Tonight I watched the trailer for the Charlotte's Web movie coming out in December.
As I watched, I tried to figure out why the idea of the movie appeals to me (I am coming to believe that the real reason has something to do with the happy color scheme). As a rule, I don't like animal movies. I especially don't like talking animal movies. I didn't like the Charlotte's Web cartoon movie (this may be on its merits or because I associate it with that day in my early childhood when I watched it while sick with the stomach flu). And I don't much like anything new in the "family movie" genre.
But I am still interested in Charlotte's Web.
So I kept thinking, and started thinking about the book and about E.B. White. And I came to the conclusion that the thing I really love about the book is E.B. White himself. This is because, as a rule, I don't like animal books or talking animal books, especially talking animal books with rats.
But an E.B. White book is different.
White's essays on raising chickens or tending a sick hog -- they're good stuff even if you've only ever met chickens or hogs in the meat aisle at the grocery store. The man was an artist. (That, and he recognized the gem in William Strunk's style guide, for which we are all indebted to him, whether we admit it or not.)
The problem with a movie is that everything is there EXCEPT E.B. White. The barn is there, the pig is there, Fern is there, Charlotte is there. But that beautiful passage about the smells of the barn, or the one about the feeling you have on a quiet summer afternoon -- none of that stuff will be there. Just like Lewis wasn't in The Lion the Witch and The Wardrobe movie, and Tolkien wasn't there for Peter Jackson's creations.
There's an it in the book that gets taken out and ruined in a movie studio. I think it's the author there to lend his own flavor and personality to the goings-on. You can't have the story outside his unique description of it.
So I'm not so excited about Charlotte's Web now. I like White too much.
My next figuring-out project is why every six months or so I have an overwhelming desire to watch Babe again . . .
5 comments:
I think sometimes the movie studio makes improvements. As a smaller person I was a big fan of Forest Gump, or more accurately the part where he runs across America.
Then I found out its based on a book. At the time I was a big believer in books being better than movies. So I promptly purchased said novel and found it to be the ultimate worst book I have ever read.
I think that whatever they did in the Movie Studio it made a horrible, horrible book into an a decent movie.
MLE, What do you think of films with screenplays written by the same author as the corresponding book?
The only one I can think of off the top of my head is The Princess Bride, and in that case Goldman replaces himself with Peter Falk, which is an acceptable compromise if ever I've seen one.
One of the film adaptations I like best is the Iron Giant, and in that case the switch from a modern British poet's tone to Brad Bird's tone is a welcome one.
The idea of same person doing book and screenplay doesn't seem so bad. And maybe in an age where a lot of people write with an eye to film, the dynamic is different.
But we both know that Tolkien and Lewis would NOT approve the film adaptation thing. And I don't think White quite would, either. There's so much in their prose that wouldn't make it to the screen.
I think if I had to pick sides once and for all, I would swear off movies completely and be like Lewis in "On Stories."
In historical fact, Tolkien very much wanted his books to be made into films, and the evidence suggests that he understood the artistic compromises this would have necessarily entailed. I don't remember where I read this, but it's true.
If you ever remember where you read that, let me know. Seems odd that a guy who flipped out when someone mis-spelt one of his words would be happy about having it all get botched up on film.
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