plagiarism

For Friday: Write an essay in class about a specific scene in the movie that you felt captured the novel well - or the opposite: be critical of a the film’s adaptation of the novel. Post to blog by end of class Friday. Writing about film: Glossary
John Waldon
Mr.  O´Brien
English IV
1/2/2013

Plagiarism
Movies have always mirror the works the were molded with only a change in minor detail. This is almost as close to legal plagiarism as it gets. This is why adaptations of books rarely do the works themselves justice. It is a reused idea, a reused meaning, and a reused drawing of emotion. This aside, the movie slaughterhouse five aims to change that pre distinction by changing the limits of the story it is aiming to tell. It draws from the dark humor of Vonnegut and places in hints of the creators own, such as the clapping scene where it pans through time of Billy  clapping when volunteering Derby and him as he accepts an award. These subtle changes and hints transform this work from a theft of ideas into a tangent for which Vonnegut himself would be proud, A for lack of a better phrased mind melter.
There is no question that Vonnegut wanted the masses to think whilst watching this movie. He would do this by melding his words and using them to evoke different emotions. The movie took another approach, Cross-cutting. The melding of two scenes being phased in and out to show a correlation between the two. You see this in both the scene where the have billy clapping and compared that to a crowd cheering for him and the scene where he has a photo shoot at home in the future and also a flashback of the staged picture with the germans. The first was to add humor. Billy, in the film, was the only person clapping in this meeting, this was not highlighted in the book. This was filtered with shot of an award ceremony in which BIlly received  a outright ovation. This added comedy because of the distinct difference in crowd excitement. A dark humor because billy is basically setting Derby on a path to death. The scene of the photoshoots was also comedic as much as it was explanatory. The smile he give to the germans was explained in the book but in the movie you get to realize that smile, the same he gives at home, is a certain comfort level for Billy. He finds that to be his default emotion or reaction to situations, a smile. This is important because it lets us into the psyche of Billy. He has a default smile throughout all the trials and keeps that same smile through the trenches of everyday life. The movie lets us understand why Billy acts the way he does. Movies have always drawn their ideas from written works. That being true, the real art is transforming the words into images, and meanings. This movie accomplishes that.