Cloud Atlas Shrugged

This Monday evening I took advantage of a bookseller perk and saw the film Cloud Atlas as a preview before its wide release. I was looking forward to it. From the trailer I could tell it would be visually stunning even if whoever puts together the trailer ruined the point of the book in 30 seconds flat. But I really enjoyed reading the book and I like adaptations, so. Excitement.

I enjoyed the film in many respects, but found myself really bothered afterward by the use of yellowface in the film. I know the internet is blowing up with backing-and-forthing on account of it, and I'll let the critics speak for themselves. There is a really lucid argument by Mike Le over at the blog Racebending, and the Wachowskis speak for themselves in this NYT write-up.

In the world of cinema, I believe it is unforgivable for producers to ascribe roles meant for people of color to white people, agreeing with Le as he says, "we see that white creators and performers are permitted to determine what it means to be Asian." It takes power from a race to tell its own story. From the other side of the argument, the Wachowskis seem to intend a universalizing image of humanity that transcends race. Avoiding the intentional fallacy, all we're left with is what this film portrays. In Cloud Atlas, different actors of different races and genders portray many races (and other genders) throughout. Regardless of intent, novelist David Mitchell got across the theme of human connectivity using motifs of music and symbols purely, and not by addressing race in such blatant terms. The filmmakers could have employed these methods, and they did, but took the theme of connection and transcendence of time and place a step further by altering the race of actors.

Was race-altering necessary to tell this story? Or was it a lazy way of filmmaking that allowed for an ensemble cast without giving the audience any credit for the ability to follow multiple related plot-lines at once? In (perhaps) defense of the filmmakers, it wasn't just yellowface that they employed: as I mentioned above actors of many races were made up to portray characters of many more races. So perhaps, since the effect is not racially one-sided, it is clear to see that there is more below the surface. I definitely think the film is the sort of thing that people should see for themselves and open up to conversation about.

But all this makes me wonder: what experience is off limits to filmmakers and authors? Can a white author write another racial experience? Male and female authors can write the other gender with deftness at times (Jeffrey Eugenides and Virginia Woolf come to mind), but what about race? Can art be a vehicle for inhabiting another's skin, truly? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Novel Into Film

When a book version of a movie is set to release, you can almost hear an audible sigh from the book's fans. Particularly when the book that is greatly beloved and seems impossible to put on the big screen without losing something. But I think of film adaptations as just that - another interpretation of a book. If I were to write the film adaptation of The Hunger Games, I'm not sure if I really would've shown the Gamemakers creating their various obstacles for the tributes  - but I appreciated how the filmmakers perceived it, as a sterile white room with hollogram versions of the arena, the whole process coming off like an extremely involved video game. You could almost understand how the Gamemakers didn't seem to grasp the reality of what they were doing. I was a bit disappointed at the romantic take on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, based on the sardonic novella by F. Scott Fitzgerald, but also appreciated that the film chose to focus on how the aging process affected a romantic relationship, a storyline that the novella glosses over. Or Atonement, a movie so visually stunning I almost forgave the heavy-handed overdirected feeling of a novel whose narration unfolds to a brilliant reveal. And there's The Wonder Boys, one of those adaptations that fans of the book almost universally appreciate because it manages to get the wry angst of academia without the flourish of Michael Chabon's luxurious prose.

I suppose the sighing comes from the danger that people will see the movie and forget that it came from a book. But what we see at the Booksmith (and no doubt what publishers and those in the book industry know all too well) is that an impending movie release more often than not it piques a curiosity. It gives an image or makes a reader remember a name while they're browsing, makes them read the back of a book they may have otherwise not picked up. And if someone truly loved the story on the screen, they'll often come in and buy the book to read the version that inspired the film (or, as in one case I witnessed, someone came in and bought Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré because they had seen the movie and were not sure they got the ending).

There are two movie adaptations coming out this year that has everyone buying the book: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. I've read The Great Gatsby and it has been adapted before, and I'm excited to see Leonardo DiCaprio in the role of Gatsby, and hope the actual movie is a bit more nuanced than the glitzy trailer. And after watching the Cloud Atlas trailer, I'm still not quite sure I understand what is going on, but I love how the story seems to play with time. After seeing the trailer, there is no way I'm not reading this book.

For your viewing pleasure:

The Great Gatsby movie trailer

Cloud Atlas movie trailer