – to
name but a few. Furthermore, graphic novels, manga, musicals, television,
webisodes, and even amusement park rides like Pirates of the Caribbean
can inspire work in adaptation. Let’s be open to learning from them all.
 one

Creative issues
Where do ideas Come From?

sometimes ideas come from our real life experiences or other forms of
creativity. For example, robert James Waller’s best-selling novel, The
Bridges of Madison County, which later became a film (Usa, 1995) and a
Broadway musical (2014), may have begun with photographs of covered
bridges that he shot while on leave from teaching business, coupled with
a song he had written about a woman named Francesca, who would
become the novel’s protagonist.2
at other times, ideas pop into our heads while dreaming or meditating.
Maybe that’s because in those states we are relaxed and open enough
to let our stories rise to the surface; we can train ourselves to be more
receptive to these. describing the tibetan practice of lucid dreaming,
tenzin Wangyal rinpoche states:3

some images or traces are burned deeply into us by powerful reactions

while others, resulting from superficial experiences, leave only a faint
residue. our consciousness, like the light of a projector, illuminates
the traces that have been stimulated and they manifest as the images
and experiences of the dream. We string them together like a film,
as this is the way our psyches work to make meaning, resulting in
a narrative constructed from conditioned tendencies and habitual
identities: the dream.

Whether we first identify ideas and storylines in our dreams or while

wide awake, Jonathan Gottschall, author of The Storytelling Animal: How
Stories Make Us Human claims that “the principles of good storytelling
… are coded in the dna of our species and won’t change until human
nature does.”4
psychologist Carl Jung believed that archetypes are also inherited.5
perhaps in part that’s why there are almost two thousand versions of
“Cinderella,” including european, african, asian, and american variations
complete with deceased mother, a slipper, and a fairy godmother (or

3
4 introducing adaptation

magical animal) that helps Cinderella wed her prince. We will explore film
adaptations of myths and fairy tales in part iV; however, it is important
to state up front that these stories which are so basic to our lives can, in
fact, morph frequently to serve the moral imperatives of a given society
or its counter-culture. if the idea for your film comes from a novel,
play, manga, or other source, you are still likely to filter it through your
own consciousness and filmic style if you live in a society that treasures
individual perspective.
in West africa griots – males and females – were the official storytellers.
they told stories and fortunes, recited history, and played the bala; female
griots also braided hair. these were not trivial pastimes: it was said that
every time a griot died, a library died with him. to be a griot was an
inherited position in society: you could not be a griot if your great-great-
grandparent wasn’t one. the griots of fifteenth-century Mali were so
powerfully elite that the emperor could not kill a griot for giving him
a less than favorable fortune. the griot tradition continues today in the
form of african rock bands that are the current craze in africa, europe,
and other continents; however, the griot rule of inheritance changed
with ousmane sembène, the senegalese novelist and filmmaker, known
as the father of african cinema. although his ancestors were fishermen,
not griots, sembène claimed that the new medium of film justified new
storytellers, hence new griots.
today it is possible for almost anyone in the U.s. to go to film school –
although it can be prohibitively expensive for the poor without scholarships
or bank loans, and it has become increasingly harder to get into classes in
state universities. You may not learn to play the bala to accompany your
story-telling, but you can learn Final draft, digital cinematography, and
Final Cut pro to get your stories out. However, one of the ways that the
griot tradition is extremely important to U.s. filmmaking is its emphasis
on the oral tradition. Mark twain, bidialectal because of his friendship
with both white and black children when he was growing up, is widely
considered as the first “real” american author, for writing stories based
on his childhood experiences.6 it’s very possible that the griot tradition
has in that way made a profound influence on american literature as
a whole. oral storytelling – or pitching – is also key to how film and
television projects often get their financing.
to excel as an original filmmaker, the way in which ideas are translated
to the screen must be invented anew. senegalese writer/director djibril
diop Mambéty’s film Hyenas (Hyènes, senegal/switzerland/France,
1992) an adaptation of Friedrich dürrenmatt’s play The Visit, which was
originally set in switzerland,7 satirizes consumerism in africa. Mambéty
credits his grandmother, and storytelling grandmothers in general, for
the imperative to tell a story in a new and refreshing manner “for it to
last forever”:

…the grammar that wants you to tell things in this or that way:
Grandma herself allows us to betray the grammar. that is, the aBC’s
 Creative issues 5

we learn in film school can be utterly transformed, and grandma

wants us to always reinvent the grammar … Like don Gormas says in
Le Cid: “Go, fly, and avenge me.”8

one of the worst problems of adaptations is that they can be stifling.

Contemplating film adaptations, student edward Bowden asked, “if one
is not creating something new – a new way of looking at things, a new
voice, new questions – is it really a creation?”9 While creating adaptations
is dependent on pre-existing work, we need to honor the spirit of that
work, not just regurgitate its storyline and dialogue. that can require
being less faithful than Francis Ford Coppola was when he adapted
Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (Usa, 1974): the dialogue, that flowed so
beautifully on the pages of the novel, felt as long-winded and artificial
as robert redford felt miscast. adaptation calls for a close relationship
with the original author, but you don’t want to be slavishly married to the
book. it may mean divorcing yourself from the material you’re adapting
in order to discover your own voice in the process; that fresh perspective
can be the key towards involving your audience.
Gender and ethnicity can play into this process of self-discovery. as
Hélène Cixous first stated in 1975:

every woman has known the torture of beginning to speak aloud,

heart beating as if to break, occasionally falling into loss of language,
ground and language slipping out from under her, because for woman
speaking—even just opening her mouth—in public is something rash,
a transgression.
a double anguish, for even if she transgresses, her word almost
always falls on the deaf, masculine ear, which can only hear language
that speaks in the masculine.10

although women screenwriters only accounted for 13 percent of

all screenwriters working on the 250 top-grossing screenplays in 2016
(“even with the figure from 1998”11), more and more women are finding
it possible to break new ground. peruvian writer/director Claudia Llosa’s
academy award-nominated The Milk of Sorrow (La Teta Asustada, spain/
peru, 2009), based on an account of women who suffered from mass rape
during a time of terrorism between 1980 and 1992 in peru,12 features
a female protagonist whose breakthrough involves discovering that her
voice is of great value, even as her songs are stolen from her.
Life and art often intersect in the world of adaptations. russell
Means, the oglala Lakota activist who co-founded the american indian
Movement, and later acted in The Last of the Mohicans, Natural Born
Killers and other films, said of his year in prison, “the human being is
a very special being because it can accommodate and adapt to just about
anything. in many cases it may be a sad adaptation, but we can make it
more beneficial than detrimental.”13 The Last of the Mohicans (Usa, 1992)
in which Means plays the Mohican chief, is a sprawling and romantic
6 introducing adaptation

epic, one of several adaptations of the novel in film, television, radio, and
opera. it would be interesting to see the application of native american
storytelling principles to future adaptations in which native american
characters and their issues are central, although Smoke Signals (Canada/
Usa, 1998), the adaptation of a short story from sherman alexie’s
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven is an impressive start.
as UCLa professor of english, paula Gunn allen states in The Sacred
Hoop, “the structure of american indian literature … does not rely on
conflict, crisis, and resolution for organization.”14 With implications to
plot, allen describes the native american way of “perceiving reality” as
viewing “space as spherical and time as cyclical, whereas the non-indian
tends to view space as linear and time as sequential.”15 With implications
to character development, the hierarchical protagonist surrounded by
supporting characters and extras “is antithetical to tribal thought.”16
structure as well as content can benefit from thinking outside of the
Hollywood box. For example, traditional Chinese medicine describes
the human energy system as “a microcosm of the universal energy
patterns that run like templates throughout nature and the cosmos,
from the galactic and solar systems down to the cellular, molecular, and
atomic levels of existence.”17 try to imagine the sequence of influence
coming from the universe (no, not just Universal studios!) to the human
experience of our sun and its planets to the acts, sequences, scenes, and
words of our scripts. the interconnectedness of the five taoist elements
– wood, fire, earth, metal, and water – and their emotional attributes
can also be used to rethink story structure and character relationship,
as can the seven yogic chakras regarding characterization and character
arc. For example, a character who is centered in the third chakra may be
focused on personal power. What happens when he or she confronts a
character guided by the love and compassion of the second chakra – or,
as the progressive complications of the screenplay’s second act unfold –
uses the psychic perception of the sixth chakra to intuit what needs to be
done to save the world?
in the workshop “narrative Medicine: extracting nuance from
Literature, Media, and each other,” psychotherapist shari Foos pointed
out that our stories change in the process of their being told. Furthermore,
“we change each other by neurobiology, as our brains do their work in
sharing our stories – which changes us further.”18 Brian Boyd concludes
his masterful study, On the Origin of Stories, with “We do not know what
other purposes life may eventually generate, but creativity offers us our
best chance of reaching them.”19 is it overly optimistic to think that our
world can change for the better by the intellectual and creative interaction
between the writing of a novelist and the screenwriter who interprets his
or her work? (or have commercial media cheapened and flattened beyond
recognition the deeper emotions that literature provides mankind?)
even within the work – even within a predominantly violent work –
it is possible to think in terms of healing and catharsis. sometimes that
means paying attention to other ways of shaping a story beyond what is
 Creative issues 7

suggested in the structure and content of the original source material. an

interesting example of medical issues applied to character arc that can
focus both on the traditional protagonist and on his or her relationships,
is posttraumatic stress disorder or ptsd – one of many mental conditions
or personality disorders that can be applied to your story’s “person with
a problem,” whether you’re writing an action film or a historical or
personal drama.
symptoms of ptsd include: “nightmares, insomnia, flashbacks of
frightening event, avoiding scenes that remind one of it, startling easily,
trouble concentrating, emotional numbness, irritability and aggression,”20
and dr. Kanan Khatau Chikhal, a clinical psychologist writing in the
aftermath of the terror attack on Mumbai in 2008, added the following
symptoms: “anxiety, guilt, depression and detachment; shying away from
relationships, inability to deal with grief and anger.”21 What interesting
character traits! of course we don’t want our friends, our loved ones, or
ourselves to have to experience ptsd, but as screenwriters, this is a list
made in heaven, perfect for dramatic conflict, flashbacks, and character
development.
Apocalypse Now (Usa, 1979), Saving Private Ryan (Usa, 1998), and
The Hurt Locker (Usa, 2008) are some of the Hollywood films that
incorporate ptsd. american television show adaptations that have
depicted ptsd include: Boardwalk Empire (HBo, 2010), based on a
non-fiction book; Homeland (showtime, 2011), based on the israeli
television drama series, Prisoners of War (Keshet, 2010); the spanish-
language television series Metástasis (sony entertainment television,
2014) set in Colombia is in turn based on the american television show
Breaking Bad.22
other war-related films which include ptsd are: the Bollywood
blockbuster Deewaar: Let’s Bring Our Heroes Home (india, 2004);
Persepolis (France/Usa, 2007), about the consequences of war in iran to
a young girl’s life; and Traffic (Usa/Germany, 2000), about the Mexican
drug wars. Biyi Bandele’s nollywood film, Half of a Yellow Sun (nigeria,
2013), based on Chimamanda ngozi adichie’s book of the same title, is
set at the outbreak of the nigerian Civil War. Film critic shaibu Husseini
writes:

of course they depicted how the war turned people into refugees in
their own country, how people were fleeing from town to town and
how inadequate the refugee camp became for the amount of people
trooping in there to seek refuge … and how people searched for their
loved ones within the mass of people that were moving from town to
town. … even the lead characters had to find solace in the camp since
they had to heal out of their homes as a result of the heavy bombing
going on.23

the storyline of Jon Woo’s Red Cliff (China/Hong Kong/Japan/taiwan/

south Korea, 2008–9) is structured around extensive battle sequences that
8 introducing adaptation

Figure 1.2 Half of a Yellow Sun, written and directed by Biyi Bandele (nigeria,
2013), based on the novel by Chimanda ngozi adichie. image courtesy of
Filmone distribution. produced by slate Films, shareman Media, British Film
institute, and Lipsync productions

to the Western mind seem scripted by Machiavelli, but are more likely to
have referenced the military strategies of sun tzu’s fifth-century The Art
of War in the creation of a plot that expands the legendary ad 208 Battle of
red Cliff described in part of Luo Guanzhong’s 1522 novel, Romance of
the Three Kingdoms. With its heavily orchestrated battle scenes trumping
the on-screen emotions of its characters, Red Cliff may appeal more to
military strategists and their followers.
if we look at the steps of what was first labeled by Chaim satan as
“post-Vietnam syndrome” before it became known as posttraumatic stress
disorder,24 it becomes clear how to apply these to three-act structure in
feature writing and/or a higher number of acts for television:

1 persistent guilt: desire to atone or to self-punish;

2 feelings of betrayal;
3 rage at society/individuals;
4 combat brutalization;
5 alienation from humanity and other human beings;
6 inability to love, trust, accept affection, or to be intimate.25

as an example of how this can be applied to screenwriting, in Born on

the Fourth of July (Usa, 1989) oliver stone and ron Kovic, in adapting
Kovic’s autobiographical hero, create a protagonist whose journey we
can identify with and follow in one clear arc. When ron returns from
Vietnam in act i, his cheerful “it’s really great to be home” is a part of his
denial that anything has changed as a result of losing his ability to use his
 Creative issues 9

legs, echoed in his mother’s initial lack of eye contact when she says, “it’s
good to have you home, ronnie.”26 But by page 101, ron’s feelings of
betrayal and rage – at his mother, his country, and God – have emerged, as
he “sweeps all his baseball and wrestling trophies off the bookshelf ” and
screams “it’s all a lie Mom. the whole thing’s a lie!”27 which escalates to:

