Quoting myself
Mar. 7th, 2009 02:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
womzillaFrom July 2007. Footnotes new tonight.
To borrow terms from Bakhtin (whom I'm probably misusing), there are two levels of a story. There are the events of the story (the sjuzet), and there is the telling of the story (the fabula). The sjuzet of Watchmen is extremely good and it is, to me, almost conceivable that a brilliant filmmaker could create a film which captures some of the dramatic effect of Watchmen on that level*. However, the fabula of Watchmen is one of the most striking works ever created in comics, and is inseparable from the comics medium. No film could capture the panel-by-panel comicness of Watchmen--the juxtapositions, the background detail, the panel-by-panel and whole-issue structure of "Fearful Symmetry".
I'm not saying there couldn't be a film that is as good a film as Watchmen is a comic. I'm pretty sure there are some out there**. What I'm saying is that what makes Watchmensuch an accomplishment is inherent in the fact that it is a comic book. Trying to make a film of Watchmen is like trying to make a painting of "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" or a short story of M. C. Escher's "Relativity". You can make a good short story about a world which violates the rules of perspective, but you can't make a short story which is "Relativity".
The fabula of Watchmen reinforces the sjuzet, and the sjuzet reinforces the fabula. Separating them might still leave you with a good film***, but it won't be Watchmen, and, more importantly, it can't capture why Watchmen is the landmark that it is.
*In this case, some, but not much.
**This really isn't one of them.
***I liked it more than I feared and much less than I hoped.
ETA: In comments, crowleycrow points out that I haven't used the terms completely accurately--sjuzet is a more precise term than "story" and "fabula" is something more than "telling". Read his comment--I'd just end up repeating it. I think my basic point can stand, even if my terminology is a bit naff.
To borrow terms from Bakhtin (whom I'm probably misusing), there are two levels of a story. There are the events of the story (the sjuzet), and there is the telling of the story (the fabula). The sjuzet of Watchmen is extremely good and it is, to me, almost conceivable that a brilliant filmmaker could create a film which captures some of the dramatic effect of Watchmen on that level*. However, the fabula of Watchmen is one of the most striking works ever created in comics, and is inseparable from the comics medium. No film could capture the panel-by-panel comicness of Watchmen--the juxtapositions, the background detail, the panel-by-panel and whole-issue structure of "Fearful Symmetry".
I'm not saying there couldn't be a film that is as good a film as Watchmen is a comic. I'm pretty sure there are some out there**. What I'm saying is that what makes Watchmensuch an accomplishment is inherent in the fact that it is a comic book. Trying to make a film of Watchmen is like trying to make a painting of "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" or a short story of M. C. Escher's "Relativity". You can make a good short story about a world which violates the rules of perspective, but you can't make a short story which is "Relativity".
The fabula of Watchmen reinforces the sjuzet, and the sjuzet reinforces the fabula. Separating them might still leave you with a good film***, but it won't be Watchmen, and, more importantly, it can't capture why Watchmen is the landmark that it is.
*In this case, some, but not much.
**This really isn't one of them.
***I liked it more than I feared and much less than I hoped.
ETA: In comments, crowleycrow points out that I haven't used the terms completely accurately--sjuzet is a more precise term than "story" and "fabula" is something more than "telling". Read his comment--I'd just end up repeating it. I think my basic point can stand, even if my terminology is a bit naff.
