Evaluating Attitude: Analyzing Point of View and Tone in Film Adaptations of Literature

Translation, from one medium to another—as from one language to another—is a difficult art. There is no simple formula to follow; each work presents the translator with a unique set of problems. Likewise, it is difficult to evaluate how well or on what levels a given translation succeeds.

The staff of the Media Center for Children¹ spends a great deal of time evaluating children's films, many of which have been translated from literature. In trying to develop a vocabulary for discussing and comparing different works, both in terms of elements in the works themselves and in terms of children's responses, we have found the phrases most frequently used in reviews to be unhelpful. Phrases such as "faithful to its source," "captures the feeling of the original," or "breathes new life into" are too broad and too adult.² Moreover, while they may describe valid responses, they are not critical evaluations. In this article, as I briefly examine several translations of literary works to film, I will discuss children's perceptions and compare the films to their sources. I will limit the focus of my analysis, however, to point of view and tone.

Point of view has to do with the telling of the story. It encompasses both who tells the story and how it is told. Point of view can be examined in terms of voice (who speaks—first-person or third-person narrator, for example) and/or focus (how events and characters are seen—narrowly focused on the main character or broadened to include other characters and events).

An examination of point of view in children's media also implies the study of values. Do the events or actions reflect either child or adult values, or are they neutral? Values³ and a fourth aspect of point of view, mode of expression (naive/direct/didactic), may overlap at times, but they are not always the same. Maurice Sendak's Pierre, for instance, has a didactic mode of expression, but it is a moral tale presented from a child's (values) point of view. Shel Silverstein's parable, The Giving Tree, is likewise didactic; however, it is told from a very adult point of view.

Whereas point of view is conceptual, tone is emotional. Tone reflects the storyteller's or filmmaker's attitude toward both subject and audience. In media designed for children, it is an aspect that should not be ignored.

Tone is the emotional coloring, the feeling, that informs a given work, and it is specific to each story or film. It can be charming, condescending, suspenseful, masochistic (as in The Giving Tree), sympathetic, or humorous, to name several possibilities. Often one word alone will not capture the tone; some works are serious and moralizing, while others (Pierre, for example) are light, reassuring, and slightly tongue-in-cheek.

In order to clarify what I mean by point of view (voice, focus, values, mode of expression) and tone, I have selected four films based on literature—two adapted from folktales and two from short stories.

Paring Down

Hansel and Gretel: An Appalachian Version⁴ is a live-action translation of the Grimm Brothers' folktale, set in southern Appalachia during the 1930s Depression. It is a gripping, no-frills treatment of the story.

The film uses minimal narration, since director Tom Davenport expected audiences to have some familiarity with the plot. As the titles end, the narrator gives the traditional "who, what, where, when" opening, and the viewer sees images that could have come from a family album (a landscape with the cottage, a still-life of the kitchen table, father and children playing with kittens), until the stepmother appears, throwing dirty water from the porch, and scolds: "Am I the only one around here who does any work? We got nothin' in there to eat. Nothin! . . . And husband, we got some-thing to talk about tonight. Things aren't goin' to go on like this anymore."⁵ In other scenes, such as when the children discover the witch's gingerbread house, Davenport...