Lost in Adaptation?

Or is something gained when a written work is transposed to the stage or screen? Do the different media cast the original in a new light or betray it?

Some books seem made for the transition others less so, and some are adapted in several media. In the world of English literature the hardy annuals of Austen, Dickens and Christie are top picks for adaptation. There is a reliable audience for the delights of their different and, to our eyes, quaint, eras and eccentric characters, providing the adaptation remains ‘faithful’ to the original. Otherwise people react proprietorially against the ‘inaccurate’ version.

On the other side of the page, however, are books that don’t appear to offer the same cinematic or dramatic appeal yet are adapted multiple times in various media. In these instances the choice is perhaps more personal and the adaptations reflect that individual perspective. For example, a few weeks ago a friend urged me to watch Beau Travail (Good Work) by Claire Denis, a film adapted from Melville’s Billy Budd. The movie is captivating and strange. Some of its background music comes from Benjamin Britten’s opera, Billy Budd. Curious, I went back to the source and read Melville’s very moving novella.

Photo by Rafael Garcin on Unsplash

Although set in a time of high historical drama - the Napoleonic wars - the novella wouldn’t have struck me as a natural for adaptation. Handsome Billy, an innocent whose childlike aspect is compounded by a stutter that affects him in times of stress, is conscripted from a merchant ship, The Rights O’Man to the warship, The Indomitable. Allegory is to the fore. The captain of the The Rights is upset at Billy’s departure saying he was a good influence on his quarrelling sailors, ‘like a Catholic priest striking peace in an Irish shindy’!

Subtitled ‘An Inside Story’, the action is confined to shipboard. It is a tussle between two men, the honourable and dutiful Captain Vere (nicknamed ‘Starry Vere’) and his Master-at-Arms, John Claggart, who trails a whiff of mystery and suspicion, for the soul of Billy Budd. The Master is both attracted to (a desire forbidden, we are told, by ‘fate and ban’) and resentful of, Budd’s beauty and blithe nature. Vere appreciates the young man’s happy-go-lucky demeanour. When Claggart falsely accuses Budd of mutinous intent Budd, frustrated by his stammer, strikes and kills him. Vere, torn between duty and natural justice sets up a drum court, which, against its better instincts, condemns Budd to death, a sentence he accepts with serenity.

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In the two adaptations mentioned above, Melville’s biblico-legal narrator is replaced by a first person narrator. Britten’s libretto was written by the novelist E.M. Forster (several of whose novels have also been made into great movies), with director and librettist, Eric Crozier. They chose Vere’s point of view. Denis and her co-writer, Jean-Pol Fargeau, take the viewpoint of their Claggart character, renamed Galoup. Both narrators speak from a position of remorse. Britten’s Vere, knowing he could have saved the boy, is consoled because Billy blessed him at the last. Denis’ lone wolf Galoup recalls in his opening scene a phrase he has heard somewhere, ‘Maybe freedom begins with remorse’. Unlike his counterpart in the original, Galoup survives the critical events but only in a manner of speaking. He describes himself as ‘unfit for life, unfit for civilian life’.

Sulphuric chimneys at Lake Abbe provide a dramatic backdrop in Beau Travail (Photo by Lesly Derksen on Unsplash)

Denis has moved the action forward to the late 20^th century and set it in the French Foreign Legion on duty in Djibouti. As in the original this is a male-centric world and these soldiers never see action, any more than Melville’s and Britten’s sailors, whose one sally is thwarted by fog. For Galoup the legion is everything and he craves the good favour of his commander, called here Forestier. Interestingly, Denis casts a shadow over Forestier’s past, by contrast with the upright Vere, and we learn nothing of Galoup’s background.

When the Budd character, named Sentain, arrives, Galoup is gripped by an unfamiliar emotion. He has a mistress in the town, albeit theirs is a purely transactional relationship.

Meanwhile back at base he becomes obsessed by Sentain, envying his popularity and particularly Forestier’s interest in him.

Denis’ title is curiously ambivalent too, meaning good or nice work. The only clue to its significance that I could find was in an exchange between Forestier and Sentain. The officer asks the new recruit about his parents and Sentain explains that he was found abandoned in a stairwell. Forestier replies ‘belle trouvaille’ (lovely find) which almost rhymes with the film’s title. So is Sentain the ‘nice work’? The phrase certainly can’t apply to Galoup’s actions.

Goaded by Galoup, Sentain strikes but doesn’t kill him. As punishment Galoup abandons him in the desert, having tampered with his compass. Galoup is court-martialled. Sentain is rescued by traders. Our last sight of him is on a bus with Galoup’s mistress murmuring in his delirium that he is ‘lost’.

Adaptation - reflection or refraction? Photo by drmakete lab on Unsplash

The wide-ranging religious, historical, political and moral references which amplify Melville’s classic tale are distilled in its modern adaptations to the intense and private emotional tension between the three main characters. As in his operas, Peter Grimes and The Turn of the Screw, also adapted from literary works, Britten concentrates on victimised innocence. Denis’ film likewise. There is an improbable purity in the male camaraderie she portrays. But that is counterpointed by the futility of the Legionnaires’ routine of exercise, eating, doing laundry, and the odd night on the town. In all three stories purity of soul and beauty of person become a distorting mirror for the older world-weary characters. This is not simply a matter of repressed homosexuality but of intuitive morality repressed by expediency.

In themselves the adaptations hold a looking glass up to the original story, refracting its core truth and renewing our interest in that original. No coincidence then that the final scene in Denis’ film is of Galoup dancing alone but surrounded by full-length mirrors.*  

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How do you feel about adaptations of books you have liked? Are there any you would recommend and why?

*Claire Denis’ latest film, Stars at Noon, is based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Denis Johnson.