Topic > How a Streetcar Named Desire Went from a Book to a Film

Whenever a play or novel is adapted into a cinematic representation of the text, critics will rate the film positively or negatively. You need to understand the freedoms of a director and understand that an adaptation allows someone else to represent a play or novel in a new and creative way. Creativity and uniqueness are sometimes necessary in adapting a play to film. Critics are still chasing the idea of ​​fidelity, but the truth is that adaptations have as much to offer as the actual piece. Elia Kazan's 1951 adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire is not faithful to the work, but its authenticity and many similarities allow the adaptation to become its own personality. The directorial changes, conceived by Elia Kazan, need to exist to disprove the idea that fidelity is always correct in a film adaptation. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayWhen a story intended for the stage is translated into a film, there are some points of difference and contention that naturally arise. Elia Kazan adapted Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire and for the most part stayed true to the original work, but was able to add more to the story in film format. Kazan was able to explore locations mentioned in the show, such as the bowling alley, by incorporating them onto the big screen. The reader could now imagine the bowling alley where Stanley and his friends spent so much time and could understand the atmosphere because it was now in front of the reader rather than just in their mind. Kazan stuck to Williams' script for the most part, but his interpretation of the characters seemed to waver from those in the written work. Blanche DuBois, in the play, was an insecure and arrogant woman who had recently lost her reputation and place in society. . However, in the film, Blanche is less reserved than she was in the play. In the play there is a scene where a young man comes to collect money for the newspaper and Blanche is at home alone answering the door. When she opens the door, she lets the young man in and asks him for money for the local newspaper. After Blanche reveals that she has no money to give the young man, she continues to make the young man stay polite against his will and against the reader and can feel the discomfort the young man feels until Blanche kisses him and leaves. However, in the film adaptation the young man is extremely comfortable with Blanche and seems to be seduced by her charm. In the film, when Blanche kisses the young man, he also bends down to kiss her, completely changing the mood of the entire scene. For someone who only watches the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire, this scene gives the person a different image of Blanche. DuBois compared to the reader who imagines Blanche as a completely different woman. Williams doesn't create Blanche as a likable character, and in the film version, her co-stars liked Vivien Leigh as much as she did in the play. Being English and an outcast from the start, “Leigh's presence on the set was clearly unwanted and repeatedly upset the harmony of the status quo of a group of actors who had already worked together in the same play” (Cahir). Blanche was unwanted in the play, and in the film Vivien was unwanted on the set, but the director's choice to cast Vivien as Blanche created a dynamic on the big screen that made the film a great success and helped the character in her own interpretation. authentic way. Directors are in controlcomplete about what they are directing, which, depending on the critic, is a good or bad thing: “Adaptation is always an interpretive act, and judgments about the success of the adaptation will always involve a comparative interpretation of the original text in light of an interpretation of adaptation” (Gordon, Robert andOlaf). There will always be criticism of any director when a play leaves the stage and is directed to the big screen because people don't like to see variations of the same thing. Different representations of the same work allow people to expand their minds and experience the creativity and minds of others, like that of a filmmaker, and build new ideas from old ideas. Authenticity and interpretation are extremely important because no two people think alike. Tennessee Williams and Elia Kazan are similar in many ways, but each has their own way of creating a new idea. Kazan made small changes to A Streetcar Named Desire and it was hugely successful, allowing viewers to see the characters differently and visualize the scene more broadly. then a couple of captions. Kazan was able to incorporate his vision of the scene onto the set and chose people to play each character based on his idea of ​​what each character was like. Marlon Brando played Stanley, and to a reader, perhaps Stanley wasn't as seductive as he was in the film. In the play Stanley was a dominant and controlling man, but the film version took that dominance and combined it with sexuality to create a likable, but also a little scary, character. Kazan's decision to cast Brando as Stanley allows the audience to represent Kazan's idea of ​​Stanley in their mind, demonstrating that authenticity allows for numerous interpretations of a work, right down to the characters' appearance and manner. where appearance plays a role in a character's personality and behavior. While Kazan's ideas about the scene and characters may differ from those of the reader who may not have cast Marlon Brando as Stanley, Kazan decided to keep most of the script the same throughout the film, which is It was an advantage in respecting the rules. fidelity that everyone questions in the adaptation of a play into a film. Allowing the director to make these changes in a film adaptation benefits the work because “Every act of adaptation involves a new cultural appropriation of the original text, and old texts are kept alive in the contemporary cultural imagination through these same acts of appropriation” (Gordon, Robert and Olaf). A Streetcar Named Desire gained more popularity through the film adaptation and allowed Tennessee Williams to gain fame in several fields. “Although the role of the reader/viewer is recognized in the literature on film adaptation, it has not been studied in detail” (Raitt). The true critic is not valued when loyalty is the issue at hand. Audiences are the determining factor in whether an adaptation is successful or not. If there is no evidence to support the idea that fidelity gets a better response from audiences than an adaptation, then there is no argument to support the idea that every adaptation should be identical to the piece it represents. The audience should primarily be the focus, but “Too often, however, the success or failure of any adaptation is narrowly defined” (Gordon, Robert, and Olaf). Success is never defined by audiences, but rather by ticket sales and critical responses, which is not an accurate measure of success.