January Meme: Favourite Adaptations

[selenak]

aurumcalendula asked me about those. With the caveat that I could list more and of course it also varies depending on the mood I am in, and with the qualification that I'm excluding straightforward from-stage-to-screen film versions of a single play (the phrasing is not accidental, you'll see why), here are some of my firm favourites:

1) West Side Story. It's probably a cliché but true: a masterpiece in its own right, but also as an adaptation of a) Romeo and Juliet, and b) a stage play into a musical. Now of course you can produce West Side Story itself in very different ways on stage and we now have two different film adaptations to compare and contrast. But just looking at the music, the script and the lyrics, it's so very, very well done. It's not just that the took a few basic ideas (i.e. lovers from feuding communities/families, tragic ending) and left it at that, but that nearly every scene, character and storybeat has its parallel. (And Arthur Laurents was justifiable proud of doing good old Shakespeare one better in coming up with a reason why the message about Julia/Maria's survival doesn't reach Romeo/Tony in time that is both connected to the overall themes and a character decision when in the original play it's just random bad luck (i.e. a plague outburst means Brother Laurence's messenger gets quaranteened). And the music, good lord, the music. What can be said that hasn't already been? Balcony Scene/Tonight: a perfect match in genius, and despite all the million ripoffs and parodies, feels as urgent and passionate as ever.

(cahn, yes, I considered both Don Carlos and Macbeth and Othello from Verdi, but while I am fond of all of them, they're not my faves the same way West Side Story is.)

2) A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman (as well as the use of William Shakespeare as a character, still probably my favourite fictional version of Will S.). These two plays who are themselves very meta, containing plays-within-plays, the magic of stagecraft versus real magic and so forth, work terrifically juxtaposed with the Sandman themes. Plus I've said it before, I'll say it again: Neil Gaiman is the only author to pull off a use of Prospero's final monologue, traditionally regarded as Shakespeare's personal goodbye, use it as his own farewell to his opus magnum and make that feel not pretentious but entirely apropriate.

3) Black Ships by Jo Graham (as an adaptation of The Aenaeid). Here there is tough competition in the form of Ursula Le Guin's novel Lavinia, but I still love Black Ships best. The novel takes the Sibyl who guides Aeneas to the Underworld in Virgil's epic and makes her the main character, one of the Trojan refugees, originally called Gull but bearing other names and identities throughout the story. Any adaptation of a Greek Trojan War related myth has to decide whether or not to use the Gods, i.e. do they exist or do the characters simply believe they do (not the same thing, especially since in the Iliad, the Odyssey and the Aeneid, there are direct divine interventions galore). They do exist in this version, but not in their best known GraecoRoman forms, which hail from different eras, as the novel offers a plausibly feeling historical context for its characters to live in. (Thus for example Wilusa/Troy has been destroyed repeatedly, once in the sacking that followed the largest Greek vs Trojans war, which resulted in the capture of Gull's mother along with many other Trojan women, and a few years later in the sacking that leads to Aeneas & Co. starting their quest.) At a guess, the trickiest challenge must have been figuring out how to present the Dido story, and not jiust because Carthage was founded centuries after the most probable date for the Trojan War, but the choice Jo Graham made - swapping Carthage for Egypt - really works not just for this novel but in the overall context of her other books because of the significance Egypt has in them.

4) The first season of Jessica Jones as an adaptation of Brian Bendis' Alias comics. It used the best known storyline of the comics - the Kilgrave arc - and managed both to keep what made it effective and disturbing and put a slightly different, unique spin on it. The casting is superb throughout, both for the characters based on their comics equivalent and for characters unique to the show (like Malcolm) or taken from different comics (like Jerry, or Trish and her mother - Jessica's estranged blonde bff in the Alias comics when we meet her is Carol Danvers, who could not have been used for obvious reasons). The use of colour - purple, most obviously, but also others - and the general, in lack of a better term for a tv series, cinematography, is superb while serving the story, and given this is an adaptation of graphic novels, this is not unimportant as an adaptation quality. Just taken as its own thing - i.e. just this season, not regarding the second and third one, or The Defenders - it is probably my choice for favourite comics-to-tv-format adaption, if we're talking about specific comics storylines, not adaptations of characters (because Lois & Clark the tv show is still my favourite version of Clark Kent/Superman and Lois Lane, but Lois & Clark had decades of Superman lore in multi authored interpretations to base this on, whereas Jessica Jones adapted graphic novels written by one single author who invented the character and the story they were adapting.

