To Sup on Horrors: Christopher Hampton's Film Version of Joseph Conrad's Secret Agent
1999; Salisbury University; Volume: 27; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0090-4260
Autores Tópico(s)Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism
ResumoIn Joseph Conrad's famed preface his 1897 novella Nigger of the Narcissus he wrote, My task which I am trying achieve is, by the power of the written word, . before all, make you (xiv). In 1913 D.W. Griffith said, task I am trying achieve is above all make you (McFarlane 4). It is significant notice how the statements by Conrad the novelist and Griffith the filmmaker seem echo one another. Conrad stated that his task as novelist was to make you see. Griffith likewise affirmed that his task as filmmaker was to make you (McFarlane 3,4). At first glance, it seems that both artists were saying virtually the same thing. Yet the written image, i.e., metaphor on the printed page which the reader with the eye of the imagination, is not the same thing as the visual image which the filmgoer sees on the movie screen. In sum, the different methods of seeing, which Conrad and Griffith are referring, are vivid reminder that fiction belongs the print medium while motion pictures are essentially visual medium. Because fiction and film are two fundamentally different artistic mediums, literal fidelity literary source is rarely, if ever, possible when fictional work is adapted the screen. Yet, as we shall see in the course of this article, screenwriter-director Christopher Hampton endeavored remain as faithful his literary source as possible in adapting Conrad's Secret Agent for film. Joseph Conrad's Secret Agent (1907) has often been called the first modern spy novel. It is also stark tale of madness, murder, and despair. In fact, John Griffith writes that the novel vividly depicts Conrad's dark view of modern society, dealing as it does with urban alienation and degeneracy (206). Indeed, when Conrad's stage version of his novel failed attract an audience during its brief run in in 1922, Conrad felt that his dark, brooding tragedy was too grim for the theater audience of his day. He confided his agent, J.B. Pinker, at the time, To make an audience of comfortable, easy-going people sup on horrors is hopeless enterprise (Houze 84). Conrad biographer John Batchelor suggests that the play's failure was mainly due Conrad's lack of experience as dramatist. Still, Conrad was perhaps correct in thinking that the gruesome storyline of his play contributed its failure. Indeed, Christopher Hampton recalls in his introduction the published screenplay of The Secret Agent (1996) that, when he sought, finance the film, potential investors reeled back, appalled at the darkness of the story (Screenplay ix). Nevertheless, Hampton was eventually able raise $7 million make the film. Hampton's film continues be available on videocassette, while the screenplay is available in book form. For the record, the finished film adheres very strictly the screenplay as published.1 Hampton's adaptation is significant for sticking Conrad's period setting, whereas Sabotage (1936), the film version of the same Conrad novel directed by Alfred Hitchcock, was updated the 1930s, the time when the Hitchcock film was made.2 The Secret Agent takes place in the asphalt jungle of big city; in the novel is portrayed as grimy, hostile wilderness, little different from the jungle of Conrad works like Heart of Darkness. It thus makes one wonder just how civilized modem society really is. In the novel, Cedric Watts observes, London is described predominately as dark, dank, slimy, and oppressive (29). As matter of fact, Conrad describes in the course of the novel as colossal aquarium, with streets drowned in cold rain (Novel 100). Hampton picks up on this imagery when he describes in the screenplay the atmosphere of several of the exterior scenes as being characterized by mud and slime and a driving cold rain (Screenplay 3, 46). In Hampton's script, as in Conrad's book, Winnie Verloc (Patricia Arquette) weds Adolf Verloc (Bob Hoskins), the proprietor of soft-core pornographic book shop, which masquerades as stationery store. …
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