1、The Relationship between Literature and MoviesAlthough movies, in essence, are the relatively independent arts, without the influence and percolation of the opera, the music, the dance, the painting, the architecture and especially the literature, movies could only be a game of watching and listenin
2、g. Literature adaptation is a special change of movie, and its core is not just the idea of following the original work or simply turning the literature into movies, but a totally different creative thoughts. In terms of the relationship between literature and movies, literature adaptation is the mi
3、ddle part of the two kinds of art forms, and it maintains the relationship of the two kinds of arts. Literature and movies reflect different aspects of humans feelings.Literature and movies share same psychological features in some degree, but they have their own features on the basis of mental acti
4、vities. The illusion led by literature is connected to the ego, which is restricted by the sober thoughts, while movies arouse audiences reflection, which works under the blurry thoughts. That is to say, in order to use arts to show the feelings, literature should use a large amount of words and the
5、ir transformation to realize indirectly, while movies can use the intuition memory to call up the potential consciousness to realize. Thus once movies do not only show the scenes, but also emerge humans complex feelings, they have the chances to change the conscious activities in literature into the
6、 potential conscious activities. However, the two kinds of mental activities emerge totally different or even opposite contents.Since Melies and Griffith made a series of fictions into movies, the directors have actively begun to search for inspirations from literature and literature have made anoth
7、er way for movie creation. In 1950s, there were more than 50% of American movies being adapted by literature. In Chian, the earliest literature adaptation was Zhuangzi Shi Qi directed by Li Minbei in HK in 1913. This shows that the basic function of literature adaptation is as the irreplaceable func
8、tion of the historic documents. In order to better know the peoples daily life, emotions, social relationships, the way of expressing their feelings, etiquette, and customs in the past, the movie creators must turn to literatus the at that time for help. Many early literature adaptations have been a
9、 great success, but they were only treated as the explanation to literature, and some of them even put the cover of the literature at the beginning of the movies. At that time, there were few changes if the literature was adapted to movies. Audience just treated the adaptation as the comic book. Eve
10、n though early movies have tried to show the literature authentically, audiences were not satisfied with them, as the imagination caused by literature differed from person to person, and no criteria was set.If the audiences have deep impression on the original work, they may feel that the adaptation
11、 literature emphasize the changes of the content, and made the opposite aspects more obvious. From it, we can find that the best way to adapt literature is to deal with it on the opposite side, and try to change the content as much as possible. Then when audiences are watching movies, they will have
12、 totally different thoughts, and their main purpose is to find the similar elements between literature and movies.Once movies have found a fiction from literature, they begin to treat it as a base and quickly take in advantages from it. Literature gradually becomes an important method for movie writ
13、ers to observe different peoples lives and know the society. Hou Yao is one of the earliest movie writers who adapt literature into movies. In 1924, he rewrote Maupassants Necklace into A String of Nacklace, which put through the limitations of the original work at the beginning of writing and add e
14、xtra plots. These changes made the movie accord with the sad consciousness in 1920s in China.Scholars of western literature adaptation theory prefer to classify literature adaptation into three categories: the transplant type, the annotation type and the approximate expression. Some scholars in Chin
15、a think there are three principles of literature adaptation: be faithful, be creative and compromise. In fact, each category or each principle makes sure to combine the adapted movies and literature together. The literature becomes the mirror of adaptation, and the category or principle is the crite
16、ria to check whether the movies are same to the original work. It seems that that the similarities are the signal of a successful adaptation.Gustave Flaubert thinks core of literature adaptation is to change the content; the essence is to be dislike or even be inverse. He believes that it is possibl
17、e to adapt a fiction to a perfect movie in the terms of themes, stories and plots. “Perfect” means the form fits the contents. However how can it be possible? The reason is that although the themes and stories are same, the contents are different. It is the different contents that fit the changed fo
18、rms. Here the contents dont mean the plots or themes, but refer to the emotion, thoughts under the plots, namely the motive power of potential consciousness. In his eyes, literature work is the raw material. Although some scholars have noticed the theory, but they would rather use shifting forms to
19、show the inverse parts. As the pioneer of Chinese movie critics, Xiao Yan puts forwards a point that literature adaptation should change from form shifting to spiritual inheriting. When he adapts a literature, he uses traditional Chinese opera structure to make the work have more conflict and become
20、 more enjoyable. He also adds thoughts into his adaptation to make the story more ample. However, if we think about it from the instinct of literature adaptation, we can easily find that although he obeys the original work, he has ignored the literary meaning of the work. He disobeys the original wo
21、rk, and just refines the story of the original work.To literature adaptation, literature is an element that movies need to take in and use for reference, rather than the core of the movies. When adapting a literature, the writers need to face different situations, such as when to add and when to omi
22、t. Movies show a complete thing within 100 minutes, which literature needs thousands of words. Thus, the first thing when adapting a literature is to add or omit appropriately to meet the “opposite” desires.In the past, literature adaptation theory often emphasize that novelists accumulate details t
23、o make the power of novels powerful, which movies can not reach the point. For example, Balzac can use thousands of words to introduce the environment where things happen, but movies can only show what the things are, and at the same time, show the events and background. Its impossible to describe t
24、he environment in detail before or without the actions. This theory seems right on the first sight. However, if analyzed carefully, it is easy to find that this theory has mistakes. When readers read literature, the scene is formed in their thoughts, and things happen later. According to the regulat
25、ion of psychological activities, it can be realized in movies that “describe the environment in detail before or without the actions”. Roland Pilansky once hit the traditional opera patterns in his adaptation The Pianist. He uses 2/3 of the movie to describe the scene before actions are taken. It ca
