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Littérature à l'agrégation et au CAPES d'anglais
Notes prises par un participant à la
Conférence sur Dubliners et The Dead
Tours, 17-18 Novembre 2000.
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> No need to put my name on it. After all, it's not my work, but that of erudite academics, only slightly abbreviated round the edges by my good self. They spoke really fast and I didn't get it all down... -S.
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1. Paper given by Lesley Brill, Wayne State, Detroit
Huston's and Joyce's The Dead: Other Dubliners
The question of fidelity of a film to a literary work may be unproductive because it creates a hierarchy between the two.
We understand the film better if we abandon the book.
Since there are many contesting ideas on the book Dubliners, a film adaptation cannot please everyone!
The story of The Dead is about a man revealed to himself and covers themes such as love, marriage and death, and the film contains deviations from the book, although the spirit is retained
The pacing of the film and the book are different, some dialogues are rewritten, added or resequenced. The character of Mr Grace is added, and there is a romance in the film, which is only barely hinted at by Joyce. There are more characters in the film
The Dead is less faithful to its literary source than other films by Huston (such as The Maltese Falcon), but more faithful than films like Moby Dick or Moulin Rouge. Huston was many things: a screenwriter, a writer of short fiction, he directed stage plays, he had read thousands of novels, and he was also a painter.
So why did he choose The Dead? He was greatly influenced by Joyce's Ulysses.
He had read all of his works when he was young but Ulysses was a kind of bible to him. The themes in it can be found throughout Huston's career (such as refusing to confront problems, vanity, excessive self esteem, the passing of time and inescapable loneliness.)
Huston was interested in the link between our innermost souls and our social selves. ëCompanyí was like ëan adventure.í
Gabriel is similar to characters in other Huston movies, although more complex. He can be compared to Pilot in The Misfits. Gabriel is more educated but is self conscious about it. He looks to women for self-validation but not for support. His story is the tragedy of a person who never really embraces others (especially his wife).
There is a strong link to music and dance in Hustonís films (like Moulin Rouge.) The references to music in The Dead (the Lass of Aughrim, the soprano who died young, and the eulogy of different singers) makes these memories live again in the minds of the characters, and this can be compared to Toulouse Lautrec in Moulin Rouge.
Huston was very careful to make the set very representative of the time of the story.
At first the film lasted only 45 minutes. It was decided to add some comic aspects, e.g. Freddy Malins (not able to use the bathroom in the presence of another, falling down the stairs etc) and Mr Grace who is an enlarged version of Mr Brown.
The recitation of Broken Vows reinforces the theme of love, betrayal and loss. The camera moves through the auditors and gives individual and group portraits. It would seem to say that visual values are more important than literary ones.
The camera is the second new character in the film. It gives both an interior and an exterior view of things. Huston did not want the spectator to identify with one character but have a fascination for the group as a whole, and this is achieved by the camera (and Joyceís prose in Dubliners.)
The camera enters the party diffidently and then scrutinises certain aspects, and enters the mind of Gabriel. It identifies with Gabriel but is separate too (as can be seen in the final scenes when we look at Gabriel and then look ëwithí him).
The impressions come from Gabriel's thoughts and from the camera's independent intelligence and is achieved through varied camera work and editing.
The camera shows the passing of time, eg during Juliaís singing. Here it does not show audience reaction, but cuts to views of stairs, the bedroom, ornaments, photos, a tapestry, a rosary etc. Up to that point, there have been only straight cuts, but here there are dissolves between different personal mementos. The glass slipper makes us think of Cinderella which is very poignant in this case. The rosary and the prayer book hint at the end of Juliaís life.
The sensuality of the book is conveyed by sounds, words etc and this is also represented in the film, although the film remains visual. There is a hold on the shot of Gabriel and Gretta going up the stairs in the hotel (they leave the shot but we still see their departing shadows).
The shadows may hint at the spirits of the dead.
In a single image, we have an evocation of the past, present and future, in the hotel room when we see the shadow of Gabriel, a view of him from the front, and a part mirror image of his back. Gretta does not look at him as she tells her story.
He is diminished as he is in the distance, and this reflects his childishly petulant words, and the fact that he is diminished in his wifeís eyes.
At the end, we see the window from the inside, and then the outside with the falling snow. These are the last images filmed by Huston in his career.
We see the sea, the sky, the shadows and they assume dominion.
We could wonder if Gabriel here is not a surrogate for Huston.
2. Paper given by Garry Leonard, Toronto, Canada
Modernity as a Symptom of Modernism in Dubliners
There is an everyday quality in Dubliners, and this quality was discovered by modernism, aesthetised by it (although it had always existed.)
Modernism invented frameworks that influenced what modernity became, and is not just a way to describe modernity.
Oscar Wilde in the Decay of Lying showed that art did not imitate life, but that it was the opposite (i.e. there was no fog in London until Constable painted it!
Subsequently it became a cliché, however)
We could ask : did disorganised experience create epiphany?
Did epiphany allow Joyce to organise his experience of modernity?
Modernism is both a depiction and a symptom of modernity.
In Dubliners Joyce depicts trivial things (like music hall as opposed to high culture.)
Joyce chose these things because they are ephemeral. Modernity is an endless procession of such moments, and so the everyday has a certain timelessness.
In Dubliners, there is a recurrence of certain kitsch items : lost things (the corkscrew in Ivy Day, the missing verse in Clay), buying things (the plum cake in Clay, the blouse in A Little Cloud) or failing to buy (Araby)
There can be momentous moments when something fails to happen (the example here was the ankle which was not seen in Ulysses).
The unactualised becomes unforgettable.
Kitsch was seen as bad taste, because kitsch objects are made automatically, and anyone can have them (like the purse in Clay with A Present from Belfast on it) but they become valuable objects for some people (like Maria) Then they are protected from destruction, and become valuable through their interaction with the character in question.
Anyone can do this. The purse is a very important possession for Maria and becomes more important, more real than she is. She haunts the family at Halloween (ie she is forgotten but not gone ..) Her purse is her prop in her masquerade of contentment.
Unlike the purse, Maria is imprecisely labelled (has no real role in their lives)
Mass-produced objects are the all same but they can commemorate the events of a single day and bring that day back in someoneís memory.
Here we think of Araby (the name of an exotic place stamped on objects) In this story the process of consumption is important , but not the actual use of the product. What is important also is not what we have, but what causes us to have it (like with homemade mother's day gifts)
In Araby, the boy is a first time consumer and is breathless with excitement. In the bazaar, the link between purchase and what he actually needs is severed (unlike the traditional shopping he does with his aunt to buy food at the market).
The Araby bazaar is a modern way of consuming (like a prototype of a department store)
In Joyce's time "we are what we buy" and the past and future are collapsed into the now. Thus when Maria loses the cake, it is as if she has died.
This idea of death is repeated in the game when she gets the clay.
In Ivy Day, the characters are unable to experience historical context, and only focus on the Now. They are more concerned with their beer than their candidate. The historical event is shrunk into green ivy pins. They all love Parnell now because he is dead and a corny but moving poem is recited.
This story could show how modern experience has evacuated historical experience. ...
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