Set film adaptions in the period they were written!

[Mr Vim]

I was thinking recently about films that are based on material written in the Golden Era or before... and wondering why these adaptions are not set in those eras.

Now mostly what I am thinking about is comic book films, but can anyone imagine of Mice and Men portrayed today with this recent recession or whatever they are calling it?

Or let's look at another icon, albeit a funnybook one: Superman.

I recently read the novel It's Superman! by Tom De Haven, the book is brilliant, with the entire story set in the depression era. And this is what prompted me to think about film settings today. There is something implanted in these characters that still harkens to the period they were written, despite decades of rewritten plots, deaths and rebirths, and costume changes...

Which is why I am heartily looking forward to the upcoming Captain American film, as it is set in the time when the character was created... the 1940s.

What other films have left you wanting more of the original take and less of the modern day glaze?

Also I have not read Rand's Atlas Shrugged, but the film does not look at all appealing to me. What does everyone think of this adaption?

 

[John in Covina]

I have not read Rand's Atlas Shrugged, but the film does not look at all appealing to me. What does everyone think of this adaption?

I have been unable to go through the film website to see what the film is going to look like. The book was written in 1957 but when I read it i always thought it was about the Great Depression era. However, Atlas Shrugged is a iconic book that has powerful themes. Since we can't discuss politics it will be one that will be hard to discuss if the film is faithful to the book. Is the film set in 1957 or earlier or later?

 

[John in Covina]

Ok I go to the website - looks like present day for Atlas Shrugged.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I think the Fantastic Four films really should have been set in the Kennedy sixties where their early stories took place. Modern snark and cynicism was one of the main things that sank those movies. (Lousy writing, hit-and-miss casting, and a director who'd only done comedies previously didn't help.) My gut feeling is that the upcoming Green Lantern film should also have gone retro. Some comics stories just need to take place in the more innocent time that spawned them.

I don't know what to make of the upcoming Superman project yet. Between producer Nolan's success with "serious, real-world Batman" and director Snyder's success with "serious treatment of comics" in 300 and Watchmen - and the promising casting of Amy Adams as Lois, Michael Shannon as General Zod, etc. - it could be good, even set in the present.

And Atlas Shrugged is really more of a political/economic argument than a successful novel (there's a 70-page-long speech near the end!), and the upcoming movie is almost certain to please nobody - not the hardcore Ayn Rand crowd, not folks who read the book and found it just okay rather than brilliant, and not the innocent filmgoers who have no knowledge of it...

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'd go see a 1938-set Superman movie in a minute -- the character from the very start was intended by his creators as an embodiment of fight-for-the-little-guy thirties-style idealism -- he spent a lot of his early career beating up evil industrialists -- and he's, very sadly, as out of place in the modern era as I am.

Trying to make Superman "hip" is utterly ridiculous. He's the very antithesis of smarmy hipsterism. And if you present him with thirties-style values in the modern era, he gets turned into a camp figure, which is just as ridiculous. He's a figure of his time, and ought to be presented as one.

 

[Mr Vim]

Strange, good points all.

And of course I forgot to mention the X-Men film set in the 1960s, I have hopes for it. The Fantastic Four would have been better served set in that era as well. I think almost all comic book films need that sort of era setting because it goes back to the basic writing idea... you have to create a world. Comic books are never that easy to establish as they are somewhat cookie cutter stories... so setting them in a unique world and not our own modern day would help.

John,
again I have not read Rand's work, and don't want to delve into politics either, but it seems the novel had more of an effect on culture that just its political teachings. She is mentioned heavily by Bert Cooper in Mad Men, the video game Bioshock's story is greatly influenced on it, those are two of the main encounters I have had, but there are certainly more. It just seems natural that were they to make the film, it would be a period piece.

Lizzie,
here here! I could not agree more! Has anyone read The Adventrues of Kavalier and Clay? It is a fictional account of two boys creating their own superhero in the late 1930s but it mentions Superman a lot as the titular characters parallel Superman's creators. And after reading more about Schuster and Siegal I realize the true nature of his character. Superman is a hero for all the smaller people picked on, and in the late thirties there were a lot of those! The Nazis were crushing Europe, jobs were still hard to find, people wanted a savior. Setting Superman any later than when he was written is a crime.

 

[Dagwood]

Ok I go to the website - looks like present day for Atlas Shrugged.

They had a front page article in Sunday's LA times - the article states: "It takes place in the year 2016, when gasoline costs $37.50 a gallon, train travel predominates and clothes, cellphones and offices look pretty much as they do on a 'Law and Order' rerun."

