Classics and the Western Canon discussion

This is a thread requested by Cass to discuss the BBC dramatization of Bleak House. It could be used also, I suppose, for other video adaptations; if so, identify which one.

WARNING: There will be NO spoiler limits in this thread. Anything and everything is open for discussion. So if you haven't finished the book and don't want to know what happens, you will probably not want to come to this thread until you do finish the book.

Thanks Everyman. Is anyone else watching the BBC adaptation? I began it last night and immediately started trying to figure out how much they got right and got wrong.

Mr Guppy stole the show.
Mr Tulkinghorn is absolutely perfect.
Mr Skimpole was perfect. He gave me shivers.

Mrs Jellby was a bit crazy. Her crazy-eyes annoyed me. I picture her as far more serious. I felt that making her crazy-eyed kind of excused her behaviour (pleading insanity).

Cass wrote: "Thanks Everyman. Is anyone else watching the BBC adaptation? ...

Mr Skimpole was perfect. He gave me shivers.
..."

Thanks for the thread Eman!

Cass, I've only seen the first episode but I definitely want to watch the rest.

I completely agree with your comment about Mr. Skimpole! He really bothered me more in the show than in the book. Or rather it took me longer to be bothered by Skimpole in the book.

There was also a scene where Nemo meet Esther and they had 'a moment' but I don't recall that happening in the book.

Cass wrote: "Thanks Everyman. Is anyone else watching the BBC adaptation? I began it last night and immediately started trying to figure out how much they got right and got wrong."

I started watching it, but the beginning was enough off of the book that I decided to send it back to the library.

One of my favourite things is to watch the BBC (and other) adaptations of a book to see how it compares. I have still never seen a good adaptation of Emma.

I have also only seen the first episode so far. I am fairly able to overlook when an adaptation changes the storyline, as long as the characters are spot on.

I guess I believe books don't translate into television without often needing to be changed. However I do believe that there is no excuse for the characters to be wrong.

I didn't like when Nemo bumped Esther, but by the end of the episode I felt I had been given a really good possibility for Nemo. I always struggled with believing in his character (as most of you know, I was all for him not being Esther's father, I just didn't buy it). However when I saw him in the movie I was able to understand.

I get that we don't know much about Nemo, so the adaptation is really only a possibility, still it fitted really well. I loved how quickly we got the impression of a man who had suffered so much he had turned (and become addicted to) opium. He was very clearly a good man underneath his addiction, and I kept wanting someone to clean him up.

Cass wrote: "One of my favourite things is to watch the BBC (and other) adaptations of a book to see how it compares. I have still never seen a good adaptation of Emma.

I have also only seen the first episode ..."

I agree that there's no good adaptation of Emma. But that's off topic.

I also like to see how books are adapted into movies and in some cases I've come across a movie that if I hadn't known it was a book I would've thought it was a great movie. The Keira Knightley verison of P&P comes to mind here as does Stepford Wives with Nicole Kidman. Neither are great adaptations but are decent movies.

As for changes in the plot, I'm mixed about them. In some cases, I don't mind changes because it can help to tell the story in a different medium. Using the BBC version of BH, I can see why Andrew Davies would have had Esther and Nemo bump into each other: it helps convey a stronger sense of the tragedy that shadows Esther's upbringing and haunts Lady D. Out of curiosity, Cass, you said you wanted someone to help Nemo. Did you feel that way when reading the book?

No I did not feel that way during the book. Because I didn't feel we really met Nemo. He was just some drug addict.

I think also with a book, if you miss a bit it is very easy to go back and re-read, but that is not doable in a movie/tv series, especially one that is spread over 5 or 6 hrs, so the director has to package everything up where we can easily join the dots.

Cass wrote: "...if you miss a bit it is very easy to go back and re-read..."

GRIN! I have not found that particularly so for BH, probably at least in part because I have been more listening to it than reading. But the very length of BH, even despite the search capabilities of my ebook version, seem to have caused me to struggle with certain threads and details! (I have had some of the same difficulties with War and Peace.)

Everyman wrote: "I started watching it, but the beginning was enough off of the book that I decided to send it back to the library...."