Ron:
The church blessed the war, they told
us to go, they blessed the burning
villages and the killing. Thou shalt
not kill Mom thou shall not kill
women and children Mom … Remember
Mom you taught it to me … but they’re
the evil Mom, they’re the ones we
should be fighting.28

But Mom, writhing in her own supporting Character arc, won’t

listen to what she feels is sacrilege. instead of respecting her rules, ron
pushes forward to the end of the line, brandishing the family crucifix at
her (steps 2 and 3), then horrifying his parents even more by breaking
his urine bag (steps 1 and 3), which escalates still further in the movie
where, in anguish, he screams the word “penis” at his mother – a penis
that never made love to women, and now dangles from his permanently
paralyzed body due to what happened in the war (steps 4, 5, and 6). this
is a plot point, as his mother no longer wants him in the house, and his
father suggests that ron take a trip to Mexico, which will become act ii’s
location of ron’s debauchery and alienation (steps 1 and 5).29
What is our business as screenwriters, if not dealing with our
protagonist’s physical and emotional needs in answer to the events that he
or she has experienced? We can choose to wake up humanity in reaction
to the catharsis that tragedy provides, or we can provide solutions for the
“person with a problem” with which we can identify. in Born on the Fourth
of July, ron’s rage is transformed into collective action as he becomes a
leader of the Vietnam Veterans against the War, speaking out against the
war at the democratic national Convention at the end of act iii.
as we can see from the impact of ron Kovic’s ptsd on his mother and
his fellow Vietnam vets, our supporting characters are also affected by the
protagonist’s ptsd. Barbara sourkes, associate professor of pediatrics in
stanford University’s school of Medicine states: “‘there’s no formula, and
it’ll change from person to person.’ the only certainty is that traumatic
events change relationships outside the family as well as within it.”30
posttraumatic stress disorder is something that happens to more people
than just soldiers, and something that happens to men, women, and
children on a daily basis, not just during wartime. Concentration camp
survivors, earthquake, flood, and tornado victims, also suffer from long-
term patterns of behavioral change and life disruption.31 Violence and its
effects are not only found on battlefields.
10 introducing adaptation

in China, Zhang Yimou’s Red Sorghum (China, 1987), based on the

novel by nobel laureate Mo Yan, makes thematic metaphors between
the violence experienced when the Japanese army invades, and domestic
violence. Red Sorghum features a protagonist who faces life with courage
despite her suffering from a tragic fate. Zhang Yimou writes:

Chinese literature emphasizes female protagonists. What it’s most

adept at depicting is primarily women … [W]omen in Chinese
literature are a bit more complex than men. Writers all know that
placing a figure in a complex environment full of obstacles makes
depicting a plot relatively easy.32

rape, abuse, even car accidents can cause ptsd.33 explaining her
motivation for taking part in The Birth of a Nation (Canada/Usa, 2016),
loosely based on the story of nat turner’s slave rebellion which features
a rape, Gabrielle Union states, “posttraumatic stress syndrome is very real
and chips away at the soul and sanity of so many of us who have survived
sexual violence.”34
The New York Times reports that worldwide, women “ages 15 to 44
are more likely to die or be maimed as a result of male violence than as
a consequence of war, cancer, malaria and traffic accidents combined.”35
Manju Borah’s assamese adaptation Dau Huduni Methai (Song of the
Horned Owl, india, 2015), based on the novel Dao Hudur Gaan by
rashmirekha Bora, tells the story of separatist violence in the Bodo
community after World War ii from the perspective of a rape victim.
according to rainn (rape, abuse and incest national network)’s
website, one out of every six american women and about three percent
of american men have been victims of rape.36 Films like Monster (Usa,
2003), an adaptation of the story of aileen Wuornos, a prostitute-turned-
serial-killer seeking revenge for a lifetime of abuse, certainly belong on
our ptsd list. sticking your thumb out to hitch a ride from strangers
looking for sex can lead to just as much trauma as pointing a gun at the
enemy on a front line.
Healing from what we now know as ptsd, Gerald nicosia explains
in his book, Home to War, is dependent on what Chaim shatan called
“society’s ‘moral acceptance,’ … an embracing of each veteran’s physical
and emotional needs” and “some form of political or moral activism.”37
storytelling can play a big part in informing society of the truths that lead
to social justice, whether or not your screenplay overtly addresses social
activism. For example, the academy award-winning original screenplay
for The Hurt Locker (Usa, 2008) came into being because of Mark Boals’
personal experiences working with a bomb squad in iraq.38 While The
Hurt Locker isn’t as political as Born on the Fourth of July, it gets the
feelings that individual soldiers experience in iraq out into the public
awareness as much as the dewey Canyon demonstration of 1971, where
one Vietnam vet stood at the microphone and said, “i have only one thing
to say to the Vietnamese people…oh, God, God, i’m sorry.”39
 Creative issues 11

samuel Beckett once wrote, “every word is a stain upon silence.” By

breaking through silence and living to tell stories of those who have suffered
ptsd, you are helping those people, their loved ones, their communities,
our societies, our nations, our world, and our universe to heal.
there are six basic steps to healing from ptsd:

1 exploring the impact: acknowledging that it happened and how

it changed you.
2 reducing self-blame (such as no longer believing that standing at
a bus stop late at night in a short dress led to rape).
3 Changing the story – creating a new narrative with self as survivor
rather than as victim. re-examining the event in a very different
way that is personal.
4 reducing the biological response to having been terrified by
talking/walking the event over and over until it loses its power.
re-teaching the body to calm down usually involves relaxation
techniques such as meditation. then one can deal with avoidance.
5 talking to friends to understand the meaning and impact (part
of processing).
6 realizing a plateau of safety to open up about whatever
happened.40

all of these steps (though not necessarily in a step-by-step order) are

part of the process of catharsis and letting go.
in the following example, step 3 is personified by the Mentor/Crone
figure of a grandmother, giving advice to Marjane as they prepare for bed
in the privacy of a house surrounded by the iran–iraqi War. the night
before Marjane satrapi’s parents send her out of iran for safe-keeping
in europe in Marjane satrapi and Vincent paronnaud’s film Persepolis,
her grandmother tells her, “nothing ever comes of bitterness.” the
grandmother recognizes that Marjane, on the brink of puberty, may be
leaving the bloodshed and gender oppression of her country behind,
but is likely to face other obstacles in her journey through life, including
heartache, illness, and discrimination.
discussing Persepolis, based on her autobiographical graphic novel,
satrapi states:

We didn’t want the movie to become a political, or historical, or

sociological statement; it was more a story of a person. so we tried to
do it in a form; for example, anytime there was something about the
history, we made it like a puppet scene. the politics are very much
a puppet game to start with, but these scenes are also the visions of
somebody who hears things, who imagines things … it’s a question
of rhythm, of equilibrium, and of never forgetting the human aspect,
because before everything, the story is the story of one person. that’s
why it becomes universal, because it’s very easy to relate to one
person, and it’s impossible to relate to a nation.41
12 introducing adaptation

Falling asleep in the safety of one’s grandmother’s loving arms

transcends national boundaries.
in the article “Following a script to escape a nightmare,” sarah
Kershaw interviews dr. Barry Krakow, who founded the ptsd sleep
Clinic of the Maimonides sleep arts and sciences Center. dr. Krakow
says the rate of adults reporting experiencing nightmares “is as high
as 90 percent among groups like combat veterans and rape victims.”42
Using a technique called scripting to rewrite ptsd nightmares while
awake, his patients come up with new dreams to replace the nightmares.
essentially, this is something that screenwriters can do to help societies to
heal. Kershaw states, “Hollywood has even produced its own spin on the
idea of controlling dreams … with Inception, a thriller whose plot swirls
through the darkest layers of the dream world.”43
the centuries-old tibetan practice of training the mind through lucid
dreaming to make positive choices in life has many implications for the
screenwriter seeking teachers and truths for guidance. as tenzin Wangyal
rinpoche states, describing the yoga of dreaming:

dreams of clarity may occasionally arise for anyone, but they are not
common until the practice is developed and stable. … the dream
of clarity includes more objective knowledge, which arises from
collective karmic traces and is available to consciousness when it is
not entangled in personal karmic traces. the consciousness is then
not bound by space and time and personal history, and the dreamer
can meet with real beings, receive teachings from real teachers, and
find information helpful to others as well as to him or herself.44

Writing practice has a lot to learn from these methods of dream

practice. By practicing your writing on a regular basis – which may
include keeping a dream journal and developing lucid dreams as well
as freewriting and learning the discipline of screenwriting craft and its
necessary revisions – you are much more likely to become capable of
writing with the clarity needed by your audiences for understanding the
visions you are tackling. that lucidity is also needed if you want to use
the writing process for healing.

original writing versus Adaptation

denise Levertov has compared the writing process to the labor of
birthing, the consequences of conception, and the birth of the poet: out of
her slides a poem, “the remote consequence of a dream of his, acted out
nine months before, the rhythm that became words, the words that were
spoken, written down,” which the poet uses “to call out to the world with
what he finds is his voice.”45 For screenwriters of adaptations, the process
may be less painful in terms of conception and labor, but may carry all the
stigma of step-parenting when it comes to bringing up the project so that
it can go out into the world and survive its production and distribution.
 Creative issues 13

Beginning with arguably the very first fiction film adaptation – alice
Guy-Blaché’s The Cabbage Fairy (France, 1896), based on a French myth
about babies brought to life by a fairy in a cabbage patch46 – filmmakers
have also addressed the issue of birthing in their films. dutch-born
screenwriter Menno Meyjes’ adaptation of alice Walker’s pulitzer prize-
winning novel, The Color Purple (Usa, 1985) begins with the birth of a
baby that is snatched away by her father, who had incestuously forced
her to conceive it. Julie dash’s beautiful and original Daughters of the
Dust (Usa/UK, 1991), which preceded her novelization when the film
became a classic, is narrated by Unborn Child, who cryptically says, “i
am the silence that you cannot understand; i am the utterance of my
name,”47 in contrast to the talkative baby, who’s funny both in utero and
without, voiced by Bruce Willis in amy Heckerling’s blockbuster hit,
Look Who’s Talking (Usa, 1989), which later inspired the aBC sitcom,
Baby Talk, adapted by ed Weinberger.48 the baby in utero who narrates
the opening of Volker schlöndorff ’s The Tin Drum (Die Brechtrommel,
West Germany/France/poland/Yugoslavia, 1979), adapted from the
nobel prize-winning novel by Günther Grass, is so horrified by the
nazi era into which he tumbles out of the uterus, that he refuses to
grow up physically beyond the age of three, despite his high iQ. His
consciousness and his drum allow this boyish-looking, heavy-hearted
intellect to sound the alarm about the abuses of humanity surrounding
him, which schlöndorff and Grass so brilliantly portray through the
visual setting and narrative.49
Compared to the short description of less than a page in Mary shelley’s
early nineteenth-century novel, in which dr. Frankenstein anxiously
“collected the instruments of life around me, that i might infuse a spark
of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet,”50 then rushes out
of the room in horror soon after seeing the monster move, Kenneth
Branagh’s birthing of the monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (Usa/
Japan/UK, 1994) is a never-ending tour de force of technology combined
with whirlwind performances by both doctor and monster. extending
the birth as a series of technological steps was already evident in James
Whales’ 1931 Frankenstein, starring Boris Karloff, which Mel Brooks
made fun of in Young Frankenstein (Usa, 1974); tim Burton parodied
the birth by making a nerdy science student patch together his dead
dog to revive it with a lightning bolt in Frankenweenie (Usa, 2012).51
But where did Mary shelley’s idea come from? in this era of clones
and test-tube babies, could these ideas be taken in new directions in
future adaptations, instead of the conceptual rehash of films like Victor
Frankenstein (Usa/UK/Canada, 2015),52 which teems with special effects
but offers little substance?
some of Mary shelley’s story was inspired by the ghost story-telling
marathon that her husband, the great romantic poet percy Bysshe shelley
and their friend, the poet Lord Byron launched by the fireside during the
summer nights of 1816, challenging her to top the German ghost stories
they’d been telling.53 these may have included Vathek, an Arabian Tale,
14 introducing adaptation

Figure 1.3 House of Frankenstein, directed by erle C. Kenton, written by edward

t. Lowe Jr. (Usa, 1944), based on Mary shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern
Prometheus. image courtesy of Universal pictures

an exotic story of a Caliph insatiable for knowledge beyond the humanly

possible,54 and Der Golem. in the Bible, the Golem is a shapeless mass
of clay.55 as the title of the first edition of shelley’s novel indicates –
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus56 – some of the story is based on
the ancient Greek myth of prometheus, the titan who created mankind
out of clay, as well.
according to talmudic legend, “adam is called ‘golem,’ meaning
‘body without a soul’ (sanhedrin 38b) for the first 12 hours of his
existence.”57 Versions of the story of the Golem date back as far as
sixteenth-century prague.58 in recent years, the most famous retelling of
“the Golem” in literature is that of nobel prize-winner isaac Bashevis
singer, whose story was first published in Yiddish in 1969, with the
english translation first appearing in 1982. in singer’s version, rabbi
Leib sculpts the golem out of clay, and brings it to life by engraving the
Hebrew characters for the name of God on its forehead. Later, when the
golem is helping the rabbi to save his people from being destroyed, he
is sleepless with the fear that he has not deserved the “great power …
granted to him from heaven.”59

