There are only a few well known poems adapted for live dramatic film, such as the 2004 film Troy - adapted from the poems Aeneid by Virgil and Iliad by Homer, and the 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou? adapted from the poem Odyssey, also by Homer. However, these adaptations have less of a direct connection to the poems themselves, and instead have used the poems as inspiration. By which I mean that there is not dialogue from the poems spoken, voiced over or placed on screen throughout, therefore there is not a clear reminder of the original poem when an audience views the adaptations.
An example of an adaptation of poetic monologues that remains closer to the original themes and plot is the 2010 film For Colored Girls, which is adapted from the poetic 1976 theatre piece For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf. The adaptation keeps the original plot of focusing on nine African-american women and their struggles, and retains the issues faced by the characters that are explored in the original play including love, abandonment, rape, infidelity, and abortion
The trailer for the film is a clear representation of how closely the adaptation resembles the original production. Through including original dialogue from the play, and the use of different and specific costume colours for each woman, identical to those used in the theatre piece.
For Colored Girls Trailer
While there are a number of differences between this adaptation and my own, I was inspired by the use of colour in both costume and lighting of the scenes as representations of certain feelings. For example, reds, pinks and yellows (resembling sunlight) being used as a way to portray feelings of love and calmness. I have used this technique in my own adaptation of Love Ambitions, I feel that it is a strong technique for portraying emotions and themes in a subtle way.
Love Themed Adaptation Example
Bridget Jones's Diary is a 2001 film adaptation of the 1996 novel of the same name by Helen Fielding. The 2004 sequel, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, is also an adaptation of the 1999 sequel novel of the same name.
Although Bridget Jones's Diary heavily involves satire, it mainly focuses on the story of a woman who struggles with her love life. When focusing on the appearance of the film and the main character, similarities can be found between my own adaptation and the film series when looking at the conventions of aesthetics in romance films.
Bridget Jones's Diary - The Last Scene
When focusing solely on the shots, costume, colouring and lighting of this scene, a number of key things can be picked out...
- Her costume is simply pyjamas, resembling her vulnerability
- There is a close up shot of her diary, which explains the situation the audience without any vocal explanation in addition
- The outside lighting is dark due to the time set, yet with yellow colouring. This warms the scene in contrast to the wintry set
- Mid shots of the main character with empty space around her, again signifying vulnerabilty
- Tones of pink in the lighting in the final shot, representing their new romance
With inspiration from the above, my adaptation of Love Ambitions has visuals that closely resemble this style, however in a different situation. For example the tone of pink in the first half of my film signify the loving feeling that the main character has on her own, instead of between two characters on screen.
The Use of On-Screen Text
I have chosen to use on-screen text for presenting the poem line by line in Love Ambitions. To do so, I looked at a number of examples of the use of incorporating on-screen text into moving images.
Referring back to Bridget Jones's Diary, it is also a great example of the use of text. Due to being adapted from a novel based on the main character's diary, the adaptor, Sharon Maguire, decided to keep a close a resemblance to the novel by occasionally having her diary entries appear during certain scenes. Such as below...
These text appearances often occur along with the character Bridget's narrations of the same words and while she has the diary in-hand during the scene. I found this to be a very natural and well structured addition of on-screen text.
Another example is the 2010 series Sherlock, which is well known for it's use of text naturally appearing during its scenes. However, in this case it is usually placed on screen as a mobile phone message that a character is reading. While I haven't used this in my own film, it is great material for inspiration on text size, movement and placement in my use of on-screen text when trying to achieve the most natural looking and easy to read sentences.
Sherlock example
I feel that my previously conducted research of these aspects of adaptation along with features such as text have benefited me in creating, filming and editing Love Ambitions and when creating an adaptation of someone else's work.
Bibliography:
For Colored Girls Trailer [film trailer online] Lionsgate. YouTube (2011) 2 mins At: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIDrfLIjnLo (Accessed on 04.12.15)
For Colored Girls Website (2010) At: http://www.forcoloredgirlsmovie.com/ (Accessed on 04.12.15)
Bridget Jones's Diary Last Kiss [film clip online] YouTube (2013) 3 mins At: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ige4ZFeST2k (Accessed on 06.12.15)
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