The Screwtape Letters -- the movie!
In 2002, while X2: X-Men United was being filmed in Vancouver, I heard producer Ralph Winter speak at Regent College, and in the course of his presentation, he talked about some of the things that Christians had to be prepared to do if they wanted to work in the film business. For example, he said he had helped a guy make Shoot or Be Shot! (2002), starring Winter's friend William Shatner, because the guy in question owned the rights to C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters, and Winter wanted to make a movie of it.
Now, reports Variety, it looks like Winter will get his chance:
A few questions, though:
While the book has a vaguely narrative shape, it is basically just a collection of letters, and not a novel or a drama, per se. So how do they propose to dramatize it? Is it even possible to dramatize this book while retaining its heavily theological flavour, its essence?
Will they keep the book's World War II setting?
How will the demons be portrayed? Completely separate from the world in which the humans live, viewing it on monitors perhaps? Wandering around our world, invisible to all humans? Ghostly and transparent, kind of like the spirits in The Frighteners (1996)?
More importantly, will the demons be portrayed as bureaucrats or as the more stereotypically ghoulish creatures that one sees in horror films? In a later introduction that he wrote for this book, Lewis observed that religous art tends to portray angels with feathered wings and demons with membraned wings, but only because "most men like birds better than bats." He added:
Speaking of British bureaucrats and lampooners thereof, be sure and check out John Cleese's audio-book version of The Screwtape Letters -- if you can find a copy. It seems to be out of print.
Finally, The Screwtape Letters has come up a few times here before, usually in passing; the most notable occasion would have to be when I interviewed Scott Derrickson, and he talked about how The Screwtape Letters was one of the things that persuaded him that Christians could -- and should -- make horror films.
Now, reports Variety, it looks like Winter will get his chance:
Ralph Winter Prods. is producing a bigscreen adaptation of the C.S. Lewis novel "The Screwtape Letters" with Philip Anschutz's Walden Media.I have probably read The Screwtape Letters more often than any other book, outside of certain sections of the Bible, so I really don't know how to begin reacting to this news.
Pic will be produced via Walden's Bristol Bay Prods. banner ("Ray," "Sahara").
Pic, which Walden hopes to release in 2008, is the company's second Lewis collaboration following "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," which grossed $744 million worldwide. The sequel to that pic, "Prince Caspian," is due out next year.
Like "Narnia," "The Screwtape Letters" -- which is described as a midbudget, primarily live-action pic -- embodies Christian themes.
First published in 1942, "The Screwtape Letters" takes the form of a series of missives from a senior demon, Screwtape, to his wannabe diabolical nephew, Wormwood. As a mentor, Screwtape advises his protege on the finer points of undermining faith and promoting sin. His instructions are interspersed with observations on human nature and Christian doctrine.
Since taking over the publishing of "The Screwtape Letters" in 2001, HarperSanFrancisco has sold almost 1 million copies of the trade paperback alone.
Producing are Ralph Winter, Randy Argue and Lewis' stepson Douglas Gresham. . . .
A few questions, though:
While the book has a vaguely narrative shape, it is basically just a collection of letters, and not a novel or a drama, per se. So how do they propose to dramatize it? Is it even possible to dramatize this book while retaining its heavily theological flavour, its essence?
Will they keep the book's World War II setting?
How will the demons be portrayed? Completely separate from the world in which the humans live, viewing it on monitors perhaps? Wandering around our world, invisible to all humans? Ghostly and transparent, kind of like the spirits in The Frighteners (1996)?
More importantly, will the demons be portrayed as bureaucrats or as the more stereotypically ghoulish creatures that one sees in horror films? In a later introduction that he wrote for this book, Lewis observed that religous art tends to portray angels with feathered wings and demons with membraned wings, but only because "most men like birds better than bats." He added:
I like bats much better than bureaucrats. I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of "Admin." The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps or labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern.So will this film follow Lewis's model? Or will it revert to the old membrane-winged, bat-like clichés? (FWIW, I have an old Marvel Comics adaptation that pretty much goes the latter route.)
Speaking of British bureaucrats and lampooners thereof, be sure and check out John Cleese's audio-book version of The Screwtape Letters -- if you can find a copy. It seems to be out of print.