He also felt a kind of compassion for the golem. the rabbi thought he
saw an expression of perplexity in the golem’s eyes. it seemed to the
rabbi that his eyes were asking, “Who am i? Why am i here? What is
the secret of my being?”60

the cemetery where the actual rabbi Löw (1513–1609) is buried

– which i filmed in prague for a documentary about my roots61 – was
depicted in an early Golem film, paul Wegener’s Der Golem (Germany,
1915), based on austrian author Gustav Meyrink’s 1915 novel of the
 Creative issues 15

same name.62 Wegener also made a 1917 film entitled The Golem and the
Dancing Girl.
Wegener’s third Golem film, The Golem: How He Came Into the
World (Germany, 1920) was a big hit in new York, inspiring the making
of James Whales’ american blockbuster, Frankenstein (Usa, 1931)
(although edison studios had already released a short film, Frankenstein,
in 1910). While in the ancient Greek myth Zeus punished prometheus for
giving the gift of fire to mankind, Whale’s Frankenstein features a monster
destroyed by a mob reminiscent of the pogroms of europe (although the
village in the 1931 Frankenstein is set in switzerland, not Germany), or
the lynch mobs of the american south. ironically, the image of the Jewish
star that ends Wegener’s pro-semitic film was later appropriated as the
opening image of the nazi propaganda film, Jud Süss (Jew Süss, Germany,
1940), “as if to present itself as a sequel.”63 in Jud Süss, however, the anti-
semitic and propagandistic storyline features Jews forced into exile, and
rabbi Löw is reduced to a vain stereotype.
there have been many other Golem-inspired stories and films, ranging
from “the sorcerer’s apprentice” in disney’s Fantasia (Usa, 1940),
although Mickey Mouse’s chores undertaken by a broom which comes to
life is more directly adapted from Goethe’s poem “der Zauberlehrling”
(“the sorcerer’s apprentice”) than “the Golem,” to more recently,
videogames. in amos Gitai’s Birth of a Golem (Naissance d’un golem:
Carnet de notes, France, 1990), the Golem, played by annie Lennox of
the eurythmics, muses on “a film made like a Golem,” making filmic
creation an open question for filmmakers.64
not only can we ask how stories like “the Golem” and “prometheus”
transform into new Frankensteins and Frankenstein-related films like
Blade Runner (Usa, 1982) and The Matrix (Usa/australia, 1999),
television programs, and virtual reality shows, but how can we apply the
lessons of these stories to the problems of our world today? isaac Bashevis
singer has stated, “i am not exaggerating when i say that the golem story
appears less obsolete today than it seemed one hundred years ago. What
are computers and robots of our time if not golems?”65
Quite possibly, the personal anguish that Mary shelley felt from having
recently suffered from the miscarriage of her third baby also made its
way into the heartfelt sufferings of the monster that wasn’t meant to live.
according to susan tyler Hitchcock, the guilt of not giving her first baby
a name before it died “was a major influence on the monster remaining
nameless.”66 the fact that Mary shelley was born to a mother who died
from childbirth complications may have impelled her to deal with the
idea of birth as a traumatic event. Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft,
author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) and a novelist,
also may have inspired her daughter, even from beyond the grave, with
the legacies of creativity as well as cogent arguments for the civil rights
of the other.
towards the end of Mary shelley’s novel, dr. Frankenstein’s friend
Walton writes in a letter,
16 introducing adaptation

Frankenstein discovered that i made notes concerning his history: he

asked to see them, and then himself corrected and augmented them
in many places; but principally in giving the life and spirit to the
conversations he held with his enemy. “since you have preserved my
narration,” said he, “i would note that a mutilated one should go
down to posterity.”

What would Victor Frankenstein and the monster he created have made
of the many different Frankenstein adaptations and remakes that have
become part and parcel of film history, and the test-tube babies, robots,
and clones that are some of the newest creations of our technical era?

writer as character
Many adaptations have featured central characters for whom the creation
of a literary career and/or writing itself is a central focus to their lives,
including Adaptation, in which a screenwriter struggles to adapt an
article about orchids from The New Yorker magazine;67 An Angel at My
Table (new Zealand/australia/UK/Usa, 1990), written by australian
screenwriter Laura Jones and based on the three autobiographies of new
Zealand’s best known author, Janet Frame; The Basketball Diaries (Usa,
1995), about a writer struggling with heroin addiction; Gone Girl (Usa,
2014), a thriller about a writer who concocts a “real-life” plot which fakes
her suicide in order to frame her husband, who’s also a writer; Harriet the
Spy (Usa, 1996), based on Louise Fitzhugh’s classic children’s novel;68
The Help (Usa/india/United arab emirates, 2011), which deals with the
personal dangers and triumphs of writing about civil rights in Mississippi
during the 1960s; Midnight in Paris (spain/Usa/France, 2011), an original
story in which a screenwriter jumps back in time to the cultural mecca for
american expatriates – such as F. scott Fitzgerald, ernest Hemingway, and
Gertrude stein – that was paris in the 1920s; Misery (Usa, 1990), about
a writer struggling to survive his capture by a crazed fan; Moulin Rouge!
(Usa/australia, 2001), about a young writer’s love affair with a courtesan
in the heart of a hedonistic paris; Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (Usa/
Canada, 1994), a biopic of dorothy parker, the wittiest writer of new
York’s algonquin round table; My Brilliant Career (australia, 1979),
which tells the story of a young girl from the outback of australia who
chooses getting her novel published over getting married in the outback;
Il Postino (italy, 1994), a fictionalized episode in the life of the exiled
Chilean poet, pablo neruda;69 Precious (Usa, 2009), in which the quest
for literacy and self-expression in Harlem brings self-worth and personal
empowerment; Shakespeare in Love (Usa, 1998), in which a fictionalized
shakespeare comes up with the story of romeo and Juliet; Total Eclipse
(UK/France/Belgium, 1995), about the tempestuous relationship between
the nineteenth-century French poets, paul Verlaine and arthur rimbaud;
and Tune in Tomorrow (Usa, 1990), an adaptation of peruvian nobel
prize-winner Mario Vargas Llosa’s novel, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter.
 Creative issues 17

there’s a monster in the psychological suspense thriller Misery (Usa,

1990) – the writer’s crazed fan, annie Wilkes, played by Kathy Bates.
the character of annie was inspired in part when stephen King was
asked for his autograph by John Lennon’s assassin, Mark Chapman, who
told the author he was his “number one fan.”70 Unlike Frankenstein’s
monster, annie is not the creation of King’s fictional author/protagonist
paul sheldon, who has created a series of romance novels that he finds
monstrous enough in their superficiality that he longs to write something
more realistic. author stephen King wasn’t necessarily going for realism
in creating annie, however:

i’m sitting at the word processor and i can remember so clearly,

thinking, “oK, you set this up and sure she’s nasty and she’s
unpleasant but she must have a good side because everybody has a
good side.” and then this voice rose up inside me and said, “Why
does she have to have a good side? if she’s crazy go ahead, make her
a monster! she’s a human being but let her be a monster if that’s what
she wants to be,” and it was such a relief!71

the monstrosity of annie’s character has been further developed by

screenwriter William Goldman and director rob reiner to maximize
the pathology, while at the same time making her seem like a normal
person to maximize the moments of horror when she explodes into
rage.72 Goldman, who wrote the part of annie specifically for actress
Kathy Bates, also toned down the gore to make the film more palatable
for audiences, as well as to emphasize the film’s theme, which reiner
describes as “a man struggling to grow as an artist.”73 reiner explains the
scene in which paul is hobbled in order to make it impossible for him to
escape annie’s clutches:

in the book, she hacks the foot off with an axe, and then cauterizes
it with a blowtorch. nice! But what i wanted to say in that scene was
that in order to grow you have [to] go through pain. so we ended
up using the ankle break, with the guy still going through a lot of
pain but coming out whole in the end. Conceivably, more whole than
when he went in.74

additionally, actor Warren Beatty, who was interested in playing the

part of the writer, worked with Goldman to make paul’s character less
passive.75 and, as Goldman explains, Castle rock, reiner’s production
company, sat with reiner “for weeks talking about [the] screenplay, which
very few directors and almost no executives will or can do. and i mean
really going over it, sentence by sentence by sentence.”76 Goldman’s script
shared with its protagonist a formidable resilience.
part of what drew rob reiner to undertake a second stephen King
adaptation after Stand By Me was his identification with Misery’s paul
sheldon, a creative artist in need of a new challenge. this identification
18 introducing adaptation

is something the original author felt deeply, too: as reiner describes it,
King was eager to take on a project that would allow him to be perceived
by the masses as something other than “some schlocky horror writer.”77
Hollywood was pressuring reiner to do another show just like reiner’s
mega-successful hit, All in the Family. “that’s what attracted me to Misery,”
said reiner. “that terrible fear you have when you go through a change.”78
But stephen King lauds the film adaptation that resulted.

if there’s a flaw, it’s that the movie never quite explains writer paul
sheldon’s salvation – his imagination. i got a peek at Goldman’s
original script, which would have allowed viewers to explore the
writer’s mind.79

in King’s novel, we are treated to an interior monologue the voice-over

adaptation of which would certainly slow down the tantalizing action, no
matter how intrinsically compelling:

oh why in Christ’s name are you doing this asshole Horatio-at-the-

bridge act and who in Christ’s name are you trying to impress? do
you think this is a movie or a tV show and you are getting graded
by some audience on your bravery? You can do what she wants or
you can hold out. if you hold out you’ll die and then she’ll burn the
manuscript anyway. so what are you going to do, lie here and suffer
for a book that would sell half as many copies as the least successful
Misery book you ever wrote; and which peter prescott would shit
upon in his finest genteel disparaging manner when he reviewed it for
that great literary oracle, newsweek?80

the novel can afford the luxury of extensive defiance, a chapter break
to heighten the suspense, and even paul’s inability to light a match.
instead, in Goldman’s script of Misery:

For a moment – nothing – and then, Ka-BooM, the goddam thing

practically explodes and81

… because a blockbuster hit demands quick action.

Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! (Usa/australia, 2001) provides a
kaleidoscope of action and appropriation in its writing, dancing, and
lovemaking scenes, fueled cinematically by the inspiration of Bollywood
musical numbers. addressing the musical genre, Luhrmann states,

people want to see music and story work together … and i think
we’ve got the cinematic language. Music unites us. it transcends
time and geography and unites us no matter what our backgrounds.
definitely, music has a power beyond our literal understanding. now
if you can collude that with the act of storytelling, it is a powerful and
unstoppable force.82
 Creative issues 19

several Moulin Rouge movies were produced before Luhrmann’s –

one in the Us (1934), one in France (1940), and two in the UK (1928
and 1952) – but those don’t utilize mashups (such as “diamonds are a
Girl’s Best Friend,” from the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, mashed with
Madonna’s “Material Girl”)83 or borrow its characters and plot elements
from operas (puccini’s La Bohème and Verdi’s La Traviata), let alone the
ancient Greek myth of orpheus and eurydice.
Moulin Rouge! tells the story of a British writer in love with satine, the
beautiful but consumptive courtesan who presides at the Moulin rouge
nightclub in 1899 paris. Luhrmann makes the most of an analogy between
the avant-garde artists of the bohemian era such as Henri de toulouse-
Lautrec, and the pop culture of andy Warhol’s time, by juxtaposing turn-
of-the-century French characters with late twentieth-century music from
the Us and UK. “[t]he whole idea of where we are today started to come
from this extraordinary time and place,” said Luhrmann. “so i had the
desire to recapture that spirit.”84
in a game of intertextual scrabble, it is possible to take some of
Luhrmann’s sources into directions of their own. For example, La
Bohème, the 1896 opera by puccini which was in turn adapted from a
loosely constructed novel, Henri Murger’s Scènes de la vie de bohème,85
– which Murger adapted with théodore Barrière into a play in 1849 –
provided Luhrmann with his poor, starving bohemian artist characters.
La Bohème was also adapted several times in its own right, including the
Broadway musical Rent, which updated tuberculosis into aids and reset
the story in new York’s east Village. the musical was in turn adapted into
the film Rent (Usa, 2005), although earlier adaptations of La Bohème had
already been produced, including La Bohème (Usa, 1926) starring Lillian
Gish and Mimi (UK, 1935), both set in nineteenth-century paris.
From La Traviata (The Fallen Woman), the 1853 opera by Giuseppe
Verdi, co-screenwriters Baz Luhrmann and Craig pearce took the storyline
of the consumptive courtesan whose struggle to choose between a young
bourgeois admirer and a rich, unfeeling Baron lead to her demise. in act
ii, scene 3, the Baron’s rival alfredo sings:

i have called you here as witnesses that i have paid her all i owe.
(With furious contempt, he throws a purse down at Violetta’s feet. Violetta
faints in the arms of Flora …)

Baz Luhrmann and Craig pearce’s homage to La Traviata manifests in

their screenplay as:
CLoSE on: Christian. Gazing down at the crumpled distraught
form of Satine he throws the money he still clutches at
her. His words are a simple cold whisper.
20 introducing adaptation

CHRiSTian (cont’d):
i have paid my debt. i owe you nothing
and you are nothing to me. Thank
you for curing me of my ridiculous
obsession with love.

