I recently attended a Fordham-hosted Q&A session with Julia Quinn, who is the author of the novels-turned-netflix-hit-series Bridgerton. At one point in the interview, Quinn talked about the process in which her book was chosen to be adapted for screen: she said– “when you get approached by a production company, one of the first things they ask you is,” and I put this in caps for emphasis purposes, “ARE YOU WILLING TO GIVE UP CREATIVE CONTROL?” When Shondaland approached her for a Netflix series, Quinn said “take it, it’s yours.” Quinn decided this because she “did not want to jeopardize the project in any way,” and also knew that she “could rely on Shondaland as a company.” So, Quinn gave up creative control over Bridgerton and was on the team as a consultant, which essentially means that she was able to see the scripts before they went into production. Quinn explains that upon seeing the first script, she thought it was amazing, and loved seeing how they adapted it in a smart way that she felt she never would have been able to think of herself because it’s not her field– she’s “not gonna tell Shondaland how to make good TV.” Overall, Quinn exclaims that she truly loved everything that the production team did with her original work.
The idea of creative control and who “has it'' is fascinating. Obviously, the scope of any original text is the source material of the adaptation; however, film and television often lend themselves to show more perspectives than a novel can, and as such, changes can be necessary in the process! In class, we questioned how and why certain films varied so vastly from the original text– most notably so far, we talked about how it seems like John Ford completely botched the ending of John Steinback’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath in the film adaptation. The answer to why these (drastic) changes occur could very well be a transfer of creative control.
In light of attending Julia Quinn’s Q&A, it’s somewhat obvious that Steinback gave up creative control to Darryl F. Zanuck, head of production at Twentieth Century-Fox, who got him to agree to the adaptation in the first place; and by extension, he extended control to selected director and screenwriter, John Ford and Nunnally Johnson, respectively. But was Steinbeck added on as a consultant, like Quinn was herself? I don’t think he was. The changed ending, in this case, makes a lot more sense. After reading and watching both, I (like my peers) wondered- what did Steinbeck think of the more straightforward, hopeful ending of the film? Why is it so different from the book? Is the film ending more or less powerful because of the change? Is there some sort of agenda behind this change, and if so, what is it? Well, after some digging, here’s the answer– at least to what Steinbeck thought about the changes: in a memo to his agent, Steinbeck wrote that “Zanuck has more than kept his word. He has a hard, straight picture in which the actors are submerged so completely that it looks and feels like a documentary film and certainly it has a hard, truthful ring. No punches are pulled– in fact, with descriptive matter removed, it is a harsher thing than the book, by far. It seems unbelievable but it is true.”
So, Steinbeck was (at the very least) pleased with how the adaptation process went in regards to his novel. Steinbeck’s praise of the film, saying that it is in a way “harsher” than the book, is interesting when considering that many viewers felt that Ford’s adaptation removed some of the novel’s Socialist/Marxist themes. Yet, both endings seem to have some ambiguous feelings of hope attached to them, which is perhaps what Steinbeck was counting on for the adaptation. There’s only so much that Steinbeck could have insisted on, especially if he did, in fact, give up creative control (which is almost certain considering his descendants fought for rights to some of his greatest works back in 2006).
As a whole, the adaptation process has never been– nor will it ever be! – an exact science. There’s simply too much to consider in terms of character development, inter-relations, plot progression, and overall messages and themes that need to be transferred from the source text into screen format, and not all of it is easily blend-able. That seems to be where creative control comes into play– figuring out what from the source text makes the cut for the adaptation, and what needs to be added, or removed, or changed. Whether or not the original author, or even we as readers and viewers, agree with said changes are a whole other story.
https://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/filmnotes/fns02n4.html
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