Relinquishing Roth: "Elegy" and the prerogatives of literary adaptation

I saw Isabel Coixet's Elegy, a Nicholas-Meyer-scripted adaptation of Philip Roth's short novel The Dying Animal, several months ago, and was more than a little impressed with it in spite of the fact that, while in many ways faithful to its source, it wasn't particularly Rothian. But the film, which opens in limited release this Friday, was nevertheless frank, funny, moving, and possessed a consistent but non-ostentatious intelligence that's extremely refreshing given our current cinematic situation. Both Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruz gave performances that could creditably be called "brave," and I say that as someone who generally believes that characterization never truly applies.

But back to the Roth factor. In his review of the film today, New York magazine critic David Edelstein says that "the film is so far is spirit from its source...that I'm tempted to say we should abandon altogether the idea of adapting Roth." I can't say he's entirely off base here. In fact the paucity of Roth film adaptations—only four of his more than twenty novels, being Goodbye Columbus, Portnoy's Complaint, The Human Stain, and The Dying Animal, have made it to the big screen—testifies to the difficulty his work presents in this area. I'd say of those four Elegy is the best film in a walk. Goodbye Columbus is not without charm, but that's pretty much it; Ernest Lehman's attempt at Portnoy's Complaint rightly ranks as one of film's most ridiculous disasters; and The Human Stain has too much of an air of the Distinguished Film about it, not that Elegy is entirely immune from that peculiar taint either.If Elegy has any value at all, it's because Coixet does depart from Roth's spirit. That is, she's taken a Roth text and made an Isabel Coixet film out of it. Roth is a scrupulous chronicler of that most unscrupulous of states, desire; he discomfits us with his pinpoint portrayals of the urges and the agonies that attend it. Coixet, as shown in works such as My Life Without Me and The Secret Life of Words, is scrupulous too, but she's more of an overt humanist than Roth. She's hardly a sentimentalist, but she's of a gentler sensibility, and she tries to see the point of view of all her characters in a way that Roth, who's all about the subjectivity of his protagonists, doesn't necessarily feel obliged to.

In his review, Edelstein muses, "I'd like to see Charlie Kaufman take a stab" at Roth, and I can see his point there, too—Kaufman's a master of the brutal but sometimes self-deluding obsessive examination of self (I doubt that if Portnoy's Complaint had not existed, Kaufman would not have, either), with a gift for mordant/side-splitting humor to match. But this got me woolgathering about who might be the ideal cinematic channeler of Roth. Who, possibly, could tackle his most careeningly scabrous vision, 1995's Sabbath's Theater? No one, by which I mean, no one filmmaker. It would require some unholy hybrid of Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner, John Cassavettes, and Pier Paolo Pasolini.

A profile of Kingsley, also in the current New York points up another issue. According to Coixet, Roth requested that one of the central episodes of the book—the episode of "the bite," wherein protagonist David Kepesh treats erotic fixation Consuela like a blow-up doll, and she instinctively uses her teeth on him—"to be very graphic in the film." Coixet recalls saying to Roth, "Look, I’m from Barcelona—I have no problem with blow jobs—but people don’t want to see Penélope biting his penis!" Roth eventually demured. Without necessarily intending to, Coixet brings up a rather more crucial problem apropos book-to-film adaptations: movie stars. Reading the sequence in the book, one is free to imagine Kepesh and Consuela as one will. The force of this scene registers via your own subjectivity, maybe. But in film, what you're seeing is Penelope biting Ben's penis, just as the internet was flooded, several months ago, with shots of Penelope's breasts in this movie. That's a big part of what compromises Robert Benton's, yes, scrupulous treatment of Roth's The Human Stain—you never actually see the characters, no matter how hard the actors try. Rather, you see movie stars Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman trying really hard. Kingsely and Cruz don't have to strain so much, as they're playing characters not quite so far removed from our images of them than what Hopkins and Kidman were going for. By keeping the actions of Kingsley and Cruz's characters reasonably within the boundaries of "good" taste, Coixet relinquishes Roth's unsparing vision, but buys a level of audience acceptance.

Is that a cop-out? Maybe so. Elegy does in fact forsake Roth's rawness from the title change on down. But, especially given the anti-adult bent of so many films these days, it provides ample enough rewards in exchange for it.

Comments

[Joel]

Since I made my first comments on your blog on Roth-related matters, I'll pitch in with some suggestions. Ideally, an adapter of Sabbath would not sensationalize or underplay the sometimes degraded sex acts in the novel, while keeping a thematic focus on Sabbath's wavering will to live. A female director who is not queasy around bad behavior (of either sex) would do the trick, someone like Nicole Holofcenter (sp.?) or Tamara Jenkins. Even though I've always pictured Allison Janney as Mickey's wife, I'd be okay with Catherine Keener. A Desplechin Sabbath would also be pretty awesome. After seeing I'm Not There, I think that Haynes might actually be appropriate for a three-in-one adaptation of the post-Ghost-Writer Zuckerman books. His Dylan pretty much undergoes the same crisis as Roth's Zuckerman--how to remain an artist "of his time" without succumbing to the madness that defines his time. Good topic. What are your suggestions?

[Glenn Kenny]

Desplechin's a good call. Apparently he's preparing an adaptation of Roth's "Deception" for 2009. And Maurice Garrel's harrowing letter to Emmanuelle Devos in "Kings and Queens" is adapted, if that's the right word, from a passage in "Sabbath's Theater."

[Joel]

I'm glad we've settled this difficult decision. Call Desplechin's agent and give them the good news. Also tell him to ditch "Deception," which is more of a Chereau project anyway. One of D.'s biggest virtues, depending on what kind of a movie fan you are, is his total lack of restraint. Interesting footnote to Kings and Queens--the letter is one of my favorite parts, Sabbath is one of my favorite Roth novels, and I still would have never made the connection.

[Glenn Kenny]

The texts themselves are quite different, but the conceit is similar—Sabbath taking the persona of his wife Roseanna's father, and lashing out at his daughter from "beyond the grave" as it were, with observations such as "you judge me by your holy feelings." In the Desplechin, Nora discovers a real letter from her father after his death, condemning her pride and superficiality and raging that she outlived him.

[Dan Coyle]

Who cares about Roth; somebody adapt DeLillo! That's a REAL challenge.

[Dan]

@Dan Coyle

Sure, you just need to find a compelling story in a DeLillo novel first.

Fine, fine, I'm being unfair, but honestly, I've never found the guy's work to offer much for the person who might want to adapt it; not that it's tricky, just that I'm uncertain it would leave the page with any grace.

[Joel]

It's weird to think of DeLillo as "unadaptable" since his first novel, Americana, was very cinematic and he was never shy about crediting Godard as a major influence (in my opinion, THE major influence) on his style, particularly the semi-annoying way that his characters talk in glib aphorisms that seem to mock and revere mass-media culture. Running Dog, which is my least favorite of his novels, would probably make the best film, since it's already a homage/parody of a pulp thriller, and it contains the potential for some great movie-within-a-movie hardcore footage of Hitler's bunker. Any other suggestions?

[dm494]

Glenn, what do you mean exactly by "characterization never truly applies"?

[Glenn Kenny]

I usually cringe whenever a critic calls a performance or a performer "brave," because I generally think the word should be reserved for those who attempt tp rescue people from burning buildings and such. I have a lot of respect for performers, but I don't believe that moral or physical courage figures all that prominently in what they do.

[dm494]

I completely misunderstood you Glenn. And I share your sentiments about loose usages of "brave".