The question of film: a case study of regeneration

The sharp decline of young people’s interest in reading is often associated with the global competition of the multimedia for information and entertainment. The negative tendency of watching screen versions instead of reading and discussing authentic foreign literature texts may seriously challenge the formation and development of students’ linguistic competences.

The novel Regeneration by Pat Barker was discussed with the study group Pragmalinguistics and Semiotics for 3^rd - 5^th year students of the English Department, MSLU. It is an anti-war novel,

the first part of The Regeneration Trilogy about the events of World War I, published and nominated for the Booker Prize in 1991, and filmed in 1997 by the Scottish film director Gillies MacKinnon. After the discussion of the historical and social background of the novel, and its plot and message, the students were asked to watch the film independently and answer the following questions:

Why do many people prefer watching book-based films to reading original fiction? Can reading be substituted with watching book-based films?

Did you like the film? Why, or why not? What did you like / dislike most about the film?

What is the biggest difference between the book’s and the film’s plot?

Did you like the book or the film better? Why?

Below, there is some of the students’ written feedback:

• •    Yulia Safonova (group 402): “In the twenty-first century, the century of information flow, a person subconsciously searches for the simplest ways of processing information, because the human brain overstrains dealing with extraordinary amounts of it every day. [...] The pace of a modern person’s life is becoming faster, and many scientific discoveries are aimed at allowing them to spend as little time as possible on performing routines. While earlier people used to spend a lot of time reading, today’s man enthusiastically chooses a shorter and quicker way, namely film viewing.”

• •    Ekaterina Zakharich (group 432): “Comparing Pat Barker’s novel Regeneration and its screen version the reader will find a lot of differences. [...] The essence of cinema is to make it easier for people to perceive stories, because when watching a movie people do not need to use their imagination. Information is perceived almost effortlessly when it is visibly represented on screen. Characters are much easier to reveal in movies through facial expressions, gestures and intonation, musical accompaniment, costumes and scenery. All this helps a person to relax and plunge completely in the given atmosphere. That is why at present most people prefer to watch a film rather than read a book.”

• •    Valeriy Nezhikov (group 432): “The main topics the author wanted to discuss in her anti-war novel were war traumas and their

treatment. [...] Dr. Rivers uses Freud’s ideas to treat the majority of his patients and even applies them to himself, and this fact is very valuable to the reader. After all, the author shows that it is possible to help even those people who have lost all hope. I am not sure if the creators of the film managed to give the same degree of importance to this side of the plot.”

• •    Ekaterina Trubkina (group 531): “It stands to reason that when a book is screened, changes in the plot and structure are inevitable. [...] the talk between Graves and Sassoon before his hospitalization was completely absent from the film. The director obviously did not consider these details principal, but isn’t Pat Barker’s novel one big conversation? Communication is the spirit of the novel, its most essential feature. The dialogues in the screen version are incomplete, shortened and express only a shade of the emotional states which the author of the book wished to convey. [...] As many of the key episodes of the book have been excluded, the screen version is far less complete than the viewer can expect. For example, Rivers’ repeated conversations with his patients are not shown to the viewer, which is a great pity, because another key characteristic of the novel is that the reader gets to know the protagonists and other heroes through their dialogues and inner monologues.”

• •    Alexandra Atroshkina (group 432): “The movie does not give a comprehensive portrayal of the characters in their development. Subtle psychological nuances are replaced with spectacular scenes of military operations and an impressive musical accompaniment. [...] For instance, during Rivers and Sassoon’s conversation immediately after his arrival to hospital, the background music comes to the fore and creates the impression that the most important part of this scene is not the dialogue but the soundtrack.”

• •    Marina Laziuk (group 532): “Siegfried Sassoon’s film character is not revealed. All book descriptions of Sassoon are more emotional and detailed than in the film. [...] Another reason for the failure to disclose Sassoon as a character is the omission of his nightmares. In her book, Pat Barker describes these scenes in detail, which adds to a truly anti-war spirit of the novel and helps to understand Sassoon’s personality and motives better. The film leaves

the impression that Sassoon is just a maximalist who takes pleasure in going against the system and society, while for the reader the actions of this hero are fully understandable and justified.”

• •    Alexandra Ponyakova (group 402): “Dr. Yealland is represented in the film quite masterfully; however, he does not bring about the tension that is so deeply felt in the book when this character appears on the stage. The scenes featuring Dr. Yealland are so few that the viewer simply does not have time to realize the purpose of introducing this character into the film.”

