The Novel’s Linearity and Film’s Spatiality

The ‘reading’ of the novel is highly linear – we take in words and paragraphs sequentially as they appear on the page. As McFarlane explains, “the relentless linearity associated with the usual reading of a novel favours the gradual accretion of information about action, characters atmosphere, ideas…” (p.27)

McFarlane observes that while film appears analogous in relying on a sequentiality of viewing time, ‘frame-following-frame is not analogous to the word-following-word experience of the novel. There are at least two significant differences to be noted; i) the frame instantly, and at any given moment, provides information of at least visual complexity beyond that of any given word because of the spatial impact of the frame; and ii) the frame is never registered as a discreet entity in the way that a word is.” (p27)

An author can force the reader to see a character standing in a doorway squinting in the sunlight angrily, but in a film adaptation the eye observes that character’s height in proportion to the doorway. Mise-en scene and cinematic framing exposes the viewer to a multiplicity of signifiers, above all, the form stresses spatiality over linearity.

The way one ‘reads’ a film differs vastly from the reading of a novel – film has both cinematic and extra-cinematic codes that make up its language. While there are some conventions audiences learn how to read (and make associations with) – camera angles, fade ins, cuts, editing in general, what is the visual equivalent of a comma or full stop? McFarlane identifies four main codes operating in film; a) language codes, b) visual codes, c) non-linguistic sound codes (music and other), and d) cultural codes.

This is useful in that it allows one to see the two differing language systems of the novel and cinema. This analysis seems to elicit more questions than answers – questions I pose in each project pursued from herein.

Transmutation Among the Arts

Further Theories on Adaptation – Brian McFarlane


-seeing and telling, two ways of seeing

It is interesting to analyse early examples of ‘convergence’ between art-forms with regard to the film and the novel.



Novel pre-empting Film

There are authors who broke with the representational novels of the earlier nineteenth century by “showing how the events unfold dramatically rather than recounting them.” (p5).
They employed what can be described as cinematic techniques in their work, Eisenstein commenting on how Dickens’ anticipation of the frame composition and the closeup. Bluestone states that “Griffith found in Dickens hints for every one of his major innovations.” (p6),

So too Henry James’ writing anticipated cinema in the way he was able to decompose a scene, “altering point of view so as to focus more sharply on various aspects of an object, for exploring a visual field by fragmenting it rather than by presenting it scenographically.” (p5) Henry James used the technique of ‘restricted consciousness…limiting the point of view from which actions and objects are observed.” (p6).

Much criticism of this adaptation process is flawed in focusing mainly on thematic interests and the formal narrative patterns of both forms, rather than ‘questions of enunciation’, the range of ‘functional equivalents’ available to the two differing media.



Relations Between Film and Literature

The question of the relationship between the adapted form and the source material is vital. Some writers have proposed categories of adaptation to shift the focus away from pure issues of ‘fidelity to the original’ – and look more deeply at the true potential in the adaptation process. Geoffrey Wagner proposed “a) transposition, in which a novel is given directly on the screen with a minimum of apparent inteference, b) commentary, where an original is taken and either purposely or inadvertently altered in some respect…when there has been a different intention on the part of the film-maker, rather than infidelity or outright violation, and c) analogy, which must represent a fairly considerable departure for the sake of making another work of art.”

Another comparable categorization system was proposed by Michael Klein and Gillian Parker, “first, fidelity to the main thrust of the narrative, second, the approach which retains the core of the structure of the narrative while significantly reinterpreting or, in some cases, deconstructing the source text; and third, regarding the source merely as raw material, as simply the occasion for an original work.” (p11)



Adaptation and Narrative

McFarlane concludes that what films and novels have in common is their propensity for narrative. But the way in which this ‘narrative’ functions in the two different media must be understood, and also what can and cannot be transferred from one narrative medium to the other. McFarlane distinguishes between the verb ‘transfer’ and ‘adapt’; some narrative elements in novels can be transferred to film, while some elements must find visual equivalences in the film medium.



Narrative and Narration Distinctions

McFarlane discusses the many categories used to define modes of presentation of narrative in the different media. This is essentially the story matter, and the manner of its delivery. While applying here to film and novel, the film category can easily be supplanted by the realm of graphic design for my own purposes of understanding possibilities for adaptation in my own work.

The distinction between narration and narrative can also be described as that between story and discourse, the modern French poetics version of histoire and discours, and the Russian Formalist distinction between fabula (story as chronological sequence) and suzet (the plot as shaped by the storyteller).

