I’m always vaguely annoyed at the expression, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” It raises a lot of questions. I want to know if those thousand words adequately conveyed the same information as the picture. Would a million words have done a better job? How about a hundred? And whose words anyway? What if James Joyce described a painting by Claude Monet. Would the result be an exact facsimile, of either the picture or the text?
The problem is a picture is a picture and words are words. Composers are always telling you their symphonies are renditions of literature, or historical events. The 1812 Overture has lots of percussion and heavy brass, symbolizing canon fire and the like, but I bet the Russian soldiers defending Moscow would pick the timpani and cymbals any day over the real thing. I’ve heard The Rites of Spring, and though I think the concertgoers who rioted over the symphony’s debut might have taken things a bit too far, it’s a pretty poor substitute for daffodils, butterflies and frolicking fawns.
I probably lack adequate
imagination, but I prefer works of art to be judged by the distinctive, and irreplaceable,
qualities of their form. The best film adaptations of books render both the story
and emotional feel of the original, a real accomplishment. I’d count the film versions of The English
Patient and Mystic River among those that pulled it off. But they’re not the books. Doesn’t make one type of work any better than
the other. I’ve preferred some movies
over their inspiration. Blade Runner, for example. Philip K Dick was a genius, but his novella
that spawned the movie is so so. The
movie’s a masterpiece.
This is a long-winded introduction
to the actual thought behind this post.
I’m thoroughly enjoying TV cop shows of late, in particular nearly
anything on Brit Box, which exquisitely elevates the police procedural to it’s
most riveting and involving expression. And
the British actors, with their precise speech, understated delivery and stiff
upper lips, are ideally suited to the task.
I’ve never read Anne Cleeves, whose books make for first-rate TV shows, and I’m sure she’s an excellent novelist. But there are other Brit Box shows orchestrated by creator/writer/director/showrunners that are just as compelling and addictive. Since I’m a partisan of the mystery writing gig, I’d make a case that mysteries are ideally suited to the TV series format. They’re taut, contained and bursting with human drama. The stakes are usually life and death, and the potential for moral hazard is endemic to the genre. Police procedurals also trade in conflict between established power structures, intractable bureaucracies and tangled legal conundrums opposing the valor and hardheadedness of individual players. Lone wolves, iconoclasts, denizens of the borderland between defending the law and vigilantism are its bread and butter.
I don’t have to convince this audience
that solving puzzles is the most satisfying of intellectual pursuits. Brit Box serves up theirs as a dish both
precisely calibrated and piquant. While never
shying from a gruesome murder scene, or burst of violence when called for, the
point isn’t the action, but rather the shrewd doggedness of its protagonists. Modern technology is ever present, though in
the service of the quest, never an end in itself. The heroes are physically brave, though their
courage is more manifestly moral. I’m
not immune to the charms of a good shoot-em-up, but having the fastest gun or
most effective right hook is the shallowest of heroic accomplishments. In all this, the British have the proper
sensibility.
And
if in the midst of the highest drama and ugliest of dilemmas someone has the good
sense to put the kettle on, I’m fine with that.
