Nicole Ritterbusch (Göttingen)

George Steven's A Place in the Sun and Jack Clayton's The Great Gatsby Short-by-shot: a computer-assisted comparison

In the context of a scientific film examination, the underlying analytical and interpretational steps should be made on verifiable grounds. This becomes especially important, when the subject requires a look at a film adaptation of a novel on the one hand and its literary source on the other. It is necessary to find a method for a comparison that suits both media forms - it is exemplified as an interdisciplinary, computer-based approach as described in this article.

As opposed to the first subjective viewing of a film under the conditions of the movie-theatre - dark room, uninterrupted reception, collective sharing of impressions - the topic at issue involves a rational film reconstruction through repeated viewing. Access to the film in the form of a videotape and the use of a video cassette recorder (VCR) is therefore one of the primary technical requirements. Since a film of average length contains about 500 to 1000 shots, the use of a personal computer (PC) - the second technical necessity - is suited to an economical processing for the abundant data presented here. Whereas in the mean time literary studies (and linguistic studies as well) make habitual and regular use of the PC for economical and analytical reasons, the work at film

Having a whole history of their own, filmic adaptations of novels (and dramas) form a specific area of film in general and therefore require an equally specific approach. More and more they have freed themselves from the premise of "adequacy of adaptation" they were judged by up to the 1970s, sometimes even in the present time. Bearing the semiological approach in mind, the request for a structural or plot-wise point-to-point resemblance is replaced by the question of function within the film's operating system of codes.

Literaturverfilmung ist die Transformation des aus dem literarischen Text ermittelten Textsystems (nicht die Transformation des wortsprachlich-literarischen Textes in das Zeichensystem des Films). (Schneider 1981:8)
[A literary adaptation is the transformation of the text system drawn from the literary text into the notation of the film - author's transl.]

In a reversal of the traditional step "from book to film", the film has become an important mediator of literature. According to recent surveys, not only at German schools and universities classical literature is known to students more via film than via a literature (Buchloh/Becker/Schröder 1985: 133), which alone could be reason enough for a closer look at the style of filming. Moreover, through an extensive use of VCRs, the reception volume of films has increased, which also brought about a change in audience habits. Finally, the most important reason from an analytical point of view can be seen in the high level of mediation of both novel and film, since the influencing of each other seems to constitute a recurring part in the history of both media. An interdisciplinary comparison therefore is meant to throw an illuminating look at the underlying narrational and presentational modes, before it deals with thematical questions.

The main goal of a systematic film analysis is to make the filmic interpretation "wiederholbar, nachvollziehbar und nachprüfbar."
[repeatable, comprehensible, verifiable - author's transl.] (Weber/Friedl 1988: 246)

The film transcript

Editing provides the key for the analysis, since the film's components such as scenes, segments and sequences are formed by single shots (linear, successive design). A shot-by-shot film-transcipt records the screened information. As a precise model for a later description of filmic details and for a quick re-orientation throughout the film, the film-transcript displays a table with eight columns, presenting the serial number of shots, the serial length, the duration of each shot in seconds, the framing of the image and the camera movement, the description of the ongoing action, the dialogue and the musical score plus sounds (Buchloh 1980).

The table-model at issue provides the highest possible information in the smallest possible number of columns. Since it is meant to describe, not to interpret, its entries need to be as objective as possible. The form corresponds to the different layers in operation.

Stills

Film critics occasionally point to the possible problems implied in a fragmentary reproduction and reception of filmic images:

Wie 'denken' wir eigentlich Filmbilder? Wenn wir von ihnen sprechen, behandeln wir ihre Elemente, die sich uns zu einem Inhalt fügen, der, irgendwie, Sprache werden kann, als wären sie ungerahmt wie die Bilder eines Traums. [...] Das Standbild ist schon eine 'Übersetzung' des Filmbildes, und um wieviel mehr ist es dann die im Ausschnitt bearbeitete Fassung im Print-Medium. Trotzdem behandeln wir das gedruckte Bild als 'Bild aus dem Film' und als wäre es wirkliches Zitat und nicht Repräsentanz. So beginnt unsere Fahrlässigkeit." (Seeßlen 1993:16)

[How do we 'think' the film's images? Speaking of them, we treat their elements, which for us form a content, which, somehow, could become language, as if they were unframed as images in a dream... The still already is a 'translation' of the film picture and how much more then it is the partly worked upon edition in the printed medium. Nevertheless, we treat the printed image as the 'image taken from the film' and as if it were a real quote and not a representative. Thus our negligence begins. (author's transl.)]