5.) Speaking of novel-to-tv-screen: always and forever, I, Claudius (the tv series), based on I, Claudius and Claudius the God by Robert Graves. Not only does it have some of the best actors available in 1970s Great Britain, but the usual small tv budget - no mass scenes possible, no special effects, such as there were - even works to the series' advantage. You don't need to be shown gladiator games to understand how the various characters respond to them. Whatever Caligula did exactly to his sister and lover Drusilla is not shown, but it's still one of the most terrifying scenes on tv when Claudius knockes and Caligula opens that door, precisely because it's left to your imagination based solely on John Hurt's and Derek Jacobi's performances. The script is immensely quotable, and while some of that is in the original novel, it manages to improve on it by giving us relationships Graves only hinted at (the friendship between Claudius and Herod Agrippa, say) or didn't bother with (the friendship between Julia the Elder and Claudius' mother Antonia). Even the old age make-up (especially for Jacobi and Sian Philips as Livia) is better than much of what I saw in decades to come.

The Other Days

Comments

[ffutures]

Agree 100% on Jessica Jones and I, Claudius, both amazingly good adaptations of the comic / book.

For some reason I don't quite have the same feeling for the Sandman stories - they're good, but Gaiman's work throughout the series was so good that they didn't especially stand out for me. Incidentally, have you seen the 2016 BBC adaptation of Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Russel T. Davies? It's a lot of fun.

West Side Story - saw it when I was maybe too young, 9 or 10, in the early 1960s in a double bill with Carmen Jones, don't think I've seen it since. I do seem to remember a lot about it - some of the tunes especially - so it definitely made an impression on me. I remember a lot more about it than the later 1996 Baz Luhrmann version of Romeo and Juliet, which I think is the most recent I've seen, but that really isn't surprising.

Don't know Black Ships at all, I'll have a look if a copy comes my way.

[selenak]

RTD‘s Midsummer Night‘s Dream: I did watch and review (and enjoy) it, here: https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1179289.html

[redfiona99]

Yes, the thing I swore I saw but couldn't possible given, you know, watchdogs in I, Claudius remains effective.

[selenak]

It's the tv equivalent of the baby in Rosemary's Baby, I guess, where the audience is convinced they must have seen it, but they never did. :)

[machiavellijr]

I think the improvement in I Clavdivs really shows up when they get to 'Claudius the God' which is a much weaker novel. The adaptation rushes it a bit but is still considerably better. You're right about the makeup - it's most obvious if you see a photo of Sian Philips in the 00s and she really does look quite like she did as Old Livia. You are also, obviously, right that it is among the best adaptations ever, as well as the yardstick by which all other Roman drama series will be judged for the foreseeable future.

I liked but did not adore Black Ships, and will defer on West Side Story to someone who doesn't intensely dislike the original play!

[selenak]

True about Claudius the God as a novel; introducing Herod belatedly as Claudius' bff just doesn't really work, whereas the tv show introduces him from the start. Mind you, both show and tv series suffer from the problem that Graves' premise of Claudius as the maltreated underdog who only fakes stupidity to survive, and who realises what's going on better than most of the other characters, and whom thus the audience/readers can easily root for doesn't work if Claudius is the most powerful person in his world and can't be aware of the machinations of nearly everyone around him for the plot to make sense in the Messalina era, and then has to have a plausible reason why he lets everything happen in the Agrippina era despite "everything" coming at the expense of his own children and eventually his own life. I suspect that's the main reason for the whole "wants to restore the Republic" invention on Graves's part to begin with, i.e. that Claudius can then decide being a good ruler was wrong because it got the people accustomed to dictatorships and thus he must ensure his successor is the worst, and we don't have to either believe our hero married his niece because he wanted to marry his niece, or that he was okay with Nero over Britannicus for most of that marriage - it would have been really difficult to find other sympathetic-to-modern-audiences reasons for either while maintaining the Claudius characterisation from the first book. The tv show just about gets better away with it than the book does because of the heightened tempo and having basically only one Agrippina episode, but that still doesn't solve the other problem, which is that Livia and Caligula, the main villains of the first novel/ two thirds of the tv show, are just better and more compelling characters than Messalina and Agrippinilla as written by Graves or the scriptwriters. There's still the sparkling dialogue - "my hobby happens to be gardening, for which I don't expect to be paid" is still one of my favourite lines - and Jacobi is as good as ever, the scene in which he lets Agrippinilla knowingly poison him is another masterclass in silent acting -, but there's a reason why I don't rewatch the later episodes when I go back to the show.

[machiavellijr]

Yes I agree that Claudius' character as Emperor doesn't really make sense when you think about it. My alternative theory is that Claudius, who Suetonius does say was known to drink a lot, was so horrified to get the Empire dropped on his head he was basically plastered through the whole of Messalina's reign. By the time he sobered up, he realised it was too late to do any good and that except for the bit about disloyalty to him, the women and freedmen were actually doing quite a decent job running the Empire so he should let them get on with it.

[selenak]

I could see that. And I'm still waiting for a good fictional take on Agrippina the Younger anyway. As Emma Southon points out, the later years of Claudius' reign were far more successful than the first few, as was the very start of Nero's reign, and given the endless complaints by male historians about her being so dominating, it's hard not to conclude that this had a lot to do with her. (And the competent freedman, of course.)

[machiavellijr]

Agrippina definitely needs a really good fictional treatment!

