{"product_id":"adaptations-isbn-9781400053148","title":"Adaptations","description":"An Eclectic Collection of Fiction That Inspired Film\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eMemento\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eAll About Eve\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eRear Window\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eRashomon\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003e2001: A Space Odyssey\u003c\/i\u003e are all well-known and much-loved movies, but what is perhaps a lesser-known fact is that all of them began their lives as short stories. \u003ci\u003eAdaptations\u003c\/i\u003e gathers together 35 pieces that have been the basis for films, many from giants of American literature (Hemingway, Fitzgerald) and many that have not been in print for decades (the stories that inspired \u003ci\u003eBringing Up Baby\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eMeet John Doe\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eAll About Eve\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCategorized by genre, and featuring movies by master directors such as Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, Robert Altman, Frank Capra, and John Ford, as well as relative newcomers such as Chris Eyre and Christopher Nolan, \u003ci\u003eAdaptations\u003c\/i\u003e offers insight into the process of turning a short story into a screenplay, one that, when successful, doesn’t take drastic liberties with the text upon which it is based, but doesn’t mirror its source material too closely either.  The stories and movies featured in\u003ci\u003e Adaptations\u003c\/i\u003e include: \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•Philip K. Dick’s “The Minority Report,” which became the 2002 blockbuster directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Cruise\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•“The Harvey Pekar Name Story” by reclusive graphic artist Harvey Pekar, whose life was the inspiration for\u003ci\u003e American Splendor\u003c\/i\u003e, winner of the 2003 Sundance Grand Jury Prize\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•Hagar Wilde’s “Bringing Up Baby,” the basis of the classic film \u003ci\u003eBringing Up Baby\u003c\/i\u003e, anthologized here for the first time ever\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•“The Swimmer” by John Cheever, an example of a highly regarded story that many feared might prove unadaptable\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•The predecessor to the beloved holiday classic \u003ci\u003eA Christmas Story\u003c\/i\u003e, “Red Ryder Nails the Hammond Kid” by Jean Shepherd\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhether you’re a fiction reader or a film buff, \u003ci\u003eAdaptations\u003c\/i\u003e is your behind-the-scenes look at the sometimes difficult, sometimes brilliantly successful process from the printed page to the big screen.\u003cu\u003eThe Directors: Translators, Magicians, Collaborators and Thieves\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Jerry and Molly and Sam” by Raymond Carver\u003cbr\u003eRobert Altman: \u003ci\u003eShort Cuts\u003c\/i\u003e (1993, DVD)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e*“Blow-Up” by Julio Cortazar\u003cbr\u003eMichelangelo Antonioni: \u003ci\u003eBlow-Up \u003c\/i\u003e(1966, VHS)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e*“Your Arkansas Traveler” by Budd Schulberg\u003cbr\u003eElia Kazan: \u003ci\u003eA Face in the Crowd\u003c\/i\u003e (1957, VHS)\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“It Had to be Murder” by Cornell Woolrich\u003cbr\u003eAlfred Hitchcock: \u003ci\u003eRear Window\u003c\/i\u003e (1954, DVD)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cu\u003eScience Fiction: Kubrick and Spielberg, Spielberg and Kubrick\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The Sentinel” by Arthur C. Clarke\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e2001: A Space Odyssey \u003c\/i\u003e(Kubrick, 1968, DVD)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Super-Toys Last All Summer Long” by Brian Aldiss\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eA.I.: Artificial Intelligence \u003c\/i\u003e(Spielberg\/Kubrick, 2001, DVD)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The Minority Report” by Philip K. Dick \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Minority Report \u003c\/i\u003e(Spielberg, 2002, DVD)\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cu\u003eHorror: Cue the Gore\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Spurs” by Tod Robbins\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eFreaks \u003c\/i\u003e(Browning, 1932, VHS)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The Fly” by George Langelaan\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Fly \u003c\/i\u003e(Neumann, 1958, DVD and Cronenberg, 1986, DVD)\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Herbert West–Reanimator: Six Shots by Midnight” by H.P. Lovecraft\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eRe-Animator \u003c\/i\u003e(Gordon, 1984, DVD)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cu\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWesterns: Tonto Means Fool in Spanish\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Stage to Lordsburg” by Ernest Haycox\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eStagecoach \u003c\/i\u003e(Ford, 1939, DVD)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A Man Called Horse” by Dorothy