Literature
Nabokov Online Journal, Vol. VI (2012) _______________________________________________________________________
NABOKOV’S SHORT STORY “SIGNS AND SYMBOLS”:
An interdisciplinary roundtable discussion♣
_______________________
Hal Ackerman, Screenwriter (UCLA) Murray Biggs, Theater scholar (Yale University) John N. Crossley, Mathematician (Monash University) Wayne Goodman, Psychiatrist (Mount Sinai School of Medicine) Yuri Leving, Moderator (Dalhousie University) Frederick White, Literary scholar (Utah Valley University)
Approaching the story through film ________________________
Yuri Leving: Could you imagine a screen adaptation of Nabokov’s short story “Signs and Symbols”? Hal Ackerman: My first glib knee jerk answer is that “Signs and Symbols” would never be made as a feature film, certainly not an American feature film. I knew there’d been a
This is an excerpt from a book entitled Anatomy of a Short Story: Nabokov’s Puzzles, Codes, “Signs and Symbols,” Y. Leving (Editor), J. Banville (Afterword), forthcoming from the Continuum (New York). More about the volume see the publisher’s website: www.continuumbooks.com.
♣
1
Nabokov Online Journal, Vol. VI (2012) _______________________________________________________________________ few successful screen adaptations of short fiction like Brokeback Mountain and Million Dollar Baby. To my great surprise though I discovered an impressive list of others, hundreds of them, including Rear Window, 2001 A Space Odyssey, It’s A Wonderful Life, Memento, The Fly. Yuri Leving: If the aforementioned movies were so successful in turning fascinating texts into rich visual narratives, what is the secret then? Hal Ackerman: Let’s look at what a movie can do. It gives an audience access through two senses, sight and sound. What we can see and what we can hear. Most successful film adaptations from other media begin with material that is rich in these external stimuli. This is why plot driven stories (crime, action) are
NABOKOV’S SHORT STORY “SIGNS AND SYMBOLS”:
An interdisciplinary roundtable discussion♣
_______________________
Hal Ackerman, Screenwriter (UCLA) Murray Biggs, Theater scholar (Yale University) John N. Crossley, Mathematician (Monash University) Wayne Goodman, Psychiatrist (Mount Sinai School of Medicine) Yuri Leving, Moderator (Dalhousie University) Frederick White, Literary scholar (Utah Valley University)
Approaching the story through film ________________________
Yuri Leving: Could you imagine a screen adaptation of Nabokov’s short story “Signs and Symbols”? Hal Ackerman: My first glib knee jerk answer is that “Signs and Symbols” would never be made as a feature film, certainly not an American feature film. I knew there’d been a
This is an excerpt from a book entitled Anatomy of a Short Story: Nabokov’s Puzzles, Codes, “Signs and Symbols,” Y. Leving (Editor), J. Banville (Afterword), forthcoming from the Continuum (New York). More about the volume see the publisher’s website: www.continuumbooks.com.
♣
1
Nabokov Online Journal, Vol. VI (2012) _______________________________________________________________________ few successful screen adaptations of short fiction like Brokeback Mountain and Million Dollar Baby. To my great surprise though I discovered an impressive list of others, hundreds of them, including Rear Window, 2001 A Space Odyssey, It’s A Wonderful Life, Memento, The Fly. Yuri Leving: If the aforementioned movies were so successful in turning fascinating texts into rich visual narratives, what is the secret then? Hal Ackerman: Let’s look at what a movie can do. It gives an audience access through two senses, sight and sound. What we can see and what we can hear. Most successful film adaptations from other media begin with material that is rich in these external stimuli. This is why plot driven stories (crime, action) are