Dreiser and Fitzgerald

George Stevens Oscar-winning film A Place in the Sun is based on Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy - starring Elisabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift. Ahead of The Red Badge of Courage, An American in Paris and Death of a Salesman, Steven's picture is chosen as the best film of its production year (1951) by the American National Board of Review. A Streetcar named Desire follows in place six. The "best film ever to come out of Hollywood" (Silke 1964/65:15) is awarded six oscars that year. In the following decades, the audience seemed to forget about it, whereas the novel succeeded to win back its status as a masterpiece. Praised for his critical depiction of American society in 1925, Dreiser immediately sold the film rights to the Famous Players (later Paramount) for $ 90.000. With Eisenstein working on the script, but being dismissed by the production company for political reasons, von Sternberg took over the

The second film takes up one of the best-known pieces of American literature of the 1920s. F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby established itself as an immediate success in its publishing year of 1925 and credited its author once more with being the spokesman of the jazz age. Two years later Hollywood turned out a silent film version, which was followed by a second adaptation in 1949, presenting the box-office magnet Alan Ladd in the lead. Months before the opening of the Jack Clayton-film in 1974, this production was advertised by a huge campaign. The built-up expectations - mainly for a major romance - could not be reached. The film flopped both at the box-office and at critical reception. Nevertheless, a re-examination in the context of this analysis credits it as a thoroughly structured and very well produced film with the potential of a classic.

Thematically seen, similar kind of questions can be applied to both novels and their chosen adaptations - the success-theme, the socio-critical context, the question of identity and triangular relationships in the case of An American Tragedy and A Place in the Sun and the historical context of the American Dream, the meaning of the past and the money-defined relationships as well as the notion of the city theme in the case of both Gatsby versions.

every component functions within the overall pattern that is perceived. Thus we shall treat as formal elements many things that some people consider content. (Bordwell/Thompson 1986:25)

We shall call any significant repeated element in a film a motif. A motif may be an object, a color, a person, a sound, or even a character trait. We may call a pattern of lighting or camera position a motif if it is repeated through the course of a film. (Bordwell/Thompson 1986:37)

Visual information

The exposition of A Place in the Sun emphasizes the film's visual information. A young man (George Eastman) is introduced immediately as the protagonist. At the end of the establishing shot, the camera zooms up to his face in a close-up. With the character apparently appearing out of nowhere this procedure creates a curious tension for the figure's "story." The oversized bill-board "It's an Eastman" is set up as an indicator for the unfolding of the filmic narration. It directs the hitcher George directly to Eastman himself, the head of the swim-suit factory. As one of the film's leading visual symbols, it is connected with the main theme of the protagonist's persistent pursuit of the American Dream. Morally and socially encoded conventions are neglected for romantic reasons, which leads to an inevitably tragic end.

Visually the hitch-hiker George and the rich-looking woman in the cream-colored luxury-convertible (Angela Vickers) are related to each other in a predictable way. Photographed from a medium distance as she disappears quickly from view, her driving past is

Musical themes

The Great Gatsby establishes various musical themes. The musical score opens with Irving Berlin's sentimental "What'll I do", and then changes to a popular song, from there to Charleston music to change again to a specific instrumental theme that underlies the display of several photographs - always of the same woman: Daisy, as the spectators are to learn later. A sense of the past is established here by the combination of music and images. While the music, accompanied by the laughter of an imaginary party-crowd, seems to echo through the great empty halls, a fly crawls over a piece of half-eaten bread. All musical motifs are to reappear in the course of the film - each in connection with special characters and topics. When Gatsby, for example, actually meets his desired woman, Daisy, much later in the film, the

Shot-length diagrams

A comparative look at the shot-length of both films and the film transcript would indicate that a succession of short shot-lengths is linked with an accelerated action, whereas long shot-lengths point to an emphasis on figure interaction and staged dialogue. Peak durations of shots in A Place in the Sun can be found in the first third of the film - they all present the long extended, static and presumably "unexciting" meetings of George and Alice, the factory-worker he is dating until Angela Vickers be comes interested in him. The film's editing pace is accelerated in the various meetings with her, the woman from the upper-class. The subjective, psychological time now also moves faster, since Alice was drowned and the moment of George's arrest is coming inevitably closer.

Conclusion

As has been illustrated, a detailed record of a film provides the basis for an objective approach to the subject. It not only serves as a means for a re-orientation through the course of the film, but underlies a systematic analysis of its structure and presented themes. Therefore, it has proven to be indispensible in the context of an interdisciplinary comparison, although it shouldn|t be regarded as a representation of the filmic medium. It makes no claim to serve as a substitute for the moving image.

The transmission of some of the table data into a diagram offers a useful examination of the film's linear development. Other diagrams can be constructed in this connection, whose form would differ from the presented one - e.g. of the figure

The practice of cinema is only possible through the perceptual passions: the desire to see (= scophic drive, scopophilia, voyeurism) [...] and the desire to hear. (Winkler 1992:47)

Appendix: diagrammes

Sources

Clayton, Jack (1974). The Great Gatsby, Paramount Picture, David Merrick Production, 135 min., VHS-copy.
Stevens, George (1951). A Place in the Sun (black-and-white), Paramount, 122 min., NTSC + VHS-copy.

Atkins, Irene Kahn (1974). "In Search of the Greatest Gatsby", in: Literature/Film Quarterly 2: 3, 216-228.
Bordwell, David (1985). Narration in the Fiction Film. Madison.

Nicole Ritterbusch
Nikolausberger Weg 31
D-37073 Göttingen