I prefer McFarlane’s own terminology in that it feels more applicable to the realm of graphic design and its hybrid form. Originating with the linguist Emile Benveniste, there is the enunciated, the ‘utterance’ (l’enonce) manifested in a stretch of text. This is the sequence, the sum of the parts that construct the narrative function. Enunciation differs in referring to how this utterance is mediated. In literature enunciation is affected by person and tense, while in film this can be achieved via mise-en-scene and montage. This is exactly what I described as my interest in adapting the intangible, the ‘tone’. It is the sound of the story, rather than the construct of the story. McFarlane concludes there are two considerations to the adaptation process; transferring the narrative (the elements of the story), and adapting the enunciation,

Thinking About Adaptation

I have used the word ‘adaptation’ to underpin my thesis work as I begin. This seems to suitably encapsulate the process I am interested in taking apart and better understanding. My reading so far has focused on adaptation from book to film. Within this realm, it has been useful to observe how this process occurs – and if this model might shed light on my own notion of adaptation.

In moving from book to film, there exists the basic problem of inventing actions (correlatives) that reflect the novel’s psychological drift. Being a visual medium, in film emotions are displayed or enacted, rather than declared. The verb differs, it is not about telling, but about performing.

I have begun to consider the repercussions within graphic design – and particularly how one may adapt content to type and motion, two areas I am interested in. How may type perform a narrative without simply telling it? Can a visual language constituted of type be created?

Theories on Adaptation

As I read more and more critical discussion of adaptation (Bluestone 1957, Wagner 1975, Spiegel 1976, and Reynolds 1993), I am forced to consider what use I can make of these theories in light of my own developing body of work about adaptation.

Ultimately, looking at theories and practices of how novels are adapted into film provides an interesting model to apply to how I use graphic design. It is not necessarily an applicable model. The main point of departure is that theories laid out about adapting written language into a visual language speak of a filmic language – which is not strictly analogous to the graphic design language I am working with.

My approach is to almost take statements from these theories as hypotheses to be fleshed out and tested. The idea of working to contradict pre-existing notions about graphic design's communicative potential is fascinating to me. There remains in my thinking a deep skepticism for how well narratives survive an adaptation process – and at the same time a real idealism for what can occur. This idealism is rooted in the fact that the visual language I can create as a graphic designer might have communicative potentials beyond a purely filmic language or a written one. I can pull from the materiality from letterpress and silk-screening, language from great novels and a sense of structure and sequence from filmic editing and film narrative conventions. The interplay between these elements can fuse to form an inflection of the original narrative, indeed a new type of narrative, .

Adaptation still remains the umbrella under which my studies sit. Theories will function as a sort of wall to push my work against.

HYPOTHESIS ONE: The trope in Language

"The film, then, making its appeal to the perceiving senses, is free to work with endless variations of physical reality. “Literature on the other hand,” Mendilow points out, “is dependent entirely on a symbolic medium that stands between the perceiver and symbolized percepta…”…Where the moving picture comes to us directly through perception, language must be filtered through the screen of conceptual apprehension.” (Novels into Film; George Bluestone, p.20)"

Can language be purely perceived by the viewer in the way images can? As a graphic designer who deals primarily with typography, and the relationship between type and image - are there ways to use type that allows it to bypass this 'screen of conceptual apprehension' Bluestone describes? How can the viewer be manipulated to both conceptually and perceptually experience language on the screen and on the page? Jonathan Barnbrook's animated sequences for BBC Radio Scotland explored the relationship between spoken word and type on screen in a way that seems to generate a new narrative form. Type here is both read and experienced by the viewer.



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Bluestone's discussion of how the two media can potentially deal with character is also extremely relevant to my detective fiction projects, where I am dealing with adaptation of character;

"Because language has laws of its own, and literary characters are inseparable from the language which forms them, the externalisation of such characters often seems dissatisfying."

Again questions arise around how one can adapt written language to a visual form - to typographic characters or to actual images? How can a graphic designer first understand the laws of language that form a literary character, and transform them into a visual logic? My thesis at this point is less a cohesive argument than a series of hypotheses to test out.

HYPOTHESIS TWO: The Cinematic Trope

“If the film is thus severely restricted in rendering linguistic tropes, it has, through the process of editing, discovered a metaphoric quality all its own. Film editing, combining the integrity of the shot with the visual rhythm of the sequence, gives the director his characteristic signature… Through editing, the film-maker can eliminate meaningless intervals, concentrate on significant details, ordering his design in consonance with the central line of his narrative.”

It is in the re-constituting of parts to form a visual language that the ‘re-constructive’ part of the adaptation process begins. It is in the exploration of form and experimenting with structure and sequence that this ‘metaphoric quality’ can be imbued into the piece. In both my print and motion projects I am trying to learn how visual rhythm can imbue a visual sequence with the essence of the original content; the original script. It is important that I do not lose this original essence – though I find as I reconfigure and recombine parts, I am re-authoring and re-writing the original.

