“Great post, but I think I’m pretty much with The Dane on this one.

Concerning: “Can’t contemporary Hollywood give us an uncomplicated, noble king for once?”

Why? The only purely noble king that ever was was King Jesus. Even David was pretty incredibly complicated (complex?) and less than noble at various times. And that’s that gives him depth and relatability. The same can be said with pretty much any other authority figure.

I get why Aslan needs to be basically perfect. But I feel perfectly fine with them taking some liberties with Prince Caspian. After all, it’s not like our hope lies in him.
- 7 April 2008 at 3:27 pm ”

We don’t want to trust in any king but Christ. I understand that. But the story was meant to portray Peter as portraying the qualities of Aslan. I agree that the movie took too many liberties here. Peter doesn’t ever come to a point in the books where he is discontent. It doesn’t matter how he ‘felt’ when he got back to our world. He met Aslan and that is the point! The movie producers needed to leave that alone. Secondly, the reason movies need to be made that portray a noble king is that we are wired to love goodness and beauty. We don’t look for substitutes for God but we do need to love what He loves and hate what He hates. We are supposed to love it when the king of a story has the proper authority. Peter shows that in the book. He often reminds Prince Caspian that he is there in Narnia to help, not to rule again. I strongly disagree with the portrayal of Peter as seen in the movies. He doesn’t model the king he is meant to be in the books.

Can’t say I agree that once you “release” your work of art, people can take the name, the characters, the plot, and the name of the author and then make subtle changes that create a different experience. I don’t know if you’re looking for me to prove anything legally, I just think it’s dishonestly stealing another’s work to make your own point.

Regarding Lewis, you are probably right. I had not seen that quote, and had always assumed the Last Battle story was more focused on the value of Emeth’s works once he came to Christ (Aslan). It’s a subtle enough point theologically that I still think if put in it will be more misleading than anything else, but if they merely copy the scene straight from the book I will have no reason to complain.

The issue with the Mona Lisas is that it is obvious to those who see them that they are not the original, they are merely making some comment on top of the original. The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe is not making a comment on the books, they are claiming to faithfully reproduce the books.

They are not saying, “This reminds you of the Chronicles of Narnia, but it has some key differences,” in the way that the Mona Lisas are. They are instead saying, “This IS the story of the Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.” And then they tell a story about a less-than sovereign Lion who acts more as a general than he does King of the Wood and son of the great Emperor over the Sea. To me, that’s simply a lie, and I fear they may get even further off track as the stories progress.

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But this is not a general rule. Merely choosing to adapt something does not create any kind of standards as to how and to what degree an adaptation has to remain faithful to its source material. We keep going around on this but I think the burden of proof rests on you to demonstrate that there’s anything wrong with faithless adaptation. You did well to mention the producer’s “promise” in regard to Narnia I, but that affects only that production (and not even the production properly but more the claims of the producers).

As far as Lewis and a lifetime of exclusivity goes, I don’t know how exclusive you want him to be, but in Mere Christianity he says, “Is it not frightfully unfair that this new life should be confined to people who have heard of Christ and been able to believe in Him? But the truth is God has not told us what His arrangements about the other people are. We do know that no man can be saved except through Christ; we do not know that only those who know Him can be saved through Him.”

With that in mind, I neither think the point of Emeth comes out of the blue nor does it speak to universal morality so much as it does to Christ’s hypothetical ability to save apart from his name.

As far as the Mona Lisa adaptations I provided: yes, some of those adaptations were satirical and some were not. Do satires then get a pass from the supposed immorality of unfaithful adaptation? What about the ones that were not satirical but merely recontextualized or reimagined the Monal Lisa?

@Carissa – Whether Peter is self-pitying or not, I think it fair to presume that as a child, he is still a boy or perhaps even a boy-man if he’s maturing. But I definitely feel you on the endless recycling of characters.

But I think you’re right that Lewis has more recently achieved nigh-canonical status among some groups of evangelicals. (I attended the institution of higher learning where his wardrobe is enshrined.) Meanwhile, we’ve heard less from evangelical Lewis-critics. Is it because Rowling and Pullman have emerged as more attractive targets? Because Walden Media has marketed itself to churches? I dunno.

Oh, and I’ve realized I never got around to answering Richard’s question about my dislike of the changes to Peter’s character. I supposed I shouldn’t have used the word “uncomplicated,” because really what I object to is that they’re making Peter like every other king or leader figure we’ve seen in recent film or literature. In other words, they’re not making him complicated–they’re making him whiny. I recognize that “uncomplicated” doesn’t usually mean “whiny,” so sorry about that. I think a lot of my objections tie in to the lack of admirable male characters in contemporary culture. I don’t want them to be flawless, because then they’d be uninteresting (not to mention unrealistic), but it would be nice to see something other than aimless, self-pitying boy-men for once.

A lot depends on how Peter’s struggles are handled within the film. If we see Aslan giving him new strength to face his flaws, then I wouldn’t mind so much, because then it doesn’t imply that Aslan’s made him king without giving him the resources to be a good king. But I fear that will be the implication, simply because the screenwriters haven’t thought it through.

