Evolution and Literature Web Paper 3

There are few efforts more conducive to humility than that of the translator trying to communicate an incommunicable beauty. Yet, unless we do try, something unique and never surpassed will cease to exist except in the libraries of a few inquisitive book

--Edith Hamilton

 4.14.11

P=1,000*audience; (units= words)

(a picture is worth 1,000 words x the number of people viewing it)

How has image and documentary film changed the fate of anthropological text?

movie of the mind (G. Grow)

In Tony Kushner’s groundbreaking two-part play Angels in America, a saga revolving around the trials of life, the complexity of loss, the meaning of relationships, and the confusion of spirituality, 1980s New York City serves as the backdrop for tumultuous change and heartbreaking realizations, echoing the pain that many Americans were feeling at the time. Kushner’s no holds barred look at both physical death and dying relationships stimulates a discussion on how uncertain change can be and how life moves on regardless.

   Recently, in our class the Story of Evolution and the Evolution of Stories with Anne Dalke and Paul Grobstein, as part of our curriculum we watched the movie Adaptation.  Adaptation stars Nicholas Cage as Charlie and his twin Donald Kaufman.  Charlie is trying to write a screenplay based on the The Orchid Thief, a nonfiction book written by Susan Orlean, a writer for the New Yorker.  The subject is John Laroche, an eccentric orchid enthusiast who was arrested for poaching certain rare species on state land in order to attempt to cultivate them.

"The idea of the sleeper, of somebody hidden from mortal eye, waiting until the time shall ripen has always been dear to the folkly mind." This was said by P.L. Travers, the author of Mary Poppins, and  she did not say it without just cause. Throughout history, spanning different cultures, there are countless tales, myths and legends that fit comfortably into this model, providing ample example for her claim. There has been Brunhilde trapped, sleeping behind a wall of fire in Germany, King Arthur waiting, asleep on the mystical island of Avalon, the twelve golden knights sleeping in their grand hall in Sweden, and the three Tells in Switzerland, sleeping in their hidden cave, to name only a few.

         Any lover of books can relate to the disturbance and slight disgust one feels when a favorite piece of literature is adapted into a movie. As we have discussed in “The Stories of Evolution and the Evolution of Stories”, when a viewer sees a beloved story adapted into a film, the initial reaction is that the tale has either been whittled down, shaven, or catastrophically ruined by the cinema. The majority of the people in class agreed that there is a certain “mindlessness”--a sluggish feeling of less processing and activity in the mind--when it came to viewing a film.

 EvoLit Web Event 3

Pestilence

 Avery Larson

Adaptation as Deconstruction