Wednesday, February 7, 2018
Tuesday, February 6, 2018
Monday, February 5, 2018
Sunday, February 4, 2018
A New Wrinkle
The first adaptation of "A Wrinkle in Time" I ever saw was when I was in middle school in the mid-1970's; it was a classroom filmstrip. And what is a filmstrip, you ask? Here is how Wikipedia defines it:
The filmstrip was a common form of still image instructional multimedia, once commonly used by educators in primary and secondary schools (K-12)...
A filmstrip is a spooled roll of 35 mm positive film with approximately thirty to fifty images arranged in sequential order. Like 16 mm film, a filmstrip was inserted vertically down in front of the projector aperture, rather than horizontally as in a slide projector...
The instructor would turn on a filmstrip projector that would show the first frame (image) of the filmstrip. The instructor then turned on a 33 RPM record or cassette tape containing the audio material for the filmstrip which included narration. At the appropriate point, a tone would sound, signaling the instructor to turn a knob, advancing to the next frame.
So we watched it, and I liked it, and I went on (sometime later) to read more of Madeleine L'Engle's young adult novels, and then her non-fiction and autobiographical works. In 2003 a film adaptation made by a "collaboration of Canadian production companies" was distributed by Disney, on television. I was not particularly impressed by it as an adaptation. According (once more) to Wikipedia, "In an interview with Newsweek, when L'Engle was asked if the film "met her expectations", she said, "Yes, I expected it to be bad, and it is." "
Now Disney itself is venturing their own version of a film adaptation. I, of course, have not seen it, so I can't make any final judgements, but I must confess to feelings of unease from the film trailers I've seen. I can't help but feel (again, from only what is shown) that they have missed a basic element of the work itself. How so? Let me make a few comparison.
In the book, this is how L'Engle describes Mrs. Whatsit:
"It seemed small...The age or sex was impossible to tell, for it was completely bundled up in clothes. Several scarves of assorted colors were tied about the head, and a man's felt hat perched atop..black rubber boots covered the feet." She takes off the hat and scarves, and "Under all this a sparse quantity of grayish hair was tied in a small but tidy knot on the top of her head. Her eyes were bright, her nose a round, soft blob, her mouth puckered like an autumn apple."
The movie gives us this:
Mrs. Who, from the book:
"...a plump little woman...She wore enormous spectacles, twice as thick and twice as large as Meg's..." and later she is described as having a "clawlike hand."
The movie gives us this:
In the book, Mrs. Which, the most senior and wisest of the three, gets even less of an manifestation:
"...in a circle of silver something shimmered, quivered..."
And later she solidifies for a moment, as a joke, into the stereotypical appearance of a Halloween witch.
The movie gives us this:
It could be argued that a film adaptation needs this sort of bezazzlement; a ripple of light does not play well on the big screen. And, after all, the three Mrs. W.'s appearances are in fact just that: appearances assumed for the comfort of their interaction with humanity. They can be assumed and doffed again, as demonstrated in Mrs. Whatsit's transformation into a flying centaur that so impresses Meg. But the point of the forms they assume is that they are not there to overwhelm with majesty and authority of presence, but to persuade and encourage -- as all good "guardian angels," as Charles Wallace calls them -- should. What I do like is their diversity. It gives off that medieval "Three Kings" vibe in which all nations have a part in the Nativity.
But, as troubling as this element appears to me, I have not seen the movie yet. Perhaps they appear in humbler forms at first, which are just not shown in the trailers lest we be confused as to who is what. But the way they are being presented in the trailers seems to emphasize their being more like goddesses than angels. We shall see; the proof is in the pudding, not necessarily the crust.
The filmstrip was a common form of still image instructional multimedia, once commonly used by educators in primary and secondary schools (K-12)...
A filmstrip is a spooled roll of 35 mm positive film with approximately thirty to fifty images arranged in sequential order. Like 16 mm film, a filmstrip was inserted vertically down in front of the projector aperture, rather than horizontally as in a slide projector...
The instructor would turn on a filmstrip projector that would show the first frame (image) of the filmstrip. The instructor then turned on a 33 RPM record or cassette tape containing the audio material for the filmstrip which included narration. At the appropriate point, a tone would sound, signaling the instructor to turn a knob, advancing to the next frame.
So we watched it, and I liked it, and I went on (sometime later) to read more of Madeleine L'Engle's young adult novels, and then her non-fiction and autobiographical works. In 2003 a film adaptation made by a "collaboration of Canadian production companies" was distributed by Disney, on television. I was not particularly impressed by it as an adaptation. According (once more) to Wikipedia, "In an interview with Newsweek, when L'Engle was asked if the film "met her expectations", she said, "Yes, I expected it to be bad, and it is." "
Now Disney itself is venturing their own version of a film adaptation. I, of course, have not seen it, so I can't make any final judgements, but I must confess to feelings of unease from the film trailers I've seen. I can't help but feel (again, from only what is shown) that they have missed a basic element of the work itself. How so? Let me make a few comparison.
