The Coen Brothers' adaptation of
No Country for Old Men (2007) was a well-deserved success--as was Jack Clayton's
The Innocents (1961), his version of
The Turn of the Screw.
After reading McCarthy's novel (or refamiliarizing yourself with James's), view either of the films and comment on the ways in which its director explores any of the issues or characters from the original. You are not writing a review--instead, choose an element from the original and discuss the ways in which the Coens or Clayton address it. In other words, explain how the director adapts a character or idea from one medium to another. (
Note: this post will remain open for two weeks, so that you have time over break to see one of the films.)
The Coen Brothers' adaptation of No Country for Old Men (2007) was a well-deserved success--as was Jack Clayton's The Innocents (1961), his version of The Turn of the Screw.
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The film, The Innocents, uses visual imagery to explore the sexual abuse of the children, or their exposure to the sexual relationship between Miss Jessel and Peter Quint.
ReplyDeleteIn the film, Miss Giddens, the unnamed governess in the novel, is just as naive, just as impressionable, and just as vigilant in her desire to "save the children", but her suspicion of Miles and Flora is deepened as the director uses the medium of film to illustrate Miss Giddens confusion and horror as she wakes in the middle of the night to hear a woman's seductive laugh, and the same woman repeating "kiss me" while a man's voice repeats "the children will see, the children will see". The film also has a stylized dream sequence in it that shows Miles being led by a grown man (Quint) into a room, where Flora is dancing with an adult woman (Miss Jessel) after taking the man's outstretched hand. After they are all in the room, the door is then closed. This image, or the reference to rooms in the house, is alluded to by Mrs. Gross when, asked by Miss Giddens about the nature of Jessel and Quint's relationship, says, "there's things I've seen I'm ashamed to say". Grose continues with her description of Jessel and Quint's, depraved behavior in the house, saying, "rooms, used by daylight, as thought they were dark woods".
Grose describes the couple's relationship, telling Miss Giddens, "It was more like a sickness, a fever that leaves the body burned out and dry....if he struck her, she looked at him as if she wanted the weight of his hand". Mrs. Grose describes Jessel and Quint as if they had a BDSM relationship and describes Jessel crawling on her hands and knees for Quint's pleasure. The film also contains two scenes with Giddens and Miles that are particularly cringe worthy. Both involve Giddens and Miles kissing, but not in an innocent, affectionate way, but in an adult way, the camera holds the shot as we see Miles kiss Miss Giddens on the mouth, and we see Miss Giddens surprised reaction, but she does not pull away, she lingers. The next kiss is at the conclusion of the film after Miles dies. Unlike the novel, after Miles death, the scene continues, with Miss Giddens kissing Miles on the mouth.
diana d.
The Coens use images of landscape in the film to amplify the significance of the landscape in the book. The opening scene, which includes a voice-over of Bell’s monologue, is set to changing scenes of the Texas terrain. Bell’s final discussion about his dreams is shot with him sitting in front of a window showing the vast landscape of Texas. Once more, when he visits his uncle, whose house is basically in the middle of nowhere, he is shot against the windows or looking out the windows. The book describes the landscape beautifully and uses it functionally. When brought to film it serves as more than B-Roll, it is aesthetically poignant. Just as in the book, the landscape is a character itself, only that in the film it is included in moments that are not specifically written in the book. When Moss is walking through the canyon hunting, he is shot against the terrain as Bell is. It amplifies the theme in the book that makes these men part of that country. Chigurh is on character who is not shot in the daylight against the same terrain away from a road. In this way, the film lets us know he is an outsider.
ReplyDeleteKyle Grady
In The Innocents, there are many significant changes in the adaptaion to film from Turn of The Screw. One of the biggest changes I noticed was in the Miss Jessel plot. When Miss Giddens (the name of the "unnamed" narrator) asks Mrs. Grose about Miss Jessel's death the story is much different. According to the film, Miss Jessel died AT Bly of "what you would call a broken heart". And later on, Mrs. Grose reveals that she had committed suicide, by drowning herself in the late. In the novel, Miss Jessel dies away from Bly and there are no specific details given about it. It adds more drama to the story that she killed herself on the premises that the "hauntings" are taking place.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that happens is Mrs. Grose trying to play the opposition in the beginning of the film. In the novel, she never really tried to argue against the idea that the house might be Haunted. In the beginning of the film, Miss Gidden finds a photo of Peter Quint. Mrs. Grose uses this as an explaination as to why Miss Giddens thought she saw Peter Quint at the window. Maybe that's not arguing, but.. still.. there were other moments in the beginning of the film where she didn't exactly believe that Miss Jessel and Quint were there - or perhaps she just didnt want to believe.
