The classics never die ...
I think, while I'm in the midst of this bizarre, rambling look at big heroes, big stories and how they interact with the world -- although perhaps going off on a long tangent about Hamlet at 4 a.m. was a bit more telling about how the inside of my head than I intended -- it's more important to remember that, at least in this instance, I'm looking at how the stories interact with the culture, not with how they interact with the individual reader. That's a completely different animal.
But, in addition to Buffy, there have been a number of things that have had me thinking about that process, about how a story echoes across decades, sometimes across centuries, and how it adapts to fit the new audience it fins each time. For example, I'm extremely curious to see Julie Taymor's version of The Tempest, with Helen Mirren taking the role of Prospero (renamed Prospera), which just looks delicious. The Tempest is up there with my favorites of all time, and it looks like Taymor is gearing up for a solid re-examination of the text.
I'm also, to switch gears a bit, curious to look at Paul Levitz' gargantuan 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking, especially after hearing a bit of Levitz on NPR the other day. I was particularly struck by his discussion of how elements of characters or stories were often added later -- Batman's sidekick Robin, for example -- but how it seemed soon after as if those elements had always been there. Certainly, it seems that way with, say, the characters Rupert Giles or Willow Rosenberg in Buffy. Sometimes, the important details do lock in, later. In the course of that discussion, how many "trial runs" of great stories have we mentioned? Joss Whedon's original Buffy movie? Green Lantern Alan Scott? Saxo Grammaticus' Hamlet? These stories create and recreate themselves over time, because that's what stories -- big stories -- do.
It takes an immense familiarity with a version to keep it locked -- Hamlet is Hamlet; the Harry Potter films dare not stray too terribly far from J.K. Rowling's text, lest they face an army of angry 13-year-old fans. (Which, to a certain degree, has turned the movies -- likable as they are -- into Cliff's Notes of Harry Potter.) But the Harry Potter story has sparked a million variations: the video games, which have a slightly different narrative; the illegal unauthorized "sequels" published overseas, the mountains of fan fiction. They all might be ephemera, but as ephemera goes, it's all a part of the story. It replicates itself, no matter how hard the publishers and movie studios try to make it otherwise.
But if one were to really look at this phenomenon, I think there's really two stories that need to be examined above all others: Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Who. More on that, soon. I hope.
But, in addition to Buffy, there have been a number of things that have had me thinking about that process, about how a story echoes across decades, sometimes across centuries, and how it adapts to fit the new audience it fins each time. For example, I'm extremely curious to see Julie Taymor's version of The Tempest, with Helen Mirren taking the role of Prospero (renamed Prospera), which just looks delicious. The Tempest is up there with my favorites of all time, and it looks like Taymor is gearing up for a solid re-examination of the text.
I'm also, to switch gears a bit, curious to look at Paul Levitz' gargantuan 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking, especially after hearing a bit of Levitz on NPR the other day. I was particularly struck by his discussion of how elements of characters or stories were often added later -- Batman's sidekick Robin, for example -- but how it seemed soon after as if those elements had always been there. Certainly, it seems that way with, say, the characters Rupert Giles or Willow Rosenberg in Buffy. Sometimes, the important details do lock in, later. In the course of that discussion, how many "trial runs" of great stories have we mentioned? Joss Whedon's original Buffy movie? Green Lantern Alan Scott? Saxo Grammaticus' Hamlet? These stories create and recreate themselves over time, because that's what stories -- big stories -- do.
It takes an immense familiarity with a version to keep it locked -- Hamlet is Hamlet; the Harry Potter films dare not stray too terribly far from J.K. Rowling's text, lest they face an army of angry 13-year-old fans. (Which, to a certain degree, has turned the movies -- likable as they are -- into Cliff's Notes of Harry Potter.) But the Harry Potter story has sparked a million variations: the video games, which have a slightly different narrative; the illegal unauthorized "sequels" published overseas, the mountains of fan fiction. They all might be ephemera, but as ephemera goes, it's all a part of the story. It replicates itself, no matter how hard the publishers and movie studios try to make it otherwise.
But if one were to really look at this phenomenon, I think there's really two stories that need to be examined above all others: Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Who. More on that, soon. I hope.
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