From Page to Screen / Vom Buch zum Film. Группа авторов
the original product? Which role did the Hollywood machinery play in this process? The present paper seeks to explore these and other questions as it builds on the assumption that the context of production/reception together with the constraints of a given film genre play a major role in the decisions made when adapting a book into a film. On these bases, the following pages seek to meet the following objectives:
– To analyze the impact of the aforementioned items on the film adaptation of Matilda (DeVito et al., De Vito, 1996).
– To explore the extent of those changes in the characterization of the protagonist.
– To determine whether the ambivalence of the character (a heroine for some, a villain for others) is maintained in DeVito’s movie.
2 Theoretical Framework
Albeit it may seem a recent breakthrough in adaptation studies, the cultural/contextual angle has been part of the field for decades. According to Elliott (2014: 577), during the 50s, scholars like Asheim already pointed out the relevance of culture and contextual factors such as the industry and the audience in the eventual shape of film adaptations. Although the 70s, the 80s and part of the 90s were dominated by formalist theories, the mid-90s witnessed adaptation studies veer again towards context and its implications; in this vein, the research conducted by Cartmell, Whelehan, or McFarlane were paramount to cement the bond between the discipline and cultural and contextual theories (Elliott, 2014: 577–578).
Even if their approaches may differ in some tenets, scholars like Casetti or Hutcheon continued to intertwine the analysis of film adaptations and the myriad of elements forming their production backdrop (Elliott, 2014: 580–582). Theirs and other studies helped consolidate and expand the bibliography that turned the traditional balance of forces around in order to foreground the impact of cultural and contextual approaches, as formal aspects were backgrounded and embedded under the umbrella of the aforementioned perspectives. As Elliot (2004: 238–239) demonstrates by dissecting a number of adaptations from Victorian novels, the time of production, ideology, and cultural conceptions among other factors influence even those films that “pursue a hyperfidelity” to the original material. Therefore, adaptation could be defined as “a phenomenon of recontextualisation of a text, or, even better, of reformulation of its communicative situation” (Casetti, 2004: 83), which is why attention should be shifted to the dialogue between text and context, an element that could be branched into the context of production and the prospective context of reception.
The importance of these two items pinpoints a crucial and necessary component already underscored in previous passages: the film industry. In the case at hand, this agent is embodied by Hollywood and its influence in the final product. To some extent, Hollywood’s approach to literary adaptations tallies with French auterists’ tenets: film adaptation is a way to democratize literature and a means to make it reach a wider audience (DeBona, 2010: 4). According to DeBona (2010: 5), the mainstream American film industry, either consciously or unconsciously, resumes Bazin’s seminal concept of “mixed cinema” together with some of its pillars. In like vein, Hollywood tends to craft a digest of the original that galvanizes its acceptability by watering down some of the aesthetic complexities included in the source text. This florid description hides but a commercializing strategy that seeks to widen the potential scope of the product, oftentimes supplemented with the ancillary changes that might be made depending on the specifics of the prospective audience.
This is where film genre plays, in our view, a major role. It is not within the purposes of this chapter to delve into the heated debate triggered by potential definitions of film and literary genre, nor to advocate a particular position in this unrelenting discussion. To explore such issues, we recommend readers to turn to the way more substantive works by scholars like Altman (1984), Bennet (1990) or Browne (1998), among others. Even at risk of being criticized for its apparent simplicity, the present paper will rely on Grant’s (2007) ideas to craft a straightforward definition of film genre. Thus, the following pages will conceptualize “genre” as a group of films that shares a number of common elements, addresses spectators in a particular manner and intends to offer a specific range of experiences and emotions to the audience (Grant, 2007: 4). The significance of the prospective receivers posited by this definition dovetails with some of the ideas in the previous passages and with the particular genre in which Matilda is going to be framed: family films.
In accordance to the definition of genre introduced before, Brown (2013: 2) portrays the “family film” as “a feature-length production explicitly designed for the joint consumption of adults and children, and received as such”. Even if family films encompass very different subgenres (musicals, action films, comedies, animation), they can still be understood as an overarching category that embraces diversity as it charts a map where structural, ideological, and emotional commonalities can be pinpointed (Brown, 2012: 11). According to Brown (2013: 2–4), the concept “family film” stems from Hollywood’s decision (compelled by the adoption and entry into force of the Motion Picture Production Code) of limiting and dimming adult content as they started targeting family audiences previously overlooked by the topics and tone that permeated most movies in the first breaths of the post-sound era. From that moment onwards, family films have evolved in several ways, but most of these transformations were guided by an identical purpose: welcoming and appealing to an extensive audience formed by different generations and age ranges.
The inclusive and constantly expansive nature of this genre, together with the need to keep pace with social changes and communal tastes, makes it take myriad forms, especially from the early 80s onwards (Brown, 2012: 165). Thus, family films oscillate between the kindness, humor, and suburban trifles portrayed in Mrs. Doubtfire (Garces Williams et al., Columbus, 1993), the antics and mischief of a horde of little monsters named Gremlins (Finnell, 1984) and the impressive, high-on-special effects fratricidal battles between robots in Transformers (Di Bonaventura et al., Bay, 2007). Despite this transparent variety, Brown’s (2012) research on the genre proves that family films are prone to merge, not necessarily at once, certain customary features: a very limited (or total absence of) gore and sexual content, recurrence of humor and love, pedagogical bottom lines, happy and optimistic endings, fast-paced narrations, reliance on emotion and sensorial appeal, or the presence of fantastic and magical elements to name only a few. In addition, Brown (2012: passim) underscores that they also tend to share a series of underlying messages (the importance of family and friendship, good clearly overcoming evil, love as a driving force of human behavior) and purposes (fostering family unity, having a good time, relaxing, and escaping from daily routine).These and other traits can be slightly different depending on a decisive factor to understand the history and shape of family films: age rating.
The relationship between the film industry and these labels has changed over the years. For instance, Brown (2012: 193–194) affirms that in the 60s–80s period, the R rating (no children under 17 allowed without supervision) was positively perceived both by producers and consumers, so several films were written and shot to fit in this category. However, the content conveyed in these movies limited the breadth of the prospective audience; consequently, the 90s and the turn of the century witnessed an aim of growing standardization in the (low) levels of harshness and explicitness displayed by family films. Against this backdrop, age rates like PG (parental guidance is advisable) and PG-13 (parents strongly cautioned; inappropriate content for children under 13) gained traction while R-rated films became progressively less important in most-watched movies lists (Brown, 2012: 193). The result has been an even more encompassing notion of “family entertainment” that has rocketed the potential addressees and economic gains of any product presented under a family-friendly light (Brown, 2012: 193–194). Since most regular moviegoers are teenagers and young adults (Williams, 2012: 220), age rating seldom becomes a serious problem. However, scandals like those triggered by the allegedly tolerant rating of films like Gremlins or Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, led Hollywood to draw a thick line between pre-teen spectators and older audiences in order to strengthen the protection of young children (Antunes, 2017: 2–4). In this vein, films that were considered rather innocuous in the 80s would now immediately qualify for a PG or even a PG-13 rating.
In addition, we shall not forget that the