26、n be said that The Pianist has not just used the story, but perfectly taken in the literary characteristics of the original work. Full-length novels are usually grand, and they describe longer time, more people and more events. Thus how to adapt them becomes the key point of the movies. The 72nd Osc
27、ars for Best Adapted Screenplay The Cider House Rules is adapted from John Irvings full-length novel. This novel includes many characters, complex plots and several decades. During the 13 years adaptation of the novels, the directors have been changed four times, and three different thoughts fight a
28、gainst each other. The changed thoughts make the movie keep changing its themes. Influenced by the first director, the screenwriter as well as the author, Irving adapted the theme as the history of American illegal abortion. Though the theme has changed, it made the movie have the serious political
29、theme. The third director led Irving to adapt the novel into a movie which purely described the romantic story. The proportion of the love was less than a quarter of the movie at the beginning, but after adaptation love played the leading role. The story was complete, but it lost the meaning of the
30、original work. Until the last director command the adaptation, he cooperated with Irving and made the two plots go on together. The last adaptation made the movie regained the seriousness of the original work, meanwhile had the vivid romantic dispute. The achievement proved that this adaptation was
31、the best way to deal with the literature.Before The Cider House Rules was adapted into movies, it has been adapted to an opera. The opera lasts six hours and includes all contents of the original work. In the movie, a lot of parts of the original work have been deleted and changed. The story mainly
32、concerns the two plots which greatly connect with each other. The story has a new theme after the adaptation. In the adaptation of The Cider House Rules, it neither follows the traditional principles of Hollywood adaptation that tell the story according to one theme of the original work; nor follows
33、 the psychological tendency of European modern opera that turn the movie into the authors “stream of consciousness”. It adopts the divided lifestyles to show the specific time, and use the dramatic events to show the partial conflicts. Then it becomes a movie with European style. It takes in the lit
34、erary characteristics during the “opposite” adaptation. Literature has not only provided the arranged plots for movie adaptation, but also the themes of the literature. To many artists, themes are always the start point of art conception. One of the inevitable problem of literature adaptation is how
35、 change the themes, or how to use the literary language. The process of determining the “opposite” theme may make the audiences who are familiar with the original work disappointed, but to those who are not familiar with the work, there is nothing different. As for them, it is a special emotion expe
36、rience to watch adaptation movies. The movies they watch are the ones that movies writers make with the help of the literature writers. The adaptation movies are usually unwilling to give up the special language with literary emotions. The reason is that the literary words can introduce the plots to
37、 the audiences in a short period, and help them share the same feelings as soon as possible. The off-screen voice is one of the most remarkable points of the adaptation movies. Most movies which are adapted from literature are used to using off-screen voice, including Holly wood movies and European
38、movies.Except the off-screen voice, the adaptation movies often use flashback. The flashback has the features of unique time and specific social background. The technique of flashback is often used after a specific historic events or political campaign, for example after the Second World War and the
39、 Culture Revolution, there are a great amount of the movies coming into the world. This kind of movies has a strong point of introspection. Whats more, this kind of movies is retrospective. In the global movie world, many movies have used the technique of flashback. The movie adapted by Hai Yans Yu
40、Guan Ying begins to use flashback when the movie has started 1/3, and tries the “opposite” adaptation at the same time.From 1990s to the decades of the 21st century, the movie adaptation has broken away from the limitation of original work. Movies begin to chase for independent writing, and becomes
41、far away from literature. On the one hand, the adaptation tends to use the works of active demand and famous authors. On the other hand, movies concern more on the usage of technique and visual conflicts. Thus the directors seldom spend time in studying the connotations and expressive methods of the
42、 original work. They only treat literature as a rough material, an incentive. Literature gradually loses the chances of connecting with movies.The style and tendency of adapted movies in new century are becoming diversified. The works are not only from the famous writers and best-sellers, but also b
43、ecome more optional and more novel. The alienation to literature becomes an obstacle to the substantial and healthy development of movies.During the production of a good movie, the script is the key point, because it directly shows the literary quality of a movie. Movies need to use script to mould
44、characters, show the theme. Whether the script is from literature, or whether the script is greatly influenced by the literature directly or indirectly, is important to the quality of a movie. It becomes the reason why movies and literature can not depart from each other once and for all. Literature
45、 and movies are different forms of art. Literature uses words to show ideas, while movies use images to make imagination specific. It can be denied that literature and movies have strong relationships between each other. They rely on each other, but also have conflicts. They learn from each other an
46、d make progress difficultly during the cross, separation and interaction.Although the literature today is not as prosperous as before, but the profound history and realistic roots make it still alive, so that literature can not replaced by other forms of art. The rapid rise of movies becomes the imp
47、ortant elements of peoples cultural view. On the one hand, it is related to the factors movies have such as they are more common, more convenient, and reflecting the reality. On the other hand, the literature keeps providing good stories and themes for movies. The relation between the two forms of a
48、rt still has many problems. It is not mature and perfect enough. On the basis of the age when the transition media and culture are both more diversified, we can suppose that the literature creation and movies can develop harmoniously.The theories of literature adaptation have not developed well enou
49、gh now, but many screenwriters have said that adaptation should take movies into consideration. Adaptation is not just the specification of novel figures. They should not only satisfy with the imitation of the original work, but to express their own feelings. Movies scholars should carefully think about the relationship between literature and movies. Then they can study the literature adaptation from an academic angle. They should treat it as movie creation, so that they can add their own feelings to the movies. They can make the movies more vivid, the mental activities more visu