If you recall, what particularly bothered you?

I am watching the 2005 edition now. It seems very different than I recall starting several months ago. I am struck by the difficulties in the transfer, with so many plot lines to keep related. So far, while a very different experience, I haven't been jarred by what have felt like changes to what I'll call the essence of Dickens in BH, for lack of better words.

I just watched episode six (of eight) a couple days ago. I also LOVE watching Mr. Guppy, as I mentioned in a different thread. As Cass said, he steals the show. Also, Skimpole does a great job of portraying how I imagined his character to be in the book. He makes me angry whenever I watch him.

The scene where there is a moment of almost recognition between Nemo and Esther, as Tiffany said, this didn't happen in the book and I remember thinking while watching this that adding this moment gives a different feeling that was not present in the book. Also, if I remember correctly, there is also a scene where someone (Lady D? Nemo? I can't remember) is looking at a bundle of letters, and it tipped me off to Lady D being somehow connected to Nemo, although at this point in the book the connection was not there yet. This is when I stopped watching the series for a bit because I felt I was being given clues out of order of what happened in the book.

Overall, though, I think the series so far has captured the feelings and scenes that the book conveyed.

Cass, I agree with what you said here: "I guess I believe books don't translate into television without often needing to be changed. However I do believe that there is no excuse for the characters to be wrong."

I do expect some sort of small changes in order for a movie/series to be made, although I hope they are not big changes. But the characters need to act and feel as they were conveyed in the book.

I just started watching the 2005 version last night, episodes 1 and 2. So far I don't feel that anything important has been left out or added. I am surprised at how many times I've thought to myself - "Hey! Dickens never explained the reason for that!"

I think I'll start keeping notes and asking them here.

We never really found out, for example, what Nemo's whole story was, did we? How did he go from being (I assume) a ship's captain to an opium addict? Or did I just read it and forget?

It also occurred to me that the target audience for the movie are people who have either already read the book, or who never will.

In either case, there is no need for it to be the major detective novel that BH is. By changing certain aspects it becomes an easy show to watch, and the purpose it serves for us is to show us the characters on screen, rather than to be BH on the screen.

I have said the same for movies such as "Hunger Games" and "Ender's Game". They are not to be watched in place of the book, they are to be watched after reading the book, to see some aspects come to life.

Zippy wrote: " I am surprised at how many times I've thought to myself - "Hey! Dickens never explained the reason for that!"

I think I'll start keeping notes and asking them here.

We never really found out, for example, what Nemo's whole story was, did we? How did he go from being (I assume) a ship's captain to an opium addict? Or did I just read it and forget? "

That is how I feel. I think the movie is offering a plausible explanation (not necessarily canon). The idea that he was in the navy, saw some horrors, lost the love of his life and sunk to being a law writer/opium addict is plausible.

Tiffany wrote: "As for changes in the plot, I'm mixed about them. "

I'm not very mixed.

Personally, I would prefer that no books ever got made into movies, or at least those for which the author can't approve (contemporary books where the author can say yes or no are different). They're different genres, and think the author should be left alone to have said what he wanted to say in the way he wanted to say it. I think movies should limit themselves to creating original works, not to feeding off somebody else's hard work so they can avoid having to create a story, plot, scene, etc. themselves.

That said, I'm not going to get my way on that, so I have to deal with the reality that movie makers are going to steal the work of dead authors and will feel free to do whatever they want to with them (just as directors of Shakespeare plays can distort them out of all recognition and still sell them as being Shakespeare.)

I don't mind so much when adaptations omit scenes or even whole subplots; they have to fit a book into a limited time frame and budget, and if they have to leave things out, okay.

I DO mind when they change significant aspects of what the author wrote. For just one of countless examples, one in which I was able to engage in an on-line discussion with the author, in Sense and Sensibility, the director moved the house into which the Dashwoods move from the countryside of Devonshire onto the sea coast. The director wanted the more dramatic vistas and dramatic contrasts which the seaside offered. But there is a significant difference between a cottage in the countryside and a cottage on the coast. If Austen had wanted her characters to be by the sea, she would have put them there. She didn't, and the director, in my opinion, had no right to assume that she didn't know what she was doing and make a significant change in the mood and setting she had put her characters in.