It also states: "The 97-minute film [part 1 of 3] is a faithful adaptation."

 

[Doctor Strange]

Lizzie, I'd love that too... though I think the Fleischer cartoons already present a much purer 1941 Superman than any that might be done these days.

The late-90s Superman animated series did a very good job of putting Supes in the modern world without entirely sacrificing his kinda-stolid decency and goodness. They let the supporting cast go a bit snarky, but Supes (and more importantly, Clark) was played straight. Of course, animation often seems seems better suited than live-action to superheroes...

As I've said before, I'm very curious to see how the Captain America film does, as all the other 30s/40s-set fantasies of the last 15 years - Dick Tracy, The Phantom, The Rocketeer, The Shadow, and most recently Sky Captain - have failed to find audiences... apart from the likes of us.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Oh, and Mr. Vim, I have gone on and on about the The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay here for years. Best novel I've read in the last decade, and a virtual GIFT to fans of comics and the golden era!

 

[Mr Vim]

Couldn't agree more Doc, I couldn't agree more.

 

[John in Covina]

Of course, animation often seems seems better suited than live-action to superheroes....

There is so much truth to that. It's an interesting observation that points to the question of Why can animation go to the heart of such a story and not be constrained by present day expectations as to good and evil. It is sort of being unencumbered by limits as to the suspend disbelief in some aspects. I am reminded of how cowboy films of the 1930's had a straight forward approach with no gratuitous violence or sexual connotations.

 

[John in Covina]

As I've said before, I'm very curious to see how the Captain America film does, as all the other 30s/40s-set fantasies of the last 15 years - Dick Tracy, The Phantom, The Rocketeer, The Shadow, and most recently Sky Captain - have failed to find audiences... apart from the likes of us.

I have great hopes that Captain America will do well. Your list of the films is very much like my scale as to how much I liked them. The style of Tracy was distracting but in a way it hints to the future such as 300, Sin City and Sky Captain where the movie is the comic book presentation.

I am glad that there are companies that see that these period films have a place in the vision of the film makers. Even though some of these were not great, it is better than if there were none made at all.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Well, us retro and comics types enjoyed them! Some were better than the others, of course. Dick Tracy gets points for being really serious with its only-eight-colors scheme... but nothing else in it was as worthwhile as the production design. The Rocketeer and The Shadow were actually pretty good; The Phantom was lame and jokey ("There is no smoking in the Skull Cave.") And as we've discussed many times, Sky Captain was gorgeous, but totally failed at being a movie, vs. a collection of retro designs and tropes.

But I'm a sucker for anything set in the past! (Like last year, before Boardwalk Empire premiered. Somebody asked me if I planned to watch it, and I answered, "Of course. Anything set in 1920 is like crack cocaine to me!")

 

[Tiller]

Also I have not read Rand's Atlas Shrugged, but the film does not look at all appealing to me. What does everyone think of this adaption?

As far as the setting goes Atlas Shrugged can be said to be in an alternate future. There are certain technological improvements that haven't happen yet such as Rearden Metal. On the other hand their is anachronistic aspects of the book, of example radio is still the dominate media form, and television is seen as a novelty.

I recently read the novel It's Superman! by Tom De Haven, the book is brilliant, with the entire story set in the depression era.

I have the novel, and I agree it is an interesting read, although I think De Haven makes Clark a bit to much of a hick. The man of steel even when he first came out as "Kal-L" always was an intelligent man, and his naivety as Clark was just an act. In the novel though Clark seems to really be something of a (in the words of H.L. Mencken) boob, with none of the saving graces that it is all just an act.

I will say this though, their are times having updated and anachronistic characters can be interesting. Such as the tv show "Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer" staring Stacy Keach, who played Hammer as an overly macho 1940's detective stuck in the 80's.

 

[Mr Vim]

Tiller, that did bother me somewhat about the novel, Clark was constantly concerned that he was not smart enough, but I find that more true to the original comic. In the original, there was no fortress of solitude, nothing to tell him of his purpose or past... he just decided to be Superman on his parents grave, in the first issue both his parents had died. I would certainly like to see a sequel to the first novel and while we're at it I'm just going to say it that I wish this new Superman film would take a page or two from De Haven's treatment as far as setting and characters go.

 

[LizzieMaine]

In the original Siegel-Shuster version, there was nothing "hickish" about Clark Kent. He was, basically, patterned after Harold Lloyd -- a nice but painfully shy fellow. He put on the act of being timid in times of danger, but he didn't go out of his way to act like a small-town hayseed. That whole rube act owes more to the Christopher Reeve movies in the '70s than it does to anything found in the original stories.

