Josh Wheadon's Much Ado About Nothing

            I found Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing to be quite faithful to the original Shakespeare play.  Overall I really enjoyed the film, though I’m still torn on the use of the original language.  I saw a lot of benefits to it, but it really fought against my personal preferences.  I’m going to explain why, but what are your first impressions on the choice to use the original language?

            While reading the play, I had a hard time understanding the majority of it.  Without being familiar with the style of the time, it’s inherently harder for me to focus.  I tend to miss a lot more than I should, because I just don’t connect as well to it.  On top of that, I can’t fully appreciate the play since I’m not familiar with the culture for which it was written.  Jokes or references will just pass over me.  Luckily most of what I didn’t understand while reading was cleared up through spark notes.

            Even though I personally couldn’t fully appreciate the play, doesn’t mean I couldn’t appreciate it at all.  Though I might not have understood everything perfectly, I did enjoy it.  Some of the class, I believe, are somewhat familiar with the Shakespearian language, and had little trouble understanding it.  Kudos to you if you were one of them, I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts on how you think its presence impacted the film.  A major reason I really enjoyed the film though, was that seeing the lines acted out helped me to understand the story much better. 

This is the perfect example of how seeing it made the difference.  When reading the play I acknowledged that Dogberry was ridiculous, but it wasn't until I saw Nathan Fillion's portrayal that I understood.

            I felt that since the language was drawn from the play, it felt much more faithful to the source.  It’d be easier to spot the differences in the adaptation, since it follows the source so well.  I think it helped make the adaptation much more faithful than it would have been otherwise.  Like I said at the beginning, I saw a lot of benefit from it being there.

            The thing that has me torn on whether or not I really liked that the language was the same mostly lies in my personal preference.  I tend to like adaptations that either captures the source as accurately as possible, or go all out to translate it for a modern audience.  Having a modern setting with older language conflicts for me.  Having that contrast pulls me out of the film, much like the soundtrack did for some of us in the 2013 Great Gatsby adaptation we watched.  I think overall it was more beneficial, though it was jarring to me at times.  

By the time we reached the end, I was adjusted to the language.  This opening scene was really rough to me.  The contrast between the older language, and the modernly dressed men arriving in limos was a tad on the extreme side to me.  

Memento

            Memento, in my eyes, was an incredible adaptation.  It managed to take the concept from the short story, and presented it in a way that was far more engaging than the source.  Though the short story is still fantastic, the film’s odd progression created a longer lasting experience for the viewer.

          

            One thing I found to be one of the most entrancing features of the film, was the backwards progression.  The experience would be completely different if presented in chronological order.  It’s not just that it forces you to pay closer attention, or that it takes advantage of your impressions, but it also helps make Leonard more relatable.  I’d like to start by looking at Natalie’s character specifically; our first impression of her would have been completely different in chronological order.  Taking a look at the clip below, what do you think of her?  She has a few jokes that seem mean spirited, but overall she comes off as a sympathetic person that could be trusted.  As we learn by the end of the film, that is far from the case.  Did anyone have a negative first impression of Natalie?  Since we’re thrown into the events, we don’t know what to think, which gives the movie more power to shatter our expectations. 

            I think the out of order progression also added to the experience by throwing us helplessly into the middle of things.  Since we don’t really know what’s happened leading up to what’s going on, we’re in a similar position as Leonard.  The only advantage we’re given is that we figure out the context of the previous scene by the end of the current scene.  We’re slowly able to piece the entire story together, which Leonard isn’t really able to do.  Because we are in a similar position as Leonard, it’s easier to sympathize with him.  Look back at the clip with Natalie, like Leonard we don’t really know who she is, but we have no choice other than to trust her since Leonard does.  We put faith into Leonard since we don’t know any different.  By the end though, clip provided below, we find out that maybe he isn’t as reliable as we thought.  We’re left unsure what to believe about Leonard.  Now imagine if we saw that sooner?  In chronological order, that would have taken place somewhere in the middle.  Would you have trusted Leonard in chronological order? 

            There are many other things that I think made the film more interesting, but does anyone have any reasons they felt were more prevalent?  Does anyone feel the short story was better?  Or are there any disagreements with my thoughts?

Rear Window

Rear Window was an interesting adaptation to observe for class.  Considering it was adapted from a short story, I think Alfred Hitchcock did an amazing job expanding the source material.  Hitchcock took the simple concept of staring out the window in a confined setting, and made it into an engaging 2-hour film. 

           

I first came across the film in a different class, and I was blown away that the movie took place almost exclusively inside the apartment.  As a matter of fact, there were only two shots that were taken outside of Jeff’s apartment.  In a story centered on a main character that spends his free time observing his neighbors through his window, this creates an interesting atmosphere for us viewers.  There is a parallel between the audiences looking unnoticed upon the life of Jeff through the screen, and Jeff looking unnoticed upon the life of his neighbors.  Since Jeff is unable to move around, the claustrophobic atmosphere through which we are forced to view Jeff’s life helps us connect to him.  The limited perspective really drew me in, the film managed to be engaging despite the fact that we’re stuck in Jeff’s apartment.  It was incredible to me that a 2-hour movie about a character looking out of a window managed to hold my attention so well.  Did anyone find the movie to be boring or lacking at all because of the atmosphere? 

I found this trailer to be really interesting; it describes Jeff's life as being shrunk down to the window, which I thought was a good illustration of what happened to Jeff when he broke his leg. 

I also thought it was interesting how in the short story, watching his neighbors was excused.  In the film however, it was questioned whether or not it was right to spy on his neighbor’s lives.  I think ultimately the film justified it, since it solved a murder.  It made me consider that as an audience, we enjoy watching the lives of other people.  We are outside observers of these character’s stories, that is what our entertainment is made up of.  Books, movies, and television aren't quite on the same level as watching your neighbors through the window, but it's still watching people's lives, and it's what we call entertainment.  Granted in film the people are fictional, but are we any better than Jeff? Is there anything wrong with what Jeff was doing?  Is it different for us because we look in on fictional characters where Jeff is watching actual people?  It’s a fascinating question that the film raises. 

Just briefly, this clip helps illustrate my point below.  After looking at it, think of how the characters were shown at the beginning, and how they evolved throughout the film.

One area I think the film did slightly better than the short story was opening up multiple storylines.  For a man who watched his neighbors all day, the short story really only focused on the life of the Thorwalds.  The short story did briefly discuss the other neighbors, but nothing much happened to them throughout the story.  The film gives life to the people Jeff is watching, there is more to them than there was originally.  Miss Lonelyhearts, The Songwriter, Miss Torso, and the newlyweds.  We see most of them differently by the end than we do at the beginning, because their characters actually evolve.  If felt that the characters in the movie were richer than the characters in the short story.  Anyone feel that the neighbors were just as engaging in the short story? Anyone think it would have been better to focus more on the Thorwalds?