Exiled in Eden: Screen versions of Conrad's Nostromo
1998; Salisbury University; Volume: 26; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0090-4260
Autores Tópico(s)Joseph Conrad and Literature
ResumoJoseph Conrad never thought of motion pictures a suitable medium for adaptation of literature. Indeed, he once said that movies are just a silly stunt for silly people (Rosenthal). Moreover, he wrote to his friend Richard Curle, in a letter dated 9 October 1920, that he thought whole business of translating a literary work to screen seemed as futile and insecure walking a tightrope-and at bottom much less dignified (Conrad, Letters 90). Given Conrad's condescending attitude toward cinematic adaptations of literature, it is not surprising that he viewed very ruefully indeed any attempt to translate his own work to screen. Despite Conrad's misgivings about film versions of his fiction, however, his work has found its way onto both big screen of cinema and little screen of TV tube. As a matter of fact, his 1906 novel Nostromo was made into a silent film titled The Silver Treasure (1926); and more recently novel was source of a TV miniseries, first televised in 1997. Conrad recalls in his Author's Note to Nostromo in Collected Edition that around 1875 he heard tell of sailor who would later serve model for central character in Nostromo. The sailor in question was supposed to have stolen singlehandedly a whole lighter of which he claimed had sunk to bottom of sea when it was being transferred to secret island where its rightful owners wished to store it. By selling bars of silver from precious horde on black market from time to time, sailor was able slowly to enrich himself. Initially, Conrad wrote in his Note, he saw nothing in this anecdote that could serve a basis of a novel. It was only when it dawned on him that, he put it, the purloiner of treasure need not necessarily be a confirmed rogue, that he could even be man of character, that Conrad began to envision story of Nostromo (which is what he named character in novel), an Italian sailor living in South America who becomes rich by commandeering a horde of silver for his private use (Conrad, Nostromo ix). By making Nostromo a man of principle, Conrad was able to portray crisis of conscience that someone who had been honest all his life experiences when he succumbs to temptation of greed.l John Griffith observes that Conrad often wrote of Europeans who seek their fortune in third world. Conrad sees them bewildered travellers, adrift in an alien culture, who claim to be seeking (Griffith 13). Jeremy Hawthorn adds that the word adventurer is an important one for Conrad; and his use of it demonstrates quite clearly his awareness of fact that Europeans who claimed that they were seeking adventure by seeking their fortunes in third world might actually be better described adventurers-individuals seeking plunder. Certainly Nostromo, portrayed by Conrad in novel, is such an adventurer. Nostromo, notes Hawthorn, ends by despising himself and his secret enslavement to silver, plunder he has stolen (206). Rowland V. Lee (The Bridge of San Luis Rey) directed a silent version of Nostromo for Fox studios in 1926, but no copies of film are known to exist. The reason that this silent film disappeared is that motion pictures in early days of cinema were printed on perishable film stock; and all known copies of Silver Treasure had disintegrated before copies could be transferred to permanent film stock, which later came into general use in film industry. Michael Barson writes that Lee's films, most decent, few remarkable, contributed little of lasting value to American cinema (490). The Silver Treasure is no exception to rule since, by all accounts, it is an unremarkable screen version of Conrad novel. In Conrad's book a tragic fate overcomes Nostromo when he happens to hide silver treasure on an island which also is site of a lighthouse. …
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