Fiction to Film: Advanced ESL Students Translating Literary Form
David Charles Deller, USA
Dr. Deller is Assistant Professor of Literature, and Director of the American Studies Center at the University of Bahrain. He has published aticles on teaching literature in the Middle East, and American music, and presented at conferences on African fiction, and the American justice system. His current interests include literature, film and popular music in ESL. dcdeller@gmail.com
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Abstract
Introduction
Abbreviated literature survey
Method and discussion
Conclusion
References
The use of English literature has a long history in ELT. The use of film has received significant attention in recent years as well, as an effective vehicle for language development. This paper is a discussion of a classroom attempt to marry the two, in a course structured around both the writing of film treatments based on short stories, and the viewing and critique of films themselves. The preliminary discussion, after an orientation to the setting, commences with brief presentations of, first, the issues in adapting fiction to film, and second, the pedagogical value of film. The bulk of the paper concerns the structure and method of the class itself, and general assessment of its effectiveness.
The course, “Genre Study: Fiction to Film,” was taught Spring semester of 2010 at Sultan Qaboos University in the Sultanate of Oman. SQU is the premier public college in that country and is primarily an English language institution. The university has majors for English in both the College of Education and College of Arts. In both college majors, English electives play a major role in the students’ last year of study and faculty are encouraged to pursue their own interests in creating the courses. In this case, when tracing through the items in the department holdings, I discovered a number of films made from well-known short stories.
The idea which came to me involved essentially the following: reading short stories, and making films of them - “making” meaning writing abbreviated “treatments” of them.– attempting to imagine the films we would make if we were able, films based on short stories we had available to us, and then to compare “our films” to the “real” ones.
It became a course. The following is an account of how it was done, and how it went. It is introduced with some brief considerations identified by theorists of film in relation to other genres, and adaptation of literature to film, followed by the identification of several relevant pedagogical considerations. But the primary focus is the class, and the students: what did we try to do, and what did we perhaps accomplish?
The first response many have to a film made from a literary text is often that “it’s not as good as the book.” Clearly, a film is a different art form than fiction, and many find the inter-generic “translations” poor. Adaptation has been the subject of a great deal of commentary; John Harrington collated a number of investigations of the central issues in his study, Film and/as Literature (1977). The following are a sampling of relevant observations concerning the basic distinctions and strengths of film as opposed to other literary genres, primarily fiction. The commentators in this discussion are all referenced to Harrington.
Rudolph Arnheim believes that film is superior to other genres due to its ability to represent the inter-relation of mind and physicality, in particular mind, and its associative nature. Budd Schulberg sees it differently, in that film has no time for “essential digression,” which is crucial in creating complex characters. Film has to proceed in a kind of rush; it cannot wander or pause as life does, or fiction can. Film is “relentless”; it is a “master…demanding (116).” George Bluestone is closer to Schulberg than Arnheim, specifically that film cannot reflect thought as the novel can.
Bela Balazs perhaps solves this apparent dilemma by focusing differently, asserting that a film-maker adapts a “paraphrase” of a novel, working with characters and myths which are independent of the original source. To Balazs, the inner lives of particular characters created within a work of fiction matter less than the archetypical story which they represent. George Linden joins forces with Balazs by commenting that literal rendering is less important than capturing the feeling or tone of the original, which again presumably leaves a great deal of latitude in adaptation.
Sergei Eisenstein found happy correspondences between fiction and film, seeing what became filmic techniques, in novels: close-ups, montage, and cutaway shots for subplots which American progenitor D. W. Griffith found in Dickens. Film is taught by fiction, and is a fortuitous new medium for it.
Others have found cinema to be more “poetic” than dramatic or narrativistic. To Robert Richardson film focuses more on design, sight, and sound, and appeals not primarily to the intellect (this presumably closer to print narrative) but to personal feeling. In their openings, films establish a mood through a series of images before any drama or narrative has a chance to yet appear, and this exerts predominant control over what is presented.
