Timewaster's Guide Archive
Departments => Movies and TV => Topic started by: Spriggan on August 15, 2006, 01:38:25 AM
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Yep because of the Sci-fi channels movie Disney can't release the anime version due to rights issues. Kind of sad. Or at least this is the case from Le Guin herself, you can read her impressions of the movie at http://www.ursulakleguin.com/GedoSenkiResponse.html
in a nutshell:
Mr Goro Miyazaki asked me just as I was leaving, "Did you like the movie?" It was not an easy question to answer, under the circumstances. I said: "Yes. It is not my book. It is your movie. It is a good movie."
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From Le Guin's thoughts:
Much of it was, I thought, incoherent. This may be because I kept trying to find and follow the story of my books while watching an entirely different story, confusingly enacted by people with the same names as in my story, but with entirely different temperaments, histories, and destinies.
From this and other comments, it sounds like Le Guin was very disappointed with the film (not to mention the fact that Goro Miyazaki, not Hayao Miyazaki as she had been lead to believe, was the director). Film adaptation can be a tricky thing. But I subscribe to the opinion that though changes must be made for a very different art form (visual storytelling in a film requires different tactics then written storytelling in a novel), the "spirit" of the original work should be kept. I completely agree with this statement of Le Guin's:
Of course a movie shouldn't try to follow a novel exactly — they're different arts, very different forms of narrative. There may have to be massive changes. But it is reasonable to expect some fidelity to the characters and general story in a film named for and said to be based on books that have been in print for 40 years.
These are just a few of her criticisms--and they all seem valid. From these observations, I'm thinking perhaps it's not such a bad thing the release has been postponed until 2009. It sounds like I'd be very disappointed with the film.
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Sounds like it was as true to the book as Ella Enchanted. That is to say, the only thing that remained of the book was the character name.
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Well, they did keep the curse-thing...
But, yeah, they changed a lot.
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Just so you know Le Guin hates every adaption of her books, as for this version it's made more monies in Japan then any other animated movie had, so it's really popular over there.
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Hmm. Interesting. Well, I guess I'll have to wait until 2009 to see it and form an opinion of my own. ;)
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Well, she had good reason to hate the adaptation of the SciFi version of Wizard of Earthsea...
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Agreed. I mean, they changed the fact that Ged was black! That's a HUGE change, if you ask me. Since Le Guin was all about changing the normal fantasy main character (something beside the young white male protagonist) first with Ged and then with Tenar, I'd definitely call that a sacrilege.
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I'd call it whoever read the book to do the screenplay and casting weren't paying attention. It's very subtle at first, the fact that Ged is black, and it wasn't helped by decades of a white kid on the cover again and again. Unless you're reading carefully or know the history of the book (both things, I say, anyone making a movie of this book should have done), it's easy to miss, especially with the cultural assumptions that it's common for readers to make--that the main character is the same race/ethnicity as the reader. It's this very assumption she was trying to debunk, and the filmmakers should have caught on.
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Or they did catch that fact but decided to change it to try and appeal to more people which is worse in my opinion.
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Either way, it's a major component of the story, which was totally missed.
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1) He was not "black" he was dark skinned like an islander, was my understanding.
2) The color of his skin is irrelevant to the story itself. At least, it seemed so on my recent re-reading of Wizard and Atuan.
3) I think LeGuin, like sprig says, just doesn't like adaptations of her books.
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He's supposed to be red-brown. And no, the skin color is not crucial to the plot, but it is crucial to what she intended the book to be. It was meant to allow non-caucasians to feel enfranchised by fantasy, and she's received numerous letters from fans over the years who said that the Earthsea books were the first books that made them feel exactly that.
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and yet the non-caucasion Ghibli is the one making the choice to make them "white." I'm not trying to be snarky or anything, but it seems a little peevish to get upset when a non-white man feels enfranchised enough that he doesn't need to make the color like his own.
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I was referring to the SciFi channel production. The race of Ged was only the beginning of the horrors of that production.
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Eric, she decided to withhold judgment on the Ghibli version's skin coloration, because she said she isn't familiar enough with how anime typically presents skin color. She did not herself make a big deal about it, but because it's an important factor when discussing any adaptation of Earthsea, she did mention it:
My purpose in making most of the people of Earthsea colored, and the whites a marginal and rather backward people, was of course a moral one, aimed at young American and European readers. Fantasy heroes of the European tradition were conventionally white — just about universally so in 1968 — and darkness of skin was often associated with evil. By simply subverting an expectation, a novelist can undermine a prejudice.
The makers of the American TV version, while boasting that they were "color blind," reduced the colored population of Earthsea to one and a half. I have blasted them for whitewashing Earthsea, and do not forgive them for it.
The issue is different in Japan. I cannot address the issue of race in Japan because I know too little about it. But I know that an anime film runs smack into the almost immutable conventions of its genre. Most of the people in anime films look — to the American/European eye — white. I am told that the Japanese audience perceives them differently. I am told that they may perceive this Ged as darker than my eye does. I hope so. Most of the characters look white to me, but there is at least a nice variation of tans and beiges. And Tenar's fair hair and blue eyes are right, since she's a minority type from the Kargish islands.
I don't find that inflammatory. She just tells it like she sees it.