Thoughts on Suspense

In looking back at past projects and looking forward to prospective projects – I have observed a common thread within the large subject areas of adaptation and suspense. By starting from a clichéd form of suspense, detective fiction – I was able to quickly define the rules for suspense, at least the cinematic and literary rules. In the course of attempting to apply these rules to a graphic design context– patterns for creating suspense emerged. I plan to apply these not only to the suspenseful content from “The Black Dahlia”, but also to the opposite extreme, highly mundane content that can be rendered suspenseful.

1) Withholding information/stalling action:
I realized suspense can be generated through this method in graphic design much as it is in films and novels. While this does involve playing with the voice of the narrator, it has more to do with manipulating the sequencing and amount of information within the fictional world being created. I attempted this through literal obstruction in my “Black Dahlia” video clips. Light worked to reveal, and therefore conceal, key information on the screen. This became a study in controlling the pace and rhythm of this obstruction – so as to intrigue the viewer without shutting them out from some narrative thread. It brought up the important question regarding how a designer might create visual equivalents for ‘concealing’ information that function in written narrative. How can a typographic treatment of text communicate the sense in reading a book that the speaker is unreliable? How can the interaction between type and image on the screen – and the way one obscures another – communicate a state of suspension?

2) Juxtaposing points of view:
This is a more subtle method for creating underlying suspense – and also creates the potential for suspense in the fictional world of the narrative. This relates to the above method in that it regards manipulating the voice of the narrator and allowing the effect of this to be visible in the resulting story. Working with more than one point of view in telling a story (in any form) works to emphasise the role of the narrator. It works to highlight the ‘frame’ a story sits within, to highlight the fact that the story is an artificial construct. Manipulating narratorial point of view creates suspense by bringing to the audience’s attention the friction between a story, and the telling of the story. The audience is not allowed the luxury of falling completely within a story, but is made aware of the edge line of the frame, the screen, the page, the story itself. This is ultimate suspense – audience suspension between the fictional experience and the real world, between these two states.

Juxtaposing two or three points of view creates this tension even more overtly, as I am attempting to do in my book adaptation of “The Black Dahlia”. By re-telling the story from various perspectives, the breadth of the original tale gets cracked wide open. The audience can tread the line between the fictional novel and non-fictional story at its core – and then be pulled back once again to realize they are hearing the voice of the author talking about his own life. It reminds me of the final scene in “The Wizard of Oz” when Dorothy wakes up in Kansas and realizes the world she thought existed was in fact fictional, though overlapped with the real world being inhabited by non-fictional characters.


Clues:
a staple in every mystery narrative, essentially breaking a complete narrative into pieces that are only revealed to the audience gradually. Clues fuel the notion of stalling action – they re-enervate still points in the narrative flow and peak audience interest, make sense of confusion, and hint at what is to come. They are localized points of clarity amid a blurry landscape – that should function to give meaning to that blurry landscape, make some sense of what has passed and impel the audience to venture on. In my own graphic design adaptations, the scope/scale of a clue can be played with. Whether it is an informational clue (footnote, caption), a clue to orient the audience (page number, street sign, chapter heading), or a more subtle clue to evoke emotional/tonal state (typographic treatment, colour, texture). In “The Black Dahlia” book and motion pieces, I have been dealing primarily with this third type of ‘clue’, degrading type to imply sense of voice, light functioning to create atmosphere and rhythm, etc. But more informational clues also work, such as hints of news clippings to convey time and place.

My use of how clues are slipped in and build up is of central concern – I am dealing mainly with repetition to build a logic to clues. The very use of the Anne Sexton quote to hinge my narrative upon is a clue in itself – a pointer to the main story rather than that actual story. Repeating sections of it creates a sense of emphasis, as well as building the visual narrative. The face of Elizabeth Short operates in the same way in the book version – but there what audiences think is a clue actually becomes repeated and distorted to the point that it becomes black and white marks on the page – perhaps a red herring.



Some Questions:

The same question emerges from all methods – does following this rule in a graphic design context cause the intended effect? Is the act of reading an unreliable narrator speaking in a novel the same experience as distorting the legibility of this line of text in a motion sequence? Is the effect the same? Or does this ‘adaptation’ process corrupt the source content and fail to convey the ‘sense’ of the original?

Another important question is one of balancing how one handles methods for creating suspense – particularly the designer’s ability to draw a reader/viewer into a story, and then deliberately make them aware of the ‘frame’ of that story and pull them out of it? This movement in and out of the fictional narrative world being created can be key to creating a suspenseful viewing experience. The designer’s control of this movement/involvement is pivotal – by creating too disjointed a viewing experience one runs the risk of losing the viewer’s interest. But this same disjointed experience can create a heightened sense of drama and appreciation for the story being told. How can this balance be struck?