But wait! La Traviata was itself an adaptation of a play written just

one year earlier, that was based on the great French novelist alexandre
dumas’s semi-autobiographical La Dame aux Camélias.86 the novel and
play – about the tragic love of a consumptive courtesan – gave rise to
a host of Camille’s (most notably the 1915 version adapted by Frances
Marion and the 1936 version starring Greta Garbo) well before the opera
itself was faithfully though subtly truncated into a film adaptation by the
great italian director, Franco Zeffirelli (italy, 1983). erich segal’s best-
selling novel Love Story reset the story in contemporary new York; it
became a blockbuster hit.87
in her novel, The Art of Joy, Goliarda sapienza’s protagonist writes
about a “rat of aesthetics” that is ready to gnaw at her skeleton.

just a few more instants of unawareness would have made me fall

from reality into the grip of the “artist” drug – a drug more potent
than morphine and religion.88

the tornado of contemporary mashups, operatic plot twists, the music

of orpheus from ancient Greece, musicals from Bollywood, and the
bohemian lifestyle and artistic style of toulouse-Lautrec, and his circle in
turn-of-the-century paris, would carry us away if it weren’t for Luhrmann
and pearce’s wannabe writer, Christian. His simplicity grounds us even
when he himself is swept off his feet by love. Like the eye of a storm,
however, this character is a bit empty, even if we can relate to Christian
better than to the rats that we can imagine gnawing away in the shadows
of his writer’s garret.
Less likeable but more fascinating is the radio soap opera-writing
character of pedro Camacho in nobel prize-winner Mario Vargas Llosa’s
novel Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter,89 which turns the idea of soap opera
writing by a Bolivian in peru into a high comedic art form. the radio
soap operas are made all the more absurd as Vargas Llosa alternates their
synopses with a largely autobiographical love story about an aspiring young
writer and his all-too-experienced aunt, whose romance pedro mines for
dialogue and storylines. as pedro’s plots become more and more fantastical
and pedro himself become more and more deranged, the protagonist of his
soap operas morphs into an exterminator, literally beset by rats. Looking
back at what drew him to his subject matter, Vargas Llosa writes:

in spite of the fact that soap operas are such a distortion of real
life, of reality, these melodramas have more influence in real life –
at least more visible influence on the attitudes of the people – than
 Creative issues 21

creative literature. radio and television serials have a tremendous

impact on the way people think, act, and function in life. therefore,
it can be said in Latin america, in peru, the literature that is most
representative of real life, of real reality, is not creative literature – the
great achievement of the intellect – but the popular genres.90

Less popular was the film adaptation of Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter,
known in the Us as Tune in Tomorrow (Usa, 1990). resetting the story
in new orleans, screenwriter William Boyd lacked the courage to take
the story to the end of the line, leaving pedro’s character, played by
peter Falk, amusingly multi-faceted yet superficial, without the degree
of abandonment into insanity with which Vargas Llosa horrifies Marito,
who considers pedro Camacho to be the ultimate role model for a writer.
nevertheless, Tune in Tomorrow’s pedro Carmichael does his best to
encourage his mentee:

PEdRo CaRMiCHaEL:(to Martin)

There’s an army of them out there,
groping blindly, toiling in the
darkness, waiting. For what? For you.
For your incandescent, brilliant,
palpitating talent to light up their
miserable, impoverished, dull and
worthless lives.91

embarrassingly enough, Boyd exchanges the intense rivalry between

Latin american countries – peru, where the novel is set; Bolivia, the
homeland of the novel’s soap opera writer; and argentina, the country
which fuels the soap opera writer’s lurid hatred – by switching the object
of pedro’s hatred to albania. albania is far too abstract for american
audiences (although twenty years after the movie was made, there is now
an active albanian Mafia ripe for comedifying), and is far removed from
the racism that white new orleans of the 1950s would have displayed
towards its black and Creole citizens in a more provocative adaptation.
it’s the “safe” choice, which makes it so forgettable.
the novel Push by sapphire and its academy award-winning screenplay
adaptation written by Geoffrey Fletcher, Precious, are more memorable
for many reasons. one is the process by which the book came into being;
another is its use of writing in the storyline – both in the protagonist’s
love of literature by Langston Hughes and alice Walker, author of The
Color Purple, and in precious’s quest for literacy and self-expression. Push
and The Color Purple share similar storylines of an underage african-
american girl considered ugly by her family, whose father makes her
pregnant through incest, twice, and how this girl grows into adulthood
and eventually heals. However, in the case of Push, while the protagonist
heals emotionally and spiritually like Celie of The Color Purple, precious
is dying of aids.
22 introducing adaptation

sapphire, the author of Push, interweaves african-american writers

throughout this novel about learning to read and write for the sake
of transformation and survival. Unlike Marito’s imaginative, well-
educated antics in Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, precious starts her
autobiographical account struggling to get ebonics onto the page in order
to write down her reality:

some people tell a story ‘n it don’t make no sense or be true. But i’m
gonna try to make sense and tell the truth, else what’s the fucking
use? ain’ enough lies and shit out there already?92

Like Vargas Llosa’s characters, however, sapphire’s precious is

also preoccupied by mass media, frequently referencing television
commercials, movies, and stars. When precious’s father is raping her, she
survives the ordeal by imagining she is somewhere else – walking the
red carpet, bestowing autographs to adoring fans – instead of a dismal
tenement in Harlem, her insides burning with pain mixed with pleasure.
the film deletes the pleasure: so far, few Hollywood movies have catered
to addressing women’s sexual needs, which are especially complex in
Push. she stares at the wall:

till wall is a movie, Wizard of oz, i can make that one play anytime.
Michael Jackson, scarecrow. then my body take me over again, like
shocks after earthquake, shiver me, i come again. My body not mine,
i hate it coming.93

then afterwards, she takes out her father’s razor and cuts her arm:

trying to plug myself back in. i am a tV set wif no picture. i am

broke wif no mind. no past or present time. only the movies of being
someone else. someone not fat, dark skin, short hair, someone not
fucked. a pink virgin girl. a girl like Janet Jackson, a sexy girl don’t
know one get to fuck. a girl for value.94

the movie makes a big deal of these fantasy scenes, relegating the
reality of sexual abuse into short blurry shots that can bypass an “X”-
rating, instead adding MtV-style obese-can-be-beautiful dance montages.
at the same time, Fletcher’s adaptation ignores other potential montage
scenes, such as when precious fantasizes about life with her children. But
this is part of its commercial appeal to young girls who have been so
brainwashed in our society to deal with lookism above all, and it does have
its benefits in keeping the movie from being too bleak to hook mainstream
audiences. it also deletes the colorism issue, in which precious fantasizes
that she has light skin, which makes her more beautiful. only as the novel
progresses do we see precious coming to understand her own inner beauty,
as she becomes better educated through reading Langston Hughes, alice
Walker, and other african-american writers. the protagonist’s view of
 Creative issues 23

alice Walker is expressed several times, such as when precious says, “i

love The Color Purple, that book give me so much strength.”95
The Color Purple not only gave the character of precious her strength,
it gave the author sapphire the basic underpinnings of her novel Push:
both the protagonists of The Color Purple and Push are underage girls
who’ve had two children by her own father, and both are vilified by
their mothers for this incest rather than offered commiseration, safety,
or support. Both girls speak and write an ebonics appropriate to their
background, educational level, and predominantly black environments.
Both girls transform their lives through reading and writing. in the
case of The Color Purple, Celie survives her isolation and abuse when her
sister and children are wrenched away from her by writing letters to God.
eventually a heartfelt correspondence ensues between the two sisters –
Celie in the rural south, and nettie in africa, where she has become a
missionary. this storyline survives in spielberg’s oscar-nominated film
adaptation of The Color Purple written by dutch-born screenwriter
Menno Meyjes. in the case of Push, literacy is a monumental arc
accomplished through precious’s writing journal full of poetry and self-
discovery, and from reading The Color Purple itself. precious is ecstatic
with excitement when, after finding herself and her baby homeless, she
spends “one niGHt in LanGston HUGHes’ HoUse He Use to
LiVe in. Me and abdul in the dream Keeper’s house!”96 this major
literary event, in which precious is saved from having to spend a night
in the streets by an opportunity to stay in the great Harlem renaissance
writer’s house – is changed in the film to a night in the guestroom of
her teacher. But movies aren’t literary shrines: by developing and
dramatizing the teacher’s loving relationship with another woman – one
who doesn’t exist in the book – Fletcher is able to address precious’s
overcoming homophobia without having to mention a subplot of the
book that focuses on Louis Farrakhan. even though eventually precious’s
arc takes her well beyond idolizing Farrakhan, Jews might have walked
out, not waiting for the novel’s equivalent of an act iii, where precious’s
education has moved her beyond unquestioning devotion towards the
anti-semitic, anti-gay leader.97
the novel Push ends with 35 pages of poems and journal entries by
precious’ classmates, who have their own stories to share – some of which
Fletcher morphs into supporting characters’ events in his adaptation.
instead, Fletcher succeeds in bringing precious’s conflict with her mother
over child support, welfare payments, and the backstory of her abuse to a
head at the end of act iii. although the film ends knowing that precious
has aids, she informs her social worker that she has also scored high
enough on her tests in school that she will be headed to college. precious
has become firm in her feelings of self-worth and her ability to persevere
as a result of her writing experiences.
Writing is also intrinsic to the characters of Gillian Flynn’s novel and
screenplay, Gone Girl.98 in this he-said, she-said, and he-wrote, she-
wrote thriller, the intertwining imaginations and realities of unemployed
24 introducing adaptation

Figure 1.4 in this scene from Precious (Usa, 2009), winner of the 2010 academy
award for Best adapted screenplay, precious (played by Gabourey sidibe) meets
with her social worker, Ms. Weiss (played by Mariah Carey). image courtesy of
Lionsgate. produced by Lionsgate

writers nick and amy wreak havoc with each other’s lives. as in Misery,
the screenplay leaves out some of the interior monologue reflections
on writing, such as nick’s self-conscious thinking while choosing
business-casual slacks to wear to the press conference to announce the
disappearance of his wife:

it would make an interesting essay, i thought, picking out appropriate

clothes when a loved one goes missing. the greedy, angle-hungry
writer in me, impossible to turn off.99

But being writers is also intrinsic to the plot. nick losing his job as
a writer in new York and amy’s trust fund from her parents’ wildly
successful children’s books that rip off her childhood are what make
it possible for them to get up and go when the inciting incident of
nick’s mother getting cancer propels them on their journey. as nick
contemplates the bankrupt mall back in small-town Missouri, feeling
emotionally bankrupt himself, he intellectualizes about our “ruinously
derivative” society:

i can’t recall a single amazing thing i have seen firsthand that i didn’t
immediately reference to a movie or tV show … You know the awful
singsong of the blasé: seeeen it. i’ve literally seen it all, and the worst
thing, the thing that makes me want to blow my brains out, is: the
secondhand experience is always better.100

a cynical thought for Flynn’s character nick, but one with a happy
ending for Flynn herself, who had spent ten years reviewing television
and films for Entertainment Weekly prior to becoming a novelist: the
 Creative issues 25

adaptation rights of her best-selling novel Gone Girl sold for $1.5
million.101 twentieth-Century Fox kept her aboard as sole screenwriter to
a film that would go on to make over $300 million.102
Being writers is intrinsic to Flynn’s characters nick and amy’s
conjoined plots. amy has perfectly crafted a fictionalized diary in order
to send her adulterous husband to the electric chair, and most of the film
shows us its effects. Both husband and wife want to capitalize on their
versions by the story’s end; however amy makes nick delete his version
from his laptop in order to perpetuate the illusion of a happy marriage
and to hide her success as a murderer.
in contrast, the theme of writing that makes Brazilian writer Clarice
Lispector’s novel A hora da estrela (Hour of the Star) so aesthetically
compelling and philosophically iridescent is entirely missing in its film
adaptation. the story of Macabéa, a young woman from the poverty-
ridden north-east of Brazil who makes her way to the slums of rio
de Janeiro in search of some kind of a life, is narrated by a character
named rodrigo s.M., who agonizes about how to tell Macabéa’s story
with meaning and integrity. rather than hustle through the steps of her
“Hero’s Journey,” Lispector, through the veil of rodrigo, presents us with
two sets of parentheses back to back:

(i am having a hellish time with this story. May the Gods never decree
that i should write about a leper, for then i should become covered in
leprosy.) (i am delaying the events that i can vaguely foresee, simply
because i need to make several portraits of this girl from alagoas.
also because if anyone should read this story, i’d like them to absorb
this young woman like a cloth soaked in water. the girl embodies a
truth i was anxious to avoid. i don’t know whom i can blame, but
someone is to blame.)103

Later, when Macabéa’s death is imminent – having been run over by

a Mercedes – we feel that this protagonist has been betrayed, because
earlier in the threadbare story, this simple, poverty-stricken character
without any special features to commend her (not even the un-made-up
beauty of robert Bresson’s Mouchette [France, 1967]) is set up as follows:

the only thing she desired was to live. she could not explain, for she
didn’t probe her situation.104

as someone places a candle beside her body, the narrator comments,

again parenthetically:

(i give the bare essentials, enhancing them with pomp, jewels and
splendour. is this how one should write? no, not by accretion but
rather by denudation. But i am frightened of nakedness, for that is
the final word.)105
26 introducing adaptation

suzana amaral’s film adaptation of A hora da estrela (Brazil, 1986)

strips the story even further. there is no narrator and seemingly no writer,
only a low budget, documentary-style rendition of Macabéa’s story,
underscoring the protagonist’s poverty. ironically, the story is told with
perfect clarity, the camera replacing the narrator’s doubts as to whether
fiction is capable of truth-telling. indeed, cinematographers’ concerns also
include storytelling. Writer/director agnes Varda credits herself for the
“cinécriture” of her films, working closely with her cinematographers and
sometimes shooting scenes herself as a kind of film-writing.106 recently
the cinematographer Jost Vacano, asC, BVK, successfully fought in the
German courts for greater recognition for his contributions to Wolfgang
petersen’s Das Boot (Germany, 1981), opening up further prospects of
“co-author recognition” to cinematographers in the future, especially as
digital and special effects cinematography is on the increase.107
However, what is left out of the film of Lispector’s novel is worthy
of our exploration of what lies at the heart of adaptation. in Light in the
Dark (Luz en lo oscuro), Gloria e. anzaldúa writes about the role of the
unconscious in reading and creating a work of art, claiming that “a good
fiction or other creation takes her [the writer] out of herself, allowing her
to ‘forget’ herself.”108

Creation is really a rereading and rewriting of reality—a rearrangement

or reordering of preexisting elements.109

Furthermore, anzaldúa states, in order to “decolonize reality,”

We must empower the imagination to blur and transcend customary

frameworks and conceptual categories reinforced by language and
consensual reality. to explore the “cracks between the worlds”
(rendijas, rents in the world), we must see through the holes in reality
(“seeing” is another type of perception).110

in sync with Lispector’s willingness to open up the text to everything

from self-doubt to mystical dimensions, the implications of anzaldúa’s
examination of the writing process has profound implications to the
adaptation process. imagine a collaboration in which the writer whose
work is adapted and the writer who adapts the work serve as soul sisters
(“comadres”) or soul brothers, whether working at the computer, or in
front of or behind the camera.

notes
1 Charles thomas samuels, “Francois truffaut,” in Encountering Directors,
paris, september 1–3, 1970, accessed august 11, 2016, http://zakka.dk/
euroscreenwriters/interviews/francois_truffaut_529.htm.
2 William Grimes, “robert James Waller, author of ‘the Bridges of Madison
County,’ dies at 77,” New York Times, March 10, 2017, accessed March 12,
2017, https://nyti.ms/2mbUnil.
 Creative issues 27

3 tenzin Wangyal rinpoche, The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep (ithaca,
nY: snow Lion, 1998).
4 Jonathan Gottschall, “story 2.0: the surprising thing about the next Wave
of narrative,” Co-Create, october 27, 2013, accessed august 21, 2017,
www.fastcocreate.com/3020047/story-20-the-surprising-thing-about-the-
next-wave-of-narrative.
5 eleazar M. Meletinsky, The Poetics of Myth, trans. by Guy Lanoue and
alexandre sadetsky (new York: Garland, 1998), 44.
6 shelley Fisher Fishkin, Was Huck Black? Mark Twain and African-American
Voices (oxford: oxford University press, 1994).
7 Friedrich dürrenmatt, The Visit (play) (new York: Grove press, 1962), first
produced in Germany in 1956.
8 Jean-pierre Bekolo, La grammaire de ma grand’mère. interview with writer/
director djibril diop Mbéty on the dVd Hyenas, directed by djibril diop
Mambéty (1992; new York: Kino Video, 1995), dVd; translated for Great
Adaptations by Hamidou soumah.
9 edward Bowden, “reaction to Breathless” (paper, California state University
northridge, northridge, Ca, May 26, 2004).
10 Hélène Cixous, The Newly Born Woman (Minneapolis, Mn: University
Minnesota press, 1986), 92. originally published as La Jeune Née (paris:
Union Générale d’Éditions, 1975).
11 Martha M. Lauzen, “the Celluloid Ceiling: Behind-the-scenes employment
of Women on the top 100, 250, and 500 Films of 2016,” Center for the study
of Women in television and Film, san diego state University, san diego, Ca,
2016, accessed May 31, 2017, www.nywift.org/documents/2016_Celluloid_
Ceiling_report.pdf.
12 Kimberly theidon, Entre Prójimos: el conflicto armado interno y la política
de la reconciliación en el Perú (Lima, peru: iep ediciones, 2004).
13 John edgar Wideman, “russell Means: the profound and outspoken
activist shares some of His Most ardent Convictions,” Modern Maturity,
38(5) (september–october, 1995), 79.
14 paula Gunn allen, The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American
Indian Traditions (Boston, Ma: Beacon press, 1992), 59.
15 Gunn allen, The Sacred Hoop, 59.
16 Gunn allen, The Sacred Hoop, 59.
17 daniel reid, The Shambala Guide to Traditional Chinese Medicine (Boston,
Ma: shambhala publications, 1996), 22.
18 shari Foos, lecture, “narrative Medicine: extracting nuance from Literature,
Media, and each other,” pen Center Usa, Los angeles, July 20, 2013.
19 Brian Boyd, On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction
(Cambridge, Ma: Belknap press of Harvard University press, 2009), 414.
20 Marilyn elias, “posttraumatic stress is a war within for military and
civilians,” USA Today, october 26, 2008, accessed august 16, 2016, 70,
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-10-26-ptsd-main_n.
htm.
21 Kanan Khatau Chikhal, “the trauma of terror: Bt gives you some strategies
to fight posttraumatic stress disorder experienced by many after the recent
terror attacks,” Bombay Times, Times of India, december 2, 2008, 5.
22 patrick Hackeling, “the evolution of posttraumatic stress disorder in
american Cinema and Culture,” Oak Tree, december 23, 2013, accessed
august 24, 2016, https://theoakwheel.wordpress.com/2013/12/23/the-
evolution-of-posttraumatic-stress-disorder-in-american-cinema-and-
culture/.
23 shaibu Husseini, email to author, september 22, 2016.
24 Gerald nicosia, Home to War: A History of the Vietnam Veterans’ Movement
(new York: Crown, 2001), 170.
28 introducing adaptation

25 Chaim shatan, “the Grief of soldiers,” op-ed article, New York Times,
May 6, 1972. discussed in Gerald nicosia, Home to War: A History of the
Vietnam Veterans’ Movement (new York: Crown, 2001), 170.
26 ron Kovic and oliver stone, Born on the Fourth of July, film script (1989),
60.
27 ron Kovic and oliver stone, Born on the Fourth of July, film script (first
draft, 1987), 101.
28 Kovic and stone, Born on the Fourth of July (first draft), 102–103.
29 Kovic and stone, Born on the Fourth of July (first draft), 103–106.
30 Barbara sourkes, quoted in Harriet Brown, “Coping With Crises Close to
someone else’s Heart,” New York Times, august 16, 2010, accessed august
16, 2016, www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/health/views/17essa.html?_r=0.
31 nicosia, Home to War, 203.
32 Law Wai-Ming, “Zhang Yimou’s Black Comedy: The Story of Qiu Ju.” in
Frances Gateward (ed.), Zhang Yimou Interviews (Jackson, Ms: University
press of Mississippi, 2001), 28. First published in City Entertainment: Film
Biweekly, 351 (september 17, 1992), trans. by stephanie deboer.
33 Marilyn elias, “posttraumatic stress is a War within for Military and
Civilians,” USA Today, october 26, 2008, accessed august 16, 2016, 70,
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-10-26-ptsd-main_n.
htm.
34 Gabrielle Union, “‘Birth of a nation’ actress Gabrille Union: i cannot take
nate parker rape allegations lightly,” op-ed, Los Angeles Times, september
3, 2016, accessed september 3, 2016, www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-
oe-union-nate-parker-birth-nation-rape-allegation-20160902-snap-story.
html.
35 nicholas Kristof, “to end the abuse, she Grabbed a Knife,” New York
Times, March 8, 2014, accessed september 22, 2016, www.nytimes.
com/2014/03/09/oinion/sunday/kristof-t-end-the-abuse-she-grabbed-
a=knife.html?emc=edit_nk_20160921&nl=nickkristof&nlid=59804432
&te=1.
36 “scope of the problem: statistics,” rainn (rape, abuse & incest national
network), accessed august 16, 2016, www.rainn.org/statistics/scope-
problem.
37 nicosia, Home to War, 171.
38 Chris abani, Song for Night (new York: akashi Books, 2007). nigerian
novella about an igbo child soldier who’s a mine diffuser, is still waiting for
an adaptation to film or television.
39 nicosia, Home to War, 153.
40 the author is indebted to alison Lewis, Clinical social Worker/therapist,
for the ideas on this list.
41 Marjane satrapi, quoted in Laurie Koh, “the Voice of dissent: Marjane
satrapi draws a revolution in persepolis,” Film Arts: The Magazine of the
Independent Filmmaker (March–april, 2008), 15–16.
42 Barry Krakow, quoted in sarah Kershaw, “Following a script to escape a
nightmare,” New York Times, July 27, 2010, www.nytimes.com/2010/07/27/
health/27night.html?_r=0.
43 Krakow, 2.
44 rinpoche, The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep, 49, 52.
45 denise Levertov, The Poet in the World (new York: new directions, 1960),
107.
46 Jule selbo, “alice Guy (1873–1968).” in Jill nelmes and Jule selbo (eds),
Women Screenwriters: An International Guide (new York: palgrave
Macmillan, 2015), 323.
47 Julie dash, Daughters of the Dust, directed by Julie dash (arlington, Va:
pBs american playhouse, 1991).
 Creative issues 29

48 amy Heckerling, Look Who’s Talking, directed by amy Heckerling (Culver

City, Ca: tristar pictures, 1989).
49 Jean-Claude Carrière, Volker schlöndorff, and Franz seitz, Die Brechtrommel
[The Tin Drum], directed by Volker schlöndorff. produced by Franz seitz
Film, Bioskop Film, artemis Film, Hallelujah Films, GGB-14, argos Films,
and co-produced by Jadran Film and Film polski, 1979.
50 Mary shelley, Frankenstein (Mineola, nY: dover, 1994), 34–35.
51 John august, tim Burton, and Leonard ripps, Frankenweenie, directed by
tim Burton (Burbank, Ca: Walt disney studios Motion pictures, 2010).
52 Max Landis, Victor Frankenstein, directed by paul McGuigan (Los angeles,
Ca: twentieth Century Fox Film, 2015).
53 shelley, Frankenstein, pp. vi–vii.
54 William Beckford, Vathek, an Arabian Tale (1786).
55 Psalms 139:16.
56 Mary shelley, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, 1st edn (London:
Lackington, Hughes, Haring, Mavor & Jones, 1818).
57 alden oreck, “Modern Jewish History: the Golem,” Jewish Virtual Reality,
accessed september 6, 2016, www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/
Golem.html.
58 isaac Bashevis singer, “the Golem is a Myth for our time,” New York
Times, august 12, 1984, accessed september 15, 2016, www.nytimes.
com/1984/08/12/theater/the-golem-is-a-myth-for-our-time.html.
59 isaac Bashevis singer, The Golem (new York: Farrar, straus and Giroux,
1982), 37.
60 singer, The Golem, 37–38.
61 alexis Krasilovsky, Exile (Usa: rafael Film, 1984).
62 Henrik Galeen and paul Wegener, Der Golem (The Golem, Babelsberg,
Germany: Universum Film, 1920).
63 Cathy Gelbin, “narratives of transgression, from Jewish Folktales to German
Cinema,” Kinoeye: New Perspectives on European Film, 3(11), october 13,
2003, accessed september 15, 2016, www.kinoeye.org/03/11/gelbin11.php.
64 amos Gitai, Birth of a Golem, directed by amos Gitai (France: Facets
Multimedia distributions, 1990). produced by agav Films, paris, France.
65 singer, “the Golem is a Myth for our time.”
66 susan tyler Hitchcock, Frankenstein: A Cultural History (new York: W.W.
norton, 2007), 19.
67 susan orlean, The Orchid Thief (new York: Ballantine Books, 1998).
68 Louise Fitzhugh, Harriet the Spy (new York: Harper & row, 1964).
69 Based on the novel by antonio skarmeta, Ardiente Paciencia [Burning
Patience], trans. by Katherine silver (new York: pantheon Books, 1987).
70 nigel Floyd, “reiner reason,” Time Out (May 1–8, 1991), 18.
71 stephen King, quoted in Lynn Flewelling, “interview with stephen
King,” august 1990, accessed March 10, 2011, www.sff.net/people/lynn.
flewelling/s.stephen.king.html. special thanks to student Chris Manask for
the “screenplay adaptation” essay, “stephen King: authors in trouble” and
to rebecca Lombardi for her additional research.
72 stephen King, 19.
73 rob reiner, quoted in nigel Floyd, “reiner reason.”
74 reiner, quoted in nigel Floyd, “reiner reason,” 19.
75 rob reiner, quoted in patrick Goldstein, “rob reiner takes on ‘Misery:
the director follows his hit comedy ‘When Harry Met sally…’ with a chiller,
his second film taken from a stephen King novel,” Los Angeles Times, april
29, 1990, accessed september 24, 2016, http://articles.latimes.com/1990-
04-29/entertainment/ca-538_1_harry-met-sally.
76 William Goldman, quoted in sheila Johnston, “the short Cuts to ‘Misery’;
sheila Johnston talks to William Goldman about rewriting stephen King’s
Misery for film,” Independent (april 26, 1991), 1.
30 introducing adaptation