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I stand by my position.
to my knowledge, "peevish" does not mean "inflamatory." I think she's a little too focused herself on race.
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Having written the book in 1968, I think she has every right to want to focus on race. Maybe a lot of the population has left that conflict behind us, but I'm sure it's still relevant to many people.
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I'm not saying it's irrelevant. I'm saying that insisting that it be a major interpretation of every adaptation is being obstinate and closed-minded. The *story* was *not* about race. Why should ever interpretation have to include that?
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IMO I feel that LeGuin is whining to much. I apprecate that she tried to create a book that would help enfranchise other ethnicities into the fantasy genre. The end result, however, is only mildly successful. I feel that the SciFi production and Ghibli productions attest to this.
From when I first read the Earthsea books (which I enjoyed), it never even dawned on me that Ged or any of the characters were a different race than my own. In part, I think LeGuin fails to really get outside of her own cultural influences in her writing style in order to accommplish all of her intentions. Furthermore, in LeGuin's writings it is apparent she lacks a complete understanding of mutliculturalism. She knows a lot, but still has more to learn and understand.
So the multicultural purpose of Earthsea is noble, but I don't think it's particularly clear. I feel LeGuin really needs to accept that there are some deficiencies in the Earthsea books that prevent many people from grasping her embracement of races and cultures. I think she should be grateful for what success she has gotten.
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Having written the book in 1968, I think she has every right to want to focus on race. Maybe a lot of the population has left that conflict behind us, but I'm sure it's still relevant to many people.
I have to say I'm siding with Ookla here. Race was much more of an issue in 1968, and she was trying to make a point, and I think that to capture the true "spirit" of the novels this should be taken into consideration in an adaptation.
However, I see E's and 42's point. Multiculturalism is more than just changing skin color. And perhaps the books failed in that respect. However, I think her point was that the skin color shouldn't be so defining--and that she carried this out by varying the races in her Earthsea novels without making them "other". As she pointed out (in the quote Ookla provided), at the time the prevailing archetype in fantasy was black=evil and white-good. Which is a prevailing Western archetype, anyway, and still very much so. And she was trying to subvert it. I don't think it's much to ask that this be carried over into adaptations of her novels.
That's my opinion.
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If that was her point than I'd really have to argue she fails, especially because she keeps insisting that it is a corruption of the book to change their skin color.
I have to poitn out, with 42, that the culture in Earthsea is very, very western european. Castles, a university, etc etc. It's not remotely polynesian or african or eastern or anything else except that because they live on islands they have to sail a lot.
So I don't think it violates the "spirit" of the book in anyway to make their skin white.
The "spirit" of the book you keep mentioning, Chimera, is very, very subjective. It's the height of egotism for anyperson to claim they have definitive understanding of an interpretation of a work, especially if that work is not their own. I would have to say that the skin color in no way influenced my interpretation of the book and has even less to do with why I liked it.
As I said, they are focusing on other interpretations and understandings of the books. the dark skin had nothing to do with it. I suppose that it could be just as easy to color the skin a different shade, then, but at that poitn, they've made it a design issue, rather than a thematic issue.
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If that was her point than I'd really have to argue she fails, especially because she keeps insisting that it is a corruption of the book to change their skin color.
I don't know if that was her point, but it seems like it. However, you are right. It is kind of ironic that she wanted to make skin color not important but has to insist that it is in order to make that point. There's deconstructionalism for you.
I have to poitn out, with 42, that the culture in Earthsea is very, very western european. Castles, a university, etc etc. It's not remotely polynesian or african or eastern or anything else except that because they live on islands they have to sail a lot.
A valid point. Which is why I agree that she has failed according to our modern, present-day standard of Multiculturalism--but I don't know about the standard at the time when it was written.
The "spirit" of the book you keep mentioning, Chimera, is very, very subjective. It's the height of egotism for anyperson to claim they have definitive understanding of an interpretation of a work, especially if that work is not their own.
But this is the author's own work! I'm arguing that she has the right to be upset at the adaptation of her own work--not that my interpretation is best. And can't the author interpret the meaning of the book she wrote? I still maintain that Le Guin has every right, in these cases, to be unhappy with the adaptations--the race of the characters being only one factor that contributed to her unhappiness, though this seems to be the topic we are arguing about now..
Granted, I agree with you that interpreting a work is subjective. And so is the idea of capturing the "spirit" of a work in adaptation. But once we get into subjectivity then anything is possible. There must be some standard. Does the adaptation have the same characters? Not just the names, but people with the same drives, weaknesses, strengths, etc. Does it have the same themes? Does it accomplish the same purpose? I guess these are things I consider when looking at an adaptation. And, if it doesn't, is there a good reason why not? Of course, I guess that is all subjective as well.
In that case, this whole argument is subjective. We're all arguing based on our interpretation of the book and what we think Le Guin meant and whether or not the adaptations were true to that. And I think this argument is just going to go in circles. But it is interesting, nonetheless.
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sure, an artist can interpret her own work. But even the artist can't claim an interpretation so entirely authoritative that it rules out other interpretations. What she is doing is saying that the interpretation of another is invalid on the basis of what is, after all, a relatively insignificant point considering what goes on in the book. If *she* doesn't make anything of the issue, why should she expect others to hold to it?