Introducing Fahrenheit 451 (1966)

Another short break from my Lockdown Choices series, to bring you a short slideshow introduction ot the 1966 film of Fahrenheit 451. I originally created the slideshow for a presentation I gave at Wolverhampton's Light House Cinema in 2016. This version has a "temp" narration (apologies for the sound quality...)

For best results, click the little square in the bottom-right corner, and go fullscreen.

Take Me To Your Reader

Last night I joined the regular team of the podcast Take Me To Your Reader to record an episode devoted to Ray Bradbury's short story "A Sound of Thunder" and two media adaptations of the story.

The idea behind Take Me To Your Reader is that the presenters will read a science-fiction book or short story, and then watch the film(s) based on the story. Previous topics have included Planet of the Apes (in all its filmic incarnations), Carl Sagan's Contact, and Jurassic Park - and many, many others. I've listed to maybe six or seven episodes previously, and always found them enjoyable for their careful but accessible analysis of how stories adapt from one medium to another.

"A Sound of Thunder" is unusual in being a quite short story which has been adapted into a full-length feature film, necessarily entailing the invention of a lot of new material. The film, directed by Peter Hyams and released in 2005, went out into the world almost unnoticed: it had a limited release, and then went quietly to DVD with a minimum of publicity. It didn't help that the company behind it went bust, and it almost never got finished.

The earlier screen adaptation was from Bradbury's own script, for Ray Bradbury Theater. I've always quite liked this version, although it has its flaws - you can read my review of the episode here.

I won't pre-empt the conclusions of the Take Me To Your Reader episode, but let's just say that all of us involved in the recording found the movie to be hilarious in places... but it is, alas, not intended to be a comedy...

We spoke via Skype, with one end of the conversation being recorded in Oregon and my end being recorded in the UK, so  the episode now needs to be edited to make a seamless whole. It should be ready by the end of the month. I'll post a link as soon as it goes live.

Meanwhile, if you're interested in SF adaptations, why not check out some of the earlier episodes, here.

During the recording, I recommended that newcomers to Bradbury's fiction should start with one of the compendium volumes, either The Stories of Ray Bradbury or Bradbury Stories. The two books are completely complementary, with no overlap at all in their contents. Each book contains a wide range of story types, and each one makes a perfect introduction to Bradbury.

Below is an Amazon link. If you click on this link, any Amazon purchase you make will generate a small donation to the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies.

New Book: SF Across Media

At long last, we have a publication date for a book containing one of my essays. Science Fiction Across Media: Adaptation/Novelization is due out on 16th September 2013. The book originated in the 2009 conference of the same name, which was held at the University of Leuven, Belgium.

My chapter is about Ray Bradbury's short story "A Sound of Thunder" and the ways it has been treated in difference media adaptations. I wrote it so long ago that I can barely remember what it's about (and so long ago that I will probably cringe at some of the things I say in it). I do recall that I refer to the story; to Bradbury's own TV dramatisation of the story; to Peter Hyams' disappointing film expansion of the story; and to several illustrators' treatment of the story's imagery.

Interestingly, the book's editors (Thomas Van Parys and I.Q.Hunter) or publishers (Gylphi Press) have chosen to use another Bradbury adaptation to illustrate the cover: Fahrenheit 451. It shows Cyril Cusack as Fire Chief Beatty warming his hands over some burning books while Oskar Werner looks on.

Brand identity

Opinions are divided on what is best in an adaptation. Ask the proverbial man on the street, and I'm sure he will tell you that when he watches a film based on a book he's read, he wants it to tell the same story. Fidelity, faithfulness to the original work, is all important.

Except: it's impossible to achieve, because what works optimally in one medium can be impossible, dull or clunky in a different medium.

And: surely, if you want the film to be exactly like the book, wouldn't you really be better off just reading the book itself.

And: how many people will have read the book anyway?

In the academic study of adaptation, the whole idea of fidelity was considered and rejected decades ago, for the reasons I've suggested above, and for a few others. Instead, what most critics are interested in is for an adaptation to give a new insight into the original work, or to make the original work newly relevant to our world.

Which brings me not to a film adaptation, but to graphic novel adaptations. This summer sees the publication of two more authorised graphic novel adaptations of Ray Bradbury novels, follow-ups to the successful adaptation of Fahrenheit 451 released two years ago.

Ron Wimberly has adapted Something Wicked This Way Comes. In a recent interview he talks about the constraints of adapting an existing work:

You won't fit everything in, but one must try to capture the spirit of the work. The spirit of literature is poetry. Poetry suggests. It's the Impressionism of literature. So I approached it like that. Things are lost, but you can always read Bradbury's original to taste the angel's share.

He then goes on to talk about how, in his first draft of the adaptation, he chose to make the key setting of the story like the "suburban wasteland" of Washington, D.C., where he grew up. Then "Bradbury's people" asked if he could make it more like the Disney movie.

Part of me would be fascinated to see Wimberly's "suburban wasteland" version of Something Wicked. If you're paying an artist good money to interpret a work, let's see his interpretation. If I want Bradbury, I can read the original novel.

But then again, this book is one of a series of volumes that announce themselves as authorised adaptations. That announcement makes a difference. It's attaching a brand to the book. It really has to be Bradbury's Something Wicked between the covers, otherwise it would be like buying a can of Heinz Baked Beans only to open it and find they taste like supermarket own brand. (No, I don't buy that theory that all baked beans are the same. Heinz' taste different, no question!)

Read the full interview with Ron Wimberly here.