77 rob reiner, quoted in Betsy sharkey, “‘Misery’s’ Company Loves a Good

time,” New York Times (June 17, 1990), 19.
78 reiner, quoted in Goldstein, “rob reiner takes on ‘Misery,” 21.
79 stephen King, “the reel stephen King,” Entertainment Weekly, 516
(december 10, 1999), 40.
80 stephen King, Misery (new York: signet, 1988), 44.
81 William Goldman, Misery (Beverly Hills, Ca: Castle rock entertainment,
1991), 36.
82 Baz Luhrmann, quoted in serena donadoni, “Moulin rouge: Writer/director
Baz Luhrmann, actress nicole Kidman, and production/costume designer
Catherine Martin – interview by serena donadoni,” “the Cinema Girl,”
2001, accessed March 11, 2014, www.thecinemagirl.com/text/l/luhrmann_
rouge.htm.
83 Joe Burke, Victoria Garrity, and Cara McGonagle, “Moulin Rouge!, the
Musical Genre: an exploration of integrated and non-integrated Films
in the Musical Genre” (blog), accessed september 25, 2016, https://
themusicalgenre.wordpress.com/moulin-rouge/.
84 Luhrmann, quoted in donadoni, “Moulin rouge,” 1.
85 Henri Murger, Scènes de la vie de bohème (paris: Gallimard, 1988, originally
published 1851).
86 alexandre dumas, La Dame aux Camélias (paris: a Cadot, 1848).
87 Love Story, directed by arthur Hiller (Los angeles, Ca: paramount, 1970).
Based on erich segal, Love Story (new York: Harper & row, 1970).
88 Goliarda sapienza, The Art of Joy, trans. by anne Milano appel (new York:
Farrar, straus and Giroux, 2013), 360.
89 Mario Vargas Llosa, La tía Julia y el escribidor (Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter,
Buenas aires: editorial seix Barral, 1977).
90 Mario Vargas Llosa, A Writer’s Reality, Byron i. Lichtblau (ed.) (syracuse,
nY: syracuse University press, 1991), 119.
91 Jon amiel, Tune in Tomorrow (dallas, tX: odyssey, polar entertainment,
1990), transcript of the film, 31:31.
92 sapphire, Push (new York: Vintage Contemporaries, 1997), 3–4.
93 sapphire, Push, 111.
94 sapphire, Push, 112.
95 sapphire, Push, 82.
96 sapphire, Push, 80.
97 sapphire, Push, 81.
98 Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl (new York: Crown, 2012).
99 Flynn, Gone Girl, 58.
100 Flynn, Gone Girl, 72.
101 Christy Khosaba, “Hollywood Film awards: ‘Gone Girl’ Brings Gillian
Flynn new accolades,” Los Angeles Times, november 15, 2014, accessed
october 20, 2016, www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/
la-et-mn-gone-girl-writer-gillian-flynn-hollywood-film-awards-20141115-
story.html.
102 Mike Fleming Jr., “Gone Girl’s profit in 2014: disciplined $61 Million
Budget pays off,” Deadline Hollywood, March 11, 2015, accessed
october 20, 2016, http://deadline.com/2015/03/gone-girl-profit-box-
office-2014-1201390479/.
103 Clarice Lispector, The Hour of the Star, trans. by Giovanni pontiero
(Manchester: Carcanet, 1986), 38–39. First published in portuguese in
1977.
104 Lispector, The Hour of the Star, 27.
105 Lispector, The Hour of the Star, 81.
106 sandy Flitterman-Lewis, To Desire Differently: Feminism and the French
Cinema (new York: Columbia University press, 1996), 219.
 Creative issues 31

107 Yuri neyman, “new issues in authorship: recognition for

Cinematographers,” Global Cinematography Institute Newsletter, email,
august 12, 2016.
108 Gloria e. anzaldúa, Light in the Dark: Luz en lo Oscuro: Rewriting Identity,
Spirituality, Reality, analouise Keating (ed.) (durham, nC: duke University
press, 2015), 40.
109 anzaldúa, Light in the Dark, 40.
110 anzaldúa, Light in the Dark, 45.
 tWo

Career issues
Writers’ and producers’ standpoints

the concept of influence is an intriguing one. in adapting a screenplay,

you are distilling the essence of a story and its characters, sometimes
translating, sometimes transforming these into a film. Where it all starts is
in rights acquisition, which sometimes varies country to country.
What Walt disney did in negotiating with p.L. travers in Hollywood,
London and australia for the rights to her best-selling Mary Poppins
books and what the producers of The Graduate (Usa, 1967) did in
paying author Charles Webb a paltry $20,000 for his first novel,1
enabling them to make a film that went on to earn an adjusted gross
figure of $736,815,8002 differ considerably from what tarantino did in
the making of Reservoir Dogs. some viewers see tarantino’s Reservoir
Dogs (Usa, 1992) as an uncredited adaptation of ringo Lam’s Lung fu
fong wan (City on Fire) (Hong Kong, 1987), while others see it as “more
of a homage to Hong Kong cinema than it is a straight rip-off.”3 ideas per
se are not copyrightable, but the treatments, articles, books, screenplays,
and films are.
the idea of “homage” instead of adaptation, remake, or plagiarism is
a long-standing one among writers. as William s. Burroughs once wrote,
“after all, the work of other writers is one of a writer’s main sources of
input, so don’t hesitate to use it; just because somebody else has an idea
doesn’t mean you can’t take that idea and develop a new twist for it.
adaptations may become quite legitimate adoptions.”4
thomas Wolfe, considered the genius of his generation of american
novelists in the 1930s but largely abandoned in the last decade or so
because of his racism, anti-semitism, and sexism, adapted part of the
ancient Greek epic poem The Odyssey into a novel set in the american
south, Look Homeward, Angel (later made into a forgettable television
movie).5 Wolfe compared his work to the great masterpiece of english
literature, James Joyce’s Ulysses, which re-sets Homer’s story of Ulysses
in early twentieth-century dublin, ireland:

32
 Career issues 33

Like many another young man who came under the influence of that
remarkable work, i wrote my “Ulysses” book and got it published
too. that book, as you know, was Look Homeward, Angel. and now,
i am finished with “Ulysses” and with Mr. Joyce, save that i am not
an ingrate and will always, i hope, be able to remember a work that
stirred me, that opened new vistas into writing, and to pay the tribute
to a man of genius that is due him.
However, i am now going to write my own “Ulysses” … Like Mr.
Joyce, i have at last discovered my own america. i believe i have
found my language, i think i know my way. and i shall wreak out my
vision of this life, this way, this world and this america, to the top of
my bent, to the height of my ability, but with an unswerving devotion,
integrity and purity of purpose that shall not be menaced, altered or
weakened by any one.6

thomas Wolfe’s idealistic resolve, as well as his deep working

relationship with his first editor, Maxwell perkins, has itself become the
subject of a contemporary film. in Genius (UK/Usa, 2016), screenwriter
John Logan in adapting a biography of thomas Wolfe by a. scott Berg,
minimizes the impact of Wolfe’s second and final editor, edward aswell,
on thomas Wolfe’s short life. Logan also marginalizes thomas Wolfe’s
mother – arguably a more potent central antagonist in Wolfe’s real life as
well as in his autobiographical fiction – and in the process, streamlines the
story to bromantic fluff.
not only do Western screenwriters tend to salivate at myths and
legends of ancient Greece – which provide such easily accessible
blockbuster material in public domain – but to shakespeare, whose plays
are themselves highly influenced by others’ earlier stories. shakespearean
adaptations abound in all media and throughout the world. among the
more intriguing adaptations that take shakespeare out of europe are
Kurosawa’s Ran (Japan/France, 1985), based partly on King Lear but set
in Japan, and O (Usa, 2001), based on Othello but set in the Us. The
Lion King (Usa, 1994) shows close resemblance in theme and dialogue to
Hamlet act i, scene v., where Hamlet talks to his father’s ghost. the Lion
King’s father says, “simba, you have forgotten me. You have forgotten
who you are and so forgotten me.”
But there’s more to The Lion King’s influences than Hamlet. Kimba,
The White Lion was created from a shōnen manga series by osamu
tezuka which became Japan’s first color animated television series (1965–
1967). the Japanese company was at first flattered by being copied when
they saw The Lion King. But ultimately they were upset at the lack of
acknowledgement, as well as by the colossal box office figures in which
they held no share. Yet they were unable to sue disney with its legions
of corporate lawyers due to financial considerations as tezuka had died
in 1989.7 ironically, tezuka had licensed disney’s Bambi (Usa, 1942) to
make into a 1951 manga and credits disney, whom he met at the 1964
new York World’s Fair as a creative influence in his autobiography,8 but
34 introducing adaptation

in the case of The Lion King, disney simply disregarded any connection
to tezuka’s Kimba, The White Lion, claiming that The Lion King was only
based on Hamlet – which was conveniently in public domain, so they
didn’t have to pay shakespeare’s heirs a dime.
Pirates of the Caribbean, the film series and franchise that, at over $4
billion as of mid-2017, is the ninth highest-grossing of all time,9 started as
a ride at disneyland. storyboard artist, Francis X. atencio of imagineer,
had received a call from disney asking him to write the script for the ride.
He had never written a script before, but, atencio says, “i got my pirate
hat on and started researching.”10 the ride is tableau-driven, without
much of a plot, protagonist, antagonist, or theme, but it does feature
vivid locations, the idea of pirates, and their jargon, like “Yo ho, yo ho, a
pirate’s life for me!”11
screenwriter ted elliott’s childhood home was about fifteen minutes
away, and he claims to have probably been on the ride “at least a hundred
times” while growing up; his co-writer terry rossio said, “i’d been on
it maybe a hundred or two hundred times before we even contemplated
doing the movie.”12
ted elliott and terry rossio originally tried to interest disney in
adapting the ride into a film in the early 1990s. But disney’s chair at the
time, Jeffrey Katzenberg, wasn’t interested. (Meanwhile, stuart Beattie
wrote a spec script on modern-day pirates, Lord of the Seas, which would
help form the first draft, giving Beattie a screen story co-credit on Pirates
of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (Usa, 2003) along with
elliott and rossio and a fourth screen story writer, Jay Wolpert.)13
When elliott and rossio got a call from Jerry Bruckheimer’s company,
whom disney, under different management, had asked to take over
development, elliott explains:

Figure 2.1 Pirates of the Caribbean – the ride

 Career issues 35

We said, yeah, but only if we can incorporate supernatural elements

from the ride. they liked the idea, and that’s how the first movie
came about … as far as the sequels go: terry and i made the decision
that we couldn’t use the Fountain of Youth or Blackbeard as story
elements in a pirates movie without making sure tim [the novelist,
tim powers]14 got some money – not because disney necessarily
needed the rights in tim’s novel to use either of ’em – but because if
we did use either of ’em, it would pretty much eliminate any chance
of another studio paying tim for the film rights in his novel … so
we asked disney to option tim’s book. after a little resistance (“the
Fountain of Youth is public domain” that kind of thing), they did, in
time for us to use the Fountain of Youth as an element in the final
scene of p3.
By optioning the book, it gave us the ability to use both the
Fountain of Youth and Blackbeard as elements in the fourth movie,
so we did.15

Let’s explore the definitions and details of options and purchase

agreements a little further. the rest of this section will do just that.

the legalities of Adaptation

Have you discovered the perfect novel, short story, article, play, musical,
or comic strip that will make an unforgettable movie or television series?
it may behoove you to study some of the legal issues connected to the
field of adaptation before plunging into a six- or seven-figure production,
the distribution game, and the spin-offs that may be essential for success.
For writers and producers, the following six-point checklist can
be helpful in your journey of adapting articles, short stories, plays, or
novels to film or television. of course, there are many fine points and
additional considerations, so it is crucial to consult with an entertainment
attorney who specializes in copyright issues. However, attorneys can be
very expensive – $500 per hour is not unusual in the Us – and therefore
doing one’s homework prior to your consultation can be a worthwhile
investment.

negotiators’ checklist for Film Adaptation16

1 is the basic story under copyright?
2 Who owns the rights?
3 Have the rights been previously granted to a third party?
4 if in public domain, have other versions been previously made
and released?
5 Monetary negotiation with owner or agent of copyrighted version.
6 non-monetary negotiations (territory, script approval, sequel,
credits, etc.).
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Viljan valtakunta
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
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you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Viljan valtakunta

Author: Jarl Hemmer

Translator: Huugo Jalkanen

Release date: December 31, 2023 [eBook #72568]

Language: Finnish

Original publication: Helsinki: Holger Schildt, 1926

Credits: Tuula Temonen

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VILJAN

VALTAKUNTA ***
VILJAN VALTAKUNTA

Kirj.

Jarl Hemmer

Tekijän luvalla suomentanut

Huugo Jalkanen

Helsingissä, Holger Schildtin kustannusosakeyhtiö, 1926.

Vanhemmilleni.

SISÄLLYS:

Kylä

I
 Markus ja Klaara
Etsijät
Profeetan luona
Juomingit

II

Talvi
Kohtaaminen

III

Kirkossa
Pankarin kamppailu
Aave
Levottomuuden aikaa
Pankarin piiritys
Rukiissa

KYLÄ
Äärellä virran verkkaan vierivän sijaitsi kylä, kahden puolen
uomaa hopeista, joka loivaan polvitellen ruisvainioita halkoi
kohden merta. Vauraimmat kylän talot äyräiltään toisiaan
töllisteli yli virran, sen kalvoon kuvastellen vanhaa aikaa
korkeista päädyistään ja parvistaan. Ylinnä muita puunsi
Pankari, pönäkkänä kuin rikas lautamies, ja vastapäätä
alavampaa rantaa reunusti lesken harmaa Vanhatalo.