Finally, The Screwtape Letters has come up a few times here before, usually in passing; the most notable occasion would have to be when I interviewed Scott Derrickson, and he talked about how The Screwtape Letters was one of the things that persuaded him that Christians could -- and should -- make horror films.
posted by Peter T Chattaway at 11:21 PM
12 Comments:
The book does have a story line, based on the events happening in the life of the "patient". I can't imagine the demons watching us on monitors from another world - they seem all too close and real here sometimes!
A post you made on a list I belong to led me here. Thanks for the news.
My choice for demons would be the ghostly, semi-transparent beings among us.
Ebay lists Cleese's "Screwtape" on occasion for about $35USD. My 3-CD set has "Screwtape Proposes a Toast", which may not be on the current, 4-CD offering. It turns up fairly often.
Cleese is flawless, IMHO. Could he be persuaded to portray Screwtape? Anyone else would suffer by comparison.
The book does have a story line, based on the events happening in the life of the "patient". I can't imagine the demons watching us on monitors from another world - they seem all too close and real here sometimes!
There is a sort of storyline in the life of the "patient", yes -- but the "patient" is known to us only via what Screwtape thinks of him (and that, in turn, is apparently based only on what Wormwood and the clerical workers in Screwtape's office have passed on to him; the bureaucratic remoteness of the title character from his underling's "patient" is the main reason I wondered if watching the "patient" on monitors might be one way to go about this, though I agree it probably wouldn't be the best approach).
If the filmmakers are going to flesh out the life of the "patient" to any degree -- or of Wormwood, for that matter -- then they will be creating a huge swath of material that has little directly to do with Lewis's book. Come to that, they will probably have to create new material for Screwtape, too, to pad out the scenes between the writing of his letters. I don't automatically assume that it won't work, but I have seen people try to imitate the "Screwtape" style before, and they rarely ever do a good job. Plus, the more time that is spent dramatizing the more marginal characters, the less time there may be for the book's theological discourses on the Trinity, and so on.
Lewis does indicate that the demons are visually horrific (Screwtape's transformation into a centipede, the fact that in the final letter the just-dead patient sees Wormwood as he is for the first time.) The trouble with any visual adaptation is that the core of the novel is Screwtape's voice and how "reasonable" it sometimes appears (while at the same time being so obviously warped). Seeing a bat-winged monster continuously would be too overpowering. Maybe subjective camera might be an answer - but could that be kept up for a whole film?
I don't know that I've ever seen a movie that had a tempter figure who was invisible to the temptee but visible to the audience that succeeded in selling me on the temptation/persuasion business, barring the post-Garden-of-Olives Satan in Passion, who seems to be both the spectator and agitator of events. And that's one character without all that much screentime (more than some of the supporting characters, but less than Pilate or Mary; maybe even less than John or Caiaphas) in a movie largely focused on a bunch of human characters and one human and divine One.
-derringdo
Showing the patient's life will remove one of the dramatic elements--the fact that Screwtape relies on Wormwood's reports for information about the patient. He has to put Wormwood's letters together with the reports that other tempters have filed on his family and friends. Screwtape's inability to see the whole picture seems like an important element in establishing the the indeterminacy of the outcome of the story--and establishing the theological fact that between God and Satan it is not a fair fight. Satan is smart, but he's in a thick fog. The patient is in a fog too. But God has this full clarity.
If you are looking for the John Cleese audiobook, it's available for download at audible.com - I think for under $20 US.
Couldn't you have Screwtape's voice-over (John Cleese or Eric Metaxas) as the only voice we hear? We see the "patient" eating with his mother, sitting in church, meeting the girl, etc, but we don't hear what they say.
I wonder if the WW2 context could be updated so in the end he's killed not by a German bomb from above but by a Religion Of Peace bomb from the suitcase next to him.
It could be done within the context of subterranean facilities, occupied by demonic humanoids with normal appearences. Think of the computer-surveillence rooms in "A Scanner Darkly".
I think in order for the audience to connect they will have to see a real person in a real setting. I do like the idea of seeing the "patient" without ever hearing him.
Also, a film version of "The Great Divorce" would be an appropriate follow up to this.
Jeez. Maybe you guys should write it.
I thought the "Agents" in the Matrix movies were terrifying in their coolness and determination. Could this be the prototype for our "bureaucratic" clean-shaven demons. They were plenty intimidating...just a thought.
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