PBS Little Women: Text and Subtext

Now that I have watched all three installments of Little Women streaming on PBS, I feel more confident in assessing it. It is more faithful to the text than some of the other film adaptations; however, the creators have taken some artistic license when it comes to exposition. Like I wrote in my earlier post, I do not think of this as a negative quality. All of the films must set themselves apart from other retellings, because otherwise there is not much a point in retelling them again and again.

The lighting and the scenery certainly give this version a storybook feel. I have been to Orchard House several times now, and although it is always welcoming, I don't know if it's ever looked quite this beautiful and perfect before, in life or in film:

Aside from the Instagram-esque clarity and color, the PBS Masterpiece Theater mini-series offers viewers a version that reads between the lines of Alcott's words, and provides us glimpses of the characters' lives that she could not.

For example, Father March is away at war during the story's beginning.

The PBS film includes a scene of him, writing letters in his tent, nursing a wounded black soldier. Obviously, this would not have been seen by Marmee or the girls, and so Alcott did not include any details of his time away because the story is meant to be as though the reader is peering through a window of Orchard House.

There is a similar scene that follows John Brooke's time in service:

Although these scenes are not in the book, they are consistent with the story and with those characters. In the 1994 film, one of Meg's friends brings up the story behind Bronson Alcott's school closing, which happened after he admitted a black girl as a student. That event occurred in life, not in Alcott's book, but it does enhance the viewer's understanding of the Alcott/March family and the philosophies they espoused, such as Transcendentalism.

The new adaptation offers more insight into the reality of the women's lives. Previous adaptations mentioned Meg's confinement, or perhaps showed a growing belly, appropriately hidden under a dress. Before the birth scene, Meg is shown fretting over her changing figure, while Marmee and Amy work furiously to let out the seams on her dress.

In the latest film, Meg is shown to be suffering from contractions and screaming, and asking Marmee how women survive it all.

The original text says:"So the year rolled round, and at midsummer there came to Meg a new experience,- the deepest and tenderest of a woman's life."

That's all that is said in the book of Meg giving birth.

Not that I would have expected Louisa May Alcott to provide any insight into a real life birth; we are talking about Victorian sensibilities here, and we know what those were like. Meg asks Marmee "Why didn't you tell me?" between her gasps, which seems to be a question directly aimed at the prudery of the era.

In the same vein, Alcott's Marmee, and the Marmee in most of the films, has a confidence and calmness that many young readers found comforting, and no doubt inspiring. Marmee as played by Emily Watson is still strong and true to the text, but displays a softer side. Usually, in the scene where Beth dies, Marmee is portrayed as being sad, but her emotion is only betrayed by a tear running down her cheek. Emily Watson's Marmee is shown relegating herself to her bedroom, to grieve privately, when she learns of Beth's impending fate. And it is not only her sad feelings that she keeps to herself. Earlier in the film, when she first sees Meg in her wedding gown, with her other three daughters looking so beautiful and grown-up, she also leaves the room, so that she may compose herself.

Even crying for a happy event such as a wedding goes against the Victorian ideal of keeping all things human (bodies, births, deaths and feelings) properly contained.

It's always nice when a movie adaptation is true to the text, but it's a bonus when it offers its own interpretation of the subtext.

Resting in Peace in Rochester, NY

I've written before about silent film star Louise Brooks. I found out years ago that she lived in Rochester, NY (my home city) for thirty years, after she began a relationship with James Card. He was the curator of the George Eastman House, and he encouraged her to relocate there. She researched films using the museum's archives and published a collection of essays about her career titled Lulu in Hollywood.

For an actress who was so influential in the 1920's,  an icon for flapper style, her final resting place is very plain. It was adorned with a single dried out rose:

I suppose it is not that surprising; by the end of her life, any money she had earned from her years in Hollywood was long gone. She was in bad health, and she lived alone in a one bedroom apartment, drinking and thinking of herself as a failure.

I'm glad I tracked down her headstone (Holy Sepulchre Cemetery is HUGE, so it took a while), but I prefer to think of her as she looked at the height of her success:

If you're not familiar with Louise Brooks yet, I implore you to check out some of her films.

I Make Stuff. . .

One of my favorite things to do is make stuff. Paint stuff. Assemble things. Experiment. A couple years ago, one of my friends said something that resonated with me: "I am rarely bored when I'm by myself. I am often bored around other people." I realized how true that statement is for me. Here are a few things I've made recently:

This little table was a roadside find. It was very blah, until I decided to express my Beetlejuice fandom:

I also made over another little table which I recently found for free. It's just one of those cheapo, assemble-it-yourself things you can buy at Big Lots, but I decided to decoupage it with pages from a (already damaged) old copy of Little Women, and then an appropriate quotation: 

The same friend who provided that sage wisdom to me recently gifted me some vintage (empty) liquor bottles, which I promptly transformed into potion bottles:

And my creative cycle would not be complete without a collage or piece of assemblage art:

This is one of those ugly wooden jewelry boxes, decoupaged and painted with a mermaid theme. I still have more work to do on it, but I like how it's coming along.