Vaan kirkonkylän suurellisten takaa näkyivät talot

vähäväkisempäin, tunkien umpimähkään toisiansa rykelmään
aittain, navettain ja hyyskäin. Alemma yhä painui katot,
kunnes laidoiltaan kylä päättyi lätteihin. Lakeus alkoi, viljan
valtakunta, tuo tähkämeri, joka tasaisena merestä jatkui
vuoriin kaukaisiin, ja jonka leikkasi vain virran vyö ja rikkoi
niityt, ladot, tuulimyllyt.

Jos sieltä kylää kohden katseen loit, näit kirkon keskeltä

sen korkenevan, hartaana kaikkiin suuntiin silmäillen
maailman vehreätä seurakuntaa. Se luona sillan huomaan
äidilliseen molemmat kylän puolet sulki, niinkuin parveksi
poikueensa kerää ankka väkäiseen retkeen elon ulapalla. Ja
niinkuin tutun kaakotuksen ääni sen kello kaikui lakeuden
rauhaan, julistain julki tapahtumat kaikki. Se soitti hautajaisiin
sekä häihin, se lepopäivät soitti, hetket työn, olipa Kyntteli:
käy lannanvetoon — tai Mikko: teurastus ja pernannosto —
Se soitti heinäpoudat, elonkorjuut ja kylvöt, lemmenhetket,
talvipuhteet.

Ajoista ammoisista toisillensa nuo vastarannat vihankaunaa

kantoi, ja virta oli este talvisinkin, etenkin kosioihin kulkeville.
»Hoi, kirkonhiiret, tytöistäkö puute on teillä, jotka sillan
rakensitte? — niin, niin, se näytti olleen teille tarpeen…»
»Suu tukkoon, pakanat, on oma syynne, jos tyttönne luo
kristittyjen kaipaa: on meillä paikat paremmat kuin teillä!» Niin
jatkui kiista, mutta joka vuosi toi myötään kahden viikon ajan,
jolloin lujasti kylän pojat yhteen liittyi. Keväällä, lähdettyä
viime jäiden, kun virta tulvien ja vinhaan vieri, toi tukinuitto
kylään painajaisen. Se oli kurjaa aikaa poliisille, taloihin juosta
sai hän yhtenään kokoomaan nyrkkimiestä miehuullista, ja
koiranunta öisin nukkuivat tytärten isät, kunniastaan kiivaat.

Toi tukinuitto näet villin joukon uroita mustapäitä erämaista,

peräti rennon viinan, puukon käyttöön. Oteltiin silloin moni
tuima taisto, kun lemmenkarsaan vihan ylivoima kartuilla
pieksi puukkojunkkareita. Kas, tukkipojilla on monet metkut, ja
naista kaikki tuntematon kiehtoo. Se päättyi siihen, että
vallesmanni paikalle ajoi kahlerautoineen ja pani pari
sällismiestä kiinni. Ja syksymmällä sitten nähdä saatiin,
kantoiko uitto muuta hedelmää toisaalla… sellaistakin sattui
kyllä. Ja sattui myöskin, että väkivaltaa tytöille tehtiin. Viime
vuonna Markus, Pankarin vankka renki, sai töin tuskin
pelastetuksi Vanhantalon Klaaran, äkäisen lesken tytön, kylän
helmen. Sai siinä kolme haavaa riuska renki ja juhannukseen
saakka sairasteli; vaan runsaan palkinnon hän saaneen
kuuluu jo sekä työstään että kivuistansa. Kun viime tukki
vihdoin liukui kohti etäistä vettä, jossa lautat lyötiin vankkoihin
puomeihin, ja mustat sällit kiroillen, mekastellen matkaan
läksi, ristiksi muiden kyläkuntain mennen hengähti seutu
huojennuksen tautta, ja alkoi rauha, kesä — vanha kiista.

Kuin onkaan kesä armas jokaiselle! Taas päilyi virta päivää

kuvastellen, sen kalvoon rantatuomet kurkottuivat, sirottain
väliin hiljaa hiutaleitaan sen valkopilviin, sinitaivaisiin. Silloilla
kartut lauloi kymmenkunnat lialle talven hauskaa
hautavirttään kerällä pesijöiden kielten kilpaa, ja rantamilla
puolialastoinna satainen lapsilauma telmi, kirkui ja polskutteli
vielä kylmää vettä. Laella taivaan kaskisauhut leijui: ne
iltaviimain myötä virstain takaa saloilta kaukaisilta asti kulki ja
viikkokausin seudun yllä viipyi. Ja rannikolla, jossa Viilus ukko
tupansa seinustalla verkkojansa paikkasi vapisten ja
kurttuisena, tuo murahteli tuima kalastaja: »kaloilla taas on
hiton tiukat paikat…

Ulappa tyynnä kuvastellen siinsi ja siinä kellui äijän

pyydyskohot, pyöreissä kaarroksissa vinkuroiden; ne hiljaa
uiskenteli välkähdellen, vaan joskus pulpahti ne alle pinnan,
kun lahnanjurri tarttui satimeen. Ja tuolta Vaskisaaren
metsiköstä kohosi sauhu viinapannun alta, ja kauemmin jos
katseen sinne loit, niin kumman sarvipäisen peikon sieltä näit
rannan tiheiköstä tiirailevan. Se oli pirtuniekan äksy pukki, se
vartioi, kun ukko päissään nukkui.

Niin, viinanpoltosta on oma juttu. Keväällä kerran saapui

vallesmanni valtuuston kera pulmaa pohtimaan salaisen
viinanpolton näillä mailla. Vaan aikaisemmin oli kunnan
miehet jo viisaat päänsä yhteen panneet salaa. Kokous alkoi,
vallesmanni katsoi ukosta ukkoon, ukot häneen — vaiti. Vaan
vihdoin muuan kakistellen virkkoi: »Höm, tuota noin… kun
kaupunkiin on matkaa ylettömästi, eikä jano lakkaa niin
kauan, kun on vatsa vaatimassa. Vaan eihän haittaa
järjestellä seikkaa.» — Valtuusto nyökkäsi, ja vallesmanni
hymyili. Sitten tuotiin nassakoita tusinan verran pöytään,
jokaiselta pitäjän viinankeittäjältä näyte. Ja tulpat aukaistiin, ja
hartain innoin kokous tarkkaan tutkimukseen ryhtyi.
Sanotaan, ettei ennen valtuustossa niin syvästi ja kauan
tutkisteltu asiaa ainoaakaan ole koskaan, vaan kolmas päivä
ratkaisun jo toi ja Jannen viina parhaimmaksi löyttiin. Muut
kaikki saivat sakon ankaran, ja moni kukoistava liike kaatui,
vaan Janne muutti Vaskisaaren rauhaan ja yhä polttaa
tupruttelee siellä. Turvaksi hetkiensä heikompien hän osti
tuiman pukin, joka järveen on monen kuokkavieraan
puskenut, ja tuhri hirmun vielä punaiseksi. Niin eli siellä
miesten mielittynä, vaan ylen vihaamana monen vaimon.

Kuin onkaan kesä armas jokaiselle! Kun tuomi kukki joen

rantamilla ja leivo lauloi kesän kirkkautta, ei ollut silloin vielä
aika nuorten. Se saapui vasta kera lauhain iltain ja rukiin
kohottua korkeaksi. Ei ollut metsää lainkaan näillä main
katseilta kattamassa lemmenteitä, ja turhaa oli rasvaus
saranoiden, kun yö ei yhtymistä peittänyt… Vaan ruista oli
miehen mittavaa, se lemmenretket peitti viikot pitkät. Sen
heilimöinti oli näky nähdä: lakeus laaja keltaharsoon peittyi,
talojen katot kattoi siitepöly, utuista päivää kohden aivasteltiin
kuin myllyssä, ja moni vanhempikin sai halun hullaantua
uudelleen; kukoisti joki, kaivot, kaikki oli kuin lumottuna —
yksin viirikukko tornissa kirkon keltaisena hohti.

Kas, silloin oli tullut aika nuorten. Kuiskattiin: »Tänään

Kalson polvekkeessa…» ja kaksi ruuhta hiljaa sinne souti,
varhemmin toinen, toinen myöhäisemmin. Niin noustiin
maalle, ruuhi rantaan ve'ettiin, tavattiin — pujahdettiin rukiin
sekaan. »Kahdeksastoista oja», kuiskattiin, »aidasta
Anttilan», ja soudettiin ja laskettiin — kun sitten löytyi oma
ruiskukka — pujahdettiin rukiin sekaan. Ei käynyt laatuun
julkisella tiellä yhdessä kuljeksia päiväsaikaan. Vaan yhtä,
toista sallittiin, jos kenkään ei nähnyt vain, ja öinen kohtaus ei
häpeäksi ollut nuorisolle. Ruis, lauantaiset yöt ja luhdit, niin,
 ne tiesi ne — vaan pyhinä kuin lait säilytti kansa yhä tavat
vanhat.

Kylässä lasten lailla rakasteltiin, vaan naitiin järkevästä

harkinnasta, mitenkä vaati maat ja mukavuus. Kun istui
piippuansa imeskellen isäntä illansuussa portaillansa satoa
vuoden aprikoiden, näinpä hän saattoi naapurilleen huutaa:
»Kuule olenpa tässä tuumiskellut, jotta jos meidän Matti
teidän Leenan nai, parasta peltomaata, hitto soikoon,
viiskymmentä on hehtaaria heillä.» Niin tuumi naapurinkin
mies, ja kättä ääressä puolikupposten kun lyötiin, jo talven
tullen häitä vietti nuoret.

Niin elettiin, ja toimeen tultiin myös.

On pikkuseikat, turhat sydänsyyt
vakaista kylää harvoin horjuttaneet.
Vaan kerran… Niin, se tässä kerrotaankin.

I
MARKUS JA KLAARA

Pankarin kukko ensi kertaa kiekui ja siipiänsä lyöden

kurkotteli päin aamun ruskotusta helttakaulaa. Ja tarhikolta
kuului kilke karjan, jo neljä vuotta emäntäänsä vailla. Vaan
yksikään ei vielä juossut piika kiuluineen pihan poikki, vielä
uinui mustissa liesitorvissansa sauhut.

Joelle kallistuvan luhdin täytti yön hämy laupiaasti vielä

hetken, maatessa vankan Markus rengin, jolla päänalaisena
oli heinätukko, vaan joka lammasnahkavällyt orteen jo
juhannuksen maissa oli pannut. Apilantuoksussa hän nukkui,
josta ei tienneet muut, ja silmäluonten alle salainen onni
hymynhäivän loi; hän hymyili ja kylkeänsä käänsi ja käden
työnsi heiniin hyväillen kuin haparoisi armaan palmikkoa.
Muut kylässä ei nähneet sitä unta, jos näkivät, se heille
valhetteli.

Sarasti päivä. Kirkkaat sädekimput raoista lahon seinän

pilkisteli, ja aukon valosilmä nukkujaan kuin herättävä henki
katseen heitti. Nyt nousi renki, pörröpäinen karhu, tapaili
luhdin kattoon laki pään, ja jäykkä hieman oli vielä jalka
iskuista noista, jotka urhotyöstä hän, luojan kiitos, kevähällä
sai. Hän katsoi ulos. Joki välkkyi siellä jo puhjenneine
lumpeenkukkineen, ja Vanhantalon yläikkunoihin auringon
hehku syttyi loistamaan. Kas, nyt se syttyi Klaaran ikkunaan.
Vaan hänen merkkiään ei vielä näy, ei ketään liiku talon
tanhualla. Hän hieroi silmiään. Ei nähnyt mitään hän päässä
tangon, joka esiin pisti kuin linnunorsi päätyikkunasta. Nyt
liikkui tuvanovi. Ah, se oli tuo äksy, paksu leski; portahille hän
astui kädet puuskassa ja hiukset sileinä, ruskeassa
sielikossaan. Hän seisoi märehtien päivää päin jotakin
kihdinlyömää öistä kaunaa. Ja luhdissansa märehti myös
renki kuin ilkkuen, kuin havitellen purra. Nyt poistui muori
oven sulkien.

Me ehdimme siis ensimmäisnä tänään. Hän mietti:

»maanantai — siis luhtaniitty»… Ja sitten kömpi
perimmäiseen nurkkaan hän, missä seinä yhtyy katon
harjaan, kohdalle kurkihirren tuuliviirin. Näkyipä siellä reikä
pärehissä ja pieni väkipyörä ynnä kamaa jos minkämoista:
viisi kangaspalaa, puurengas kullattu ja paljon muuta.

Viikate pieni nousi ilmaan nyt ja rengas sekä lehdeksiä —

näinpä limonsa koristi hän lemmekkäästi. Se virkkoi: »Sinun
olen, siinä onni, ja heinään lähden, ettäs tiedät sen.» Ja
jatkon muisti Klaara viimeisestä. Niin, Klaara, nokkelasti keksi
tempun jos toisenkin hän aina, millä päivät iloksi kääntää,
virran kaventaa. — Vaan nyt on aika käydä puuron kimppuun.

