Fiction Adaptation - Analysis of Three relevant Films/Adaptations

Fiction Adaptation - Analysis of Three relevant Films/Adaptations

Within this blog post I will be looking at three different films that will inspire my own adaptation for different reasons. Whether it's the approach a director has taken through their own fictional adaptation choices or filmic approaches within certain films I have seen or researched, I will be discussing this below. 

Jojo Rabbit

                                            Fig 1. JOJO Rabbit Film Poster (2019)

The Plot

Jojo Rabbit in my opinion is a brilliant film which is actually a fictional adaptation of the book 'Caging Skies' by Christine Leunens. The plot surrounds Jojo who is an activist of Hitlers views and opinions, he helps distribute leaflets as propaganda which indicates his choices of supporting Hitler and he is also part of Hitler youth. On this journey through being a supporter of Hitler in Germany in the 1940's, his life choices are questioned when he discovers his Sister is hiding a Jewish girl in their house. 

Jojo is very hostile to Elsa who is the girl hiding in his house as she is Jewish, which is everything Jojo is going against. Within the film we see Jojo make a decision between how he thinks he should behave while hailing Hitler, to this relationship he unwillingly builds with a girl he knows goes against what he thinks he should believe. 

How this impacts my own adaptation

The cinematography from this film is incredible and something I want to analyze and take inspiration from in my own adaptation. The relevancy to my own adaptation is that Jojo had to make a choice in life, to continue on the path he thought was correct following Hitler or help an innocent girl and chose to ignore her background. Just like 'The Road Not Taken' in which the speaker is making a choice down two roads, we see Jojo have this battle with how he thinks he should behave. 

Each shot within the film is planned and precise, you can see the effort in which has gone into the cinematography. The lighting and saturation throughout the film is extremely vibrant which goes along with the style of the film which holds a comedic value. As I've mentioned the shots are precise and do well to capture the feelings of the characters, showing without telling. 

In the image below, you can see within this scene that the focus pull in the mirror is so precise and done so brilliantly that it tells us as the audience, the emotion within Jojos's character, the blur within the scenes throughout the film pull your eyes directly to where they want you to be and be looking. The focus pull within this scene is also so smooth, it works perfectly for that specific scene and dialogue. 

                                              Fig 2. JOJO Rabbit Mirror Scene (2019)

                                                       Fig 3. JOJO Rabbit Mirror Scene 2 (2019)

The film holds comedic value along with love and war. The emotions in which we see Jojo go through shows his love and hate for life and Elsa. The director of Jojo Rabbit, Taika waitit's has taken aspects of the style within their fictional adaptation of Caging Skies which holds the sentimental aspect of the story and the love side of Jojo's journey. This is the aspect I would love to take into my own fiction adaptation, by researching Jojo rabbit and how Waititi has directed her fictional adaptation. It's shown me you can adopt the narrative and sentiment of a written piece without needing to copy the whole style and tone of a piece. 

The filmic approach within this film is something I want to adopt, although my film is the opposite and doesn't have a comedic value, the symbolism within my film is going to need to be highlighted and by seeing focus pulls done so brilliantly to direct the viewers eyes and show feelings or key parts of the narrative, this is something I will be introducing into my film to have the same affect. As my poem 'The Road Not Taken' has a lot of symbolic meaning I wish to show this within my adaptation also, as I've mentioned, seeing how focus pulls and blurred backgrounds are used within Jojo rabbit to attract the viewers to what they want them to focus and gain from, I will be using this within my film to do the same thing and allow the symbolism I wish to use, to be viewed without being told, that it is something you need to look at. 

For example, within my film, I wish to use the build up of tea and dirty cups to show that my characters life and depression is progressively getting worst. By showing a messy kitchen and using a focus pull to focus the audience directly on the mugs of tea, I hope just like the focus pulls within Jojo Rabbit it allows the audience to realise there is more to mugs of tea then meets the eye. In my instance, each day another dirty mug will be added to the line up to show the downfall. 