Here we see plural views on the relative superiority or inferiority of fiction to film, and the prospects of successful adaptation. These considerations came to the fore even in our English class’s fledgling efforts to realize fiction on an imaginary screen, although the results came down rather strongly on the side of Balazs, and Linden, who justify a great deal of freedom in adaptation. Before turning to a discussion of those efforts, the following are several observations from researchers and educators who have studied and utilized film in ESL classrooms.
Films have been supported as aids to instruction for some time. Stoller (1990) finds films to provide language and culture exposure, motivation, an effective presentation of schema for comprehension, and excellent opportunities for language development. MacDonald and MacDonald (1991) mention the particular value of film in teaching new types of writing, and film study itself. For Sweeney (2006) film develops understanding of narrative text structure, an element of developmental reading, as well as a prime example of a type of intertextuality - “film as an alternate interpretation of a text” (p. 32, from Parry, 1995). Wood (1995), primarily concerned with criteria for identifying effective films for EFL instruction, prefers teaching techniques which are “purposefully recyclable,” which “can be applied on various occasions with a number of different scenes” (p. 8).
The study most closely aligned with my own focus is “From Writing to Media with Literature in EFL” (1993), by Reta A. Gilbert. Gilbert seeks to meet the contemporary student half-way by utilizing media texts, a form with which they are familiar, to link them to print texts. She suggests utilizing, for example, the printed text of Macbeth, and then multiple filmed versions of the same to investigate textual variations between the two media. According to Gilbert, comparisons of fiction to film reveal such elements as tone and metaphor being achieved on the screen, or altering a “fixed” narration (unified point of view) to one multi-various, with multiple camera angles and other techniques. Comparisons of this sort enhance multi-generic student literacy. Gilbert has students search out other, or create, alternative texts. These two facets, the study of form, and of alternative texts, also linked to MacDonald and MacDonald (film study linked to new types of writing), were the most directly germane to the course which we fashioned together at SQU, although others were also relevant: motivation for students (Stoller), the issue of film as interpretation of text (Parry, in Sweeney), and the need for the recyclable technique (Wood).
The remainder of the paper will not attempt to justify the activities of the class. It is assumed that the utilization of multiple, integrated skills – reading, writing, discussion, collaborative projects, and oral presentation – is an effective course to follow in language development. The focus here is on the benefits and liabilities of the attempt at this adaptation itself.
In the course we spent the first 3 weeks working on learning film terms and techniques – panning, camera angles, cutting, deep focus, etc. We basically did this by looking at sections and scenes from the feature films Pride and Prejudice (2005, director Joe Wright), Rio Bravo (1959, Howard Hawks), and Citizen Kane (1941) and Touch of Evil (1958), both by Orson Welles. There we identified many of the techniques we might like to use.
For example, we looked closely at the visual development of the reflective, meandering solitude, and subsequent interruptive stir of Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice. the opening scene tracking her slowly through the fields in long takes and then into the narrow passageways of her house, the close-ups and multiple cuts there symbolizing the passage of individual identity to social as one of constriction. Faster cutting and wider angles ensued when the sisters excitedly discussed and then entered the ball through bursting double doors, breaking breathlessly into an enormous new world, adulthood and marriage. In looking at it so closely, we soon became much more aware of how inventive, and effectively arranged the camera techniques were, and how to use the language of film to discuss, and utilize them ouselves (we also scrutinized the innovative choices of Orson Welles, the rare high-angle, single-shot opening of Touch of Evil, and the multi-various techniques of Citizen Kane).
Once we had a grasp of camera techniques, the remainder of the class was spent on three short stories: “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall,” (Katherine Ann Porter), “Barn Burning” (William Faulkner), and “Rappaccini’s Daughter” (Nathaniel Hawthorne). Most of the films of these stories were about 50 minutes long (all from the National Endowment for the Humanities’ American Short Story Series, 1983, Perspective Films, producer. Names of directors were not available; therefore, all subsequent references will utilize the acronym NEH). A longer, feature-length film, “The Fall of the House of Usher” (Corman, 1960), was used for the final exam, utilizing a similar format to the others, and done outside of class.