And the children are even more creepy in the film. Especially when Miles kisses Miss Giddens. They're just creepy, creepy children.
Shannon Marshall
The Coens portray Bell's awkwardness in this country perfectly. When you first hear his voice in the beginning, his voice just seems to fit with the landscape shown. It shows his connection with the terrain and how he has an 'old fashioned' way about him. Later, when the viewer sees Bell for the first time, we are not given all his opinions and details about his 'old school' habits but the Coens film it in such a way that you don't need it to see his way with dealing things. In the beginning, when Bell is investigating Moss's house, he sits on the couch and drink milk from a glass in the same place Chigurh was and he also looks at his reflection on the blank television screen. This imitation of Chigurh shows how Bell is still a part of this time by being so close to meeting him but this also shows how Bell is sort of separate from this country. Both Chigurh and Bell don't quite fit in with this country; because of Chigurh's well psychotic behavior and way of thinking and because of Bell's 'old school' ways. Another great scene to note is when Bell goes back to the motel and almost faces Chigurh. It was an intense moment where they barely miss each other and shows again how similar they are in the distance the have from the present and also how they are complete opposites because they never do confront each other.
ReplyDeleteChrystal Yan
The Coens portray Bell's awkwardness in this country perfectly. When you first hear his voice in the beginning, his voice just seems to fit with the landscape shown. It shows his connection with the terrain and how he has an 'old fashioned' way about him. Later, when the viewer sees Bell for the first time, we are not given all his opinions and details about his 'old school' habits but the Coens film it in such a way that you don't need it to see his way with dealing things. In the beginning, when Bell is investigating Moss's house, he sits on the couch and drink milk from a glass in the same place Chigurh was and he also looks at his reflection on the blank television screen. This imitation of Chigurh shows how Bell is still a part of this time by being so close to meeting him but this also shows how Bell is sort of separate from this country. Both Chigurh and Bell don't quite fit in with this country; because of Chigurh's well psychotic behavior and way of thinking and because of Bell's 'old school' ways. Another great scene to note is when Bell goes back to the motel and almost faces Chigurh. It was an intense moment where they barely miss each other and shows again how similar they are in the distance the have from the present and also how they are complete opposites because they never do confront each other.
ReplyDeleteI also thought that when Chigurh gets into the car accident in the end, the Coens were able to show how out of place Chigurh is in this country. This is the time the suburbs are shown and it is the last place you would expect to see Chigurh. Showing his stumbling away from the car accident through green trees and white picket fences was a perfect way to show Chigurh's awkwardness in that country.
Chrystal Yan
The most striking aspect of No Country for Old Men to me was the decisive use of silence. The opening credits rolled in silence and a silent pause was even held on a landscape scene before Bell’s narration voiced over it. The film also ended with an appropriate stillness after Bell’s resonating “And then I woke up.”
ReplyDeleteThere’s hardly a soundtrack to the film, in fact I there isn’t any music played above a low hum in any scene. This use of silence and reliance on character and situation to set moods and tones is very reflective of real life and reflective of the realism in the novel. People don’t carry on throughout life’s issues with background sound building at its most poignant moments. For example, the anxiety built up in Llewellyn’s hotel room with Chigurh just outside the door was created in silence and without a droning buildup of tense noise.
The silence used mirrored the minimalism and the rhythm of the McCarthy’s novel. McCarthy added no frills of “he said,” “she said,” or quotation marks, instead the rhythm of the novel was created in the characters and their very specific manners of blatant speech. Without dramatic extras, the Coens focused on character development and physical representation. They remained loyal to McCarthy’s story in their interpretation and made specific choices to adhere to its simplistic yet striking impact.
