Week 8 assignment: essay – interrelationships reflection apa format | Applied Sciences homework help
- Do you know of any works of architecture that are completely free of the other arts and would seem to resist the incorporation of the other arts? Any buildings that are pure, so to speak?
interpretAtion When a work of art takes another work of art as its subject matter, the former is an interpretation of the latter. Thus, Zeffirelli’s film Romeo and Juliet takes Shakespeare’s drama for its subject matter. The film interprets the play. It is fascinating to observe how the contents—the meanings—differ because of the different media. We will ana- lyze a few interesting examples. Bring to mind other examples as you read the text. jac16871_ch15_378-396.indd 379 12/9/17 11:19 AM 380
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Film Interprets Literature: Howards End E. M. Forster’s novel Howards End (1910) was made into a remarkable film in 1992 (Figures 15-1 and 15-2) by producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala wrote the screenplay. The film stars Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson, who, along with Jhabvala, won an Academy Award. The film was nom- inated as best picture, and its third Academy Award went to the design direction of Luciana Arrighi and Ian Whittaker. The team of Merchant-Ivory, producer and director, has become distinguished for period films set in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Part of the reputation won by Merchant-Ivory films is due to their detailed designs. Thus, in a Merchant-Ivory film one expects to see Edwardian costumes meticulously re- produced, period interiors with prints and paintings, authentic architecture, both interior and exterior, and details sumptuously photographed so that the colors are rich and saturated and the atmosphere appropriately reflecting the era just before and after 1900. All of that is true of the production of Howards End. But the subtlety of the inter- play of the arts in the film is intensified because of the subtlety of the interplay of the arts in the novel. Forster wrote his novel in a way that emulates contemporary drama, at least in part. His scenes are dramatically conceived, with characters act- ing in carefully described settings, speaking in ways that suggest the stage. More- over, Forster’s special interest in music and the role culture in general plays in the lives of his characters makes the novel especially challenging for interpretation by moving images. The film follows Forster’s story faithfully. Three families at the center of the story stand in contrast: the Schlegel sisters, Margaret and Helen; a rich businessman, Henry Wilcox, his frail wife, Ruth, and their superficial, conventional children; and a poor, young, unhappily married bank clerk, Leonard Bast, whom the Schlegel FIGURE 15-1 Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson in Howards End. Henry Wilcox (Hopkins) and Margaret Schlegel (Thompson), now married, react to bad news. Source: Sony Pictures Classics jac16871_ch15_378-396.indd 380 12/9/17 11:19 AM 381
THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS OF THE ARTS
sisters befriend. Margaret and Helen are idealistic and cultured. The Wilcoxes, ex- cept for Ruth, are uncultured snobs. When Ruth dies, Henry proposes to and is accepted by Margaret. Her sister, Helen, who detests Henry, is devastated by this marriage and turns to Leonard Bast. The story becomes a tangle of opposites and, because of the stupidity of Henry’s son Charles, turns tragic. In the end, thanks to the moral strength of Margaret, reconciliation becomes possible. Read the novel first, and then see the film. In one scene early in the novel, some of the protagonists are in Queen’s Hall in London listening to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Here is Forster’s wonderful description: It will be generally admitted that Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man. All sorts and conditions are satisfied by it. Whether you are like Mrs. Munt, and tap surreptitiously when the tunes come—of course, not so as to disturb the others; or like Helen, who can see heroes and shipwrecks in the music’s flood; or like Margaret, who can only see the music; or like Tibby, who is pro- foundly versed in counterpoint, and holds the full score open on his knee; or like their cousin, Fräulein Mosebach, who remembers all the time that Beethoven is “echt Deutsch” [pure German]; or like Fräulein Mosebach’s young man, who can remember nothing but Fräulein Mosebach: in any case, the passion of your life becomes more vivid, and you are bound to admit that such a noise is cheap at two shillings. Now that is a passage surely worth recording. But how could you get it into a film unless by a “voiceover,” an awkward technique in this context? Observe how this scene is portrayed in the film. Also observe in the film the awkward drawn-out scenes of Leonard Bast pursuing Helen in the rain (she inadvertently had taken his umbrella when leaving the concert hall). One keeps wondering why the soaking Leonard does not simply run and catch up with Helen. In the novel, these events FIGURE 15-2 Emma Thompson and Helena Bonham Carter in Howards End. Margaret Schlegel (Thompson) tries to understand her sister Helen’s (Bonham Carter) motives in helping Leonard Bast. Courtesy Everett Collection jac16871_ch15_378-396.indd 381 12/9/17 11:19 AM 382
CHAPTER 15
are much more smoothly handled. In such portrayals, written language has the advantage. Conversely, the film captures something in 1992 that the novel could not have achieved in its own time—the sense of loss for an elegant way of life in the period before World War I. The moving images create nostalgia for a past totally unrecov- erable. Nostalgia for that past is, of course, also created by Forster’s fine prose, but not with the power of moving images. Coming back to the novel after its interpre- tation by the film surely makes our participation more complete. PERCEPTION KEY Howards End 1. Do the filmic presentations of Margaret Schlegel and Henry Wilcox “ring true” to Forster’s characterizations? If not, what are the deficiencies? 2. Is the background music effective? 3. What kind or kinds of cinematic cuts are used in the film: jump cuts? Continuity cuts? Fades? How effective are the cuts? 4. In which work, the novel or the film, are the social issues of greater importance? Which puts more stress on the class distinctions between the Basts and both the Schlegels and the Wilcoxes? Which seems to have a stronger social message?