M. Johnson\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eA Man Called Horse \u003c\/i\u003e(Silverstein, 1970, DVD)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e*“This is what it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona” by Sherman Alexie\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eSmoke Signals \u003c\/i\u003e(Eyre, 1998, DVD)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cu\u003eGraphic Stories: Flying Under the Radar\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e\u003cbr\u003e**“The Harvey Pekar Name Story” by Harvey Pekar\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eAmerican Splendor\u003c\/i\u003e (Shari Springer Berman, 2003, DVD)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e**“Hubba Hubba” by Daniel Clowes\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eGhost World\u003c\/i\u003e (Terry Zwigoff, 2001, DVD)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cu\u003eFive All-But-Lost Stories\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e\u003cbr\u003e*“The Wisdom of Eve” by Mary Orr\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eAll About Eve \u003c\/i\u003e(Mankiewicz, 1950, DVD)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“A Reputation” by Richard Connell\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eMeet John Doe \u003c\/i\u003e(Capra, 1941, DVD)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e*“Mr. Blandings Builds His Castle” by Eric Hodgins\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eMr. Blandings Builds His Dream House \u003c\/i\u003e(Potter, 1948, VHS)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e*“Cyclists’ Raid” by Frank Rooney\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Wild One \u003c\/i\u003e(Benedek, 1954, DVD)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e*“Tomorrow” by William Faulkner\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eTomorrow \u003c\/i\u003e(Anthony, 1953, VHS)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cu\u003eThe Good, the Bad, and the Unadaptable\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Bringing Up Baby” by Hagar Wilde\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eBringing Up Baby \u003c\/i\u003e(Hawks, 1938, VHS)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Babylon, Revisited” by F. Scott Fitzgerald\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Last Time I Saw Paris \u003c\/i\u003e(Brooks, 1954, DVD)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The Swimmer” by John Cheever\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Swimmer \u003c\/i\u003e(Perry, 1968, DVD)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cu\u003eSuspense = Style\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e\u003cbr\u003e*“The Killers” by Ernest Hemingway\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Killers \u003c\/i\u003e(Siodman, 1946, DVD)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e*“The Basement Room” by Graham Greene\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Fallen Idol \u003c\/i\u003e(Reed, 1948, DVD)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Memento Mori” by Jonathon Nolan\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eMemento \u003c\/i\u003e(Nolan, 2000, DVD)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cu\u003eClassic Family Fare\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“My Friend Flicka” by Mary O’Hara\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eMy Friend Flicka\u003c\/i\u003e (Schuster, 1943, DVD)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Red Ryder Nails the Hammond Kid” by Jean Shepherd\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eA Christmas Story\u003c\/i\u003e (Clark, 1983, DVD)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa” by W.P. Kinsella\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eField of Dreams\u003c\/i\u003e (Robinson, 1989 DVD)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cu\u003eInternational Cinema\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“In a Grove” by Ryunosuke Akutagawa \u003cbr\u003eJapan: \u003ci\u003eRashomon \u003c\/i\u003e(Kurosawa, 1951, DVD)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The Lady with the Pet Dog” by Anton Chekhov \u003cbr\u003eItaly:\u003ci\u003e Dark Eyes \u003c\/i\u003e(Mikhalkov, 1987, VHS)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cu\u003eThe Independents: Money Changes Everything \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e\u003cbr\u003e*“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” by Joyce Carol Oates\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eSmooth Talk \u003c\/i\u003e(Chopra, 1985, VHS)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Auggie Wren’s Christmas Story” by Paul Auster\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eSmoke \u003c\/i\u003e(Wang, 1995, DVD)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e*“Emergency” by Denis Johnson\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eJesus’ Son\u003c\/i\u003e (Maclean, 1999, DVD)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e*“Killings” by Andre Dubus\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eIn the Bedroom \u003c\/i\u003e(Field, 2001, DVD)Stephanie Harrison teaches in the state university system of Florida.