From Page to Screen / Vom Buch zum Film. Группа авторов
the United States. Therefore, some aspects from the book have been changed so that the story fits within the American setting where the action in the movie takes place. Even though these changes will not be relevant for the development of the main plot and characters, they will help to better adapt the story to the US and the Hollywood industry. For instance, the book pictures Matilda living in a small village in England, in a “quite nice a house with three bedrooms upstairs, while on the ground floor there was a dining-room and a living-room and a kitchen” (Dahl, 1988; 2016: 16). The film, on the other hand, portrays a modern, one-story house in the suburbs of an American town. There are some more details that help adapt the story to the US setting, like prices being given in dollars or children eating sweets like M&Ms, the American brand, instead of regular licorice in the book.
Important as they may be, these are not the only changes worth mentioning. For instance, the book Matilda’s father tears to pieces in the novel and the presence of the FBI in the motion picture are two additional aspects that deserve due attention. The significance of both elements is highlighted not only for the Americanness they add to the film, but also because they resonate with two crucial points of this analysis: political (in)correctness and the role of magic as a reaction against adults’ misbehavior. In the first case, Mr. Wormwood arrives home quite angry from work. In the book, he notices Matilda is reading a book and he takes it from her hands. Matilda explains it is The Red Pony, and she tells her father: “It’s by John Steinbeck, an American writer”. “‘Filth’, Mr. Wormwood said. ‘If it’s by an American it’s certain to be filth. That’s all they write about’” (Dahl, 1988; 2016: 34), and he tears the book to pieces. Mr. Wormwood’s reaction to this information is not represented in the same way in the movie. In this case, characters do not mention anything related to what book Matilda is reading, and the father does not treat the book as roughly; he just throws it on the floor, for destroying a literary work could be considered as an unethical and unacceptable example for those children watching the movie. Besides, these decisions help veil a clear aggression against the culture of both the country of production and one of the main target groups the film seeks to attract: American spectators.
The second change brings the FBI to the story. Instead of talking about the police, the FBI is introduced in the film in order to tailor the production to a North American environment. Their presence is more relevant in the film than the police is in the book. While there are only scarce references to the police in the novel, the FBI’s investigation of Mr. Wormwood’s illegal business with pieces of stolen cars plays a bigger role in the film. This FBI presence is not only relevant for the context, but also because Matilda will use her magic powers in order to punish yet another reprehensible action from adults, as the FBI agents are registering the Wormwood’s garage without a legal order. Despite this, her encounter with the FBI is just one more example of Matilda’s power, and it does not imply any major change in the story or in the construction of the main character.
Therefore, and considering the changes included in the film, it can be said that these differences are most of the times introduced to emphasize the Americanness of the movie in contrast with the English context of the book. Among other considerations, the global projection of the film together with the meaning and expectations triggered by the concept “family film” may help us understand these modifications. According to Brown (2012: 191), the term “family film” does not exist in many countries, where people use labels such as “children’s film”, “action film” or even “American film” to refer to the different branches this extremely overarching genre encompasses. With that in mind, the latter designation may partly explain some of the modifications underscored hitherto. Films with some of the features displayed by Matilda are globally and almost intrinsically related to Hollywood and the American cultural machinery. The strength and range of this apparatus has also helped spread North American idiosyncrasies, getting to embed most of them in the collective imagination of people worldwide. In this vein, highlighting the “Americanness” of the film can be a way to meet the audience’s expectations whilst it also cements their identification with the events described on the screen. In the case of Matilda, none of the alterations mentioned above entails significant differences in terms of plot or characterization, but their introduction can be interpreted as a way to foreground the connection between the film and the Hollywood industry and favor a more global identification with the setting and cultural references.
4.2 Matilda: A character in letters, a character in motion and pictures
4.2.1 Literature and education
Some of the main features that shaped the original Matilda are inextricably related to the core topics addressed by Dahl. Consequently, in this section we intend to explore the book’s and the film’s characterization of the little girl (and that of other characters that determine Matilda’s traits) through some of the central themes tackled throughout the pages of Dahl’s novel.
If there is a prevailing feature defining Matilda’s character that is undoubtedly her passion for literature. It is not a coincidence, for example, that the book opens with a chapter titled “The Reader of Books”. Similarly, this connection is emphasized throughout the book via the light under which Matilda is described1, the myriad situations in which literature frames her actions (Matilda visiting the library, reading at home, etc.) or even the numerous illustrations crafted by Quentin Blake2 that portray the little girl reading or with a book in her hands. In the film, literature does also play an important role in Matilda’s life. Matilda is presented to the spectator as a very intelligent girl neglected by her family, whose parents would not take to school and with no friends, but despite this, books are her main help and consolation. The narrator underscores this fact when he says “these books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: you are not alone” (DeVito et al., De Vito, 1996: 07:10). While the narrator is telling this, we can see the image of parents having fun with children at a park while Matilda sat alone under a tree with a pile of books.
This unswerving bond between the protagonist and literature is not only a way to underline the importance of the latter, but also a gateway to one of the pivotal issues addressed in the book: education. Throughout the story, Dahl approaches several aspects linked to this field as, for example, the (in)appropriateness of different methodologies, the impact the agents involved (family, instructors) in the teaching-learning process may have on children’s education, or the relevance of galvanizing reading promotion plans (Quiles Cerrillo, 2016: 150–158). The position the author holds with regards to these issues is easily inferable from, for instance, the portrait of some characters that represent the two poles of a continuum that connects negative and positive educational habits. On the former side we can include characters such as Mrs. and Mr. Wormwood or Miss Trunchbull, characterized in the book as simpletons, brutes, and even physically disgusting. The film maintains this tone when it comes to describe them. Whenever we see the Wormwoods on screen, they are either in front of the TV, yelling, or performing bad actions such as Mr. Wormwood’s cheating with car selling, or Mrs. Wormwood going to play bingo and leaving her little daughter home alone. The case of Miss Trunchbull is similar: the film presents a giant lady whose only purpose in life seems to be to scare, threaten and physically punish the children in the school she manages.
If we are to look more in depth to Matilda’s parents, it must be said they are the opposite to her daughter. While Matilda loves books, there are no books at the Wormwood’s house, just a few magazines (and a cookery book mentioned in Dahl’s pages, not in the film). They prefer watching television instead and cannot work out why Matilda would rather read a book. In addition, while Matilda craves knowledge, her parents seem to give little importance to the girl’s intellectual development. The scene described in section 4.1 in which Matilda’s father destroys the book may be a good case in point: as he cannot understand the pleasure and enlightenment that stem from reading, he tears the book apart, thus severing one of the ties of her daughter to the joy and instruction she does not get at home.
Besides and because of their inattention, Matilda starts school late. In the book, we are told that she starts half a year later than the rest of the children because her parents forget to make the arrangements. In the movie, they do not take her to school until she asks them to, which in both cases pinpoints how little they were worried about their daughter’s