For many years, musicals and plays have been brought onto the ‘big screen’. Some adaptions of these theatrical productions are done with taste and excellency, others, not so much. I believe one of the best movie adaption of theatrical play I’ve seen is “Doubt”. The story line is enticing and engages the audience throughout the movie, there is no weak actor throughout the film, and each actor gives a superb performance. Now, I might be a little bias, I’ve never seen the play “Doubt” performed. But I have seen both versions (on film & stage) of “Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”. All I can say, there are dramatic differences. The movie is done well, in fact went on and won numerous awards, but it did, in my opinion, become a bit unbelievable, unlike the actual musical. The only movie adaption I’ve seen stay true to it’s original theatrical material is “Romeo + Juliet”, a modern movie adaption of the famous Shakespearean play.
Readers might be wondering, what all of this has to with an Intro to Literature course. Well, it does. Theatre, plays, musicals, whatever you want to call it, it’s all literature. In my literature class we’ve been looking into a theatrical piece called, Waiting For Godot”. It’s a very bizarre piece, to say the least. Reading it, can make you bit confused. They’re many interpretations. But watching the piece, as a movie, in class, brought semi-understanding to its madness.
Watching theatre come alive is so much fun, to watch the movie version of “Waiting for Godot” was indeed a treat. Seeing how the actors created their characters ( off of so little guidance in the script) and delivered their lines made me think differently about the piece as a whole. It’s one thing to read play, but another to see it. I believe the movie adaption of this play brought a lot of clarification, understanding and liveliness too the piece. I enjoyed thoroughly.
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Jeremy my blog post was similar to this one. Great minds think alike? Ha! Very insightful as always my friend. Very good blog.
ReplyDeleteWho "translated" crazy writings into something you can see? That is the real person that has talent
ReplyDeleteI like that some movies can actually stay true to the orriginal
ReplyDeleteJordan, ditto
ReplyDeletevery interesting Jeremy. I have complained about film adaptions often, actually its one of my favorite ranting subjects. I also loved doubt, I've seen the play and read the script, but i was nervous when i read they were making it into a movie. but this is one of my all time favorite movies because the medium fit the material. they manipulated camera angles as plot forwarding devices and used other cinematic characteristics to compliment the specifics of the piece. my issue with films like Sweeney Todd is that they took a script that was specifically structured to be complimented by the medium of stage. i think its really awesome that you said that the stage version of Sweeney Todd was more believable. in fact, i don't feel that its more believable or realistic (because how can a stage show compete with film in realism) but better serving the story and allowing a different kind of life to live in the story compared to the forced recognition in the film.
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