\u003cb\u003eChapter One\u003cbr\u003eTHE DIRECTORS:TRANSLATORS,MAGICIANS, COLLABORATORS,AND THIEVES\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e“Jerry and Molly and Sam”\u003cbr\u003eby Raymond Carver\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e—\u003ci\u003eShort Cuts, directed by Robert Altman, 1993\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Blow-Up”\u003cbr\u003eby Julio Cortázar\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e—\u003ci\u003eBlow-Up, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Your Arkansas Traveler”\u003cbr\u003eby Budd Schulberg\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e—\u003ci\u003eA Face in the Crowd, directed by Elia Kazan, 1957\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“It Had to Be Murder”\u003cbr\u003eby Cornell Woolrich\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e—\u003ci\u003eRear Window, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, 1954\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMovies have to be about something. They can dazzle us with special  effects, wow us with an eight-minute tracking shot, or intrigue us with  a cartoonlike color palette. But we still expect a story. A story  visually told, perhaps—but a story nonetheless.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd that’s why “film feeds off literature like sharks off a marlin,” as  film theorist George Bluestone once said. Director Stanley Kubrick was  a compulsive reader, sometimes tearing through a book a day in his  constant search for new material. Alfred Hitchcock told of imagining  the shape of a film, then having to search for a story to fit his  visualization. Howard Hawks claimed that the hardest part of making a  movie was finding a good story, then figuring out how to tell it.  Steven Spielberg agrees. Even Michelangelo Antonioni was a reader,  although he claimed the best way to approach a book was to read it,  then forget it. Directors, especially those of the auteur ilk, get a  lot of credit for their successes and a lot of blame for their  failures. But, like prominent CEOs, they depend a great deal on others.  Unless directors write their own material, they will have to go to the  source: writers. And there are as many approaches to this as there are  directorial personalities.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Translator: Altman and Short Cuts\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 1990, while flying home from Italy, Robert Altman read a book of  short stories by Raymond Carver. “I was so moved by the way he told  stories,” he later said, “what he told and what he didn’t tell and how  he made a story out of the slightest little incident. I was just amazed  by it and I thought this is what we should do in film.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor just over a decade, from the early 1970s through the mid-’80s,  Carver led the return to realistic fiction that revels in the  quotidian. His stories feature hard-drinking, unhappily married,  working-class folk who live, as Tess Gallagher, Carver’s second wife,  puts it, “with no safety net and no imagination of a safety net.” The  residents of “Carver Country” drift through life—often in an alcoholic  haze—and end in a place very close to where they started. The  epiphanies, if you can call them that, are small and internal. As his  friend Tobias Wolff has said, Carver “is not a particularly quotable  writer. That’s one of his virtues, that he never tried to achieve a  beautiful line. It’s the steadiness and quietness of the prose that  creates his sense of reality.” And it’s reality Carver was after: “As  far as I’m concerned,” he told an interviewer, “the best art has its  reference points in real life.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere is an autobiographical element to his work. Like many of his  characters, Carver grew up working class and was, for most of his adult  life, a dedicated alcoholic. Throughout his first marriage he was  plagued by financial concerns that kept him from his writing. Of his  work, he said, “I’m just bearing witness to something I know something  about. Most things in the world I don’t know anything at all about. . .  . I’m bearing witness to what I can.” Because of his concern with small  moments in the lives of ordinary people, Carver is often compared to  Chekhov, and his declarative prose style invites comparison to  Hemingway. Yet his sensibility is unquestionably reflective of his own  generation. His pared-down realism, tinged with a dash of hopelessness,  suited the period following Watergate, and by the time of his death  from lung cancer in 1988, Carver was arguably the most influential  literary writer in the country.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEnter Altman. If ever a director was poised to exploit the contemporary  short story—now so firmly associated with Carver—Altman was that  director. By the time he discovered Carver’s stories, Altman had  already directed twenty-five feature films (including \u003ci\u003eM*A*S*H\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eMcCabe  and Mrs. Miller\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Long Goodbye\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThieves Like Us\u003c\/i\u003e), not to mention  countless television episodes. He’d honed a signature directorial style  consisting of overlapping dialogue, improbably large casts,  mock-documentary realism, improvisation, and the use of nonprofessional  actors. Most important, though, he’d already made \u003ci\u003eNashville\u003c\/i\u003e, a rambling  narrative that loosely weaves the story lines of twenty-four  characters, without, as Pauline Kael put it, the “clanking of plot.”  