Road conditions.
*Driving all day. No time for much.
*The always-fine RAB has posted an extended, very good piece of reflection up at his site in regards to that Alan Moore story in the New York Times you’ve all read by now. Well you should all read RAB's piece too, as a lot of good points are made.
I actually thought the Times article was a really clean, succinct bit of summary as per the V for Vendetta situation, ably covering all necessary bases, eliciting pertinent quotes from logical sources, and doling out potentially confusing information in an intelligent, reader-friendly fashion. Which makes the inclusion of comments by the very much non-existent “John O’Neill” all the more frustrating, as it’s the kind of thing that might cause a comics-savvy reader to discount much of the summary itself as similarly loosey-goosey with the facts of the situation.
I think the most interesting potential development of all this is the very real possibility that the V for Vendetta film might take off as a genuine phenomena; just the other day a friend of mine who reads no comics but sees a lot of movies identified the film as the one he’s most looking forward to at the moment, and there’s a steady build in critical buzz, at least as I’ve seen it. It’ll be pretty damned fascinating to see the adaptation take on a life of its own, living a longer life than the other Moore adaptations we’ve seen; this notion gets to me because there’s been so little success in translating Moore’s work to the cinema in the past, which I think bolsters a psychological undercurrent among readers that Moore’s comics material can’t work well in adaptation to another art form. Naturally, any film made of any comic won’t ‘replace’ anything - Sin City is different in filmic form than it is on the page, no matter how close the translation is - but having a Moore-derived work existing as a well-regarded example of a medium with a different (and larger) audience than comics might prove to be something. Especially if a whole bunch of commentators from outside of comics decide to examine the situation surrounding Moore's position on the project. And if the film proves to be the political firecracker that its creators appear to want it to be, you can bank on many a perception of Alan Moore that we might never had seen otherwise, especially if interested parties opt to delve deeper into his body of work.
I'm interested in seeing the film. I do have my reservations, largely centered around the ability of the Wachowski siblings to broadcast political commentary in their writings without making my eyeballs careen out of my skull from the sheer force of their rolling - but then, maybe the atmosphere of the V movie will reward hammering politics. Even if I thought the comic struck an excellent balance between treating V as an extremist hero and an utter monster, maybe the simplifications of a cinematic treatment may convert the whole presentation into something new, wearing the costume of the old (same smiling mask) but carrying a unique tone, a success on terms the comic never considered. That's the fun of adaptation - the possibility that materials might both diverge and thrive. And when the divergence isn't all that great on the surface (as a very enthusiastic David Lloyd suggests), the resultant experience might be very educational.
Or it might just be crap.
*The always-fine RAB has posted an extended, very good piece of reflection up at his site in regards to that Alan Moore story in the New York Times you’ve all read by now. Well you should all read RAB's piece too, as a lot of good points are made.
I actually thought the Times article was a really clean, succinct bit of summary as per the V for Vendetta situation, ably covering all necessary bases, eliciting pertinent quotes from logical sources, and doling out potentially confusing information in an intelligent, reader-friendly fashion. Which makes the inclusion of comments by the very much non-existent “John O’Neill” all the more frustrating, as it’s the kind of thing that might cause a comics-savvy reader to discount much of the summary itself as similarly loosey-goosey with the facts of the situation.
I think the most interesting potential development of all this is the very real possibility that the V for Vendetta film might take off as a genuine phenomena; just the other day a friend of mine who reads no comics but sees a lot of movies identified the film as the one he’s most looking forward to at the moment, and there’s a steady build in critical buzz, at least as I’ve seen it. It’ll be pretty damned fascinating to see the adaptation take on a life of its own, living a longer life than the other Moore adaptations we’ve seen; this notion gets to me because there’s been so little success in translating Moore’s work to the cinema in the past, which I think bolsters a psychological undercurrent among readers that Moore’s comics material can’t work well in adaptation to another art form. Naturally, any film made of any comic won’t ‘replace’ anything - Sin City is different in filmic form than it is on the page, no matter how close the translation is - but having a Moore-derived work existing as a well-regarded example of a medium with a different (and larger) audience than comics might prove to be something. Especially if a whole bunch of commentators from outside of comics decide to examine the situation surrounding Moore's position on the project. And if the film proves to be the political firecracker that its creators appear to want it to be, you can bank on many a perception of Alan Moore that we might never had seen otherwise, especially if interested parties opt to delve deeper into his body of work.
I'm interested in seeing the film. I do have my reservations, largely centered around the ability of the Wachowski siblings to broadcast political commentary in their writings without making my eyeballs careen out of my skull from the sheer force of their rolling - but then, maybe the atmosphere of the V movie will reward hammering politics. Even if I thought the comic struck an excellent balance between treating V as an extremist hero and an utter monster, maybe the simplifications of a cinematic treatment may convert the whole presentation into something new, wearing the costume of the old (same smiling mask) but carrying a unique tone, a success on terms the comic never considered. That's the fun of adaptation - the possibility that materials might both diverge and thrive. And when the divergence isn't all that great on the surface (as a very enthusiastic David Lloyd suggests), the resultant experience might be very educational.
Or it might just be crap.
posted by Jog at 11:59 PM
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