That may seem a fairly trivial example, but it demonstrates the key problem I have with such changes -- that they deny the author the right to have his or her name associated only with what he or she wrote, but that the author's name will be stolen to sell a work which is not what he or she wrote. It's all marketing, because if they wrote a brand new script about a family in Regency England it wouldn't have the same draw that a Jane Austen work does, even though it's not what Austen wrote and presumably nott what she wanted to have her name associated with. It's marketing, and in my opinion it's dishonest marketing.

End of rant. For now. [g]

Everyman wrote: "For just one of countless examples, one in which I was able to engage in an on-line discussion with the author, in Sense and Sensibility..."

Um, Everyman? Who is your internet service provider?

You bring up some great points about adaptations and now I'm curious how you feel about movies that add in a scene in order to develop a character? Such as BH's scene with Nemo and Esther? Or ,if I recall correctly, Gone With The Wind had a scene with Rhett and another lady where they talk about Scarlett that wasn't in the book. In this case the author didn't write the scene but adding it to the movie helps viewers understand the character better (and these viewers are most likely ones who haven't read the book).

I think what I'm asking is should the filmmakers create a story that will appeal more to fans of the author and those who have read the book? Or should they focus more on just getting people interested in and aware of these classics? Someone mentioned early on in the BH discussion that Dickens has kind of fallen out of favor in literature classes. A popular movie could be the kind of that might increase readership of a book.

Zippy wrote: "Everyman wrote: "For just one of countless examples, one in which I was able to engage in an on-line discussion with the author, in Sense and Sensibility..."

Um, Everyman? Who is your internet ser..."

Just a local service. Why?

Tiffany wrote: "You bring up some great points about adaptations and now I'm curious how you feel about movies that add in a scene in order to develop a character? Such as BH's scene with Nemo and Esther? Or ,if I..."

Good questions. But wouldn't it be equally fair to ask why later editions of the book shouldn't also add scenes to help readers make these connections?

Either the book is what the author wrote, or it isn't. That's an absolutist position, I know, but once you start down the slippery slope of amending the author's work for the purpose of making it more understandable, where's the limit? Or isn't there one?

(I'm having a somewhat similar discussion in another group which is reading a work of historical fiction. I object to the author changing the plain facts of history for dramatic purposes. One can, of course, create fictional characters and invent plausible scenes that are consistent with the facts of history. And one can, also of course, write a book which deliberately changes history in order to explore a changed dynamic, for example exploring what would have happened of the South had won the Civil War. But when one is writing using real history as his background palate, I think there's an obligation to be true to the known facts of history.

But I'm weird about some things, and these are only a few of them.

Everyman wrote: "Everyman | 5562 comments Zippy wrote: "Everyman wrote: "For just one of countless examples, one in which I was able to engage in an on-line discussion with the author, in Sense and Sensibility..."

Um, Everyman? Who is your internet ser..."

Just a local service. Why? "

Ha. I had the same thought. I suspect Everyman means the director, or author of the screenplay.

Zippy wrote: "Everyman wrote: "For just one of countless examples, one in which I was able to engage in an on-line discussion with the author, in Sense and Sensibility..."

Um, Everyman? Who is your internet service provider?"

Lol!

Everyman wrote: "But I'm weird about some things, and these are only a few of them..."

I wouldn't call that weird - it's your valid opinion. Weird is when I spend more than five minutes looking for the pen I was using rather than just get a new one from the box...

Cass wrote: "had the same thought. I suspect Everyman means the director, or author of the screenplay. "

Uh, oops. Yes. The director of the film.

Good thing I never claimed to be perfect!

Everyman wrote: "I object to the author changing the plain facts of history for dramatic purposes."

Why? It is a work of fiction. I guess it also depends what you define as the "plain facts of history". I would imagine you would object to a character having a conversation with someone they never could have met, for example because they had died. But what if two characters meet in a novel when they never did in real life, even though they could have conceivably met? I would have an issue with the first (though depending on context might be prepared to let it lie) but think the second is acceptable in a work of fiction.