To the Bone

Fig 4. To The Bone Film poster (2017)

The Plot

The film surrounds Ellen who is living with anorexia and continues to deal with the pressures of her family all while attempting to deal with the anorexia and her father. Throughout the film we see how she meets different characters on the way that help her on her journey. Her father is also a key feature in the film as both him and her mum seem to have abandoned her. Her step mother is also a key feature as she is the only one initially attempting to get Ellen help.

This film is relevant to my own as it features the impact of someone dealing with mental health and like with my fictional poem, Ellen is having to make a choice between accepting help to get better or staying ill which is her choosing between 'two roads' just also like JoJo Rabbit.

How this impacts my own adaptation

The lighting is what I want to look at within this analysis and the colour pallet as I feel it is extremely similar to what I would like to achieve within my own film and watching To The Bone has shown me how lighting can impact the audience and the tone of the film. 

Within JoJo rabbit I speak about the importance of the shots they use and how a focus pull can tell the audience what the director wants you to focus on within the film to resonate with the character feeling or storyline, much like the lighting within this film, I feel the colour pallet actually also helps to create the tone of the film and allow the audience to understand the feelings of the characters. 

Fig 5. To The Bone Film Scene (2017)

Firstly, I'm going to speak about the colour palette within both shots, as you can see the colour pallet within the first photo in my opinion is colours of what you would think of as an idyllic American home, the bright yellow, the step mum in an orange skirt and her hair being like a 80's housewife, who at the time were seen to be perfect 'American' families. I feel this tells the audience that the Step Mum is probably trying her hardest to make this a family home. Which, In the film this is exactly what she is trying to do as both Ellens Mum and Dad have abanonded her.  I also think it is so important and clever that the colour pallet and costume also symbolizes to the audience that the colour of Ellens clothing, which is a dark black and navy, indicates that she might be the factor of why they're not the 'perfect family'. This inspires me to ensure that everything within my film is relevant and how colours can impact how the audience may perceive a character.  

As my character within the film is suffering from mental health difficulties much like Ellen is within this film, I feel its extremely relevant for me to anaylse the shot below as this is when the colour changes as Ellen is admitted into a hospital. Straight away we go from the bright colours and pastel coloring of Ellens family home, to the blue tones that come along with the hospital. The pale white wall almost matching the colour of her skin as she becomes ill. 

As I am filming my film in POV due to the difficulties of the current pandemic as I have explained within my Ideas and Development page. It is going to be difficult for me to be able to show and symbolize meaning through colour and costume. However, analyzing this film has made me realise that even lighting can be impactful to the audience also. 

                                             Fig 6. To The Bone Film Hospital Scene (2017)

As you can see within this still from the film above, the lighting is extremely low light, within research in previous units, I discovered that low lighting can actually instantly create atmosphere, suspense and drama. This is extremely relevant in this case as Ellen gets further news about her diagnosis and her world is continuing to get worst. This shows to me, how the tone of my short film can be pursued through lighting. 

Fish Tank

                                                   Fig 7. Fish Tank Film Poster  (2009)

The Plot

Fish Tank is about teenager Mia who is in fact an alone 15 year old, she is extremely isolated and falls out with her only friend. We see her then going on to enjoy dancing for an upcoming competition, the coming of age film also shows how she seems to admire her mums boyfriend but then discovers he has another family he has been hiding. 

This film is relevant to my own adaptation as it surrounds the thoughts of feelings of one character much like mine. Throughout the film we see Mia on her own, doing things on her own and the other characters just being a part of the story. My short film is based on one character who is feeling extremely alone and I almost want it to be filmed and shot like you're in the head of this character, like you can feel the emotions they're going through much like Mia in Fish Tank. 

How this impacts my own adaptation 

Within both my anaylsis above of JoJo Rabbit and To The Bone, I have looked at the filming styles, shots, lighting and colour pallets, all in which tell the audience something about the tone, suspense or maybe what the character is feeling. I want to ensure I take inspiration from these all and as I have mentioned they all relate to my short film in some way. 

