Living in the Shadowlands: Remaking the Film Adaptation of Lewis’s A Grief Observed

Introduction

Probing the “mad midnight moments” after the loss of his wife, Lewis’s brief but luminous volume A Grief Observed portrays an intensely personal and unflinchingly genuine reassessment of core beliefs through his bereavement. Lewis asserts, “Nothing will shake a man – or at any rate a man like me – out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself” (Lewis 38). Although not intended to be published, the record has since then become a platform by which William Nicholson’s screenplay, and later, Attenborough’s Oscar-nominated film Shadowlands will emerge. While the film was generally received as a phenomenal success, many admirers of the Lewis’s writing concerning Christian philosophy have criticized its lack of religious emphasis. Film critic Dr. Bruce Edwards denotes, “a movie about Jack and Joy that downplays or ignores the centrality of Christ to their lives is analogous to scripting the life of Michael Jordan with little reference to basketball,” as “these were two adults who shared the most important common ground a couple could ever occupy: belief in the Gospel.” With Lewis’s Christian theology being the primary grounds of his success as an author and scholar, I would like to remake the film with a focus on the transformation of his Christian faith and beliefs through grief over his wife’s death. While internality can be difficult to adapt to a medium as image-based as film, once undertaken, the work itself has the potential to be brought back to the screen with added meaning and enhanced perspective, through proper attention to the storyline, the characters, the theme, and the shading of style, mood, and tone.


Finding the Story


In remaking this film, I would retain a balance of directionality and dimensionality similar to Attenborough’s projection. By the very nature of this film, I will not be able to successfully explore the internal struggle and transformation that occurs for Lewis without allowing dimensionality to tip the scales a bit. I will progress the dimensional aspects of the film through screen shots, facial expressions, dialogue, lectures given by Lewis himself at Oxford, and verbal rendering of his own writing. At the same time, directionality will be required to keep the story in motion. I will push the plot forward by utilizing pivotal scenes that advance the action, as well as develop subplots. By maintaining a proper balance of character development and dimensionality, I will avoid the characteristically American film flaws of being “overloaded with action that overpowers their theme” (Seger 78), while also retaining a proper amount of character development and insight.


This remake is a journey story in which “most of its emphasis [is] on the transformational journey of the character” and “comes from the journey rather than from defining a clear-cut goal” (Seger 81); the adaptation of this work can additionally lend itself to a problem-oriented plot. Largely a biographical piece, the adaptation will be most difficult in attempting to cover an entire life in a two-hour film. Instead, I will focus upon his later years, including a few flashbacks to his early boyhood.  In order to avoid manipulation at any level, I will rely upon narrative to give the film its emotional richness. Being a personal reflection, A Grief Observed is an abstract narrative in which Lewis will seem to regain his bearings, and then collapse repeatedly. His transformation cannot be pegged down at one specific moment in time, as the process of grief is not a linear experience. However, in adapting this to the medium of film, a resolution must be seen. I will do this by showing, through specific pivotal scenes, a clear-cut transformation from anger, to sorrow, to acceptance, to hope (coming to more intimately know God and certain truths, through the brutality of experience). In order to avoid subtlety of the story line and lack of cohesiveness, I want to build a well-defined story structure and a dramatic climax, which will exhibit strong character development and transformation. I will shape the story into a screenplay that has a clear beginning, middle, and end.

For the beginning, I will set up the story (Act I) by introducing the characters and establishing Lewis’s religious prestige and ideology. Opening the film with a flashback of nine-year old Lewis after his own mother has died, who admits that he doesn’t believe in a heaven. The scene will be followed by an intense religious discussion between himself and Tolkein, in which we see the conversion Lewis has since made to Christianity. The scene will function in establishing the solidity of his faith and confidence in which he held that God could be a source of consolation. Following this scene, I will combine Lewis’s lecture to a hall full of people and his lecture with his students into one scene. He will be teaching in front of some two hundred students, discussing the chapter’s I. The Three Parts of Morality (discussing the nature of God) and 6. The New Men (discussing a true conversion to Christ) in his Mere Christianity. The audience will be able to recognize the way in which his position as formidable teacher/interrogator coincides with his religious theology. I will not include, as Attenborough did, his discussions concerning suffering, so as so avoid the impression that Lewis was “utterly preoccupied with God's wrath or discipline and spoke of nothing else” and to contextualize Joy and Jack’s mutual faith (Edwards). After this scene, I will show Lewis meeting American poet Joy Gresham in a coffee shop for the first time, upon years of acquaintance via letters. As a more realistic scenario, Joy wants to speak to Jack about Christianity – herself a Christian convert and a writer informed by a “vibrant faith”. I will employ the scene as a catalyst, which will begin the story spine and introduce Lewis’s relationship with Joy. In act I, we are also introduced to Lewis’s close brother, Warren Lewis, and two close students, John and Adam.