The Kent of the 1940s comics and the Kent of the radio program were a long way from being timid -- it was not at all uncommon for Clark to rough up an uncooperative source.

 

[Mr Vim]

Good point, Lizzie, the book does not really delve into the Clark persona until the end, this is more the man that is both Superman and Clark Kent.

Can anyone think of any other adaptions that could use a good original era setting? I'm looking at this detective noir piece called the Big Bang, with Antonio Banderas, the noir stlye seems to be there, but the technology, particle physics plays a huge role in it along with a US Large Hadron Collider, seems to throw off the film... has anyone seen the preview for this?

 

[Tiller]

Tiller, that did bother me somewhat about the novel, Clark was constantly concerned that he was not smart enough, but I find that more true to the original comic. In the original, there was no fortress of solitude, nothing to tell him of his purpose or past... he just decided to be Superman on his parents grave, in the first issue both his parents had died. I would certainly like to see a sequel to the first novel and while we're at it I'm just going to say it that I wish this new Superman film would take a page or two from De Haven's treatment as far as setting and characters go.

Oh I have a book here somewhere in my collection called something like "The History of Superman", which is basically little more then a "compilation album", with copies of the original stories from the Golden Age all the way up to John Bryne's reboot after the Crisis on Infinite Earths. That is the only true source I have of the Golden Age character, but Superman in these stories is frankly more violent then later stories. He beats the crap out of a wife beating louse, headbutts bank robbers head together, then throws them about twenty yards into the back of a "paddy wagon", and does a few things that in real life would at the very least cause some major injuries. He stops a lynching, fights a few super scientist including a red headed man named Luthor, and he even takes Hitler and Stalin to the League of Nations and has them tried as criminals.

As Clark there is the sense that he is very much a young man of the mid west, and at times he plays that up, but he was never outright ignorant about general ideas, nor was he that naive beyond the times when he played the "Aww shucks Lois" card. If I had to guess De Haven added this naive element in order to make Clark more relatable to his readers, but I personally found it a bit annoying. The story itself though was interesting, and I enjoyed it, but the original Kal-L was very much a butt kicking take no nonsense character.

Every generation puts their spin on the Man of Steel though. In the 40's he wasn't afraid to crack two bad guys skull together, in the 50's Lois tried to find out who he was and marry him, in the 60's he was all about improving mankind threw the science of Krypton, in the 70s he was still somewhat interested in improving mankind but he also had a lot of angst to deal with, in the 80's he went toe to toe with the billionaire Lex Luthor, in the 90s he was killed by a monster called Doomsday and coincidentally also married Lois, and today he tends to worry that he is to powerful and acts like a 30 year old who never got over the teen angst stage of life.

I do believe that there is an interesting story to be told if you could actually make Time Warner (and good luck with this lol) create a story with the original Kal-L in modern times. Assuming that like Kal-El he ages slower then humanity, it would be interesting to see the culture difference between a super powered being who would be almost over a hundred by now, and the modern "heroes" of today's pop culture. They tried doing it a bit not to long ago when they recreated the multiverse in DC, but I personally feel that they really fumbled the ball.

Yes yes I know I have geeky qualities at time. Superman was the comic book character that I grew up reading though, and occasionally I still like to see what he is doing. Truth be told sometimes I miss the early 90s when it comes to his stories though lol.

Can anyone think of any other adaptions that could use a good original era setting?

Personally, I'd be interested in seeing some Sherlock Holmes stories set between 1900-1930/1940 (whenever they decide to have him die I guess) when he is starting to, and then is is outright retired. Personally I think The Final Solution by Michael Chabon is a great little story, which is set in 1944 I believe. In the story "the old man" (ie Holmes) still is brilliant, but is none the less well beyond his own time and he knows it, but never the less an interesting problem presents itself, and despite his anti social behavior he can't help but want to solve it.

 

[BinkieBaumont]

Grahame Greenes classic Brighton Rock has recently been transported to the early 1960's

[video=youtube;53wd1mfjE3w]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53wd1mfjE3w[/video]

 

[Mr Vim]

Tiller, obviously your compendium has me at a disadvantage, but I still think the true heart and soul of Superman lies in his first tales and would make the most interesting films and the setting should be the mid to late thirties... although your idea of having him be modern and yet still holding onto the past ideals due to his non aging is interesting. I think at the very least it would make a good stand-alone animated film.

Binkie, I'll have to look for it. I see it has some major talent to it... Helen Mirren, John Hurt, Andy Serkis very nice.