The Road as a Blockbuster

Any book that turns into a film has to compromise and adapt from the original narrative to make an appealing screenplay as they are targeting a different set of audience. The book itself received a Pulitzer Prize and McCarthy was recognised globally for his epic novel. To have already gained so much attention, an adaption of a film would no doubt be a success as their was already a fan base, therefore the question would be is how to turn it into a blockbuster?

            The imagery of a bleak and hopelessness world was translated well in the movie and makes a strong impact on the audience. The film fundamentally acts as an visual aid that the reader may not want to see, but it also falls in the blockbuster category as it created such sublime images of an dystopian world.

            The relentlessness of such a despondent world with such a spectacle of the world can also be described as ‘disaster porn’. Horror films are commonly associated with disaster porn and it is suggested how it is used as a technique to dramatise media. Michael Chabon argues how The Road can be read as a horror narrative and a strong element that supports this is how the narrative centres on moral conflict[1]. The man and child both struggle with the meaning of life and how they as humans should live up to the moral codes[2]. Thus this element of humanity worst fear and shattered ideologies all make an entertaining blockbuster.

            By omitting certain sub-plots or key scenes in the film; it can reveal a lot. A key scene that would could have emphasised the ‘disaster porn’ element is the omission of when the travellers consume the wife’s baby. Obviously this scene raises such direct issues of cannibalism and something the audience may not want to see but it questions the reader of how far humans would act in a situation like this. The means of survival has resorted to animal behaviour, which is something so ugly and uncharacteristic of human actions. Although the producers convey McCarthy's main concerns their adaption excludes a vital scene which I believe hinders the overarching message of the novel.

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[1] Pizzino, Christopher ‘Utopia At Last: Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” as Science Fiction. Extrapolation (University of Texas at Brownsville), 51 (3), 2010, pp358-375.

[2] Graulund, Rune ‘A Desert Reading of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road’. Orbis Litterarum, 65 (1), 2010, pp51-78.

Draft 71: Headlines, with Spoils

Perhaps I may have been a bit dismissive when reading Du Plessis’s poem Draft 71: Headlines, with Spoils. On a surface level, I found it difficult to immerse myself into the poem, due to the incoherent and serious imagery that was presented. The way it was structured and the format of the essay also disengaged me compared to the traditional style I’m so accustom too.

            After dissecting the poem in class, I respect the different approach to poetry. The use of recycling text (found poetry) is a clever way to manipulate language and in terms of eco poetry provides a different stance and evokes the reader to assess their environmental surroundings. Aesthetically Plessis makes a statement with the use of taking critical phrases from articles and highlighting it in bold. Distracting the reader at first gaze, her methodology obviously mocks the media rhetoric. Something I realised through this method was that perhaps she was commenting on our transparency regarding the articles we read everyday.

            We read articles that catch our attention, we ‘umm’ and ‘ahh’ about the issues raised but we never seem to get around to actually doing something about it. In this specific case, the articles in the previous months about the torrential rain and flooding was something that caught Englands attention, but now the spring days have dawned it seems less of a problem and here we come back to this cycle. In about 10 months time (or less) we will see the return of serious articles about how the climate change will cause global warfare but as Plessis states in her poem we will remain to ‘eat the sugared salt’.