Arguably one of the best films ever made—it appears on countless  top-100 lists—\u003ci\u003eNashville’s\u003c\/i\u003e lack of narrative thrust baffled many. When  asked about his reputation as a “problem director,” Altman stated, “I’m  not difficult. My work may be difficult, but if in fact it is  difficult, it just further enforces what I have to say: that all I make  films about is what I see and the way things appear to me.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo why wouldn’t Altman admire Carver’s stories? There’s an obvious link  between a writer who is “just bearing witness” and a filmmaker who is  making films about “the way things appear to me.” Between a writer who  eschews quotable lines and a director who uses untrained actors.  Between a writer who strives for realistic-sounding dialogue through  the use of stammers, pauses, and repeated lines and a director who  strives for the same through the use of overlapping sound. Between a  writer who resists neatly tied-up endings and a director who has said,  “Many people, I guess, want to know exactly what it is they’re supposed  to think. . . . Well, my message is that I am not going to do their  work for them.” Beyond all this, though, there are deeper affinities.  They both look upon their characters with an unflinching but  surprisingly nonjudgmental eye. They are both interested in the  hyperreality of small moments. And they both balance intuitiveness with  painstaking craftsmanship. And yet, it’s one thing for Altman to have  admired Carver’s stories; it’s quite another that he knew how to  translate them well for film. Only someone with Altman’s résumé could  have seen the possibilities in a random selection of nine unconnected,  unplotted stories. And, of course, one poem.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the case of \u003ci\u003eShort Cuts\u003c\/i\u003e, the role of translator is one Altman wears  gracefully, but not naturally. His relationship with writers has often  been rocky, the writers forced to watch as their words are reduced to  rubble. Brian McKay, who wrote the screenplays for several of Altman’s  films, including \u003ci\u003eMcCabe and Mrs. Miller\u003c\/i\u003e, says, “If you want me to get  in line with the rest of the angry writers, I will. But it’s more  complicated than that. I think what Bob really wants is the European  credit: ‘A Film by Robert Altman.’ And, often, he deserves it.” Yet  when he is impressed with a work, Altman has been known to gush. He  loved Edward Anderson’s novel \u003ci\u003eThieves Like Us\u003c\/i\u003e, and wanted to make as  few changes as possible. And then there’s Carver. Still, Altman lets it  be known that Short Cuts is his.* “I read all of Ray’s writings,  filtering him through my own process. The film is made of little pieces  of his work that form sections of scenes and characters out of the most  basic elements of Ray’s creations—new and not new.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd that, according to Tess Gallagher, would have been okay with  Carver. “Risking trespass, I will say I believe Ray’s attitude toward  Altman’s use of his work would have been one of permission to an artist  of equal stature. . . . He was a straight-on admirer of Altman’s  films.” Gallagher admires \u003ci\u003eShort Cuts\u003c\/i\u003e—and believes Carver would have,  too—for both its fidelity and its infidelity. “The failure of so many  scripts of Carver stories by others I’d seen prior . . . had been to  stay so close to the original that a robotic pandering to the text  resulted. They were like someone ice skating with an osprey’s egg on  which the bird is still nesting.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe problems of fidelity can be illustrated by “Jerry and Molly and  Sam,” one of the nine stories chosen by Altman for the film. The title  refers to three very minor characters—one of them a briefly mentioned  childhood dog—who are not central to the story. Or are they? It’s this  importance placed on absence that gives Carver’s stories much of their  power and that attracted Altman in the first place. But it’s an  untranslatable element, as is Carver’s heavy use of introspection. The  challenge for Altman was to find cinematic equivalents, which, he  admitted, “manifest themselves in unexpected ways.” Yet for all the  things that Altman was forced to change, or chose to change, he kept a  great deal too: a pervasive dark humor, an emphasis on fate or luck, a  bubbling violence under the surface. The movie was hailed by critics,  with Michael Wilmington of the \u003ci\u003eChicago Tribune \u003c\/i\u003eraving, “Some movies can  lay claim to being the best thing around in a week, a month, a year.  Robert Altman’s \u003ci\u003eShort Cuts\u003c\/i\u003e is closer to being one of the all-time  bests, among the finest American films since the advent of sound.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt also serves as one of the best examples of an artist grappling to  translate the work of another artist—and ending up with something that  looks very much like a handshake.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Magician: Antonioni and Blow-Up\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf you read Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni’s interviews (he  gave quite a few), or his essays (he wrote thirty or so), it’s hard to  avoid noticing that he rarely mentions Julio Cortázar, the author of  the story upon which his masterpiece, \u003ci\u003eBlow-Up\u003c\/i\u003e, is based. Only when  directly asked about the South American author does he acknowledge the  movie’s origins, as in a 1979 interview: “I read Cortázar’s story, I  liked it, and I wrote a subject, adapting it to myself.