For Stam Criticism is Inherent—Beyond Fidelity

Robert Stam’s article, which deals with the question regarding whether or not a film should have complete fidelity to its source material, questions why such a need is there in the first place. Stam argues that because film is a different medium from novels, inherently the adaptation will be different. He feels that readers become disappointed for the wrong reasons. Any kind of description of anything in particular in a novel is always generalized because the novel is not a visual medium. Stam argues that film is inherently specific. (Stam, pg. 55). In that sense, the way someone looks or the way the locale looks will always appear different from how it did in the novel, and the reader’s interpretation of events will have been breached; it’s inevitable.
Therefore, Stam argues than rather try to be as close to interpretation to the source material as possible, a filmmaker should tell the primary tale (the important feeling of the work and a retaining of its ideology) rather than try to stay as close as possible to the version told by the teller. Stam’s argument is that since one is working within two mediums, this need to have absolute fidelity toward a given text is a losing battle. (Stam, pg. 58).
Stam feels that the reason for why there are so many weak adaptations of books doesn’t have to do with the fact that the movie wasn’t being faithful to the book, but rather that the movie was trying too hard to be the book; to be literary. Stam’s feeling is that successful adaptations, for instance Tom Jones, stays true to the source material by using filmic conventions instead of literary ones to retain the feeling of the work. The novel Tom Jones references past literary conventions; the film references past filmic conventions. There was no other way the adaptors could have told their story, Stam argues, because a film is not inherently literary. (Stam, pg. 68). Rather, films are polyrhythmic—i.e. they contain elements from all of the arts—and fragmentary. (Stam, pg. 60). Stam argues that film, rather than being an inherently limited art form, is so rich and has so many elements running throughout it that filmmakers are scared to contradict the novel that they are adapting’s intentions. They are scared to admit to themselves that film may be a better medium to tell the story in than the novel. (Casting can tell a film audience a lot about a text that the text itself could not tell because the text never dealt with performance and interpretation. The casting and performance in a film can make a comment on the text itself, which the text could never do. In fact, because one medium is dealing specifically with another, making a comment in the form of criticism of that medium is inevitable.) (Stam, pg.60). Stam is completely against the bias of fidelity mainly because this notion censors the film medium to try to be a literary medium only. How could one do that to a medium that also contains elements of painting, dance, ect.?
Stam’s ultimate argument is that filmmakers are afraid to alter or even criticize a given text that they are adapting because filmmakers and filmgoers have a bias that literature is the greater medium; therefore films highest aspiration is to be literary and have complete and total fidelity to the text being adapted. (Stam, pg. 59). Ultimately, Stam feels that the primary function of films, when they are adaptations, is to, “…explore the notion of adaptation as demystifcatory critique” (Stam, pg. 63). His argument is that if a filmmaker is required to adapt a book that they disagree with ideologically or even stylistically, do they then have to have complete fidelity to the work and censor their own impressions or beliefs; thereby censoring the art form of movies altogether? Stam feels that this bias known as fidelity is a belief that needs to be done away with for fear that it will make all filmmakers timid towards expressing their own artistic temperament toward a given text that they are adapting. He argues that adaptation gives duration toward the work being adapted (even if it’s criticizing it) because it’s updating (by making a comment on) the initial work, for future generations. (Stam, pgs. 62-63). For him, adaptation is criticism.

Works Cited

Naremore, James, ed. Film Adaptation. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2000.