Fairy Tales, Nostalgic Horror, and YA

After I was finished reading The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter, I was in the mood for more fairy tales. This new book by poet Robert Bly is his personal examination of several fairy tale, using theories from Freud and Jung as well as his own observations. 

Two of the tales are pretty well-known: The Six Swans and the Frog Prince, but the one that captivated me is the Tale of the Lindworm. It is a Norweigan folktale. She gives birth to a big worm as well as a Prince. When the Prince becomes a man, he is sent out to find a bride, and along the way he encounters his worm sibling. Because the worm is the elder sibling, it is the custom that he must marry before the Prince can. A couple of girls volunteer to marry the worm, but he devours them on the eve of the weddings. Finally, one wise girl outsmarts the worm, and when he asks her to undress on their wedding eve, she asks the same of him. As she sheds multiple shifts, he sheds multiple layers of skin, until he is a raw, white worm. She scrubs him with lye, and a Prince even more handsome than the younger brother emerges, and lives happily ever after with his new bride.

It's one of the weirder fairy tales I've read/heard, but the moral of it is that when people enter the sacrament of marriage, they must be willing to shed their outer layers to their spouse. They must allow the most vulnerable, raw, ugliest parts of themselves to be seen, and tended to. It is often painful because as we grow up, we learn to conceal those parts to the darkest shadows of our consciousness.

I'm eagerly awaiting the new Pet Sematary, because that's my favorite Stephen King story. I enjoyed the new IT, and this book was recommended for fans of that story. This book actually seems to be aimed at fans of IT as well as fans of Stand By Me, and if it weren't so well-written, I would dismiss it as a Stephen King rip-off.

Since I enjoyed The Crossover and Booked so much, I was glad when we received our copy of Kwame Alexander's new book Solo. Blade Morrison is the son of notorious rock and roll legend Rutherford Morrison. He copes with his father's fame, alcoholism, frequent stints in rehab, and his grief over his mother's death by writing songs and taking emotional refuge in the support of his girlfriend Chapel.

Masterpiece Theater Little Women

Well, one of my all-time favorite stories has been adapted into yet another film version, so of course I had to tune in. I've known about the PBS mini-series for a little under a year now, and I've been eagerly anticipating it. Familiarity with all the versions of Little Women is something I take much pride in, and I love it when I find people I can discuss them with.

I don't think any version of Little Women will ever replace the 1994 film in my heart; that is the version that I saw in the theater after I read the book for the first time. But I can always appreciate other versions, both for their similarities, and also when they bring something new to the tradition.

The first thing I noticed about the PBS Masterpiece Theater rendition is the beautiful coloring and lighting. It looks like you are watching the movie through an Instagram filter:

It took a little getting used to, but I don't think of it as a negative quality; it's simply a representation of this film's generation. Obviously, the 1933 film was black and white:

The 1949 film was filmed in Technicolor,and the highly saturated colors were the standard of that era:

The 1994 film had a darker, more realistic tone to it, as if the viewers were utilizing candlelight and kerosene lamps to watch the story unfold:

The lighter and brighter colors of the PBS series give the story a picture book quality, almost like  a Kate Greenaway illustration that has come to life:

Perhaps this to entice younger viewers; as a librarian in a middle school, I have observed that many classic stories are going by the wayside, so any effort to reignite interest in them is fine with me.

Or, perhaps the creators are taking a cue from the Netflix series Anne with an E, which also has a very stylized look to it, using similar color choices:

Both of these adaptations take liberties with the original text in order to make the story more accessible to modern audiences and/or explain things that viewers not familiar with the original stories would not know, but I'll talk more about that in a future post.

I saw a trailer for the modernized adaptation of Little Women that stars Lea Thompson as Marmee. I have to say, that it doesn't look bad.

Although it is strange to see the March sisters wearing jeans and sneakers, it seems as though the writers really tried to preserve the big moments in the story, and all the complicated emotions that young women feel when they feel alone in the world, fall in love for the first time, lose a family member, etc.

I will definitely be watching that, and surely blogging about it, as well.

My Reading Pile

This one's about a librarian who gets a job in a haunted museum. She has her own struggles with mental health, and after she finds outs that the building was once an asylum, some strange things begin happening.  .  .it seems the ghost of a girl who was committed there is reaching out to her for help. Anyone who knows me probably thinks this book is a little on the nose (librarian, history, ghosts, asylums, etc.) but it was created by two librarians, so maybe one day I will find my tribe. Since I read in just one night, I checked it in the next morning. Before I got to put it away, a 7th grader saw it an asked about it. When I described it to him, he wanted to read it too.