The passing of time in the novel was like a riddle to follow. In the movie, the Coens’ do a great job of keeping to the ambiguity of time, while bringing a little clarity to the viewer. While reading the novel, I found myself constantly looking back into the story to get a sense of time. As the events unfold, McCarthy would shorten the distance of time in between the pursuit, but with the character jumps, he gave the impression that more time might have been passing than actually did. The scene after Moss’s death when Bell goes to the motel room he was shot at was for me a great example of the Coens’ keeping with the riddle of time. Chigurh walks into the room and finds the money. Bell pulls up, gets out of his car and is about to open the door of the motel room. In the movie, the directors choose to show a reflection of Chigurh in the blown out lock cylinder alluding to the idea that Chigurh is in the room. Bell opens the door walks in and sits on the bed. The door is opened all the way to the wall, clearly no one could be behind it, and Chigurh is gone. The movie’s depiction of the scene differs from McCarthy’s. Both create a sense of ambiguity, but McCarthy has Chigurh sitting in his truck when Bell pulls into the motel lot. Bell goes into the room, then leaves and pulls out of the motel in his car and drives down the street. After he radios for back up, he and the other officers check all the cars in the lot and Chigurh is gone. McCarthy does not tell the reader when Chigurh leaves; leaving how much time has passed open to our imagination. Was Bell in the room for a few minutes, or longer?
ReplyDelete-Jeff Tamburri
Cormac McCarthy so intricately and accurately captures the human side of his characters by allowing them time to think about the issues that are coming at them all too fast. While in many novels we read, the witty rejoinder is always on deck, in No Country for Old Men, the characters reflect, and this allows for the reader to feel a stronger connection with the story he is following. I found that the brothers Coen attacked this same concept quite well as it definitely has a very unique feel when watching it. It was an action movie, but subdued so that attention was necessary to try and discern why things were being done and how the people felt, as opposed to only when the next murder will come. I cannot call it slow, but it is methodical in its direction, which fit in perfectly with McCarthy's style as well. For example, watching the scene where Moss works with the tent poles and the money was the perfect visualization of how I imagined him to reason out his whole plan in his head. As Jessica so astutely pointed out, the minimal soundtrack also created an atmosphere where the focus was on the emotions and thought process of Moss or Bell, rather than just our own reaction.
ReplyDeleteCatherine Hart
The most surprising thing about reading the book after seeing the film was realizing that the Coens had cut an entire character--hitchhiker. But what replaces her--the woman sitting by the pool-- contributes just as much to the experience of the narrative. The woman by the pool, as she tries to seduce Llewellyn, puts us in the same position that Carla Jean finds herself after his death. We end up wondering whether or not anything "happened" while he was at the hotel. As the novel shows us, nothing does, but that the question is there adds an interesting twist. Also I think it adds to the character of Moss, the reaction he has in the film is really well done, making him look more like a "good old boy" than he appeared to be during the three million pages of dialogue he has with the hitchhiker in the novel.
ReplyDeleteSo the Coens made a bold choice in cutting a lot of the "realization" Moss has during that dialogue and reviving the question as to his fidelity at the hotel. And while in a sense I think it makes the Llewellyn appear more static on screen than in the novel, it works well because good acting makes him just as sympathetic on screen as joking with the girl does in the text.
-- Patrick Danner
After writing my paper about the role that fate plays in the novel, the most striking aspect of the Coens' adaptation of No Country for Old Men was the scene in which Chighur comes to kill Carla Jean. The Coens maintain many of the original elements in the novel-- most important, the focus on Chighur's rigid adherence to his "principles" in coming back to kill her and presenting her with a coin. The difference, though, is that the film makes Carla Jean a much more complex character. It’s likely that the scene was changed just because the film needed a hero in an otherwise bleak world. The implications of the change, however, are extremely important. In the novel, she initially refuses to flip the coin, but then gives in when she realizes it is her only chance to live. In doing so, she behaves just like all of the other characters do: she gives utmost concern for her life and tries her hardest to somehow win back control of it. In refusing her last chance at “salvation,” the movie version of Carla Jean complicates and challenges Chighur’s picture of the world.
ReplyDeleteB. Long
I never saw the movie, No Country for Old Men, before I read the book. As I was watching it, I found myself smiling the whole time because I have never seen a movie that sticks more to the book than this one. The way that the Coens portrayed the book is just as I would have pictured it. However, a big difference was the lack of Bell’s monologue throughout the movie. I was happy to see it at least in the beginning and the end, but only throughout with exceptions. Bits of his monologues do make it into Bell's interactions with other characters. For example, when he is in the diner with the sheriff of the other country. That's when Bell talks about knowing you're in trouble when people stop saying Sir and Mam. Others on this blog have said that the hitchhiker being left out of the movie did not ruin the continuity of the story. Personally, I was disappointed, but that may be true. However, unlike the hitchhiker, Bell’s monologues are an essential part of the story. Not only do they give incite into Bell, but also incite into what the story is about. Unfortunately, it would probably make the movie four hours long.
ReplyDelete~ Tina Nightlinger
Good work! Post closed.
ReplyDelete