I Do... But I Don't?

       
In both the play and adapted films versions of Shakespeare Much Ado About Nothing, I would have to say between  the 2005 BBC version and 2012 version, BBC takes the cake. BBC did a great job of capturing an modern, humorous version of Shakespeare's play published in 1623. Joss Whedon, the director of the 2012 version produced his movie on a low budget with known actors. But that budget did not work into his favor because the language, color scheme and setting did not match up with each. The language was completely from the play with no change confused and distracted me. 

        The modernization of the setting behind the black and white color scheme made the film awkward because it did not add up. The dialogue was from the 1700s but the scenes were obviously from the 2000s which made the film weird and unenjoyable. Other than those downfalls, the relationships through the entire film was almost unbelievable towards the ending when Hero and Claudio was about to get married but he stopped the wedding accusing her of cheating on him. He embarrassed her in front of everyone and called her every name in the book. And of course, Hero became upset and cried, questioning why he was doing this to her and that it was not true. But he don't believe her and left. Then when the truth is clear to everyone, Claudio apologized and Hero accepted and they were a couple again. But in real life, things do not happen like that. If a woman was falsely accused (especially by her soon-to-be-husband), she is going to be angry.

       And that is why I like the BBC version better because there was more of an original, realistic feel. Brian Percival, the director, took Shakes play and transformed it into something BBC can be proud of because one, he used his resources (Shakespeare's texts) and two, he put his own spin to it. That spin being in a modern setting of a TV News studio with an slight ancient dialect along with everyday language that worked well because they complimented each other. It still gave it that traditional yet new sense of what Shakespeare had to offer. 

     With that being said, the small changes and twists Percival did made the film even more amusing because it was believable and not just lovey-dovey, happy ending. This was anger, blood, passion, heartache, jealously, and pain, so much pain. And that is what real life is filled with. Comparing both scenes of Hero and Claudio failed marriage, this version of it is sadder but real. Hero confronted the man who betrayed her, ended up in the hospital and does not end up with Claudio because of the things that he said to her at the alter. She was more than hurt by his words and could not fully forgive him even though he apologized and confessed that he could not live without her. 


Truth be told, this ending shocked me because I thought they were going to end up together like in the prior film. Though, there is a tiny change of hope for him getting her back, we do not know if they get together or not, but the movie ended with Beatrice and Don joining hands in marriage which was romantic and funny at the same time. It was a good, non-cliche ending that flowed well between two with their words of, "Remind me, what are we doing here?" to "I absolutely have no idea." Cue laughter. 

Who wore it better: Emma or Cher?

               

Between the novel, Emma and the film, Clueless; in my opinion I enjoyed the movie more than the novel and film of Emma. My reasoning behind this is because I think Clueless was more humorous and in providing 'greater equivalence of meaning.' The movie itself doesn't not mainly focus on marriage in the end between Cher and Josh except the fact that became a couple instead of man and wife. 
   

           I saw that as a better and more realistic ending because for one Cher was very young, still in high school and two did not know Josh on a deeper romantic level (she was still a virgin for Christ sakes!) Throughout the movie, the plot showed how close they were and what kind of relationship they had and it also showed just how innocent Cher's character was. To me, that said a lot about the meaning of the film that it was not just about getting married but developing trust, learning to love, building friendships and the fact that there is someone for everyone. Emma showed that as well but the pace was very slow and Emma herself did not want to accept the fact she loved George and wanted to be with him. She let herself suffer before he confronted her and then she admitted her feelings for him. 

           With Cher, she realized in the end that she loved Josh and at first she did not agree with it just like Emma and was a little upset about the sudden realization but she let her self want him. Josh does not exactly confront her but he does talk to her when she was sad and they end up together. This version of Jane Austen's Emma is more enjoyable and realistic like I said before plus the fact that the two characters that end up together does not get married right away. That gave the film more meaning because it ran off the track of being a typical, cliche film that ended in marriage. This adaption can be both traditional and radical. Tradition because there was a close translation of the book with slight detail changes like the Box Hill scene with Emma embarrassing a family friend and George telling her that she was wrong. Another scene would be when Elton came at Emma confessing his love to her in which she denied and she did not get out of the carriage like Cher got out the car and got robbed afterwards. But it still followed most of the details of the novel. Cher was a matchmaker, helped others, wore expensive clothing, took care of her father, her mother died when she was young, she gossiped and the fact that she ended up with her unknown love. 

   

And with radical translation, the movie changed a lot from the book in order to make it fit to the current time of when the film was aired in the late 90's. The director made the movie fit to modern day times in the sunny, energetic state of LA instead of the old, dry, proper England with gossiping teens, money, love, sexual desires, drugs, high school drama and shopping. The clothing was different, so was the dialect,everyday youth activities (parties, shopping, learning to drive) and the pace was faster. The clothing and gossiping was faithful to novel in the way of showing wealth; what was fashionable then and now. And the fact that girls will always talk about anything and everybody no matter what day time and place.

But as I mentioned in the beginning, that this adapted version of Emma was better because of the meaning even with the slight changes and I like up-to-date films more because they are easier to understand and there are a little more entertaining to me to watch. 

Are Memories really Reliable or just Remembered Lies?