A couple years ago, I read Walliams' book Demon Dentist, and I loved it. Walliams has been receiving praise for his Roald Dahl-esque stories about children triumphing over adults. In Demon Dentist, Alfie dreads going to the dentist, and has an addiction to sweets. When children all over town wake up to find slugs and spiders under their pillows, instead of money from the Tooth Fairy, Alfie is positive that Miss Root, the scary new dentist in town must be to blame. Similarly, in The Midnight Gang, there is a matron of a children's ward in a hospital cast as the villain. The children in the ward form a gang to solidify their bond, and they make it their mission to help each other realize dreams and goals, all while avoiding the sinister gaze of the matron.

I didn't realize how long this book had been in publication; I'm a little surprised that I hadn't read it before. I love re-imagined fairy tale stories. The first story is a retelling of Bluebeard, which I enjoyed because rather than have the young bride saved by her older brothers, it is her mother who comes to her rescue, which adds a maternal and feminist perspective. All of the stories have aspects of feminism and/or gender theory involved, and there are two retellings of Beauty and the Beast, so I was a happy reader.

This book isn't 'fun' to read like the others, but the way that modern medicine and doctors treat women has been an interest of mine for years now, and I wanted to learn more about it. I have my own experiences of being dismissed, shamed or talked down to, and the more I talk to my friends about their experiences (especially when it comes to pregnancy and birth), the more upset I get. Maya Dusenberry explores the complex history of women in medicine, and women AND medicine. For centuries, women were midwives and healers, and their knowledge was respected. But when healing became medicine, and it became an industry instead of a pastime, the population of 'experts' in this field shifted to men. Dusenberry writes that the sexism involved in the practice of medicine is so embedded in the history of it, that correcting it will require a major overhaul of the entire industry: how medical schools accept candidates, which specialties students are encouraged to explore, increasing the number of women doctors (particularly surgeons), and reviewing our attitudes towards women's bodies and the physical complaints that are most common among female patients. The reading is a bit dry, so if someone picks this book up, it's because they are intensely interested in the topic at hand.

Okay, so I watched this movie last year. I didn't know it was based on a book at first, and even after I found out, I didn't feel a strong urge to read it. I'm not against reading Christian fiction; I'm not against reading anything, really. One story I really enjoyed is Love Comes Softly, which is the first book in a series by author Janette Oke, a writer of inspirational fiction. But I found myself thinking about the story behind The Shack over and over again, and trying to reconcile the story's themes of healing and forgiveness with the grief I have felt, and my own struggles to believe in anything divine. The action occurs quickly, which makes the story move right along.

The Value of Maker Mindset

Last night I went to a FREE workshop about how to make stuff.

They had me at FREE, but I'm also a strong advocate for makerspaces, and the maker mindset, and the practices of upcycling and repurposing old materials.

The workshop was sponsored by Woven Community Development, which is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping the individuals, and the community as a whole, of Rochester, NH flourish. As a native of a rustbelt city (Rochester, NY), I have an interest in revitalizing these old cities, which were in their prime during the Industrial Age. I love seeing those old factory and mill buildings put to new uses, and Woven gets its namesake from the once-thriving textile mills that are found in local communities.

The workshop had a simple purpose: invite local people to come in, learn a little bit about Woven, and create their own sign from salvaged metal and wood. I brought a few things with me, but my mouth watered when I saw all the materials that were awaiting me:

Look at all this salvaged wood, and random bits of metal!

I decided to make a sign for my husband to display in the garden, since he likes to spend alot of time out there in the summer:

One of Woven's goals is to establish a community makerspace in Rochester that would be available to the public for crafting/art purposes, but would also serve as a place to connect people in need of employment/stability with mentors. These people could learn valuable trade skills such as woodworking, welding and basic repairing that will help them as they recover and re-enter society from unemployment, incarceration, homelessness, drug addiction or whatever else they are struggling with.

This is a fantastic reason for schools, libraries and other institutions to become involved with the maker movement, and to encourage our kids, and ourselves to 'tinker about.'

In related news, I was just accepted as a Maker in the NH Maker Faire and Food Fest (formerly the NH Mini Maker Faire). This will be my fourth time exhibiting there. I always took my dollhouses and talked about how I make some from scratch out of recyclable materials, and how I haunt thrift stores looking for supplies. I enjoyed showing my dollhouses and seeing people engage with them, but transporting all of them, setting them up and then taking them back home was alot of work.

This year I am going to be showing how to make junk journals from discarded library books. I presented this project at the Christa McAuliffe Technology Conference this past November, and it went over very well. We've also done this project with students at school before.

Plus, this will give me a good reason to spend alot of time in the next few months working on my junk journals.