What’s Going on Here?

Reflecting on the film version of The Shining, Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 adaptation of his novel, author Stephen King likened the film to “a big, beautiful Cadillac with no engine inside it.” The film is widely regarded as a classic, and has spawned countless imitators and references—from hackneyed “Here’s Johnny” quotes and memes to the use of “Red Rum” to signify an assassination attempt in the most recent season of Westworld. It has a potent blend of creators: Kubrick, an auteur director responsible for several of arguably the most influential films in the canon, joined with King, one of the most prolific, popular, and adapted authors of all time. With that kind of creative power behind the project, what went wrong?

The reason I am writing adapt-en-scène is that I am thoroughly uninterested in the question “what went wrong,” or even, “why is King so wrong about Kubrick’s adaptation?” Both these questions presuppose a greater value in one medium over the other, and by this very assumption, in my opinion, get the entire argument wrong from the jump. 

So, What Questions Will I Be Asking?

Film and literature are different media, obviously, but each has its own power. Both are capable of commenting deeply on our world, of making us feel, of introducing us to experiences and subjects we would never have a chance to touch without them. They can tell stories that enthrall us, sicken us, or make us laugh. They each have the capacity to transport us to places that could never exist, or right to the other side of our apartment wall. What interests me is this capacity in each, as well as the strengths specific to each medium that makes it possible.

So with this in mind, I intend to approach the process of adaptation through questions focused more on decision-making rather than quality: 

·      What decisions were made in creating this adaptation?

·      Why might these decisions have been made?

·      How did they (or didn’t they) change the meaning of the original?

In order to answer these questions, I intend to dive deep into a single work at a time, looking at both the original and its adaptation. You will not find the default position of book readers here (the tired “the book is always better”), nor will you find the angle of film reviewers, who often makes a perfunctory nod toward the existence of the book but then inspect the film largely on its own merits. I intend to take seriously the idea that the process of adaptation itself matters and can be analyzed.

Adaptation in fact vs. adaptation in truth

Finally, to continue defining this project through what is not, let’s return to King’s Cadillac with the empty hood. A crucial distinction I hope to draw in any work I look at is the difference between adaptation in fact, and adaptation in truth. When King complains that the film version of The Shining doesn’t have an engine, he is not complaining that the details are wrong, that there is no Overlook Hotel, no troubled child, no writer steadily losing his mind in the dark and isolation. He is complaining that the film is lacking a heart, the vital engine that drives the meaning. Meaning in a car is largely the ability to move a person from one place to another. Without an engine, the car can look exactly like a car, it can meet every outward specification, but still not start when you turn the ignition. 

Adaptation in fact functions much the same way. You can adapt every incident that appears on the page, and still not convey the truth at the core of the work. Adaptation in truth means that the original quality that made the work what it was (good or bad) is preserved in the adaptation. I will discuss both types of adaptation, but you will never hear me say an adaptation is bad simply because it changes the facts of what happens on the page, if in doing so it more closely captures the central power of the original. 

Or sometimes a film may have an entirely different meaning than the work it was based on. This can be the most fascinating case of all, and in my mind we would be much poorer if those adapting didn’t have the guts to miss the point from time to time.

An Apology, and an Invitation

I hope you will follow along on this journey with me. Also, apologies if you came for a definitive answer on whether or not Kubrick’s The Shining is better than the original. As I hope you can tell by now, that’s not really the question I’m here to answer, nor will I be writing about The Shining in the near future. Let’s allow King and Kubrick to keep duking it out in pop culture a while longer, while we move on to other things.