I walked out of my first movie a month ago – Billy Bishop Goes to War. I never do this. In part due to my closure issues and cheap-ness of not wasting my cinema ticket and exorbitantly overpriced popcorn and choc-top. Even in The Hours I decided falling asleep across 3 seats and a stranger’s lap was a better fate than wasting that $28 deliciousness. [You think the movie title of "The Hours" would have warned me about the boringness that would ensure – don’t tell me there is no truth in advertising. People choose to ignore and choose to be stupid. I am no exception.]
Billy Bishop Goes to War was originally a one man musical. Writer, Eric Peterson, played Billy Bishop and 17 other characters simultaneously on stage. Composer, John Gray, accompanied on piano and vocals. It won many awards – and rightly so. But translate this to the big screen, and it loses its award winning grace. This would have been fantastic to see on stage, but seeing one man in one room for over 90 mins on a movie screen blatantly underplays both mediums of cinema and theatre.
The writing and story were the same, but the translation of text was not. A month ago I blogged about Elliot Grove saying that great writing is great writing, no matter the medium. The story of Billy Bishop is a great one. But transferring a story does not mean a straight transfer of elements when transferring to a different medium. I think Grove underplayed the power of medium while he was playing the power of writing. He probably assumed we understood that great writing still needs to be tweaked, and not a simple “Ctrl X, Ctrl V” as we sent out our script proposals, novel manuscripts etc.
I also understood something on that night I walked out of the cute College St cinema, The Royal, with its way undervalued $7 popcorn with choice of seasoning [creamy dill pickle anyone?] – one must not forget the art of adaptation. Did you hear that, Billy Bishop Goes to War? Never forget.