Moving on to Fish Tank, I want to look into symbolism. As I've said throughout my blog, The poem in which I am adapting heavily features symbolism which is something I want to ensure I convey into my adaptation. Fish Tank perfectly symbolises many things that the character Mia goes through which I am going to anaylse in the photos below. 

Fig 8. Fish Tank Scene  (2009)

There is symbolism indicating Mia is a lonely teenager with a world of struggle on her shoulders throughout the film, however, this shot at the beginning of the film always stands out to me massively, especially as it is also relevant to the film name 'Fish Tank'. As soon as we meet Mia within this shot looking out into the town in which she lives, with the low lighting and the shot looking at her back. It makes me as the audience feel as if I'm spying on her, watching her life unfold in which I shouldn't be. Much like a fish in a gold tank she is trapped and the center of attention, in our case is the center of our film. This also confirms all of the factors of the anaylsis of the films above, the low lighting like To The Bone to show the suspense and darker edge of Mia's Life, much like Ellens. Also, the symbolism in the shot, the rectangle being a fish tank shape. All of the factors above inspire me to ensure I am using symbolism like this to provoke emotion and tension from the audience in my own film. Sometimes you don't need a character to say something for the audience to understand an emotion or what's going on with a character and I feel that's something really important I have just learnt from analyzing the three films above.

                                                      Fig 9. Fish Tank Dancing Scene (2009)

The second thing I want to take from Fish Tank and anaylse to inspire me within my own film is one of the final scenes. As Mia is set to leave the town she feels trapped in and almost break out of the fish tank to start a new life with her new friend/boyfriend, we see the final scene between her and her mother. 

Throughout the film we see that Mia has a difficult relationship with her mum, it seems at points her mum doesn't care as much about Mia and is more bothered about the Men she sleeps with. However, in the final scene with little to no dialogue, after everything Mia has been through with her Mum they slowly two step to music together, synchronizing together to the music with her little sister. I feel this symbolises within the film the relationship with Mia and her Mum and it's done brilliantly. The fact there is very little dialogue shows that them dancing together as a family, shows that they actually do love each other and are a family. It also almost indicates the love between the family when Mia isn't resenting her mum for always having a guy around or in this case her ex boyfriend who had an affair with Mia, Connor. 

My main take from this part is that within my short film, there will be no speech, there will be silence and natural sounds of living alone. Like a tea stirring or the kettle boiling. This scene has given me the confidence that, that can be affective just like in this scene with no dialogue, we see the relationship develop and that maybe they do love each other as a family after all, so this was really important for me to analyse. 

List Of Illustrations 

Fig 1. JOJO Rabbit Film Poster (2019) IMDB [Google Image] At: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2584384/ (Accessed on 21/12/2020)

Fig 2. JOJO Rabbit Hallway Mirror Scene  (2019) IMDB [Google Image] At: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2584384/ (Accessed on 21/12/2020)

Fig 3. JOJO Rabbit Hallway Mirror Scene 1  (2019) IMDB [Google Image] At: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2584384/ (Accessed on 21/12/2020)

Fig 4. To The Bone Film poster (2019) Wikapedia [Google Image] At: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_the_Bone_(film) (Accessed on 21/12/2020)

Fig 5. To The Bone Film Scene (2017) Wikapedia [Google Image] At: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_the_Bone_(film) (Accessed on 21/12/2020)

Fig 6. To The Bone Film Hospital Scene (2017) Wikapedia [Google Image] At: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_the_Bone_(film) (Accessed on 21/12/2020)

Fig 7. Fish Tank Film Poster (2009) Wikapedia [Google Image] At: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_Tank_(film) (Accessed on 21/12/2020)

Fig 8. Fish Tank Scene  (2009) Wikapedia [Google Image] At: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_Tank_(film) (Accessed on 21/12/2020)

Fig 9. Fish Tank Dancing Scene (2009) Wikapedia [Google Image] At: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_Tank_(film) (Accessed on 21/12/2020)