The following structure used 4 weeks for each story/film (two 80-minute class periods per week), creating 3 course segments.
Week 1 – reading and discussion of the text of the story
Week 2 – student writing of film “treatments” of the story
Week 3 – viewing and discussion of the NEH film
Week 4 – discussion of comparisons, and oral presentations of student film treatments
Film treatments were written in student groups of three (21 students, 7 groups). Each group was also required to present one of their treatments to the class during the semester. After viewing the film week 3, in week 4 the students discussed their own film and the NEH version in their groups, and then individually outside of class wrote comparative essays on the two. They were graded on both writing assignments (usually 1000-1200 words) and their oral presentations, which were about 20 minutes long. The final exam was about 1500 words, and done individually.
The stories themselves were challenging for these students, most of whom were in English education with something of a modest background in literature. One student remarked that one week (2 class periods) seemed inadequate to deal with the complexity of the original story texts themselves.
However, the class overall displayed a very high degree of interest in the course. I attributed this to the fact that the students had so much autonomy, to their interest in film, and to the sheer interest in learning something truly “new” about something they were so familiar with, the value of the latter remarked on by both Stoller (1990), and Gilbert (1993). The collaborative approach and method seemed to challenge the stronger students, and also to accommodate the weaker.
The schedule did seem to suffer somewhat from so much student-directed time; it left a lot of class time in their hands, essentially all of weeks 2 and 4 of each segment. But one of my goals in elective courses at SQU was to provide students opportunities that might not fit into more typically-designed classes, in this case being very student-focused. For example, the students were allowed maximum flexibility with their collaborative film treatments – their writing choices were entirely in their hands. In that sense, it was virtually a creative writing class. But the aforementioned student had a very good point: more time could have been spent on the texts in class, with more student collaboration outside. Still, per Balacsz, films can in fact be types of “paraphrases,” linked to general themes. In fact, students often constructed quite successful treatments, despite linguistic difficulties - they got the (Balacsz-ian) “myths.” In that sense, the autonomy seemed to stimulate creativity, students able to find their own “narrative” in the film treatment. The student control, and use of class-time overall seemed to work.
The structure of the written treatments required an introduction to explain the “film-maker’s” primary goals, the tone and dominant effect they wanted to establish, seen as appropriate to film in Linden, and Richardson (Harrington 1977). They were then required to write 3 scene descriptions: one for the opening, one for the closing, and one other scene they considered important. Most of this was camera directions, which they were to make as specific as possible, and then to explain the reasoning behind their choices.
We soon discovered how taxing this could be. We learned that even at our elementary level, a lot goes into choosing camera placement, types of shots, cutting, mis-en-scene, and the like, plus explaining precisely why those were chosen. But they clearly seemed to enjoy it. As mentioned above, the assignment was quite wide open – they could do almost anything they wanted, as long as their films weren’t completely unrecognizable in relation to the stories. I allowed that film-makers do at times take great liberties with sources from other genres - as noted in Leitch (2007) and Geduld (1978) - and the students availed themselves of this liberty quite often, this autonomy seemingly central in their high level of motivation. They generally spent much of their first “treatment” session getting down their general interpretation of the story and how to film it, and following up their second day in grinding out specifics of scenes.
NOTE: It is a weakness of this paper not to have an example of a student treatment. Alas, I unaccountably preserved none. Nothing is “left” except the memory of their energy, which I have not lost. My apologies to the readers.