In the book, this is how L'Engle describes Mrs. Whatsit:
"It seemed small...The age or sex was impossible to tell, for it was completely bundled up in clothes. Several scarves of assorted colors were tied about the head, and a man's felt hat perched atop..black rubber boots covered the feet." She takes off the hat and scarves, and "Under all this a sparse quantity of grayish hair was tied in a small but tidy knot on the top of her head. Her eyes were bright, her nose a round, soft blob, her mouth puckered like an autumn apple."
The movie gives us this:
Mrs. Who, from the book:
"...a plump little woman...She wore enormous spectacles, twice as thick and twice as large as Meg's..." and later she is described as having a "clawlike hand."
The movie gives us this:
In the book, Mrs. Which, the most senior and wisest of the three, gets even less of an manifestation:
"...in a circle of silver something shimmered, quivered..."
And later she solidifies for a moment, as a joke, into the stereotypical appearance of a Halloween witch.
The movie gives us this:
It could be argued that a film adaptation needs this sort of bezazzlement; a ripple of light does not play well on the big screen. And, after all, the three Mrs. W.'s appearances are in fact just that: appearances assumed for the comfort of their interaction with humanity. They can be assumed and doffed again, as demonstrated in Mrs. Whatsit's transformation into a flying centaur that so impresses Meg. But the point of the forms they assume is that they are not there to overwhelm with majesty and authority of presence, but to persuade and encourage -- as all good "guardian angels," as Charles Wallace calls them -- should. What I do like is their diversity. It gives off that medieval "Three Kings" vibe in which all nations have a part in the Nativity.
But, as troubling as this element appears to me, I have not seen the movie yet. Perhaps they appear in humbler forms at first, which are just not shown in the trailers lest we be confused as to who is what. But the way they are being presented in the trailers seems to emphasize their being more like goddesses than angels. We shall see; the proof is in the pudding, not necessarily the crust.
Saturday, February 3, 2018
Friday, February 2, 2018
Happy Anniversary!
Happy Anniversary! Today marks the day Power of Babel turns ten years and one week old. Why such an odd number, you ask? Because I totally didn't notice it until a couple of days ago. I looked it up and found out that the average lifespan of a blog is only three months, so, taking Google's word for the length of an average human life, that makes Power of Babel the equivalent of a 316 year old.
Here is the mission statement I started with:
January 27, 2008: From Mego Planet of the Apes action figures to the first Star Wars to the latest McFarlane release, I have always loved and been fascinated with these sculpted plastic pals. To hold a solid three-dimensional piece of a dream is an indescribable thrill. This blog will be about my action figures--a collection that numbers in the thousands. I want to have a listing of every one, with special attention to new figures as I get them. I want to discuss the strange mania of action figures, their purpose, lore, and future. I am just an enthusiastic amateur, but I hope in this posting to grow in knowledge and expertise, with the help of anyone who can expand my understanding of the field. I hope to post my first entry and image soon!
A mere five months later I added other things to my mission statement:
May 31 2008: What other things? My fads, freaks, and fallacies, my memories, dreams, anectodage, books, movies, TV shows, favorite poems, pictures, fugitive writings--in effect, my blathering opinions on life, the universe, and everything. This will probably interest only my four readers (and not always all of them), but there it is.
And so it went, becoming my online common-place book and cork board. It was never been monetized, never meant to grow a product or gather an enormous following, though I am grateful for anyone who still looks in on me. I don't claim to own content, but I don't always give credit where it's due, and for that I apologize. In ten years, I've gathered forty followers, which averages out to four a year. I'm happy when anyone new pops in and thanks me for some obscure niche I've been able help them with. It's usually some post that I wrote years ago.
That's because lately my writing on the blog has slowed down, and been replaced largely with image dumps that would more properly be placed on a Tumblr page. That started after my TIA (or "ministroke") a couple of years back, when it was harder to find the time or energy to write. Then for a while all my writing 'juice' was absorbed in writing a new book, with only the leftover drops going to the blog when I was particularly outraged or enthused. Now I realize I have fallen into lazy habits, and hope to get back into more original content. After all, I have a never-ending fountain of blather and opinions. Why not use it?
One thing that makes it hard is that I no longer have great resources to bring myself new grist for the mill, and I don't particularly like to thresh old straw (to mix a metaphor). For me, new books (even new old books) are few and far between, action figures are almost right out, and, far-ranging as the internet is, there are diminishing returns for simply repeating what someone has already said, probably far better than you can.
But Brer, you say, what about your local library? Can't you read books from there? Our little library, valiant as its efforts are, is very limited, Even with inter-library loan, most of the books I want to read are not available, and when they are available, have taken three months to arrive. I got a new library card just a while ago, and have already depleted the resources of what I want to read. They do not even have copies of many of the classics. My niches are not major sells. Thus endeth my blather and excuses.
But Power of Babel proceeds gamely along, as I do, leaning on the cane of picture galleries, in low-power mode. I hope to soon bring it more up to speed again. As the doctors are so fond of saying, "Use it or lose it," and that includes your mind.
Thursday, February 1, 2018
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