Talking Film Adaptation and
“The Willows” with Blackwood’s
Biographer, Mike Ashley
by WAYNE SPITZER
I recently had the privilege of discussing my planned adaptation of Algernon Blackwood’s “The Willows” with the legendary Mike Ashley, author of some sixty SF, horror and fantasy genre related books including Starlight Man: The Extraordinary Life of Algernon Blackwood. The following is excerpted from correspondences with Mike regarding my plans to shoot the movie -- used, of course, with his permission (it should be noted that Mike took the time to respond to my queries even though he was racing to meet a deadline for his latest book). I hope others will find the conversation as intriguing as I did!
Wayne:
Hi, Mike. I am an independent filmmaker who is currently preparing an adaptation of Algernon Blackwood’s “The Willows”. I have already contacted several Blackwood devotees, including Amy Sterling (who wrote the introduction to the Wildside Press edition) and Nick Freeman, a scholar, both of whom were keen to see Blackwood adapted (the only previous AB adaptation I am aware of is Rod Serling’s “The Doll”, from Night Gallery). I am only in the beginning stages of my understanding of this subtle and chilling story (“The Willows”). Unfortunately, there is scant scholarship to be found on either it or anything else by Blackwood. Can you help? Any insights or leads would be appreciated. My intent is to update the material and place it in a contemporary setting; do you see any major conflicts with this? Part of my reasoning is strictly practical; doing a period piece simply isn’t in our means. More to the point, I don’t feel that period has anything to do with the essence of the material, beyond that certain pervasive gloom common to most turn of the century literature. Still, “The Willows” is a difficult work, and I am dreadfully afraid of misinterpreting it to the point that I do Blackwood and his fans an injustice. Any comments would be greatly appreciated.
Mike Ashley:
Delighted to know someone’s going to attempt to film “The Willows”. It won’t be easy as it’ll need some good atmospheric special effects, but if it works it will be a real cracker.
“The Willows” is one of Blackwood’s stories that has received some critical assessment, though, as you say, generally he’s received little. I shall have to dig out chapter and verse and let you know the details.
As for “The Willows” being present day or period, I’m not sure that matters much. One thing crucial, though, will be the language. The modern tendency to include swearing and foul language in films will not work in Blackwood and would put devotees off. Even if you change the period, keep to the language! Since most of the story is set on the river and the island, I wouldn’t think there would be much concern about period or present day issues. One problem will be you can’t have them using mobile phones or talking about planes or cars. My advice is to keep it basic and simple and stick to the atmosphere of the plot and no one will worry about the period setting. It shouldn’t intrude at all.
Wayne:
I agree with you about period versus non-period, but am struggling with the contemporary profanity issue as I attempt to adapt dialogue – though I agree with you on that also. As for Blackwood’s language, I’m aiming to reproduce it in spirit if not letter. Early on I experimented with using voice-over, envisioning a kind of Phase IV (1974) vibe. That didn’t work out so well, so I’m currently focusing on the cadence of the dialogue itself. Above all, my Willows will, indeed, be a study in atmosphere, and the psychology of the two men, and of place.
My biggest questions regarding the work are in the bread and butter details. What’s that strange pattering all about, for example? And how are we to take this idea of the missing objects; i.e., the steering paddle, the bread, and so on? I’ve tried to cozy up to some of AB’s occult influences to sort all this out, as well as thoughts from various physicists regarding the fourth dimension (especially Schrodinger, whose comment, “The world of physics is a world of shadows”, will begin the film). Now, I have no intention of destroying the mystery and wonder – the terror – for the audience. But I would like to be satisfied that I myself understand what is going on here, or at least that I have a consistent interpretation – however faulty – of the story’s interior logic. Finding the edges of this type of thing can be mentally exhausting. It’s “shivery work”, as Algernon might say.
I’ve commissioned some cover art which utilizes the image of an outdoors man in a Gore-Tex coat and fur-lined hood, a man whose face has been replaced from the top of the mouth up with a large, “beautifully formed spiral”. This seems to me the perfect symbol for a psychical invasion; the “awful substitution” referred to in The Willows, as well as that dreadful and compelling call of nature so intrinsic to AB’s work.
Would value beyond my words to express any further insights you may have as to the nature of the Willows….
Mike Ashley:
Good to hear from you again. As for getting inside the story and into Blackwood’s head, I can give you some further thoughts, but “The Willows” is indeed a very complicated story – or at least the thinking behind it is.
Primarily Blackwood believed in a greater consciousness that pervaded the universe. This was multi-dimensional, so went way beyond the conceptions of our world. This greater consciousness is so different to human beings that there really wasn’t any link between them, but occasionally humans could stray into their awareness. This tends to happen at the borders between things. In this case Blackwood suggested that the Willows served as a boundary and that the island was a thin point between the dimensions and that these greater beings could sense the presence of humans at that point. Like border guards, these greater beings seek to eliminate the humans like we might a gnat or a mosquito that’s irritating us. Because they have such greater forces than we can imagine it takes on a strange alien form. The presence of the strange marks in the sand and so on are really just a three-dimensional effect arising from these multi-dimensional beings. An impression that passes through the dimensions. The vortex likewise is the turbulence between those dimensions. Leastways, that’s how I tend to interpret it on a very superficial level.
