Sofia Coppola’s “Lost in Translation” might
not have been the ultimate victor in last year’s Oscar race
for Best Picture, but it still managed to stand out for one unique
reason: Both written and directed by Coppola, the film’s
screenplay was the only one of its five fellow Best Picture
nominees that was not based on a book.
Most successful films are derived from books, and the
relationship between film and novels is nothing new. This
association is the topic of conversation tonight at Royce Hall,
where actor Willem Dafoe will lead a discussion with writers
Russell Banks and Michael Ondaatje about their work with novels and
film.
Both Banks’ and Ondaatje’s novels have been adapted
into critically acclaimed films. Ondaatje’s “The
English Patient” featured Dafoe as Caravaggio, and Banks
wrote the novels “Affliction,” which also starred
Dafoe, and “The Sweet Hereafter,” both successful
films.
The event is being publicized as a “spontaneous
discussion” between the authors and actor, and the audience
have an opportunity to witness the trio in a candid repartee.
“It will be a pretty wide-ranging, free-range
conversation, like three free-range chickens up there,” Banks
said. “I pretty much expect it will loop around film to
literature, literature to film and their relationship.”
Banks grew up in New Hampshire and eastern Massachusetts in a
working-class environment, and his writing reflects this harshly
real background.
When Banks speaks, his tone is frank and honest, but his mastery
of language is evident in the rich sentences he uses when he
describes his life with film and fiction.
“I’m naturally influenced by film, just in the sense
that I came to maturity in the ’60s, in an era where great
foreign films and great American films were available to us,”
he said.
While Banks has always had an affinity for film, he never
thought of being involved in the cinema world until Atom Goyan
directed “The Sweet Hereafter.”
Film and fiction differ as mediums for telling stories, and
Banks says they each have distinct styles.
“It’s such a different world. Filmmaking is
collaborative and fiction writing is solitary,” says Banks.
“Screenwriting is a different kind of writing; you’re
basically writing a blueprint for the movie, and your relationship
is the structure much more than it is the language itself. Whereas
with fiction you’re really deeply involved with every word,
every comma, every period, and less thorough with
structure.”
Not only is the creation of film and fiction different, but
Banks echoed the opinion of many who have read a book and then seen
its film counterpart. The act of reading versus watching a story is
unequal.
“Film is in your face. With fiction, you engage the
reader’s imagination, because the actual event goes on in the
reader’s mind,” he said. “With film, the audience
is very passive and all the work is done for you, so its a very
different kind of process.”
Ondaatje, Banks and Dafoe will no doubt give an insider
perspective on what its like to cross the boundaries of film and
fiction. For readers who constantly discuss how they interpret the
intention of writers, it should be refreshing to hear what authors
think of the reader’s experience with their work.
“They read it differently. They read their own life into
it. If it’s there for them, then it’s in the book. I
didn’t necessarily put it there consciously or anything like
that,” Banks said. “It’s a surprise to see that
when people adapt things to film.”