After watching the movie about Ellison's life and seeing how they adapted some of the scenes from the book into a short movie scene. This raised the question in my mind of what would stand in the way of making a good Invisible Man movie. We have talked about how there isn't one yet and how difficult it would be but not why, so I thought I would try to write down all the reasons I think it would be extremely difficult to do a good job with an Invisible Man movie.
The most obvious challenge would be dealing with the narrator's thoughts. Something that a book can do that a movie can't is deal with thoughts. This is something I've noticed when watching movies based off of books I like. None of the movies could accomplish the same sense of understanding a character as the book could. The only movie I can think of that did an okay job was The Martian, but that was accomplished because Mark Watney was alone on Mars. The same thing wouldn't work for Invisible Man. The one thing I can think of that seemed to successfully provided a character's thoughts is The End of the F***ing World. It lets the watcher understand what the main character is thinking by having him narrate over video that doesn't necessarily match with what he is talking about. However, this also wouldn't work for Invisible Man because The End of the F***ing World is a comedy and the narration aspect is designed to add to that and Invisible Man is not a comedy by any means.
The other big challenge in creating an Invisible Man movie would be dealing with the fact that the narrator is never described and we never learn his name. For one, not having a description means that it would be hard to pick an actor to play him because nobody looks like him. Giving him a face also takes away from the sense of mystery that surrounds him which would make the movie worse. The other problem is that the reader never learns the name of the narrator but there are several times when Ellison writes someone saying his name. For example, "The boy read my name off a card." While it would be possible to simply omit those scenes it would change some aspects of the book.
I think that along with how difficult it would be to correctly depict the dreamlike portions of this book, these challenges would make it impossible to make an Invisible Man movie that is the same quality as the book.
This is a clever idea for a blog post. I think that the key would have to be the narrator reading over the movie. It could be even funny as a tv show if the people would talk to the camera like in the office or in parks and rec. I think that the parts about the boy reading the name off of a card could be narrated by the narrator. It would be a fun challenge for a director.
ReplyDeleteHey Aidan! I just posted a blogpost that has a lot to do with this. I talked about your post a little bit in my post (only with nice things to say) but I appreciate that you wrote about this. I am a huge movie fan and also a huge fan of this book. You're right about all this stuff, that the nature of a movie and its strengths and weaknesses are less well matched for the novel vs. the strengths and weaknesses of a book format. This is a novel with so much nuance and detail jam packed into every line that it would truly be impossible to recreate it in any other medium. Still, I wonder what it might look like. Thanks and nice post!!!
ReplyDeleteAll the points you raise here are true. I feel like there are things books can do with inner thoughts, and things movies can do with imagery and forgoing lengthy descriptions. Both forms have their own strengths and weaknesses. I agree that Invisible Man would not be the same with a face attached to the main character. Now that I'm thinking about it, some inventive camerawork could be done to obscure the main character's face, by shooting scenes from behind or below, or even just having the main character's head be always out of frame. I've seen some directing where you can keep a character's face obscured the entire time, but that might be difficult.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great analysis for why the Invisible Man would be a difficult movie to make. I think that this is better as a book for all of its complexities. I also feel like the whole vibe of the novel would be ruined if it were made into a movie. I feel like everything would be more obvious and would have less interpretations, which is probably one of the best parts of the novel. Great post :)
ReplyDeleteNice analysis Aidan. Invisible Man also has a lot of self reflection moments, and it would be weird to have more inner-dialogue in the movie than actually dialogue. It would be an interesting movie, but as you mentioned, certain clips just wouldn't be as good and clear as the book.
ReplyDeleteCuriously, the novel has been adopted as a stage play. A few years ago, an alum of this course was able to see it in Chicago, and he reported that it was really good, although I was skeptical for many of the reasons you outline here. It seems even more challenging to imagine _IM_ on stage, given the importance of the narrator's anonymity and the role of his ironic narration in shaping so many of the scenes. And I saw some pictures of the stage set for the "hole," and they don't have *nearly* enough light bulbs!
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