I have always been curious about the stage adaptation of I Claudius by John Mortimer in the early '70s. It was famously a total flop, but I get the impression that may have had more to do with dubious direction than with the inherent quality of the script. Based on the reviews, it was basically adult Claudius, from about the death of Augustus to the start of Agrippina.

[scintilla10]

I really enjoyed reading your adaptation thoughts, especially about adapting different mediums!

[selenak]

Thank you!

[rose_griffes]

JJ season one was fantastic, but so grim that I don't know if I would rewatch it.

I might choose Amadeus the movie for a top-notch adaptation. Though I've never seen a stage version of it, which... hm. Is that a requirement? (Hee)

[selenak]

:) I first saw the movie, too, and then read the stage play, but didn't see it performed until the pandemic started and the RSC made its version available via streaming. I agree it's a fantastic adaptation, not least because it really uses all the advantages the cinema has, most notably the soundtrack (as Peter Shaffer, who wrote the script for both, says in the audio commentary on the dvd, the soundtrack immediately can demonstrate to the audience why Mozart was a genius and Salieri is so upset, whereas in a stage performance, you have sort of rely on your audience knowing at least some Mozart), but also the ability to change locations (and the Prague locations which stand in for 18th century Vienna are incredibly gorgeous). But the reason why I didn't list it is not only that it's a straightforward one stage play-to-screen adaptation which I said I wouldn't do but also that in this case I don't like the play nearly as much as the film, and in the cases of the adaptations I listed, I love both.

(Something the streamed RSC version showed me was that Tom Hulce got seriously underestimated for what he did in that movie. I mean, obviously I loved F. Murray Abraham as Salieri as much as any watcher of the film and he so deserved that Oscar, but the thing is, Mozart on page and in that RSC staging can come across as unrelentingly obnoxious, as having nothing going for him but talent, as a human being. Whereas Tom Hulce's version is someone you can empathize with and care for, which I think is important for the story to work - yes, we feel for Salieri, but if Mozart is just obnoxious, it's just a black comedy, and there's no reason why Salieri should feel guilty at all, let alone be driven near mad years later.

[cahn]

Whereas Tom Hulce's version is someone you can empathize with and care for, which I think is important for the story to work -

Oh, yes, for sure. Hulce is amazing in this movie, which I didn't really understand until seeing the play version either. He's both obnoxious sometimes -- you can see why he gets on Salieri's every last nerve -- and at the same time he's got this very sweet innocence about him. And in addition it's clear that he cares very much about music and works hard at it!

[cahn]

Amadeus!! Yes!!

I did see the same stage version selenak did, and I loved it, but the movie is amazing, especially what it does with music. (And that climactic scene with the Requiem! I'm in awe, you couldn't do that in any other medium but movie.)

[cahn]

Ohhhh West Side Story! I wouldn't have thought of that, but what a great answer :D

I think one of my favorite book-to-musical adaptations is The Secret Garden, which is a much more straightforward adaptation, but it's not completely straightforward. And then of course I grew up at just the right time for Les Misérables to be the most significant musical adaptation for my adolescent psyche, even if as an adult I don't consider it a particularly good one, musically speaking :)

I have not read either Lavinia or Black Ships. The latter is because I didn't know about it; the former I've meant to do since I read the Aeneid, and just haven't yet.

[selenak]

Les Mis! But of course, that's also a good adaption in that it manages to take a gigantic-sized novel and distill the most important themes, storylines and characters into a normal sized musical. With a lot of earworms! (And honestly, when it comes to Victor Hugo adaptions on a musical level, Verdi with Rigoletto is impossible to beat anyway.)

[cahn]

That is true! And it is very earwormy and fun to belt very loudly :D

I should watch Rigoletto again -- it's so depressing that I only managed to make it through once. (Though it was really good.)

[labingi]

Wow, we must have really similar taste because I agree with you about all these works except for the one I hadn't heard of, Black Ships, which sounds interesting.

My partner and I are currently watching I, Claudius, as it happens. It's his first time seeing it and my first time in about 20 years, so it's fascinating to see how it plays today: still very well. And Game of Thrones owes a lot to it.

[selenak]

And not only other historical shows (and novels), but also even some sci fi - the character of Cartagia in Babylon 5 is based not just on Caligula in general but specifically on the one played by John Hurt in this series. And Una McCormack wrote a great DS9 novel where a Cardassian Livia shows up.

Mind you, some of its influence also comes out in annoying ways in the fact that films like Gladiator and, I hear, even current day tv shows starring ancient Romans all feel obliged to have its sympathetic Roman characters plot for the return of the Republic, no matter how unlikely that is (seriously, Marcus Aurelius???? Of all the people?), and without the realisation the Graves version of Claudius has at the end that this just doesn't work and no, there won't be one achieved this way). But still - I am very, very glad that we got I, Claudius the tv show.

[aurumcalendula]

I really enjoyed reading this! (I've only seen one of these adaptations - I should check out the rest)