Act II will fulfill Segers prescribed function of the middle of the story: “it develops all of these transforming relationships and shows how (and usually why) the transformation is occurring” (Seger 80). Being keen to avoid over-sentimentalization, I will employ humor and wit as Joy comes “bounding” into Lewis’s life, disrupting Lewis’s confirmed bachelorhood, and infringing upon the decorum of stiff-upper-lip British masculine society with her exuberant, feminine quest for religious knowledge, and her brash American sense of humor (Edwards). I will focus solely upon religious discussions between Joy and Lewis in order to establish how the development of their relationship has been strongly based upon a religious understanding. I will also place a greater focus upon Lewis’s relationship with her two sons. Serving as a physical representation of Lewis’s view of God as a child, one son will at exhibit a childlike faith, and the other a skepticism of God’s existence (after Joy’s death, the boys’ faith and Lewis’s faith will be leveled). Act I will end with Joy diagnosed with advanced bone cancer. Lewis’ reaction to this news will be seen through a desperate prayer to God.


Act III brings us to the height of the climax. Lewis realizes that he loves Joy. He confesses his love to her and they are married in a religious ceremony in the hospital. However, Lewis recognizes that he must ultimately let her go. In staying true to Seger’s notion of the function of the climax, this last sequence will be, as she asserts, “cohesive, focusing on one main event so the action won’t dissipate” (Seger 113). The drama builds in action and intensity, as Joy battles bone cancer. They decide to get away for their honeymoon. The big finish arrives as the climax reaches its pinnacle. After Joy’s cancer went into remission, she is able to return to Lewis’s home. After two years (showed by a quick snapshot of scenes), the cancer consumes Joy late one night. The depth of Lewis’s grief will be shown through a scene in which he sits down to scribble in a notebook, noting the thoughts that will become A Grief Observed. Lewis is desperate to find relief from God, and is frustrated to find “the door slammed in [his] face”. A climactic scene will include a discussion between Lewis and Joy’s two boys. This scene will act as a pivotal moment, which allows the audience to see (and perhaps find resonance in) Lewis’s transformation in reverting to the core beliefs of his faith, surrendering to the simplicity of childlike faith. This is, as Seger describes, a “culmination to all the development that has gone before” (84). While I am aware that killing off my second main character is risky, the main film arc focuses on Lewis’s transformation; the harder the audience takes the tragedy, the better – for they will come closer to understanding Lewis’s pain. I will employ Lewis’s relation to God, as well as his relationship with Joy’s two sons in a following scene to function as the moral center of the story, so that they can, as Seger advises, “grieve with us, and can help us understand the significance of the death so it becomes some higher victory” (7). I would like to end with the following quotes: "God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't... He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down" ( Lewis 52) and "Why love if losing hurts so much? I have no answers any more. Only the life I have lived. Twice in that life I've been given the choice: as a boy and as a man. The boy chose safety, the man chooses suffering. The pain now is part of the happiness then. That's the deal."


The overall story arc is established by asking a question toward the beginning of the film: how will deep loss and tormenting grief affect the stalwart believer, C.S. Lewis? The end reveals that the answer lies in reconciling between pain and happiness, as one cannot exist without the other. The small story arcs include Lewis’s connection to Joy’s boys, his own childhood, his position as professor and author, his friendship with Tolkien, and Joy’s conversion.


Choosing the Characters


Attenborough’s adaptation incorporated a list of characters that contributed well to the story he chose to tell. I have chosen to make some changes that will better accommodate the religious emphasis I have chosen to place upon my remake of the film. I will cast the two main characters Lewis and Joy with supporting characters Davis and Douglas (Joy’s two sons), Warner (Lewis’s brother), and J.R.R. Tolkien (Lewis’s friend and colleague); Minor characters will include his students and colleagues. In order to be able to better develop the main characters I choose to use so that they will “captivate and appeal” to the audience (Seger 78), I have chosen to cut his preacher friend and academic colleagues, replacing them with Tolkien, who will serve both functions. Congruent with Seger’s ideal character quantity, my decision to make such changes is an attempt to ensure that “the number of characters is not overwhelming, and the audience should have no problem keeping everyone’s function and role clear” (126).         


Admired by many of his readers before his face appears on the screen, Lewis makes for an intriguing, identifiable and likable character. He serves as an active and sympathetic figure integrally involved in the action and keeping it in forward motion. It is difficult to imagine an actor more capable of capturing the demeanor of C.S. Lewis than Anthony Hopkins. Hopkins’ energetic performance captures authentically the stalwart believer that must grapple with the effects of incredulous joy, coupled with nerve-racking grief. Perhaps a bribe or two might get Hopkins to join me in remaking this film by once again taking the mantle as Lewis.