The first class day of the 3rd week was spent just watching the film through in its entirety. One great advantage for the students was that we were able to make DvD copies of the films, one for each group, corroborating the aforementioned benefit of “recyclability”; they had unlimited access to them (Wood 1995). But the viewing in class was the first viewing for the students, and there was a great deal of anticipation to see how the “real” movie was made, in contrast to the movie they had already written. This film viewing stimulated the most student interest in a regular classroom “event” that I have seen in 20 years.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the students often liked their “films” better than the “real” ones. Some just didn’t like the tones, plots or characters of the written stories to begin with, so they changed them. For example, some made the ending of “Barn Burning” less ambiguous, with the death onscreen of Abner Snopes. Another group utilized a sunset sky for the ending of “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall”; they wanted a peaceful end to her life - so they gave it to her. They even at times added additional plot elements and characters, as had been done in the NEH “Weatherall” version. But even those who enjoyed reading the stories usually preferred their own films, the visions their imaginations had created, this a new and unique engagement with literary text.
The techniques in the original films seemed uninteresting at first, to many. They were done quite economically; we were accustomed to something much more sophisticated in terms of camera work, as is often seen in feature length films. But in that sense, perhaps these films were closer to fiction, able to present something of its discursive, slower element. The long take, prominent in the adaptation of “Rappacini’s Daughter,” for example, was a primary technique which achieved this, as were extended close-ups. As fast-paced as film often is, long takes can seem very long indeed, as can even comparatively short takes; a ruminative atmosphere is not that hard to create, contrary to the fears of Schulberg, and Bluestone (Harrington, 1977). Perhaps the thriftiness of fewer cameras and “simple” production was entirely appropriate for these stories. One student said as much, that a certain kind of simplicity was proper in some cases, especially if the original story were narrated by a young or unsophisticated character. Students noticed the power of the slow movement in the film of the Hawthorne story, which communicated very clearly the mesmerized quality and constant reflection of the central character.
It was correspondingly very instructive to watch ourselves learn just how appreciative we became of even these very “simple” productions. The opening of “Barn Burning” has the credits run over minimal shots of the family packing up and moving (rather than the story's isolation of the central character, to begin, in a make-shift “coutroom”). This perhaps more clearly conveyed the family's emotional distance, very central to the story, this noted approvingly by some students. The director placed Sarty next to his mother in the wagon, but resisting her entreaties to him (a gesture actually seen later in the printed story), the father all the while high on the wagon behind them, a commanding, inaccessible figure in black, the angle extreme low for emphasis. Without realizing it, the audience is getting one tonal element of the story, which is to be expected, as according to Linden (Harrington, 1977). In writing opening scenes, students often demonstrated increasing skill in creating tone with each successive film, then conveying that in verbally effective ways in discussing their directorial choices.
Again, it is true that often the students seemed disappointed in the NEH films, preferring the faster cutting and more dramatic action to which they were accustomed (and which they did often utilize effectively), but I do think their appreciation did grow – especially, perhaps, when they realized by writing their own very adumbrated versions, just how much work it took to even conceive of how to do it, and make those conceptions “real. This was a great benefit of the course. As I remarked to them, I found myself reading the stories differently, in a more self-conscious way, than I had before – how would I film this? Students nodded knowingly when I mentioned it. We all began to think more visually, and to develop ways to understand and express that different way of thinking, reminiscent of the observations of MacDonald and MacDonald (1991), learning new ways to write by learning new ways to think.
The students came face-to-face with the issues of the representation of mental states (Arnheim; Schulberg; Bluestone, in Harrington, 1977) when confronted with the first-person narration of the dying day of the title character in “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall”: how to present the flashbacks, the drifting in and out of consciousness, the seeming incoherence in a dying person’s mind. At least one student pointed out that viewers would have a difficult time understanding the made film without having read the story. The NEH film-maker had changed the story quite a lot, introducing additional characters, and depicting Granny's presumed previous physically active life in order to convey her strong will. I found the student treatments, many of which used certain subjective, and odd-angle camera techniques, to be more inventive than the film itself (we obviously had no practical constraints), rendering the tale alternately more arresting, or more benign. This was actually a common experience – the clear power of the student versions. We were very intrigued, trying to visualize the films others had imagined. Parry’s point of adaptation as interpretation (in Sweeney 2006) was most obvious in dealing with Porter’s story, which had the most radical types of student narration.
