In Defense of Peter Jackson and Faramir: The Art of Adaptation

By Jonny Walls

Recent conversations with friends have gotten me thinking about the art of story adaptation, particularly for film.

A couple things I've come to learn over the years: One, I used to think the best way to adapt was to stick as closely as possible to the source material. This is often not true. Two, fans of the works in question are the worst film critics.

I understand that this is a self defeating argument since I claim that fans of original works are the worst critics and then turn around and criticize a film begotten by my most beloved work of literature, but hear me out.

Uber-fans are like crazy parents at a little league game. "If that coach doesn't see my child exactly the way I (completely erroneously) see him (based on a pure but nevertheless blinding love) and start him at pitcher every game, then he's an idiot!"

Maybe your kid just isn't a pitcher. Maybe he's a shortstop. Maybe he's a catcher. Maybe, just maybe...he sucks at baseball.

But if we can put aside our fanboy-ism we can all learn to appreciate some good films for what they are, or, as the case may warrant, recognize the films that just got it wrong.

Here is my thesis in a nutshell: The art of adaptation requires a walk on a very tight rope indeed. The adapter must not be afraid to break from his source material. It's for its own good! Literature is a different medium, and certain things that work in that arena simply will not fly in film. (More on that in a minute.) Conversely, and most importantly, the spirit of the original work must be maintained. This can be accomplished even while changing and compressing a story, and it can be failed miserably even when following an original work closely.

Make no mistake, I'm not here to cast a wide net of defense over all adaptations with the erroneous claim that to adapt is to gain unquestioned dominion over a work. Not so. The original work must be respected and treated with care, or it can become a pale imitation of the original work (Prince Caspian) or cease to be an adaptation at all and be rendered a devious imposter at a hotel luncheon with someone else's nametag while said tag's rightful owner is bound and gagged in his hotel room on the sixth floor (Fever Pitch and Resident Evil.)

While the subject of films that went awry is a fun and (sometimes) worthy topic, I will instead focus on one that got it right.

Lord of the Rings is a great example to consider because it isn't perfect, but despite its flaws, it still falls into the pinnacle category, in my opinion. I could go on for an age about the myriad specific ways these films succeeded or fell short, but taken as a whole I say they were a success. I will focus on one of the big ones in the hope of a reasonably brief discussion.

Faramir is representative of the greater issue at play here and is thus a perfect example. Oh, how the fanboys wailed and howled (myself included) about film-version Faramir's prick-ish decision to drag Frodo away to Osgiliath and derail him from his quest. As much as I always loved the films, I derived much pleasure from bashing the discrepancies between page and screen that Jackson and crew were "too thick to understand," wondering, "does he think he knows better than Tolkien? If only they had let me write the script."

Yeah, right.

Put bluntly: Jackson, Walsh and Boyens knew what they were doing in 2002, and I didn't. Had Faramir emulated his ink and paper counterpart and turned Frodo loose immediately upon learning of his treacherous and noble quest to destroy the ring, we wouldn't have a movie.

And that would be a slight problem, because you need a movie to have a movie.

If Faramir hadn't presented some sort of conflict for Frodo and Sam, they would have literally spent the entire second film walking. And walking. And walking. Remember how they spend the first half of that film just...walking...as it is? Remember how tedious it is? It's already the weakest of the three films, and much of that is because it sticks to the formula of the book as much as it does.

This is a necessary evil because, as I said, much of the original work must be retained to serve the greater work, even if it may be at the expense of portions of the film. Those dull moments in Two Towers serve the greater work as they lend Middle Earth a sense of grand scale and drive home the oppressive nature of Sam and Frodo's quest. They serve as juxtaposition for the the beautiful Shire and Rivendell that our heroes toil to save. But Jackson and crew stretched that band as far is it would go. Any more and it would have snapped.

A bridge piece is extremely difficult to adapt because movies need clear cut beginnings, middles and ends, with tangible conflicts. Where novels can get away with things like meandering through the waste for hundreds of pages by using little techniques like omnipresence (the ability to see inside any character's mind at any time, allowing us to explore the character's emotional growth, anguish, joy, etc. from the inside) films must be external. Conflicts must be apparent in the things happening on the outside. On screen. Thus, The Two Towers needed prick-version Faramir.

"But wait!" cry the fanboys, "Shelob's lair could, nay, should have been the main conflict for Two Towers. That's how it was in the books, and that would totally work for all that external stuff. What's more visual and cinematic than a giant-ass spider?"

You're right and you're wrong. That could have worked for Two Towers.

Shelob's Lair and Shelob herself were quite cinematic and gave us one of the best scenes in all three films. The problem is if you move Shelob out of the third film and into the second (where she was in the books), you're left with no active conflict for Frodo and Sam in the third film. Yes, there is plenty of conflict happening around them, and there is a great menacing threat floating over the whole world, but if there isn't direct conflict in Frodo and Sam's path, on screen, the entire third film would have consisted of them wandering around in Mordor, making their painstaking way to Mount Doom (which is how it is in the book). It would have been unspeakably dull right up until the very end. Remember, we wouldn't be seeing all of the character development and conflict through personal anguish going on in their minds and revealed through Tolkien's well crafted dialogue. In film, we must see it happen, must see them overcome their trials, or it doesn't translate. It wouldn't have hooked us otherwise.

The third option would have been for Jackson and crew to invent a host of new conflicts to spice up act two (like they did with the Aragorn storyline), and it would have pissed people off even more than the Warg battle did. Ironically, changing Faramir's character helped them keep things as close to the original work as possible.

One more word and then we'll wrap it up. And this is important. The Faramir change does not alter that all important spirit of the books. Much of the spirit of Faramir in the books is borne of his success where Boromir, his brother, failed. The physically "weaker" brother is stronger where it counts. The film still delivers this theme in full, but it's deftly altered to fit the film format. If Faramir had been strong and pure from the get go, without the benefit of Tolkien's omnipresence directly telling us all that neat, deep character stuff for which the author has unlimited access and liberty to divulge, we would have been left with an "important character" who shows up on screen, does absolutely nothing, and then disappears.  And we would be left to assume that he's important because...why? Because they told us so? They told us he's related to Boromir, so we need to take their word for it and believe he's important?

Wrong. It does not work on screen.

As it is (in the film), we get to see Faramir reach that character arc, that point of strength that eluded his brother before him. We get to watch it take place and witness the transformation, and in the end, we get the same theme of strength over weakness, the defeat of temptation. The spirit remains the same, and it tidies up the act two issues for both the second and third films in the process.

The LOTR movies aren't perfect as films or as adaptations, but they get the spirit right. Despite a few missteps, like pretty much every extra in The Return of the King, which were cut from the theatrical for good reason (hindsight is 20/20, after all), Jackson and crew did a great job bringing Middle Earth to the screen. Similar arguments could be made in defense of the excision of Tom Bombadil and The Scourging of the Shire, but we've all got places to be, so I'll spare you.

Have you been too tough on some adaptations of your favorite works? Have you blindly stood by some that were faithful to a fault? What are some adaptations you think worked? Which ones fell flat for you? Maybe it's time to go back and give some of these a second look. And for goodness sake, give Faramir a break.

By Jonny Walls