I’m sure we could talk a lot more about various individual elements of the story, but I think the key to it is not to explain everything. Humans can’t be expected to understand something so alien and beyond our ken, and what makes the story so successful is the sheer helplessness against such forces and the utter bewilderment. Too much philosophizing by the characters will spoil it. Let the unknown remain unknown and it’ll be all the more frightening.
Wayne’s conversation with Mike Ashley will continue in the next OIL OF DOG….
4 comments:
Hello, Wayne.
The other night I dug my favorite short ghost story book out a pile for some bed reading.
I decided to explore "The Willows" again. It scared the crap out of me 40 years ago.
I once again became fascinated by the environment that Blackwood described and went to Google Earth the next day to see if I could find it. I wanted to go there! The flood plain with little islands still exists today but it's been much reduced through development since Blackwood himself took a canoe trip down the Danube around 1901.
I believe it's now a highly protected ecological wetlands area encompassed within the Donau-Auen National Park.
Doing a little more Googling I found your blog announcing your intentions to make the movie. My first reaction was "please don't!" however
after reading your published correspondence with Blackwood's biographer Mike Ashley (thanks for sharing that), I feel a bit more optimistic.
I had been thinking about the idea of the story made into a film but decided that it would be too difficult for anybody to do it justice without all of the usual "money-making" devices that seem to be necessary evils these days.
I'm reminded if the original '63 version of the film "The Haunting (of Hill House)"
Am I wrong or was that scary?
From the story:
"These willows never attain to the dignity of trees; they have no rigid trunks; they remain humble bushes, with rounded tops and soft outline, swaying on slender stems that answer to the least pressure of the wind; supple as grasses, and so continually shifting that they somehow give the impression that the entire plain is moving and alive. For the wind sends waves rising and falling over the whole surface, waves of leaves instead of waves of water, green swells like the sea, too, until the branches turn and lift, and then silvery white as their under-side turns to the sun."
"But my emotion, so far as I could understand it, seemed to attach itself more particularly to the willow bushes, to these acres and acres of willows, crowding, so thickly growing there, swarming everywhere the eye could reach, pressing upon the river as though to suffocate it, standing in dense array mile after mile beneath the sky, watching, waiting, listening. And, apart quite from the elements, the willows connected themselves subtly with my malaise, attacking the mind insidiously somehow by reason of their vast numbers, and contriving in some way or other to represent to the imagination a new and mighty power, a power, moreover, not altogether friendly to us".
This seems like the very essence of the environment to me. This, maybe coupled with some moldy rye bread.....
So much of the story has to do with the perceptions of these two men reacting to wind, willows, water, sound, sand, each other and really very little else in the way of props or complicated effects.
I know it must already be decided but my opinion, if I may, is that it must be done as a period piece. As was mentioned in your communication with Mr.Ashley, the modern culture of gratuitous profanity and gadgetry (not to mention cynicisms) will rob the characters of any degree of credibility. I firmly believe that two people from that period would have a very different interpretation of events than two people form this period. I marvel at Blackwood's imagination given what he wasn't inundated with in the volume of Sci-Fi and Fantasy that we are today. Hat's off to L. Frank Baum for that matter. What originality!
The characters need to have the innocence as we might perceive them from today's "more advanced" (read - "jaded & cynical") viewpoint - after all, we're the audience! Allow them to interpret the events from their period's cultural viewpoint and then convince us. Make it a contemporary piece and their innocents gets taken away and they look just plain stupid and hysterical....unless you make the special effects so outrageous that they can't help but become terrified....but then you've lost it.
I could also argue against myself and say that modern "city folks" are so out of touch with the intense drama which nature provides that they might be highly susceptible to becoming terrorized....but then once again you've deviated. The Swede and the story teller were experienced adventurers.
Sorry. I've written way too much here.
I hope I'm still welcome to post my views in the future and I look forward to seeing how this project develops. Thank you so much for sharing this information and providing the opportunity to participate in this way.
Fred Hammon
Hello, Fred
Always a pleasure to meet a fellow Blackwood devotee, especially one who so clearly appreciates the material. Your suggestion that any film adaptation of "The Willows" ought properly be a period piece has much merit--more so than I could have imagined when I began the screen-writing process back in 2002. Indeed, the biggest challenge I foresee going into the second draft (the official first draft was registered with the WGA-West on Jan 14, 2008) will be the retention of a certain, rather quaint Englishness (to which the characters owe much of their humor and likability) while at the same time rendering them as believable contemporary Americans. However, because the protagonist in my version is essentially (a youthful) Blackwood, his very uniqueness and self-imposed isolation tend to set him apart from modern American society, though he lives in the midst of it (New York). I've sought to portray him as the "enigmatic uncle figure," someone for whom children and animals have a natural affinity, perhaps--a man beloved but largely unknown to those in his acquaintance. As for location, I've opted in this draft to go with the Canadian wilderness in the general vicinity of the Athabaska River and Whirlpool marshlands--David Thompson country --in part because of Blackwood's own youthful adventures there (Canada), and in part because the area is so rich in history. Depending upon how certain developments pan out, I may be posting the first draft online in the near future, and would certainly welcome your comments, or any Blackwood-related comments at all. Thanks for posting, and I do hope we'll "talk" again! -- WS
"I'm reminded if the original '63 version of the film "The Haunting (of Hill House)"
Am I wrong or was that scary?"
--Bloody terrifying. Today's purveyors of shock cinema and "torture porn" would do well to learn from it. Funny how Blackwood can scare the daylights out of us without spilling a drop of blood, isn't it? --Wayne
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