The other main character, Joy Gresham, serves both the storytelling function, as well as helping to reveal the protagonist, Lewis. She simultaneously acts as a catalyst (by un-willfully setting up the conflict), as well as a confidante character, crucial in defining and dimensionalizing Lewis. While I felt that Claire Bloom made a superb Joy, I would like to cast the lovely Emma Thompson as Lewis’ friend and wife. I feel that her energy and literary air would facilitate a Joy who shares with Lewis a deep religious connection. Additionally, I feel that the two would exuberate a unique energy, through their unusual and unlikely coupling. While remaining aware of the danger of over-sentimentalism, I feel that the two would function as a good emotional center through a keenly intellectual, deeply authentic relationship.
Among the supporting characters that function to capture our attention and engage the audience, Tolkein and Joy’s sons will serve as Lewis’s helpmeet through his grief.  As a relational character that reveals aspects of Lewis that he wouldn’t learn if we only watched him externally, Tolkein (played by Michael Gambon) will serve as a confidante before and after the film, as well as a means by which the audience is able to see his conversion from atheism to Christianity, and again through a refinement of his Christian beliefs through his grief. Davis and Douglas serve an important thematic function, Davis (played by Haley Joel Osment) representing Lewis’s adolescent rejection of God and Douglas (played by Skandar Keynes) representing a childlike acceptance of Christianity. Warner (played by the eccentric Kevin Spacey) will add color and texture to the film, as an entertaining, memorable character that adds humor and flavor to the film.


While conflict is essential to the drama, as Seger acknowledges, “inner conflict is difficult to show in film” (132). The inner conflict of the story will be portrayed between Lewis, Joy and Tolkein through dialogue, scenery, character dimensionality, and certain film frames, which illustrate the conflict.  Particularly poignant and emotional moments within the film will be exhibited most effectively through a glance, or a touch – sometimes through a verbal rendering of his writing. As Seger notes, “Emotional moments connect the audience to the character, just as they connect the reader to the story. If the characters move you to tears in the story, they may have that ability within the film. If the characters are afraid, the audience potentially can also be afraid for them” (133).


Exploring the Theme


As I have chosen to focus upon the religious transformation of Lewis’s grief, I will be reverting back to the text instead of the film. There is no definite theme that overshadows the smaller themes in these non-linear reflections. Thus, I have chosen to emphasize the necessity of a childlike faith, as well as Lewis’s realization that his house was only a “stack of cards”. As a strong theme which “winds its way through the material, an idea” and “deepens the story line and characters” (Seger 138), I believe this can be illustrated most strongly through dialogue and reflections of Lewis himself. Through the relationship between Lewis and Davis (the boy who parallels young Lewis’s mindset) serve as a good exploration of this idea. In the remake, the theme will be stated a number of times by modifying dialogue from the book. Selection of thematically corresponding text will help establish the mood of the film.


Creating and Shading Style, Mood, and Tone

As a cathartic experience, the mood of the film creates, as Seger denotes, “an emotional response from the audience” (158). My remake will be a period piece that requires a realistic portrayal of the angst that beset even England’s stiff-upper-lip academic sphere during the height of World War II in which Lewis lived. This setting will be an ideal ground by which I can set a tone of faith amid the most trying of times. While the film deals with a weighty and somber subject, I will employ a great deal of humor and energy beyond the damp, sometimes-dreary Oxford landscape. In order to “create a relationship so the audience is drawn in and is able to experience the same mood and tone and feeling within themselves that the filmmaker is creating in the film” (Seger 162), I will utilize mannerisms and relationships to establish a clear style that is unmistakably characteristic of the World War II era.


Lighting, color and music will be crucial tools in illuminating the dynamic of grief (shadows) versus faith (light). As Lewis and Joy’s relationship grows in the beginning, the characters will loom in and out of a rich, deeper colored and well-lit tapestry that illuminates the arcadia of the English landscape and the magnificent medieval architecture of Oxford. The early happiness that Lewis finds once Joy comes into his life will be reflected through dialogue, melodic and light soundtrack pieces, and bright colors. When Joy becomes sick, the scenes will be set within the coldness and claustrophobia of a hospital room. The music will become poignantly sweet and dramatic, as he must let her go. I will show, in the end, that while the two can coexist for a time, the light and color will ultimately overcome the starkness of the shadows. The scenes will be brought to the light, open English landscape. Through such green vistas, the audience may witness a sense of freedom and liberation from fear and pain that can only be achieved after such hardships, while also being aware of the ‘bruises’ that will never fully heal.


Conclusion


While the film, Shadowlands was an overall success, scholars and readers have criticized Attenborough’s adaptation of A Grief Observed to be devoid of the religious transformation that forms the center of his reflections. Although such internalities can be difficult to adapt to film, there are many lessons we can pull from such an interpretation. This perhaps requires more assertion on the part of the film producer, but if executed successfully, this has the potential of being an exquisite piece. While there are many directions and dimensions that this film could take, a serious look at and appreciation for this the religious aspect of this story can offer not only a workable screenplay, but a potential work of art that allows us to recognize the truth and enhanced perspective that can emerge amid the brutality of experience.

© 2010 by Secret Life of Daydreams. All rights reserved.

Works Cited

Seger, Linda. The Art of Adaptation: Turning Fact and Fiction into Film. New York: Holt, 1992. Book

Lewis, C.S. A Grief Observed. New York: HarperCollins, 2001. Book
Edwards, Dr. Bruce L. . Shadowlands: A Review. Selected Scholarship on C.S.L. Bowling Green State University, 2005. Web. 20 Nov. 2010

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