{"id":252,"date":"2011-07-17T11:11:38","date_gmt":"2011-07-17T09:11:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/?p=252"},"modified":"2011-07-17T11:11:38","modified_gmt":"2011-07-17T09:11:38","slug":"ishiguro-garland-strange-bedfellows-about-a-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/2011\/07\/17\/ishiguro-garland-strange-bedfellows-about-a-video\/","title":{"rendered":"ISHIGURO & GARLAND: STRANGE BEDFELLOWS (ABOUT A VIDEO)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\tI\u2019m writing a chapter for a collective book, edited by Jos\u00e9 Francisco Fern\u00e1ndez S\u00e1nchez, on how contemporary British writers have progressed since the publication of Blincoe & Thorne\u2019s anthology (and manifesto) All Hail the New Puritans<\/em> (2000). I chose (I begged…) to write about Alex Garland, as I\u2019m very much interested in how he\u2019s straddling the world of literature and cinema.<\/p>\n

In my search for bibliography I came across an interview by David Poland with Garland himself and Kazuo Ishiguro, filmed at the time of the release of Never Let me Go<\/em> (Mark Romanek, Sept 2010), the adaptation scripted by Garland of Ishiguro\u2019s SF novel. I\u2019m fascinated by that 36-minute conversation (enjoy it at http:\/\/www.viddler.com\/explore\/mcnvideos\/videos\/219\/<\/a>). What\u2019s so interesting about it? Everything \u2013if you love books and cinema. The contrast between these British writers of two very different generations, who are, nonetheless friends and creative accomplices. Even the body language is significant. What they say about the profession of writing from very different perspectives on literary achievement and reputation. How well the interviewer manages to raise all the key issues regarding the difference between writing for the page and writing for the screen. The fascinating insights into the writing of Never Let me Go<\/em> and the ensuing film adaptation…<\/p>\n

Apparently, the pair met when Ishiguro contacted Garland after learning that he had modelled a piece of dialogue in The Beach<\/em> after a similar exchange in Ishiguro\u2019s own The Artist of the Floating World<\/em>. You might say that Garland also borrowed from Ishiguro\u2019s The Remains of the Day<\/em> the gimmick of having an unreliable narrator who is exposed to the reader in his meanness as he himself remains unaware. Garland clearly admires Ishiguro for his novels and Ishiguro, for all his immense literary quality, has the elegance of admiring Garland for being a much better screen writer than he is. <\/p>\n

Possibly this is the key issue of the interview. Ishiguro explains that when you\u2019re regarded as a good novelist, your screenplays are welcome regardless of your actual qualifications to write them, an opinion he uses to justify why he\u2019s not so satisfied with his own screenplays. Garland, who seems to be now a full time screen writer (his last novel, the brief The Coma<\/em> was published in 2004) is asked, in contrast, how he\u2019s coping with the acute loss of reputation that being a screen writer entails in comparison to being a novelist. He claims not to care at all, poor thing, as long as he can carry out the film projects he\u2019s interested in. Ishiguro comes to his rescue, stressing it\u2019s all a matter of convention \u2013screen writers are just not granted the respect that their closest colleagues, playwrights, receive. But that might change.<\/p>\n

I hope so! I also hope that Garland\u2019s decision to adapt Never Let Me Go<\/em> as his own very personal project (it took him five years…) starts a new fashion for literary adaptations in which the screenwriter\u2019s name does matter \u2013\u2018Garland reads Ishiguro\u2019 could be the slogan I\u2019m after. Add your own… This, of course, has been around for a long time, possibly from the beginnings of cinema: William Faulkner was co-author of the screen adaptation of Hemingway\u2019s To Have and to Have not<\/em>, remember?. Yet, somehow the adapter\u2019s work is always obscured and all merit stupidly awarded to directors. And the other way round: Garland insists that Ishiguro is also the author of the film adaptation of Never Let me Go<\/em>, even though he had no hand in the screenplay nor was in touch with the director: the themes, characters and settings, Garland stresses, are all Ishiguro\u2019s. <\/p>\n

By all accounts, then, if Garland wins, let\u2019s say, an Oscar for his adaptation, Ishiguro should win one as well. I\u2019ll keep my fingers crossed for Garland, knowing Ishiguro will be very happy for his friend…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing a chapter for a collective book, edited by Jos\u00e9 Francisco Fern\u00e1ndez S\u00e1nchez, on how contemporary British writers have progressed since the publication of Blincoe & Thorne\u2019s anthology (and manifesto) All Hail the New Puritans (2000). I chose (I begged…) to write about Alex Garland, as I\u2019m very much interested in how he\u2019s straddling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film-adaptations","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}