how did you become interested in the
subject of adaptation I mean what does
it open up intellectually I think I've
always had a penchant for I don't want
to say rescuing or protecting but it
always feels that way
parts of our culture that people think
of as secondary less important than
others and many years ago I worked on
parody because everybody said parody
wasn't an important thing and I thought
it was incredibly important in the
middle of a postmodern culture that we
were in and adaptations are another one
of these things that people see as
secondary derivative and I think they're
really interesting and and the reason I
think they're interesting adaptations in
particular is that this is how we I
think have always told stories we
haven't just told stories from the
beginning of human time we've retold
stories and that's what interested me
it's not just that we have today it but
it is true we have more media new means
of diffusion so we need more stories but
we aren't just making up new stories
we're retelling old stories but we
always have
we've always retold stories I mean only
one of Shakespeare's plays is not an
adaptation and even it adapts
conventions from other things so this is
a history of how we've always said why
do we denigrate it so I was fascinated
by that you said an adaptation is a
derivation that is not derivative yeah
it obviously comes out of out of I think
that because a text comes first or work
comes first doesn't mean that it has any
claim to any kind of authenticity I
think that these stories adaptations and
their adapted stories exist sort of
vertically for me rather than
horizontally that there isn't a priority
and an after there's a kind of they
exist for me when I watch and that I
suspect this is true for other people
too when I watch an adaptation of a book
a film adaptation of a book that I know
it's like watching a palimpsest there's
sort of two things going on and what's
happening for me is that I'm oscillating
between the work I know the novel or the
book in this case and the film I'm
watching and I'm flipping between the
two and I'm not necessarily comparing
them I probably am but I'm not
evaluating that comparison I'm just
noticing that this is the same as his
difference or whatever but I've always
got that doubled experience so for me
going
to see an adaptation or read an
adaptation it's always a nicely doubled
experience it's not just single it's got
it up to two layers for me and you don't
pray you don't give higher priority to
the original I know I sense this sort of
disparaging way you allude to the
original here we seem to be the original
is the original you know because it
probably was based on something I mean I
take Shakespeare I mean the adaptations
of Shakespeare Shakespeare was himself a
great adapter he adapted everybody I
mean I'm not sure we have original
stories I think we've always we're
always retelling stories in some ways
movie adaptations are amazingly popular
I think you say something like 85% of
all oscar-winning best pictures are
adaptations 90% of all many television
miniseries of course apart from the
hunger for material why do you think
that is that this you know what children
love to have stories told to them again
and again and again read to them again
again I think there is something about
this pleasure of a familiar story that
we like and enjoy but seeing it in a
slightly different way and seeing it in
new ways I think there's really
something to that that that sameness but
difference that comes in because I was
surprised for instance with somebody
like masterpiece theater they and they
started I think they're calling a
masterpiece classics and they're
actually remaking Jane Austen I mean
they have remade in the last year or two
Jane Austen adaptations that they made
20-30 years ago I mean remaking remaking
the remake and they make it yeah mm-hmm
it's a different culture today and I
suspect that you would remake even
historical ones differently I think that
remakes are always interesting because
they have filmed films that remake films
because what changes well the audience
changes the audience is if it's 20 years
later the audience is 20 years later and
they may know that film so that becomes
part of the background that is a new
environment to use a biological sort of
image into which this the adaptation
like True Grit for instance yeah like
this perfect example yeah