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWell. If this sounds like faint praise, remember it comes from the same  man who said, “As the director, I am God. I can allow myself any kind  of liberty.” Antonioni put the “A” in auteur; on his sets, he was the  indisputable alpha personality. By the time he directed \u003ci\u003eBlow-U\u003c\/i\u003ep in 1966  he had almost a dozen films under his belt and had distinguished  himself as a director primarily concerned with images. To Antonioni,  words and images are in opposition—and words are propaganda or, worse  yet, lies. “Someone once said that words, more than anything else,  serve to hide our thoughts,” he told an audience of Italian film  students. He distrusted screenplays, saying, “This is the limit of the  script: to give words to events that reject words.” And he used  dialogue only when an image would not suffice. Visual storytelling was  more than his tendency; it was a philosophical decision: “Of this I am  firmly convinced—” he said, “that cinema today should be tied to the  truth rather than to logic. And the truth of our daily lives is neither  mechanical, conventional, nor artificial, as stories generally are, and  if films are made that way, they will show it.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is perhaps this distrust of words, this sense that stories are  artificial, that fueled his disdain for literary sources. For  Antonioni, a story or a novel was just one of any number of items that  he—the magician—tossed into his hat before pulling out a rabbit: “I  prefer [to say]: In that period, certain events happened in the world,  I saw certain people, I was reading certain books, I was looking at  certain paintings, I loved X, I hated Y, I didn’t have any money, I  wasn’t sleeping much.” (Yet, despite all of this protestation,  Antonioni began writing at a young age and continued to write  throughout his life. He adapted portions of his story collection, \u003ci\u003eThat  Bowling Alley on the Tiber\u003c\/i\u003e [1987], into \u003ci\u003eBeyond the Clouds\u003c\/i\u003e, starring  John Malkovich as the “director.”) Reinventing cinema was his aim, and  new techniques were all in service of finding answers to fundamental  questions: “What is it that torments and motivates modern man? Of all  that has happened and is now happening in the world, what are the  repercussions inside a man, what are the consequences in his most  intimate relationships and dealings with others? Today, more than ever,  these are the questions we should keep in mind when we prepare  ourselves to make a film.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo it’s no wonder Antonioni was attracted to Cortázar’s story:  Cortázar was trying to do in words what Antonioni was trying to do  with images. Cortázar was seeking a way to explode the narrative  mechanism, to find a way to tell a story that was in tune with his  times (“Blow-Up” was first published in 1958) and the troubled politics  of Latin America. “The truth is, each day . . . I write worse and  worse, from an aesthetic point of view,” he said in an interview. “It  may be absurd for a writer to insist on discarding his work  instruments. But I think those instruments are false. I want to wipe my  slate clean, start from scratch.” “Blow-Up,” with its shifting points  of view and absolutely unreliable narrator, does just that. It’s a  conceptual story, an idea with words wrapped around it, a halting,  backstepping, existential Jabberwocky. “It’ll never be known how this  has to be told,” the first paragraph begins, “in the first person or in  the second, using the third person plural or continually inventing  modes that will serve for nothing. If one might say: I will see the  moon rose, or: we hurt me at the back of my eyes, and especially: you  the blond woman was the clouds that race before my your his our yours  their faces. What the hell.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBoth Cortázar and Antonioni are interested in art as exploration, as  provocation. Each in his chosen form has worked to strip the expository  from story, forcing the reader\/viewer to fill in missing pieces. Both  concern themselves with the interplay of form and content. But Cortázar  is more playful than Antonioni, less aware (maybe self-consciously so)  of his stature as an artist. “The truth is that I don’t care a straw  for Literature with a capital L; the only thing that interests me is  searching for (and sometimes finding) myself in a contest with words  that eventually produces something called a book.” Throughout his  career, play (and gamesmanship) was at the center of his work.  Hopscotch, probably his most famous novel, is constructed for two  possible readings. First, in the normal sequential fashion, and second,  using a hopscotch sequence (chapters 73, 1, 2, 116, 3, 84 . . .). Now  considered the first hypertext novel, it anticipates the possibilities  of the World Wide Web’s nonsequential structure. But for Cortázar, it  was about the game. “It would be absolutely impossible for me to live  if I couldn’t play,” he claimed.","brand":"Crown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303930613989,"sku":"NP9781400053148","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781400053148.jpg?v=1767721055","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/adaptations-isbn-9781400053148","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}