Cinematic Adaptation: A Tool to Recreate Storytelling - Essay Sample

Introduction

Cinematic adaptation is using a story of literary work in part or whole to a feature film. The use of literary work as the ground of a feature film has been a common practice of film making. The cinematic adaptation of a source does not always depict the original storyline of a work of art. However, it can have the same effect on the audience by creating a narrative that links similar themes as the source work. A change in the medium of a story calls for essential changes in an attempt to communicate effectively. Therefore, style, time, vision, perspective must be taken into account. Overall, a cinema adaptation does not require to reflect the story of the source narrative. For this reason, cinematic adaptations differ from their source to varying degrees. In essence, the nature of film adaptation is to capture the truth of the source and relay it in a film format while having the same effect on the audience. As such, this paper will seek to discuss the film adaptation of Blow-up by Antonioni's.

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The Different Blow-Up

In the every changing world, narrative media is changing from literature to film. As such, there is the probability that the characterization difference will arise. For instance, in the blow-up adaptation, Michel and Thomas are characterized differently despite being the central characters. Yet this characterization difference does not alter the audience's effect, which is similar.

To begin with, Antonioni's adaptation film blow-up would not exist without Cortazar's short story, the devil's drool. However, the director was not interested in replicating the story. Instead, he uses it as a raw material to tell his own specific and yet different story. Thus, in the art of adaptation, there are various changes in plot or style that are necessary to recreate the narrative into a piece that shows modern ideas. In the film blow up, it is evident that Antonioni was not interested in mirroring the story. As such, the film's place, time, and particular events are entirely different. For instance, the film changes the narrative viewpoint, that is, it shifts from Michel first-person narration, who narrates his story to a third-person narrative POV of the cinema medium. Thus, the film represents a shift from a character Michel in the short story sharing his thoughts and feelings with the audience. In the movie, a photographer Thomas is seen from the outside. As such, the film adaptation does not allow the author inside the mind of the character. Ideally, the audience is in the same position as the film narrative as the photographer is to his blow-ups. In truth, the audience has to piece together the meaning of the photographer's story from the various shots of different events that don't tell their purpose. As such, the audience can only interpret or infer what is happening.

Furthermore, the incidents captured by the photographer are different from the story since, in the film, he witnesses a murder while it's a homosexual seduction in the story. Therefore the adaptations of blow-up have changed the structure of the storyline. For instance, the photographer stumbles into a murder mystery and slowly and subtly investigates the following clues to understanding what had transpired in the park. Moreover, the source story explores the psychotic consciousness, that is, the thought process and mind of Michel as he narrates the trauma that leads to his psychotic break. On the other hand, in the film, the photographer uses the murder mystery as a way to face his existential isolation and aloneness and the inability to communicate with other people as such blow-up adaptation was not utterly faithful to the source narrative.

Granting that fidelity cannot sufficiently determine the success of a literary work to film adaptation, it worth noting how directors showcased different scenes from the source narrative in the movie. In the film, Antonioni's adapted the central event of a photographer taking photographs of a man and woman in a secluded place. For instance, in the source, the images appear to be about a transgressive issue in the society of an older woman seducing a 15 years old boy but turns out to be about homosexuality. Thus, the film adapts this event, a mistake in seeing and miss-perception whereby Thomas captures images of a man and woman fussing, which ends up as a murder witness.

Blow-up is an idea from the source story but is used differently in the film. In the source, the film is a projection of the mind of the photographer onto a blow-up on the wall. In the movie, the events are accompanied by the sound of the wind into the trees that are directed to the audience. As such, Antonioni utilizes the photographer as the central character and allows the viewer to explore the problems of seeing, interpreting, and understanding what they see and experience. Moreover, the photographer in both stories is ignorant at the start and experiences an incident that shatters this ignorance and brings new knowledge. Thus, the blow-ups suck both characters into the world of reality. Both uninvolved and detached the blow-ups crashes this detachment and force them into engaging with the reality they both did not want to experience. Truthfully, both characters experience something they did not before; thus, in the end, their view of things is different.

Transgressive and Transgression

The art of transgression in adaptation is a significant theme that contributes to the overall tone of the film. Transgressive literary work encompasses the thought of crossing the ethical boundary and going beyond any social, cultural, or personal limitations. As such, Antonioni's cinema adaptation is an example of transgression and proofed transgression. For instance, the source narrative talks about homosexuality, while the film adaptation explores a murder mystery, which is morally unacceptable in society.