The primary drawback to the class was, as mentioned above, that they had almost too much freedom – the reins were a bit loose. Even after only the first film – these were pretty bright students – they became very quick at figuring out what they wanted to do and how, so that their attention and energy at times began to flag on the second days of small group discussion and collaborative writing, despite the cognitive challenges of the assignment.
It also seemed that spending 2 days on the film began to drag. After seeing the film through as a whole, integrated experience, we spent the second day of the 3rd week going back through the film looking at specific scenes, and how they were done. By this class period, many of them had probably watched the film again. The films were not long, and again, their techniques were relatively simple. But we did learn again and again how something apparently simple can carry great weight.
In “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” in the scene where the lovers are meeting for the first time face-to-face, the original director has them walk through the garden together, but much of the time they are obscured from one another, walking on opposite sides of plants, or with branches preventing a clear view of each other. He also has Giovanni follow, pursue Beatrice as they stroll, which is of course highly appropriate, her inaccessibility. This scene is not described this way in the story, but with the use of these quite simple elements, the director has reinforced the mystery inherent at its core. As new students to these matters, again, we did attain some acquaintance with, and appreciation for things we took for granted, or were even disappointed by. Not exactly a small thing, to gain that kind of attitude toward an art form with which one has such familiarity.
In essence, there was no question that the students found the class interesting, novel, and challenging, and they did attain a reasonable mastery of film vocabulary and the ability to use it accurately, as well as a beginning ability to adapt a text into a film treatment, and to measure theirs against the films. Again, it was true that the degree of freedom they were given had a tendency to make them relax. But at the end of the day, they had to produce three film treatments, a comparative evaluation essay for each film, and also an oral presentation, plus a similar assignment as a take-home final on a longer film. How they got to their own “films” ended up being up to them, and I thought that a majority of them did this at better than an average level. A number of them were truly excellent.
I consider this one of the very few best classes I have ever been involved with – I scarcely consider that I “taught” it; I was a student as much as they were. It was collaborative learning for me as well. I wrote a couple of treatments of my own, and many of the students did this as well or better than I did myself. The reasons for the apparent success of the students seemed, again, those mentioned above – the sheer interest in the genre (film), and again, student autonomy, where unfettered imagination allowed them to use their new language in intriguing ways. And I have little doubt that the students were different – stronger, more sophisticated - thinkers, readers, and writers, due to the cognitively challenging work with two literary genres and the inter-relationships between them, when they left this class than when they entered. The engagement which the course had made possible had rendered the risks of challenging material, autonomy, and open-ended experimentation clearly worthwhile. I would heartily recommend this type of course design to others, though certainly with appropriate modifications.
Arnheim, R. 1977. ‘Epic and Dramatic Film’ in J. Harrington (ed.)
Balazs, B. 1977. ‘Art Form and Material’ in J. Harrington (ed.).
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Corman, Roger (Director). 1960. The Fall of the House of Usher.
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Geduld, H. M. 1978. ‘Literature into Film: “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”’ in Yearbook of Composition and General Literature 27: 56-58
Harrington, J. 1977. Film And/As Literature. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
Hawks, Howard (Director). 1961. Rio Bravo.
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Richardson, R. 1977. ‘The Question of Order and Coherence in Poetry and Film’ in J. Harrington (ed.).
Stoller, F. L. 1990. ‘Films and Videotapes in the Content-Based ESL/EFL Classroom’. English Teaching Forum Vol. XXVIII, No. 4: 10-14.
Sweeney, L. 2006. ‘Ideas in Practice: Theoretical Bases for Using Movies in Developmental Coursework’. Journal of Developmental Education. 29/3: 28-36.
Wood, D. J. 1995. ‘Good Video movies for Teaching English as a Foreign or Second Language’. Bulletin of the International Cultural Institute of Chikushi Jagakuen College July: 105-125.
Welles, Orson (Director). 1941. Citizen Kane.
Welles, Orson (Director). 1958. Touch of Evil.
Wri
ght, J. 2005. (Director). Pride and Prejudice.
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