First off, when a director adapts a book into a movie, it’s not a mere matter of taste to suggest that he should be faithful to artistic intent. In the DVD extras for the movie (and in the propoganda leading up to the movie), the director and producers clearly told people that they were going to remain as faithful as possible to Lewis’ intent. They even brought in his stepson as a, “consultant,” to bring a note of authenticity to their claims, though I don’t think his stepson was very discerning about that role.

In other words, moviegoers had every reason to expect that the movie was going to tell them almost exactly the same thing as the book. And it did not. And I think it is justifiable, when the claim is that the movie is faithful to the book, to argue that it is not at all faithful to the artistic intent, which is more important than a high rate of detail similarities.

Second, the Mona Lisas are great! But wouldn’t you say they tend more toward (as Rich would say) satire, or at least amusing juxtapositions of famous art and pop culture icons (LEGOS, Far Side, Motorcycles, etc.)?

This to me isn’t the same thing as telling people that you’re going to make a movie version of an artistic work designed to communicate certain transcendent truths, and then change important characters in the movie version so that it communicates DIFFERENT truths than the author intended.

Finally, I don’t think the section with Emeth was designed to throw away a lifetime of proclaiming the exclusivity of the gospel. Instead, I think it was designed to highlight Lewis’ understanding of universal morality. Here’s Wikipedia on the topic.

“Universal morality
One of the main theses in Lewis’ apologia is that there is a common morality known throughout humanity. In the first five chapters of Mere Christianity Lewis discusses the idea that people have a standard of behaviour to which they expect other people to adhere. This standard has been called Universal Morality or Natural Law. Lewis claims that people all over the earth know what this law is and when they break it. He goes on to claim that there must be someone or something behind such a universal set of principles. (Lindskoog 2001b, p. 144)

‘These then are the two points that I wanted to make. First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and can not really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in. (Lewis 1952, p. 21)’”

In other words, I think Lewis was teaching not that Islam (or whatever) is a viable path to eternal life. I think he was suggesting that God accepted Emeth’s desire to pursue and serve him, and that his actions to those ends were appreciated as such, but that he still had to come to faith through Christ (Aslan). The scene in the “stable” is, I think, more similar to the thief on the cross than anything else.

Whatever the correct interpretation of The Last Battle, it would clearly be wrong to suggest Lewis is a pluralist. So, as I mentioned before, if they cannot make the movie communicate his theology correctly, I’d rather they left that part out than turn it into some affirmation of all religions. If they did, I think it would again violate artistic intent.

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Unless one is feeling particularly feisty.

Still, though we disagree on the ethical issue here, I’m glad to see at least that you are consistent.

I was glad that you mentioned the Mona Lisa, as it’s one of the more adapted works of art. Here are some examples of clear adaptations that either adapt structure or theme, but not both. What do you think of these? They are obvious adaptations of the leader of the ninja turtles. They don’t purport to be the work of Leonardo any more than the Narnia movies purport ot be the work of Lewis (unless I missed some awe-striking press release to the contrary…).

On another tack, I’m surprised that you don’t think that Lewis meant that a Muslim worshiping Allah with sincerity, depth, and devotion could possibly go to heaven, having worshiped Christ by the wrong name the entire time.

In The Last Battle, Emeth, the Calormene of note, even intially rebuffs Aslan’s acceptance of him, arguing that he should not be accepted because he had served Tash not Aslan for his entire life. Aslan responds simply that he counts that worship of a false god as service to Aslan himself and things are hunky dory for Emeth. Now that’s not pluralism (as he still posits Christ is the only way), but it’s certainly not far from that form of ecumenicalism that evangelicals scorn (as he posits that though Christ is the only way, there are less overt ways to get to Christ than by simply naming Christ).

@Carissa – Really, if one can’t make sweeping generalizations about evangelicals, then what’s the point of getting up in the morning. As far as your example though, are those really evangelicals you’re describing? They sound closer to fundamentalists. Evangelicals have generally come to embrace Lewis as the literary hero of the fold (with Tolkein his dubious Prince Regent). It’s why people like Philip Can’t-Write-a-Coherent-Story-to-Save-My -Life Pullman was able to identify him as such a good and visible target for his misplaced ire—because he is so generally beloved in evangelical circles.

I think this question makes a number of sweeping assumptions about evangelicals and about those who are troubled by the movies–and they aren’t necessarily the same group, though there is some overlap.

There probably are evangelicals who would be upset by the Emeth episode, but there are also many evangelicals who wouldn’t touch the Chronicles of Narnia with a ten-foot pole because they’re “about witches.”

The latter group, of course, has not read the books–or if they have, they haven’t understood them. I don’t think the Narnia filmmakers have read with understanding either, and I think that’s what upsets me. If you’ve read carefully and with understanding, and if you then want to deviate from the book, at least you know what you’re doing and you know why. I’m judging from the outside and perhaps misjudging, but I just don’t get that impression with the Narnia films.

So, she might write, “Dagny is such and such a person, who reacts to problem such and such a way. She is confused by the world around her but believes hard work can overcome it…”

She would then make sure that everything Dagny said or did in the book was consistent with her personality “backstory,” so that the overall picture of Dagny would be clear and consistent to the reader.