• •    Marina Knotko (group 531): “Probably, the most important shortcoming of the adaptation is that only two of Dr. Rivers’ patients, Sassoon and Prior, are in the focus of the story. [...] the stories of the other patients should not have been lost. Burns’ sufferings [...] are a crucial part of the whole plot, as they give more insight into the consequences of war atrocities. In the film, the same story has been shown superficially, and the viewer remains bewildered about this totally inexpressive and even senseless character. [...] Burns and his tragedy remain unclear, which is a serious mistake of the director.”

• •    Yana Bocharova (group 531): “From the very first moments of the reader’s acquaintance with Billy Prior, it becomes clear that he is a complex personality, stubborn and very emotional. The detailed episode of his first contact with the doctor shows us how important this character is to the author and how meaningful the nuances of his emotions and actions must be for the author. The corresponding film scene, like almost all the others, is shortened, incomplete and therefore hardly logical for the viewer, who does not quite understand what kind of man Billy is. [...] The book also mentions that Prior was a volunteer and became a soldier in the first week of the war. Obviously, he wants to prove to his parents, and most importantly to himself that he is a worthy person, strong-spirited and courageous. But as this information is absent from the film, the viewers do not get the emotional message or develop a positive attitude to the hero. For them, he remains just a man suffering from neurasthenia and nothing more.”

• •    Katerina Khatenko (group 326): “Being denied permission to go back to the battlefield, Billy Prior is guilt-ridden and reproaches himself for being away from his brethren, which shows his deep sense

of patriotism, empathy, and kindness. But he is not so one-sided - his strong emotional reactions and impulses show that he is still that lonely little child who sublimates his anguish and sadness into aggression. [...] The only scene featuring Billy Prior really well is his conversation with Rivers about the events of April 23, where the brilliant work of the cameraman adds suspense and intensity to the episode.”

• •    Alexandra Katseba (group 531): “On the whole, the characters in the film adaptation have lost many of their important peculiarities and features, which definitely makes them less clear for the audience: their choices may seem incomprehensible and their motives may be misinterpreted. [...] The viewer cannot fully understand the characters and as a result does not empathize with them and does not get the message that the director and the author wanted to deliver. In the book, Freud’s ideas about the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder in ex-soldiers are traced throughout the plot. The cause-effect link between participation in military actions and post-traumatic stress is explained so clearly and convincingly that it becomes one of the central ideas of the novel. In the film adaptation, the same ideas are perceived ambiguously if they are perceived at all. So the film fails to show the spectator all the details and answer each of their questions.”

None of the 12 students participating in the discussion would advise watching MacKinnon’s Regeneration as a viable alternative to reading Pat Barker’s novel. It is possible to conclude that the impact of the screen version is not even comparable to that of the book for three major reasons resulting from the time constraints specific for the format and therefore unavoidable:

• 1.    Many details of utmost importance have been naturally and expectably lost, which may irrevocably hinder the audience’s understanding and interpretation of the message.

• 2.    Some of the ideas that permeate the novel and explain actions and turns of the events do not find their full reflection in the film adaptation.

• 3.    Several of the protagonists as they are presented in the film remain flat, none-dimensional and incomprehensible for the spectator.

• 9.5-minute long opening scene from the film in English during the introductory class on genre peculiarities of fiction in the framework of the course Modern Foreign Novel in the Context of Time and answer the following questions:

In the same semester, 44 3rd year students of groups ##302, 319, 326 specializing in artistic text interpretation were asked to watch the

Were you familiar with this film or the book it is based on?

Was the piece interesting for you? Why, or why not?

Was it possible to understand the theme of the film? What was it?

Would you like to watch the film? Why, or why not?

Would you like to read the book the film is based on? Why, or why not?

None of the 44 students claimed familiarity with either the film or the novel, which was not on their curriculum or list of compulsory reading.

28 students (63.5% of the respondents) found the piece “interesting”. 10 students (23% of the respondents) indicated that it was “extremely interesting” and “made them think”. 4 students (9% of the respondents) did not express any interest. 2 students (4.5% of the respondents) reported that the piece seemed to them “not worthwhile” or “meaningless”.

Generally, the main themes and issues of the plot were defined correctly, namely “the consequences of military operations”, “the subsequent lives of participants in military battles”, “methods of treating patients suffering from shell shock”, “humanism”, “the lost generation”, “anti-war protest”.

30 students (68% of the respondents) were willing to watch the film later because “it is a good way to save time reading”.

14 students (32% of the respondents) were willing to read the book the film is based on, because “all important books are screened nowadays, so it must be an important book.”

The results of the task show that viewers unfamiliar with a work of literature tend to be more satisfied with its screen version and may even consider watching a book-based film equivalent to a thorough reading and analysis of the book, which is an ineffective, oversimplifying and unqualified approach to the appreciation and study of literature.