I felt this deeply while watching Becoming Jane. The intrusions into the life of Jane Austen were almost disconcerting. The underlying hints of sexuality and not so subtle sexual politics while vastly amusing on one base level, caused a bit of a dilemma in me. Is it right to intrude in someone’s life this way, why not let the author in peace in their grave. Their immorality is based on the continuation of their memories and their works. People die a second death when the people who knew them also die, or so said Gabriel Garcia Marquez quoting his grandmother. By passing on the knowledge through the literary canon, we never let authors die, for we cannot do so. It would be a grievous sin against literature. Yet, what is the limit? Where do we stop? Must one make films on their lives, which will always only be a version of truth of reality? Must we mar their memory with our insights? With even thorough research and detailed presentation, we can never know what really came to pass. Is it enough to say that this is only ‘based’ on their life? That it is an ‘adaptation’?
Monday, 2 November 2009
Becoming or not Becoming? That is the Question
We wish to explore the details of an author’s life, digging into the letters written to friends and family, reading the intimate details within their journal and delving into the secrets of their personal life, thinking that it may provide further explanations for what that author has penned in his/her work, that it would highlight some subtle reference or unearth some hidden meanings and uncover subtexts in the writings which would somehow heighten the experience of reading and analysis. When all we really want through it is to know is the love-exploits of these classic authors. This invasion of privacy we do in the name of historical authenticity or deep research is enjoyable and yet disturbing.
I felt this deeply while watching Becoming Jane. The intrusions into the life of Jane Austen were almost disconcerting. The underlying hints of sexuality and not so subtle sexual politics while vastly amusing on one base level, caused a bit of a dilemma in me. Is it right to intrude in someone’s life this way, why not let the author in peace in their grave. Their immorality is based on the continuation of their memories and their works. People die a second death when the people who knew them also die, or so said Gabriel Garcia Marquez quoting his grandmother. By passing on the knowledge through the literary canon, we never let authors die, for we cannot do so. It would be a grievous sin against literature. Yet, what is the limit? Where do we stop? Must one make films on their lives, which will always only be a version of truth of reality? Must we mar their memory with our insights? With even thorough research and detailed presentation, we can never know what really came to pass. Is it enough to say that this is only ‘based’ on their life? That it is an ‘adaptation’?
I felt this deeply while watching Becoming Jane. The intrusions into the life of Jane Austen were almost disconcerting. The underlying hints of sexuality and not so subtle sexual politics while vastly amusing on one base level, caused a bit of a dilemma in me. Is it right to intrude in someone’s life this way, why not let the author in peace in their grave. Their immorality is based on the continuation of their memories and their works. People die a second death when the people who knew them also die, or so said Gabriel Garcia Marquez quoting his grandmother. By passing on the knowledge through the literary canon, we never let authors die, for we cannot do so. It would be a grievous sin against literature. Yet, what is the limit? Where do we stop? Must one make films on their lives, which will always only be a version of truth of reality? Must we mar their memory with our insights? With even thorough research and detailed presentation, we can never know what really came to pass. Is it enough to say that this is only ‘based’ on their life? That it is an ‘adaptation’?
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