Post
by danielma » Tue Nov 29, 2011 9:43 pm
This is going to be a long one folks
See this is hard...because after I was done with the book, I started thinking how a film version would work.
I think with any film adaptation, it’s all about stripping the source material to its core story and working from there
For instance
Let the Right One In at its core is a macabre love story between two outsiders
Handling the Undead is about people dealing with Death
Harbour is about a Father reaching into the other side to find his daughter
With Harbour, I have an idea how the core story will at least play out in film. With Handling, I also have an idea how it may play. But with Little Star, well due to the nature of the story, I’m still trying to figure out what the core story would be to strip it down to.
My first thought was you could probably remove There’s backstory all together. You could focus on Teresa as the main character and her coming into contact with Theres. But then I thought no that wouldn’t work as you need to really establish Theres and not only her talent but also her idiosyncratic ways. That and the idea of leaving Theres and Jerry a mystery comes a little too close to Film Hakan and Eli…where it’s a mysterious guy living with a strange young girl.
Then I thought well okay, what if we cut down on Teresa’s backstory. But then that contradicted with the thought of “Well if you remove Teresa’s backstory then you cheapen the moment of her killing Johannes” and so it became apparent that I think both Teresa and Theres backstories are important and shouldn’t be diminished. The backstories establish who those characters are and without them, I would be hard pressed as to how it would work.
Then I thought, well what if we remove the other girls and have the focus primarily on the friendship between Theres and Teresa. But then I realized that if you get rid of the other girls then you probably would have to get rid of one of my favourite scenes being the burial ritual. Not to mention the end massacre would not work solely with Teresa doing the deeds on her own, you need the other girls in that scene.
With Harbour, I at least know of the stuff you could cut and still get to the core story. But with Little Star, I’m hard-pressed to think “what would you cut that would still tell the core story and feel true to the story?” Because let’s face it, that’s what most film adaptations are all about…about getting it down to the core story and removing a lot of the side trimmings that work in a book, but won’t necessarily fly in a 2 hour film.
I don’t know, the more I’ve thought about it, the harder it gets to think of this condensed into a film…I loved every detail in this book and it would be a shame to see any of it cut. But I must say, there were many moments in the book where I was visualising scenes in my head just because of how vividly detailed they were.
For instance, when Johannes ends up with his Girlfriend (I can’t remember her name right now), I started visualising that whole sequence as a montage set to Bright Eye’s “First Day of My Life” and I started visualising exactly how it would play in my head. Or when Teresa kills Johannes, I actually worked out how I would shoot it and make it work. I would shoot it so we never see the hammer connecting with Johannes head. I’d shoot it from a wide shot with Teresa leaning over him smacking him in the head, but there would be a couch blocking the view of actual contact (we’d only see Johannes legs as they are thrusting and shaking)…we’d see Teresa striking the hammer, we’d hear the sounds of the hammer connecting…but never actually see the contact. Then the scene would close with the camera tracking Teresa as she walks out of the apartment in silence with blood stained on her shirt. As she is walking to an elevator, we’d get the voice over of Teresa reading the final note they send. The voice over hits the final lines as she walks into the elevator and the door closes…cue Abba’s “So I Say Thank You for the Music” as we enter the epilogue.
As far as visual style? I’d shoot it in a surreal manor. Honestly, whilst reading the book, I felt the film belonged in a very surreal dream world. Well not a David Lynch surrealism, but a hyper view of the world…like it’s not quite reality based…it could take place in reality but there is almost something a little surreal about it. For instance, you could do something really exciting with the burial scene in regards to Teresa. I’ve always felt that in the book, the burial scene is meant to be the birth of Teresa’s split personality being Urd…where the death of Teresa came with the death of Johannes…the birth of Urd came from the burial scene…whilst reading that scene…I got really excited as to what someone could possibly do with this scene on film
While reading the book, I definitely thought about these things.
There are so many scenes in this book that I did think off from a cinematic stand point that I just thought “Wow, someone could do something really freaking spectacular with this book”…but the overall narrative is where I’m stuck…because I honestly look at that book and think “every detail in it is not only wonderful but kind of necessary to the story and its characters, and it would be a dis-service to cut some of it”
But enough prattling about my own vision for it.
Directors who I would want to tackle it (Dream Directors I’m talking about, honestly I would want to see this made in Sweden with a Swedish crew and director…but these are just dream directors)
Lynne Ramsay – She really impressed me this year with “We Need to Talk About Kevin” and there is apart of me that would love to see what she could do with something like this
Susanne Bier – Once again, impressed me immensely with “In a Better World” and would be an interesting choice
Park Chan-Wook – There are elements of the book that I would really like to see through the eyes of Park Chan-Wook…I think he could do something really interesting with it
Darren Aronofsky – Came to mind with the Burial Scene…I honestly think that Burial Scene holds a lot of potential to be something quite interesting in a film version.
David Cronenberg also came to mind