Violating the spirit of the book ...
One of the year’s most anticipated Broadway plays — the screenwriter Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of Harper Lee’s novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” — faces a legal challenge from Ms. Lee’s estate, which is suing over Mr. Sorkin’s version of the story.
In a complaint filed Tuesday in federal court in Alabama, the estate argued that Mr. Sorkin’s adaptation deviates too much from the novel, and violates a contract, between Ms. Lee and the producers, which stipulates that the characters and plot must remain faithful to the spirit of the book.
A chief dispute in the complaint is the assertion that Mr. Sorkin’s portrayal of the much beloved Atticus Finch, the crusading lawyer who represents a black man unjustly accused of rape, presents him as a man who begins the drama as a naïve apologist for the racial status quo, a depiction at odds with his purely heroic image in the novel.
Helen Andrews of the Spectator USA says Leave Aaron Sorkin alone!
ReplyDeleteMs. Andrews says:
ReplyDelete"In exchange for tolerating these liberties, you get to see your story told in the words of Aaron Sorkin, who still writes better dialogue than anyone else alive."
But it is axiomatic I think that dialog proceeds from character. By changing the character Mr. Sorkin necessarily changes the dialog. Rather I'd like to see the "best dialog writer" alive face the challenge of the original character, without the character arc modern drama demands (because, inter alia, of the arc's ability to allow every line to reflect conflict.)