{"id":978,"date":"2012-02-08T06:53:26","date_gmt":"2012-02-08T06:53:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/?page_id=978"},"modified":"2012-03-01T16:39:23","modified_gmt":"2012-03-01T16:39:23","slug":"shane-smith","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/film\/reels\/shane-smith\/","title":{"rendered":"Shane Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Text to Celluloid <\/strong><\/h1>\n
In conversation with Shane Smith, Director of Public Programmes at TIFF Bell Lightbox, and Eleanor Wachtel, writer, broadcaster and host of CBC Radio\u2019s award-winning \u201cWriters & Company.\u201d<\/h6>\nngg_shortcode_0_placeholder\n

Tom Ue<\/strong>: Since February, TIFF has been putting together a wonderfully successful \u201cBooks On Film Club\u201d, a series of screenings and conversations about the art of adaptation. \u00a0Hosted by CBC\u2019s Eleanor Wachtel, this series brings together book and film lovers to examine great cinema that began as outstanding literature. It is a pleasure to have Shane Smith, the Director of Public Programmes at TIFF Bell Lightbox, and Eleanor tell us a bit about this event. \u00a0What inspired this series?<\/p>\n

Shane Smith<\/strong>: Books On Film Club was inspired by the well-established relationship between film and literature; some of the earliest films were based on books, and that connection has only continued to strengthen over time. Throughout our thirty-five year career of programming films for both the Toronto International Film Festival and our year-round TIFF Cinematheque, we have come across many exquisite films that were inspired by well-crafted novels. Now that we have our permanent home, TIFF Bell Lightbox, it is the perfect location to showcase some of these amazing films and the texts that inspired them, and to delve into both the challenges and rewards of adapting literature for film.<\/strong><\/p>\n

T.U.:<\/strong> How is the response to the series so far?<\/p>\n

S.S.:<\/strong> The response from our audiences has been phenomenal, both in terms of subscription\/ ticket sales and in terms of audience feedback. The guests for the series were carefully selected to ensure that they cover a range of areas related to the topic, and audiences have thoroughly enjoyed the insights that our host, Eleanor Wachtel, has elicited from them. Based on the success of the series so far, we\u2019re already discussing another season of Books On Film Club.<\/p>\n

T.U.:<\/strong> The selected books and films cover quite a range.\u00a0 Please, tell us about the selection process.<\/p>\n

Eleanor Wachtel<\/strong>:\u00a0 I wanted to have a wide mix of subjects and styles to illustrate the range that this kind of series can cover: period classic (Mansfield Park), contemporary modern (The English Patient), genre (Double Indemnity), contemporary classic (Lolita), stylish fashion (Breakfast at Tiffany\u2019s), and inventive\/experimental (Adaptation).\u00a0 At the same time, on each occasion an invited guest approaches the film from a somewhat different angle; namely, as author, director, critic, film historian, biographer, theorist. Within this framework, the actual selection was driven by several factors: primary for me was finding the right guests and then matching them to the appropriate movie.\u00a0 For instance, Michael Ondaatje and \u201cThe English Patient\u201d or Patricia Rozema and \u201cMansfield Park\u201d.\u00a0 Or, Sam Wasson who recently wrote \u201cFifth Avenue, 5 am\u201d about \u201cBreakfast at Tiffany\u2019s,\u201d Audrey Hepburn and the modern woman.<\/p>\n

S.S.:<\/strong> Our shortlist included other titles, but some were not in print currently, and we\u2019re looking at including them in future seasons.<\/strong><\/p>\n

T.U.:<\/strong> The series opens, quite appropriately, with Charlie Kaufman\u2019s Adaptation<\/em>, which brings forward many anxieties about the film industry, and a discussion with Professor Linda Hutcheon.\u00a0 To what extent do you see adaptation as a meeting-point between academia and the wider public?<\/p>\n

