Re: NYTimes Piece (today)
Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@geocities.com)
Sun, 22 Nov 1998 15:16:54 +1100
Wow ... I never even really believed that film was true! Someone once asked
me if I'd condone someone adapting a Salinger story for a short film, even
if it was totally altered and filled with directorial intervention and
invention and only to be shown to twenty people at some obscure college. I
think I said something like-`Sure I'd condone it - but I doubt Salinger
would.' Now *that* would produce some arguments about authorial intent. You
could argue, for example, that the `author' of Romeo+Juliet the movie (not
to open that can of worms again (: ), and Romeo and Juliet the play are
different people. This is exactly the debate raging in Australia at the
moment - they're thinking of legally making the director the author of a
film. Thus, if the writer wrote a gentle tale of teenage angst in the
1950's, the director is perfectly within his or her rights to make the
actual film a piece of Nazi propaganda, or what have you. Very nasty. A lot
of people would say that's being hypocritical given my pro-reader stance,
but I see film as a slightly different thing - it's a collaborative
process, and any creative collaboration should have a degree of equality
and commonality.
Camille
verona_beach@geocities.com
@ THE ARTS HOLE www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/6442
@ THE INVERTED FOREST www.angelfire.com/pa/invertedforest
> Page A15, "Iranian Film is Cancelled After Protest By Salinger" by Jesse
> McKinley reports that "Pari" (remember that info? I still have the
website
> bookmarked but don't know if it's still up) was going to be shown at
> Lincoln Center. The Iranian director thought he had permission of some
> sort when he sent a letter to mr. salinger discussing the film and well,
> since mr. salinger didn't object (or reply at all)...anyhow, I would have
> LOVED to have seen the film, subtitles and all, but then again, I'm so
> homesick sometimes I probably would have even loved having a ticket to
see
> it cancelled by Salinger's legal reach.
>
> ahh stubs, will
>
> ps my mother-in-law who worries that we don't get the saturday nytimes in
> these wild parts of colorado called to make sure we knew...this post a
> worthy echo I hope of her academic-in-law love.