Tuvassa heiskahteli pulskat piiat, lusikat pöydän kahta

puolta kalkkui kuin lerkut pohjiin kulhojen. »Kas, Markus, no
huomenta — no mitä luhtiin kuuluu? — et kotvaan ole
pistäytynyt meille, he-hee, jaa-jaa, me emme enää kelpaa, se
nähdään kyllä…» Niin ne lauloi kielet. Vaan nurkastapa kuului
kumma yskä, ruosteinen, raskas: vanha kello siellä kamppaili
hetken, kunnes luukku aukes ja käki paksunokka ulos puski ja
kukkui toimekkaasti neljä kertaa. Nyt kuului askeleita,
kamarista isäntä, leski, astui kynnykselle; hän huomenensa
virkkoi tapaan jäykkään, ja piikain tirske taukosi kuin taioin.
Vaan mitä tämä? Mustat liivit yllä, sametinhienot,
punakiehkuraiset, ja pyhäpaita — juhlapukineissa näin
maanantaina kesken heinänteon! Kaapista tammilippaansa
hän otti ja aukaisi sen peilin kamarissa, hän veistä hioi kauan
saapasvarteen, sunnuntaisiivoukseen sitten ryhtyi. Näin
maanantaina kesken heinänteon…

Ei, ruoka juuttui rengin kurkkuun tänään kuin noiduttu ja

käsi jäykistyi. Terävä veitsenrapse kamarista, se pahaa
ennusti, kuin viilteleisi se riekaleiksi hänen arintansa. Ei
tiennyt hän, vain aavisteli kummaa. — Hän hatun otti sitten,
mutta viipyi ovella vielä hetken epäröiden. Peilistä katsoi
häntä tuikeasti nelissäkymmenissä pyörivät piikovat, ylväät
lautamiehen kasvot, ohimohiukset harmaat saippuassa. Nyt
liikkui tyynen pinnan alla häive levottomuuden uhkaa, tuima
suu sai juonteisiinsa ilmeen: saapa nähdä! Ja renki virkkoi
vaivalloisin äänin: »Käyn luhtaniitylle, vaan minne sinä näin
maanantaina pynttäät itseäsi?» Pankari nousi, pani syrjään
veitsen ja katsoi häntä ilkein pilkanilmein: »Aionpa tästä joen
taakse käydä. Yrittää vanhakin voi, kussa nuoret. Niitylle
saavun sitten myöhemmin.» Hän oven sulki. Renki
viikatteensa vaarnalta otti, verkkaan rantaan kulki ja työnsi
ruuhen veteen mietteissänsä.
 Niin allapäin hän oli, ettei tullut katsastaneeksi Klaaran
ikkunaan, oliko mitään vastausta siellä. Ei nähnyt mitään
soutaessaan tyyntä jokea hän, ei piikasia, jotka hänelle
rantamilta huutelivat. Ei nähnyt aurinkoa hän, ei nähnyt
lumpeita, jotka tarttui airoihin. Joella liukui venhe vanhaa
tietään, ja siinä istui jäykkä jättiläinen, päin pohjaa tuijotellen
synkeästi. Nyt töksähti se. Kas, jo Kalsonmutka, hän saattoi
nousta ruuhestaan ja mennä niitylle oikotietä pellon poikki.
Hän nousi maalle, veti ruuhen rantaan ja nosti olallensa
viikatteen.

Vaan yllä rengin rantaäyrähällä nyt huojui vilja niinkuin

puuskan käyden. Se hiljaa aukeni, ja tähkäin kesken punaista
vilkkui. Siellä korkealla jo Klaara nauroi, päivän loistaessa
kuin tulen kulta hänen hiuksissansa. Hän avosylin tervehdystä
vartoi.

Kestääkö murhe mustinkaan, kun onni käy luokse

säihkysilmin karkeloiden? Pilvikö voisi lähteen varjostaa, kun
aurinko sen kalvoon loisteen luo? Vain vähitellen hämy
lankeaa taas ihmissieluhun, ja sinitaivaan uhkaavat
ukkospilvet synkistää.

Piennarta pitkin kulki eellä Klaara, jäljessä astui Markus

raskahammin. Aurinko myöskin pellon halki kulki, idässä
vyöryen kuin tulipyörä laineilla lakeuden hohtavan; se väliin
painui, väliin jälleen nousi merestä viljan yhä ylemmäksi, se
kunnes kyllin korkealle ehti. Hän katsoi Klaaraa, joka kevyesti
edellä sipsutti kuin västäräkki, ja muisti, mitä kerran oli kuullut
»profeetta» Joosuan, tuon hupsun, suusta: »Se tyttö vallan
tanssii kulkeissansa, hän on kuin talvivarsa, totta vie, niityllä
ensi kertaa kirmaamassa». Tuon tanssin täytyisikö muuttaa
nyt niityltä tuimaan tupaan Pankarin?

Alemmas yhä painui rengin pää, syvempään painui saveen

saappaankannat. Ja siinä, missä Kalsonoja ehtii niitylle,
missä järvi silmään siintää, hän kompastui ja pientarelle
painui kuin alla raskaan taakan istumaan. Nyt kääntyi Klaara,
tuli rengin luokse ja säikähtäen tämän käsiin tarttui, ja renki
sydämensä murheen purki: »Jos Pankari ja äitimuori vetää
nyt yhtä köyttä, tukossa on tiemme. Jo kauan moista aavistin,
vaan tänään varmuuden sanansa ja liivit antoi.» Vaan Klaara
vastasi: »Ei liivit mitkään minua niin saa hourupääksi
koskaan, sydämen lemmittyä etten tunne. Käsistä tukkilaisten
minut autoit, ja puolta kylää vastaan kamppailit
lauantaitansseissa, vain sinä yksin luhtiini olet päässyt
lepäämään, pihalla vaikka pojat kurkkivatkin tusinakaupoin,
uhkaillen ja pyytäin. Oon sinun, Markus, nyt ja ikuisesti.» —
»Vaan jospa vängällä vie sinut ukko, jos äiti vaatii, mitä sitten
tehdä?» Nyt painui Klaaran pää ja neuvotonna hän huoahti:
»Niin, enpä tiedä, mitä…» Vaan kohta kirkastui hän: »Sen
vain tiedän, ettei niin häijy Pankari voi olla, sen että tekee. Ei
niin väärä mailma, se että riistää toisiltansa meidät, näin
vankat sydänsiteet katkoen. Sen tunnen kuitenkin, jos kuinka
käynee, — jos äiti Pankarille pakottaa, jos pappi, lukkari ja
vallesmanni kahlitsee minut hänen vuoteeseensa, jos mereen
menen, hourupääksi tulen, jos maa ja taivas nousee
vastahankaan — niin sinun olen silti ikuisesti.» Nuo sanat
lohdun karvaan suloisen valoivat sieluun vaikenevan rengin.
Pian keksivät he kielen, joka liensi paremmin vielä, viljan
kahistessa. Aurinko nousi, eron aika joutui ja kutsui päivän
työhön kumpaistakin. Kuin liekki hulmahteli rengin silmään
punainen Klaaran puku rukiin halki saralta saralle, se kunnes
häipyi. Sieraansa silloin Markus renki tarttui ja ryhtyi
teroittamaan viikatettaan.

***

Pankari saapui heinään päivemmällä työvaatteissaan ja

haravoitsijoineen. Hiessä otsin katsoi häntä renki, vaan
mitään ilmaisseet ei piirteet ukon. Hän otti viikatteen, kuin
tapahtunut ei mitään ois, ja kumpainenkin niitti näin
äänetönnä heinää mittavaa kuin kilpaa rinnatusten, kunnes
päätyi tie niitoksen jo järven rantamalle. Pankari silloin
päätään nostain virkkoi: »Huomenna toiseen työhön
ryhdytään. Puretaan vanha luhti joen luota, en sitä enää siedä
silmissäni. Noin pulska renkimies kuin sinä, Markus, tuvassa
kehtaa kesäisinkin maata.»

Hän katsoi rengin käyrää jättiselkää. Ei vastausta tullut.

Viikatteensa vain kumman terävästi suhahteli.
ETSIJÄT

Kuin kulo kiersi kylää juoru nopsa ovelta ovelle, ja kielet

jauhoi kosintaa Pankarin nyt minkä ehti. Ken kiitti, ken taas
moitti, yhtä vain epäilty ei: kun Pankari vei kihlat, on liitto
vankka niinkuin hovin päätös.

Ja moni pulska poika alla päin, nolona niskavillojansa kouri

ja mietti: »Löyhemmässä istui hän, kun renki hänen
kintereillään kieppui. Nyt on hän ikuisesti ankkurissa.» Ja ulos
aurinkoon hän noituin työntyi ja ruuhen jokeen riuhtaisi ja
souti keskellä luojan päivää Vaskisaareen. Kun pois hän
pyörsi kasvot punoittaen, heristi nyrkkiään hän yli virran ja
vannoi ennen iltaa jokaiselta nujertavansa niskat sillä puolla.
Niin syttyi tappeluita tuima sarja yht'äkkiään kuin kesken
uittoaikaa, vaan tässä vihan vimman aallokossa kuin vuori
vankka seisoi lautamies.

Vain yksi vääryydeksi julkeaksi julisti tapahtuman sanoin

suorin. Tienhaarassa hän kylän ulkopuolla asusti, Joosua, tuo
urho hupsu, »profeetan» nimen saanut parrastaan ja
sananjulistamisinnostansa. Hän vaeltanut oli mailmanrantaa
laajalti nuoruudessaan — nyt hän istui vakaana tuvassansa
kera rengin, isännän kumppanin ja rakkaan veljen, jo
seitsenkymmenvuotiaan, vaan silti hän paras oli
tanssimestareista, jos kohta kihdin tuttu sääriltänsä. Profeetta
oli ilon harmaa airut, mies uskon oman, joka eri teitä kuin
pappien ja kirkon oppi kulki. »Ne katon liian korkealle kaartaa,
kuin lämmittäisi meitä tuulentuvat», hän haastoi. »Taivaan
tiedän, joka kiertyy kuin lampaanvilla sielu paran selkään, ja
se on, veljet, paljon lämpimämpi.» Ja sunnuntaisin juuri
kirkkoaikaan, kun kansaa kulki tiellä mustanaan, hartaana,
virsikirjat vatsan päällä. Tienhaaran ikkunoista kaikui soitto
herjaavan, remahtavan riemukas; vanhukset messusivat
voimain takaa iloista uuden uskon virttä siellä. Papille oli hän
kuin rutto, vitsaus, ja saarnoissa hän oli pannaan pantu, vaan
siinä kaikki — sillä nuhteetonta vaellus miehen oli kaikin
puolin. Ei kellekään, ei edes itsellensä hän pahennusta
koskaan tuottanut. Jumalanpalvelusta todellista hänestä oli
kylvö-, kyntötyöt, ja jollei omat pellot riittäneet, hän kävi
rallatellen naapuriin. Vaan eipä ollut koko pitäjässä hevosta
sellaista kuin profeetalla, niin pulskaa, kiiltokarvaa,
kengätöntä; ja eipä ollut koko maailmassa renkiä moista,
seitsenkymmenistä: hän vuoroin lauloi, tanssi, vuoroin nukkui.
Ei suotta arveltukaan lutikoita profeetan luona hyvin
ruokituiksi. Vaan pappia ja kirkkoa hän noitui. Yleensä veti
hymyyn suut tuo saarna, epäilevinä osoitettiin otsaa. Hän
löyhkä oli, siitä oltiin varmat, vaan myöskin onnellinen
tavallansa, uskossa jotta olla taisi voimaa. Ei ollut ihme, että
harventui penkeissä kirkon väki toisinansa, ja suntio sai
panna säppiin oven; profeetta hartaudenharjoitukset riihessä
näet piti riemukkaammat.
 No niin, hän viime kokouksessansa julisti kuulijoille
julkisesti: On rakkaus rahaa paljon arvokkaampi, ja yhtä hyvät
renki, lautamies.

***

Vaan Pankarista kaikui ryske, pauke, pöly ja turve jokeen

tuprahteli. Onnensa templin raunioilla seisten sai Markus
renki rautakankeineen hammasta purren hävitystä tehdä.
Jokainen hirsi, joka maahan vieri, vei osan elämästä
mennessänsä syvyyteen mätkähtäen, ja hän katsoi sen
jälkeen hetken rannan roukkioon. Pankari itse toista sauvaa
käytti toisessa päässä hirttä, ja he väänsi kyräillen äänetönnä
toisiansa. Niin sortui luhti nopeasti maahan.

Nyt muuttui yötkin niinkuin muuttui päivät. Hän siirtyi tuvan

sänkyyn, ylempään, tuon vanhan kellon alle, jonka käki
rämisten kukkui hänen murheelleen. Pankarin varkaanpelko
vallannut äkisti vallan oli, koiranunta höröllä korvin nukkui hän
ja vahti ovea eteisen, hän varhain nousi ja myöhään valvoi
sekä muisti aina kamarin oven työntää auki yöksi. Kuin
toiseen maailmaan jäi Klaara nyt yht'äkkiä, ja sillä lailla viikko
hitaasti, kiusaavasti loppuun vieri.

Jo aamuvarhaisesta sunnuntaina asuaan renki peilin eessä

siisti ja lähti sitten suoraan yli sillan luo lesken varmuus täytyi
hänen saada. Jyskytti sydän, tuntui aivan siltä kuin joku
seuraisi, ja portahilla hän hetken epäröiden taakseen katsoi.
Vaan sitten tarttui jättikoura lukkoon.

»Huomenta», virkkoi hän. Ja alta armoin »huomenta»

nyökähytti Klaaran maammo. Hän seisoi luona lieden,
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