Furthermore, Thomas is very playful in his work as a photographer; at some point in the middle of work, he leans to kiss a model which is transgressive. Likewise, Thomas tired of the fashion shoots go to search for fresh air in a park. He sees a couple kissing and points his camera towards them and takes pictures. As such, it is transgressive to invade other people's privacy and also to kiss in public places. Therefore, Antonioni utilizes this art of transgression that captures the audience's attention and propagate the film's plot based on the source narrative. Equally, the woman confronts him on his way out of the park, demanding the film, which he refuses. She tracks him to his studio, where they smoke, and smooch and eventually, he gives her the wrong film. As such smooching and cuddling in the workplace is unethical.

Similarly, as Thomas blows-up the images from the park and discovered that he might have recorded a transgressive act. Both the reader and the viewer are engrossed in the dark incidents that continue to be blown up. The fear develops in the audience, the more the photograph is blown-up. Additionally, Antonioni's blowing up a frame from a series of many structures in a manner that the audience witnesses the murder presented to us makes cinema adaption interesting. The adaptations of blow-up witness the terror of hopelessness in the face of a vast conspiracy.

Transience and Elusiveness

Blow-up deals entail the themes of elusiveness and transience. The film takes the audience to a point whereby the central character needs to make a choice. In the end, the audience is left wondering what the character's choice of action was. It is a way of asking what the audience would do. In the film, transience is observed with Thomas and his photoshoots, especially early on in the movie. His photography flickers in and out of being a job. Therefore the audience wonders whether it is playing or work or is it establishing a character. Adaptation of Blowup does not give us these narrative threads early on. The audience keeps wondering if the plot will have anything to do with photography or any of the models. It not until the encounter in the park that the audience gets some thread on the plot.

Moreover, Thomas photographs the man and woman, which lead to him being followed to a restaurant and his car being checked out. The woman shows up at his studio, which makes him blow up the film - finding out a dead body which presents the audience with a full brown murder mystery. As such, Thomas decides to investigate the case and wants to bring the plot to the final confrontation.

Elusiveness is portrayed when Thomas's efforts are thwarted as he discovers nothing. Besides, he does not know where to start, and no one seems to care. Therefore, the film ends without any solution to the plot. Likewise, the audience is left wondering; what happens to Thomas, whether he is in danger and whether he is affected by the situation. Yet, these solutions Thomas wishes, are elusive and cannot be found. Thus, the audience is left in a similar case to Thomas without answers and means to search for them. As such, the film has a narratively unsatisfying end.

Existential Power of Images

Initially, Thomas believes that he had prevented a murder but later realizes that there is a blow-up showing a silver-haired dead body behind a bush. In truth, he deduces this information peering at the photos in silence. As such, it is a bravura bit that proves the existential power of photographs and the propensity of the human mind to create stories from them. Therefore, pictures are an explicit cinema without words, musical cues but just images. However, Thomas returns to the park at night and seeing the body curiously lying wide out in the open. Also, the next morning, the body is gone, and so is all his evidence. Thus, indicating what the photographer see might not be the case or reality. Furthermore, he looks for Redgrave's character but never finds her. Therefore, Thomas's trustworthiness in evaluating reality is questionable by the audience who wonders whether he imagined the whole murder scene from an innocent encounter in the park.

Furthermore, near the end of the movie, we see Thomas look up to the sky and take a photo. In one of the images is at his eye line right angle, suggesting that it might not be his viewpoint but a fourth party's or omniscient. Therefore, suggesting that neither the audience nor the photographer is a reliable witness. Thus, the audience is left wondering whether any of it happened. Besides, the photographer taking shots of the imaginary tennis ball flight makes prompts the viewers to question the existential of the events. Likewise, when the ball smashes over the fence, he retrieves it and tosses it back. As such, he buys into the boys' reality to the point the audience can now hear real tennis match going on. Noting that we never heard the gunshot in the park enhances our questioning of the existential of these events. Thus the film adaptation of blow-up has many existential blanks that the audience is left to fill. Hence Antonioni posits that reality can be distorted unless verified. It is also worth noting that when Thomas informs Patricia of the murder, she asks why they shot him. Instead of why he shorts him the singular of the lone man in the bush with a gun.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the paper has indicated the nature of the adaptation of the blow-up film. The adaptation of blow-up is different from the source story by Cortazar's. Further, the film adaptation is transgressive. Moreover, we have explored the cinema adaptation themes of transience and elusiveness. Lastly, the work has shown the existential of the events and questioned some events, as presented in the film by Antonioni's.