David wrote: "Everyman wrote: "I object to the author changing the plain facts of history for dramatic purposes."

Why? It is a work of fiction. "

If it is presented as such, okay. But when it's presented as historical fiction, purporting to be accurate, that's different even though in the end it's fiction. But when you have historical figures doing things in the book that they never did, how are readers (particularly children) supposed to learn true history? And if we get history wrong, how can we get the future right?

After watching the 4th and 5th episodes last night, I'm feeling more like Eman. Every time John Jarndyce is in a scene, some tense music comes up and the camera seems to hover longer on his face. It's adding something sinister that I never felt while reading.

I'm not even sure I want to continue, except that I can't wait to see how they handle the spontaneous human combustion!

Everyman wrote: "David wrote: "Everyman wrote: "I object to the author changing the plain facts of history for dramatic purposes."

Why? It is a work of fiction. "

If it is presented as such, okay. But when it's p..."

Couldn't we use historical fiction to help get students interested in history? I had a high school teacher who had us watch the film Elizabeth and then we had to do explain in what ways the film was accurate and in what ways it was inaccurate. I think that it helped make that time period seem more real.

Ah…I (and some others) wrote comments on this subject (before this thread existed) in the resources thread (where else to put at that earlier time?) …but I truly enjoyed watching BBC series (after having read the book)…there are indeed alterations and one notices..but I did enjoy seeing how the characters were portrayed….Skimpole so clearly a shyster of sorts…Guppy.. perfectly cast/portrayed….etc., etc.

So I've just finished the first 4 episodes. I'm enjoying it. Most of the characters do not LOOK like what I had envisioned. Guppy appears more naïve, & pathetic in his mooning over Esther. Humorous verses the sleazy character that I definitely felt he was in the book. Tulkinghorn definitely MORE sinister. John Jarndyce seems more interested in Esther early on than what I taken away from the book & also Woodcourt's & Esther's interest in each other is more pronounced in these early episodes. Turveydrop is a HOOT!

P.S. I agree with comments about Skimpole. very well portrayed & I even dislike him even more intensely in this production than I did in the book.

Chris wrote: "John Jarndyce seems more interested in Esther early on than what I taken away from the book & also Woodcourt's & Esther's interest in each other is more pronounced in these early episodes."

I haven't yet seen the TV series, but found this comment interesting. Having only read the book once, I wonder how these passages would read if we went back to them knowing how everything turns out. With hindsight, Jarndyce was clearly interested in Esther from the beginning. Reading between the lines, and remembering that Esther is notoriously selective when it comes to talking about her feelings, she probably was more interested in Woodcourt than she let on.

David wrote: "Chris wrote: " Having only read the book once, I wonder how these passages would read if we went back to them knowing how everything turns out"

I think we did. I think Esther made it perfectly clear, and I think Dickens meant for us to understand what she was alluding to.

Zippy wrote: "Every time John Jarndyce is in a scene, some tense music comes up and the camera seems to hover longer on his face. It's adding something sinister that I never felt while reading."

I felt that every time I saw John Jarndyce, I had much more sense of him having romantic feelings for Esther than I had perceived in the book. But I didn't get any sinister feelings from him.

I still have episodes 7 and 8 to watch.

David wrote: "Chris wrote: "John Jarndyce seems more interested in Esther early on than what I taken away from the book & also Woodcourt's & Esther's interest in each other is more pronounced in these early epis..."
I do agree David, that Esther held back in her narrative about her feelings for Woodcourt in the book. I just felt the actors portrayed with their looks & glances more of their feelings than either our omnipresent narrator or Esther let on.

David wrote: "Reading between the lines, and remembering that Esther is notoriously selective when it comes to talking about her feelings, she probably was more interested in Woodcourt than she let on...."

I have been re-listening to parts of BH and I am struck by the amount of foreshadowing of Esther's feelings about Woodcourt, things I rather overlooked on the first listening. Also, pieces about Jarndyce setting up their ultimate relationship, i.e., that of E&W. Very "arranged" feeling.