E.W.:<\/strong> As you say, it seemed highly appropriate to start with Charlie Kaufman\u2019s Adaptation<\/em> and the questions it raises about the whole enterprise of adaptation and its tangential relationship with the original, Susan Orlean\u2019s The Orchid Thief<\/em>. In A Theory of Adaptation<\/em>, Linda Hutcheon has written about adaptation in its many forms, not just books into film, but she is eloquent on how widespread adaptation is, and about how movies \u201ccolonize\u201d the imagination of the potential reader. I don\u2019t think the subject of adaptation itself is necessarily a meeting point for academia and the public; academia has long considered popular culture appropriate terrain for study and observation.<\/p>\n

T.U.:<\/strong> Adaptations have a profound impact on our how we approach the \u2013 for lack of a better term \u2013 \u201coriginals.\u201d\u00a0 For example, Patricia Rozema\u2019s Mansfield Park<\/em> has a profound impact on postcolonial and feminist readings of Austen\u2019s novel.\u00a0 How do you see adaptations affecting our experiences of texts?<\/p>\n

E.W.:<\/strong> Patricia Rozema was particularly innovative in opening up Austen\u2019s novel.\u00a0 She interpolated the spirit \u2013more than the spirit, the character<\/em>— of Jane Austen onto Fanny Price.\u00a0 She not only had to cut, of course, but she foregrounded and altered.\u00a0 She drew on Austen\u2019s letters and journals, her juvenilia.\u00a0 Rozema\u2019s film has been described as more of an intervention<\/em> than an adaptation.\u00a0 But as she said, when the film came out in 1999, \u201cI felt fairly free to make changes as long as I felt I could face Jane Austen if I met her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rozema goes further in bringing in the social context of the novel and what we know about Austen\u2019s relationship with the colonies to create a backstory for her characters, especially Tom.\u00a0 For instance, Austen herself said she fell in love with the writings of Thomas Clarkson, an important abolitionist of the time.\u00a0 Mansfield Park<\/em> is set in 1806 before the abolition of the slave trade in England and Rozema sees a very interesting connection between the title of Austen\u2019s novel and something called the Mansfield Judgment, which was the first limitation on slavery in England.\u00a0 (A slave, James Somerset, beaten up and left for dead.\u00a0 When he recovered, his owner wanted him back but Lord Mansfield said \u201cthe air of England was too pure to tolerate slavery.\u201d\u00a0 Austen knew a relative of Lord Mansfield).<\/p>\n

T.U.:<\/strong> Should we read the original before the adaptation?<\/p>\n

E.W.:<\/strong> Yes, if possible, to allow our imaginations to engage with the intimacy of the voice of the author.\u00a0 Visual images, actors, music and especially editing will leave their own imprint on our minds if we later approach the original.\u00a0 We find ourselves reacting to the differences rather than to a primary experience.\u00a0 Somehow, if we\u2019ve read the book first, when we encounter the film, we are able to absorb different readings, so to speak, we\u2019re more open to variation while still retaining our relationship with the original.<\/p>\n

T.U.:<\/strong> How do you feel about the often cited \u2013 and sometimes dubious \u2013 line of argument that the adaptation is always inferior to the original?<\/p>\n

E.W.:<\/strong> \u00a0Actually, I thought the often cited line was: good book- bad movie and vice versa.\u00a0 In fact, I don\u2019t think the correlation works that way either; it\u2019s much more dependent on who is involved \u2013which directors, screenwriters and so on, in creating the adaptation.\u00a0 There are certainly instances of movies that are superior to the original or simply different and equally good.<\/strong><\/p>\n

T.U.: <\/strong>Thank you both so much for your time!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Text to Celluloid In conversation with Shane Smith, Director of Public Programmes at TIFF Bell Lightbox, and Eleanor Wachtel, writer, broadcaster and host of CBC Radio\u2019s award-winning \u201cWriters & Company.\u201d Tom Ue: Since February, TIFF has been putting together a wonderfully successful \u201cBooks On Film Club\u201d, a series of screenings and conversations about the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":980,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"authorpage.php","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-978","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=978"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1006,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/978\/revisions\/1006"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}