My problem with the The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe was that the overall character presented by the movie (especially Aslan) was inconsistent with the overall character as presented by the book. To me, that is creation of a new character, and as such is unfaithful to the book.

Of course I can’t MAKE a movie producer or director not do that, but it annoys me in the same way it would annoy me if a person copied the Mona Lisa but made her ugly and gave her a huge smile instead of her mysterious smile, and then said, “This is Da Vinci’s great work, the Mona Lisa!” No it isn’t! It’s a copy you made that is unfaithful to the original. And it’s obnoxious.

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You’re right, it would absolutely upset me.

I will throw out one thought, but keep in mind I’m not attempting to equivocate, just to think things through.

The only way “around” the problem that I could see, based on my perspective on this issue, would be for the move creators to say,

“We know Lewis did not believe following Allah will get someone into heaven. If we put that part in, people will misinterpret and think Lewis felt ‘all roads lead to the mountaintop’ as it were. So, let’s change some details to be faithful to what he did want to communicate with his whole theology and not mislead people.”

That seems to me the only justifiable way around, because they are still trying to be faithful to Lewis’ worldview and theology, and are worried that misinterpretations would abound if they left the section in unaltered.

In other words, I’m not looking for the movie to be a perfect, though shortened, copy of the book. I’m looking for it to faithfully express the artistic goals of the creator. Decisions made with that paradigm are both respectful and yet allowing of (some) freedom to change things to fit the format.

One good example is the book and movie of, “Everything is Illuminated.” The movie differed significantly from the book, chopping out whole sections and changing significant details. Yet even so, I think it perfectly expressed the humor, sadness, beauty, and pain of the book. It is one of the few cases where I can reread the book or rewatch the movie and enjoy both experiences.

Further, it is one of the few times I can watch the movie or read the book and have extremely similar experiences. To me, this is just what a movie adaptation should seek to do.

The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, though enjoyable, made some minor changes that massively altered the artistic experience Lewis provided. I actually think the BBC version does a significantly better job.

So yes, I’ll be upset if they don’t include that one part. But I’ll be MORE upset if they do include it, but use it to suggest some form of pluralistic theology, which I am sure Lewis did not intend to promote.

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If you’re consistent, I’m sure you’d have to answer that you were upset by its absence; but I’m not certain how consistent would be many of the others upset by the fiddling that went on in the first one (and now, it seems, in Caspian).

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But then I’m not a huge fan of the idea of Intellectual Property either. That’s too much a tool and product of capitalist ideologies for me to put much stock in it as any kind of universal ethic.

I did like your list of nice adaptations. I think Shakespeare is probably the most adapted writer in history. I’ve really enjoyed some presentations of his work (e.g., Kurosawa’s Ran and Throne of Blood, Loncraine’s Richard III, and even Taymor’s Titus—more for visual flair on that one than for anything else).

Re: “There’s nothing like making art and giving it to an audience for getting acquainted with the effects of one art-making ethos or another.”

That is certainly true. As an artist and one who has worked on collaborative projects and one who has had works taken and usurped for derivative works, I’m well-acquainted with this sort of thing. I’m actually a big booster (as if you couldn’t guess by now) for adaptations that subvert original intent, that surprise through the use of derivation. The idea of replicating is of little interest to me, but taking an existing thing and altering it, changing it into something new and different is philosophically far more intriguing. Of course, if it is accomplished with neither art nor craft, I’m not gonna appreciate it all that much.

“Gresham: I haven’t heard those criticisms. All of the people who talk to me about Aslan were awestruck by him in the movie. I don’t know how I’d react to that criticism, because for me he’s an immensely powerful figure in the movie—and I’m probably the severest critic in the world.”

Translation: “I am the severest critic in the world and I never thought he was too safe. Therefore, the criticism must be invalid.”

http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/interviews/douglasgresham3.html

In terms of the grounding for the “shoulds” and the “oughts” of art-making and remaking, you all might enjoy reading Dorothy L Sayers’s The Mind of the Maker, or J.R.R. Tolkien’s meditations “On Fairy-Stories” and “Leaf by Niggle”. Andrei Tarkovsky’s Sculpting in Time also touches on the moral responsibility of artists to subject and audience. Of course, there’s nothing like making art and giving it to an audience for getting acquainted with the effects of one art-making ethos or another.

Ten[ish] Fabulous Adapted (and reimagined, and reinterpreted, and loosely inspired by) Films

1. Pride and Prejudice (A&E) (Duh.)
2. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (21 books to 1 movie–phew!)
3. Doubt (starring Emma Thompson)
4. Portrait of a Lady (dir. Jane Campion)
5. Fight Club
6. Much Ado About Nothing (Branagh)
7. Clueless
8. Romeo+Juliet
9. Vanity Fair (starring Reese Witherspoon)
10. The House of Mirth (dir. & writer Terence Davies)
11. 10 Things I Hate About You

Oh yeah, and Beowulf. Seamus Heaney’s, I mean. He took great liberties and made something good. (The movie, on the other hand, took great liberties and made something negligible.)