In the following article, how to adapt your comic to the cinema, Daniel Clowes tells us about his experience. Although it is not the same to make a feature film than to make a Comic, you should take into account some guidelines, advice, and guides that he gladly offers us, and we offer you, but do not waste time. Continue reading!
The road from comics to the big screen
If you are a fan of comics, you surely know Daniel Clowes, one of the most important figures in American graphic narrative. Clowes has given us true masterpieces, such as Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, David Boring or Ice Haven.
Without a doubt, his most famous comic is Ghost World, that story about Enid and Rebecca, two teenagers who make the transition to adulthood, wandering through an American city of the 90s, while criticizing popular culture and the people who are cross into their lives.
In 2001, Terry Zwigoff approached Clowes with bringing the comic to the big screen.
In this article, we will tell you about the interesting experience of Clowes in this shoot, being a comic book artist, who knows the world of feature films. Prepare some popcorn!
Of utmost importance: Adapting a comic to the cinema is not transcribing it
When film director Terry Zwigoff contacted Clowes to make a film, the cartoonist was excited. Who would reject a proposal that comes from the director of Robert Crumb’s documentary?
Clowes thought that he would only have to type the dialogue from his Ghost World comic, change the drawings for descriptions, and write in an “Enid sitting on a bench, says this sentence” style, but when the producer saw the script de Clowes, could not believe what he had written, and told him that what he had to do was write a film, not just make a transcript of his comic.
Merging styles to adapt the Comic to the cinema
He put aside his comic and, together with the director, Terry, they modified the world of the story, creating new characters and developing the existing ones between the two.
For Clowes, at times, it was frustrating that he couldn’t translate into the film exactly the tones of voice and attitudes of the characters in his comics, the director and the actors had their own styles.
In the end, the cartoonist understood, that you have to let the actors embody the characters with their own sensibilities, and that Terry’s ideas were the right ones to adapt his comic.
You can’t always exactly mimic the comic book aesthetic
Terry and Clowes tried to imitate several things from the aesthetic of Ghost World, such as the blue tone, which accompanies the black and white of the comic pages.
For Clowes, the atmosphere generated by that color was very special. The cartoonist remembers that when he was a teenager, the age of Enid (protagonist of the comic), he walked the streets of Chicago at 6 in the morning, and saw through the windows of the houses, people who had turned on the television.
The bluish light that radiated in the atmosphere, added to the absence of color from the street, was an image that Clowes wanted to reflect of his own adolescence. In the film, they tried to capture that atmosphere. They even filmed with a type of blue light, but as it was not convincing, it was discarded.
The important decisions of the cartoonist on the film set
Daniel Clowes was invited to choose the clothes for Enid’s character, and also, he was able to decide on the decoration of his bedroom. Can you imagine watching a movie, and that the objects in a room are exactly those of your teenage room?
That’s how Clowes felt when he saw his pencil sharpener in Enid’s room, something very strange and personal.
The differences between writing comic and film scripts
Daniel Clowes thinks that it is much easier to write a movie script than to write comics. When you write a movie script you can more easily modify, in the middle of the process, the events, descriptions, names, and much more.
On the contrary, if you start to draw a comic, it is not so easy to move things around. It takes a lot of work to modify each panel you’ve drawn.
He affirms that one of the things that most caught his attention in cinema was the instance of montage, which allowed things to be moved from place to place, he has even said that he would like to apply that process when making comics.
After trying every possible way, he realized that in the comics it doesn’t work. If you change something in a sequence, the sense of integrity of the page is lost, and the whole thing falls apart.
It takes the necessary personality to be a film director
He believes that, to be a film director, you have to have the ability to make people do what you want, without manipulating, but managing to articulate the vision you have about the film.
We must accept that it is impossible to have everything under control, it is necessary to negotiate, and do things that we do not like very much. Because of this, Clowes tells us, he doesn’t have the right personality to direct movies and, fortunately, he continued to produce high-quality comics.
What was it like working with Scarlett Johansson?
In the Ghost World movie, Rebecca, Enid’s young teenage friend, is played by none other than Scarlett Johansson. When Clowes is asked if he has worked with her, the cartoonist recounts startling details about meeting her.
He describes Scarlett as a girl who, at the time when Ghost World was made, was fifteen years old, but much more confident than any adult.
He tells us that, in meetings with producers, in which Clowes and Terry were very nervous, Scarlett spoke without tension about various topics, such as the best Sushi restaurants in Milan.
Conclution
Definitely, making a comic and making a movie are two totally different things. In adaptations from one medium to another, many things can change, and you have to be prepared for that to happen. Without a doubt, Daniel’s experience is incredible, and he gives us a lot of insight into what it would be like to adapt a comic to a movie.
We hope that Clowes’ experience, told in his own words in various interviews, has enriched your vision of the relationship between cinema and comics!
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