Newer, Biggish Thoughts

The teaser as template

Reflecting upon my motion pieces for “The Black Dahlia” and how they can be stitched together into more of a visual narrative – I am considering the form of the teaser. Title sequences and teasers tread this fine line between bringing the viewer inside the story, and teasing them on its threshold.

My objective in creating these pieces was to explore my interpretation of this detective story as a dialogue/interaction between the investigating detective and the murdered woman. This interpretation helped me generate a visual language, with metaphors functioning in place of these two ‘characters’ on the screen. They were a chance to play with letting these two characters interact in different ways on the screen.

Clues are central to how the teaser functions – the teaser may use visual/aural clues to create its own mini-narrative, but so too might function as a clue itself. The teaser reveals aspects of the film that we are yet to see – that might only make sense after we have seen the film. Some of my favourite title sequences really play with the idea that they are a clue themselves – “To Kill A Mockingbird” does this openly by displaying objects of the character in her toy box. This is infused with a double meaning – aside from creating tone (nostalgia), hinting at character (small girl, tomboy, etc) – some objects carry deeper resonance in the plot that mean nothing during the titles themselves. Saul Bass’ titles for Hitchcock work as more abstract clues – using form, colour, and movement to hint at what is to come. These work because they operate on two levels, they are visually and atmospherically compelling to watch raw and out of context, but they also gain in dimension after watching the film.


Building Suspense Out of the Mundane

I suspect this can only be done by breaking down rules for suspense, and applying them rigidly to any subject matter. This would teach me about suspense, but less about suspense in the graphic design mode, which is my main interest. I want to know how Hitchcock’s notions of localized and deeper underlying suspense function in a purely typographic language. Or how Henry James’ sleight of hand in narrating “The Turn Of The Screw” can be adapted in a 16 mm black and white film of this story set in a contemporary home.

Maybe instead of picking pre-existing material, the news, the weather – I ought to use my own real experience and try to render that suspenseful. The act of having a conversation with someone. The act of performing one action while remembering another action. The act of waiting for the phone to ring. The methods of repetition, and juxtaposition (mise-en scene) can transform these actions into moments of suspense.
By doing this, I learn about how editing and all that entails (considering pace and duration) can transform content. That can then be re-applied to a graphic design language.

Leonardo Sonnoli and Type

The work and writings of Leonardo Sonnoli have made me reconsider my own objectives in my thesis projects. As art director of Dolcini Associati in Pesaro, Italy, Sonnoli’s posters first grabbed my eye for their incredible ability to merge the complex and the stark. His handling of type is so sharp, so considered, and so elegant. Looking at his use of type – he seems to be a designer who always allows content to drive form in a very intuitive way. There is an aesthetic, intellectual and emotional ‘rightness’ to his design that is inspiring.

He himself writes about Moholy-Nagy’s view “…that type contains a visual element so strong that is communicates more than just intellectual meaning, and photography when used as a typographical element is efficient, so you substitute text on its own as photo-text’. Sonnoli invented the term ‘wri-thing’ – which states that type is an object in its own right. In his words, ‘I am saying that text is type-based and that you show the shape of an idea through the use of type.’

Am I using type to show the shape of the idea?

“Reflections on how Jonathan Safran Foer writes”

Upon reading a certain passage from Foer’s “Everything Is Illuminated” I began to think about my own ways of making graphic design.

“….yes (dusk spills across the nightscape, the night sky blots up the darkness like a sponge, heads crane), yes (eyes close), please (lips part), yes. (The conductor drops his baton, his butter knife, his scalpel, his Torah pointer, the universe, blackness.)

He uses words to structure and communicate his ideas in such a beautiful way. There is something in the way he writes, the way he layers ideas, and the actual physical construction of sentence forms – that reminds me of layering visual elements to create a visual narrative.

…on time
His narrative becomes a deep deep space to venture into, rather than look at. It above all has a strong sense of temporality, of the story moving back and forth in time fluidly. Everything feels fluid in his writing – ideas bleed into others in a way that reminds me of one visual form bleeding into another. The connection between his ideas, the jumps he makes, for me have the texture and resonance of visual transitions – dark becoming light, type becoming image, sharpness becoming blurry.

…and on visual metaphor
His leap from one object to another reminds me of working with visual metaphor. One makes an object stand for a thing (an idea, a concept), but the physicality of the form of that object informs the concept it stands for. So if a solid letter O represents Othello, the actual visible components of that letter on the screen/page create new associations, the vertical bands of the O become bars, the negative space between the bars becomes a clear sky. The object begins to morph of its own free will. It designs its own plot, its own storyline, and its own world to inhabit.