Christopher Nolan, the director of this film Memento, did a great job of portraying the main character Leonard's mental condition on screen. Before the accident of both his wife and himself being attacked, he was normal, happily married and worked as an insurance investigator. He had the good life and things were going well until everything took a bad turn. He lost his memory, couldn't make new memories and became obsessed with finding his wife's killer. How his damaged brain is shown on film is confusing, dark, depressing and unbelievable. I feel if this exact movie was a book of some sort that it would not work out on paper because there would be too much going on and everything will be out of order, unappealing its readers. 

Which brings me to Leitch's twelve fallacies in our book,  Film & Literature. There were a couple I agreed with based on this movie.  Number three: Literary text are verbal, films visual and number five: Novels deal in concepts, films in percept. Number three supports my view on Memento working better as a movie than an novel because of the complexity.  Leitch wrote, "Instead of saying that literary texts are verbal and movies aren't, it would be more accurate to say that movie depend on prescribed, unalterable visual and verbal performances in a way literary texts don't." I completely agree with this because it's exactly what novels and films do, especially this movie. Memento was adapted from a short story and it was confusing just like the movie but with it being on screen, it's was a little easier to comprehend  than it is on paper.  Number five kind of go in hand with number three. "Fallacies enter only when the conceptual is defined in contradistinction to the perceptual, as an exclusive property of verbal texts and the pleasures movies offer their audience are defined in terms that privilege the perceptual." 

That quote can be translated with another quote, "The differences between percept and concept may well be more properly a function of rereading, and of a specifically analytical kind of rereading, than of a difference between movies, which are commonly assumed against mounting evidence to be watched to be watched only once, and novels, which are assumed to be endlessly re-readable, with each rereading converting more percepts to concepts." Meaning people would rather read the same book over and over again even though they know what's going to happen and think of new concepts of the plot. While those same people will only watch a movie once because they can't really make new percepts to the concepts because they have already been created. I understand and agree with him because books are free to interpret whatever you want, while films already have interpreted it and you don't agree with their choices of characters, scene set-up or even costumes. I think  that this movie defeats that because both the short story and film is confusing and hard to interpret so I think the audience was not too disappoint with that but probably more disappointed with the out of order set-up and trying to piece everything together.

After rethinking this movie, I came up with Leonard's wife surviving the attack and his damage mind making him this crazy, obsessed person trying to get justice for his 'dead' wife. Since the cops couldn't find them, he took it as his job to find them and kill them. His wife got tired of trying to make him remember her and leaves him. So he thought she was dead and continued to try to avenge her. I don't know if any of this is true but its my theory of perception.

1974 Robot VS 2013 Human Being: J. Gatsby

        

         In the novel The Great Gatsby, one of my favorite scenes is in chapter five when Nick sets up a tea date for Gatsby and Daisy, seeing each other for the first time in years. Here is the passage from the book: 

    "For half a minute there wasn't a sound. Then from the living-room I heard a sort of choking murmur and part of a laugh, followed by Daisy's voice on a clear artificial note: "I certainly am awfully glad to see you again."

A pause; it endured horribly. I had nothing to do in the hall, so I went into the room.

Gatsby, his hands still in his pockets, was reclining against the mantelpiece in a strained counterfeit of perfect ease, even of boredom. His head leaned back so far that it rested against the face of a defunct mantelpiece clock, and from this position his distraught eyes stared down at Daisy, who was sitting, frightened but graceful, on the edge of a stiff chair.

   "We've met before," muttered Gatsby. His eyes glanced momentarily at me, and his lips parted with an abortive attempt at a laugh. Luckily the clock took this moment to tilt dangerously at the pressure of his head, whereupon he turned and caught it with trembling fingers, and set it back in place. Then he sat down, rigidly, his elbow on the arm of the sofa and his chin in his hand."

"I'm sorry about the clock," he said. 

My own face had now assumed a deep tropical burn. I couldn't muster up a single commonplace out of the thousand in my head. "It's an old clock," I told them idiotically. I think we all believed for a moment that it had smashed in pieces on the floor."

      

           This passage in the newer version (2013) translated in the film beautifully because of the commitment of literal details from the book. The director, Baz Luhrmann, portrayed this entire scene right down to Gatsby being terribly nervous that caused him to knock over Nick's clock. It honestly showed how deep Gatsby's feelings were for Daisy. Leo did an amazing job becoming him, showing the audience that he was human and not always this 'cool, snave man,' but he had emotions and were not afraid to show them.  Baz showed another side of Gatsby that people (readers) hadn't seen before: insecure, tense, shy and obsessed. 

       

      Compared to the old  version (1974), there was a little more adapting of Daisy and Gatsby meeting; like him not knocking over the clock or showing any type of real emotion (nervousness) during and before tea. He's too cool, calm and unruffled that didn't truly express Gatsby's character. Along with the 2013 version, Baz took the entire scene of Gatsby leaving Nick's home in the rain only to come back soaking wet, messy and terrified of how the situation would play out. The 1974 version didn't incorporate that in the film and I felt that seriously took away from the movie and Gatsby's character. I felt like he was a robot, an handsome robot that only had one trick.

      If he was a little more emotional and if  there were less adaptation to the film, the movie would have been a bit more enjoyable in my opinion. I didn't like the 1974 version as much as the 2013 because I couldn't relate to any of the characters and there were many vital parts that were sadly left out. Baz did the complete opposite, took the whole  passage above and translated it perfectly to screen.These two versions were similar yet extremely different because of the lack of important literary adaptation and the flow of deeper meaning. But that is film for you and you don't always get your cake and eat it too.