Nelson Mandela. Hamlet. A 12-year-old boy with a serial killer scrapbook. What do they all have in common? They were all featured in this year’s Carleton Adapts panel discussion, in which experts tried to determine the best film adaptation of a book.
The event was part of Throwback, Carleton’s homecoming celebration.
Three panelists from Carleton gave three to five minute speeches on different movies in front of an audience in the MacOdrum Library on Tuesday. The audience then voted for their favourite.
The event drew inspiration from Canada Reads, an annual CBC competition in which five panelists each advocate for the book of their choice to be voted as the best.
Panelist and collections librarian Alana Skwarok had a positive view on adaptations, saying “in a lot of cases, I like the film more.” As the subject specialist for film studies, her adaptation of choice was Let the Right One In, a Swedish film about a twelve-year-old boy who keeps a serial killer scrapbook and ends up befriending his neighbour, a vampire.
Gunnar Iversen, another panelist and a former supervisor of Skwarok, had a different take on film adaptations. He started his speech by declaring, “I actually don’t like adaptations that much.”
”If you want to recommend an adaptation, it has to be not only very good, but it has to do something … specific with the original material,” he said in an interview with The Charlatan.
His recommended adaptation was the black and white film Hamlet Goes Business, a reimagining of the classic Shakespeare play set in 1980s Finland.
“Originally, the dean of FASS [Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences] was on this panel … so I just wanted to say to my dean that she’s wrong,” he said. “But then she chickened out, probably because I said yes.”
The final panelist was David Hornsby, associate vice-president for teaching and learning at Carleton. The only member of the panel who doesn’t specialize in film studies, Hornsby opted for Long Walk to Freedom, based on Nelson Mandela’s autobiography of the same title.
He was inspired to advocate for the movie because of the time he spent living in South Africa, and said movies are important because “you can learn a lot through listening to others and watching interpretations of how events have unfolded.”
After hearing Skwarok, Iversen, and Hornsby defend their respective films, the audience had the opportunity to cast ballots for the film they wanted to watch. The ballots were counted on the spot, and Hamlet Goes Business came out on top.
“After you’ve seen that, you will not think about Shakespeare in the same way again,” Iverson said after the results were announced.
Feature image from file.
