Quick: Krevolin’s Adaptation

As seen in the Screenplay section, Krevolin encourages us to answer the “Big 7” in order to produce a successful adaptation. One of the questions encompassed within this is, “How do you want to tell your story?” For example, do you want it to be told chronologically? Do you want there to be a voiceover? In my mind, I begin to relate this to a story’s pacing in a variety of ways. How quickly do you want action to develop? How long do certain actions or scenes need to take?

Immediately my mind jumps to the cinematic use of montage. Krevolin very briefly touched upon this idea when he analyzed the Big 7 in relation to The Shawshank Redemption by asking, “How does Andy achieve what he wants in an unexpected, interesting, and unusual way?” Krevolin explains that toward the end of the film, we see some “quick flashes that explain how/why things turned out the way they did.” These “quick flashes,” or elements of montage, are excellent storytelling devices to exemplify the passage of time in a quick way.

I think that the idea of collages or Blox is very similar to that of montage. Each of the images utilized is a flash or glimpse at a piece of action. It’s a succinct way to tell a story. Keeping this in mind, I attempted to give my Quick Blox a sense of narrative, that perhaps my other Blox (Bloxes? Is that a word? Well…it is now!) lacked.

Quick: The Calvino Experience

If I had to choose one of Calvino’s qualities that is best represented in The Alchemist it would be “quickness.” The novel is only 167 pages in length, and yet so much happens, so much changes, and so many years pass. The book’s pace is rapid with all of the action happening extremely quickly. In his discussion of “quickness” Calvino explained that one of the beauties of literature is that it can take its own pace and time.

“The relativity of time is the subject of a folktale known almost everywhere: a journey to another world is made by someone who thinks it has lasted only a few hours, though when he returns his village is unrecognizable because years and years have gone by.”

The Alchemist certainly adopts this principle. Overall, a very long, arduous, intense journey is summed up quickly, without too much needless detail or overly flowery language. Even the highest action is summarized within a few sentences. These are a few lines from the novel that I feel best exemplify this:

“The times rush past, and so do the caravans”

“Before he could say anything to the alchemist, the two horsemen had become ten, and then a hundred. And then they were everywhere in the dunes.”

“All this happened between sunrise and sunset, the boy thought. He was feeling sorry for himself, and lamenting the fact that his life could have changed so suddenly and drastically.”

Time is a very important aspect of The Alchemist. As realized by the story’s end, it’s not the destination that matters, but the journey. It’s the time spent and making the most of that time that are important.

“He was actually two hours closer to his treasure…the fact that the two hours had stretched into an entire year didn’t matter” (p. 64).

While all of the novel’s “action” happens quickly, perhaps the aspect that best demonstrates “quickness” is love. As a hopeless romantic, I can’t help but appreciate the notion of love at first sight, but in The Alchemist, it literally takes but a few seconds for Santiago to fall in love with Fatima:

“When he looked into her dark eyes, and saw that her lips were poised between a laugh and silence, he learned the most important part of the language that all the world spoke—the language that everyone on earth was capable of understanding in their heart. It was love.”

Their relationship continued to progress with speed:

 “The boy went to the well every day to meet with Fatima. He told her about his life as a shepherd, about the king, and about the crystal shop. They became friends, and except for the fifteen minutes he spent with her, each day seemed that it would never pass.”

I think the fact that this story is told quickly, without excess, is one of the reasons why I love it so much. I’ll admit, I’m not a very big reader. I think that this is in part due to the fact that I can’t stand stories that take too long. I can’t stand too much suspense and I find excessively ornate language frustrating. Usually, I desperately want to know how a story will unfold. Thus, when a story is told quickly, it’s much more enjoyable for me!

Quick & Cornell’s Boxes

I think in many ways it’s safe to say that Cornell is the “anti-quickness.” He spends an incredible amount of time and effort, taking years to complete and then sometimes rework his art. However, he does embody quickness in one sense—the amount of time it takes for him to appreciate an object, to fetishize it, and to fall in “love.” As explained, many of his works were inspired by a mere glimpse of an object or woman. Take for instance, The Lauren Bacall Dossier. His initial infatuation with her was chronicled by Blair:

1. He glimpses a reproduction of her face in a stack of advertising photos for To Have and Have Not. This stays in his memory.
2. He sees the film  To Have and Have Not and is deeply impressed
3. His interest has already been aroused. He searches for more images of Bacall, even going so far as to contact Warner Bros. to ask for stills of her. He discovers a picture that portrays her in a “healthy and un-artificial light”

His process goes on, but it’s easy to see just how little time it took him to become infatuated by a subject, just as it took very little time for Santiago to fall in love with Fatima. That notion is the driving force behind my Quick Blox. Turning back to Cornell, specifically his Penny Arcade Portrait of Lauren Bacall—he exemplified the importance of atmosphere and mood in art.

My Quick Blox is actually my favorite Blox. My main goal was to visualize the quotation:

“All this happened between sunrise and sunset, the boy thought. He was feeling sorry for himself, and lamenting the fact that his life could have changed so suddenly and drastically.”

By showing the passage of time between night and day in the desert—with a caravan of camels passing through both, I felt that the speed of the voyage could be emulated. A semi-transparent image of a woman’s eyes works as a foregrounding image. I selected that particular set of eyes because they corresponded most directly with the picture I had imagined of Fatima’s eyes. In The Alchemist all it took was one look into her eyes for Santiago to instantly fall in love with her.

Quick Blox