Short Story Adaptations

Parabolic Tale, with Invocation

The Excursion

Scherzando

(Some corrupted video files have left this third film simply as a preview for now.  I feel good with having finished two.  There are shots and project files for this video, which will hopefully become a reality one day.)

I would like to make a brief comment about these films here.  Adaptation is such a productive process, and I am now wholly convinced of its effectiveness as a learning methodology both for myself and my students.  The first film is a parable, and so the puppets seemed fitting because parables use representational characters, not realistic characters, in order to convey their morals.  For the second film, putting myself in the place of the anti-hero being ironically critiqued--as Burke himself does as author--seems fitting.  Burke mentions true irony at the end of Grammar of Motives, saying that true irony must be humble, and self critical as it is ironically critiquing its subject--so I felt this ironic state a bit as I placed myself in the role of a not too admirable character.  Finally, Scherzando promises to be the strangest of the three, and the least intelligible or straightforward, and will be a bit of a pastiche or collage of disorientation.  Each film has its own color and looped soundtrack that I feel compliment the content of the stories.  Also, all three films touch on religious concepts in some ways, as does much of Burke's fiction.  I simply picked the three shortest stories in Here & Elsewhere, but there are still other stories that might be adapted.  The process has been challenging, time consuming, and intensely rewarding, and I look forward to pursuing this project beyond the end of our time together.  I hope you enjoy them.

Happy birthday out there, KB, wherever you are.