I was disappointed I missed the Earthsea movie, but not so much, anymore: http://trashotron.com/agony/columns/2004/12-15-04.htm
-------------------------------------------------------- Earthsea in Clorox by Ursula K. Le Guin 1. Background: my (non)involvement with this production. For people who wonder why I "sold out to Halmi," or "let them change the story" -- you may find some answers here. The producers (not yet including Robert Halmi Sr.) approached us with a reasonable offer. My dramatic agency at that time was William Morris. The contract of course gave me only the standard status of "consultant" -- which means exactly what the producers want it to mean, almost always little or nothing. The agency could not improve this clause. But the purchasers talked as if they genuinely meant to respect the books and to ask for my input when planning the film. As I had scripted the first two books myself, with Michael Powell, years ago, and also worked with another scriptwriter to plan his script of the first book, I was in a position to be useful to them. I knew some of the difficulties in carrying this story over to film. And some of the possibilities that could be fulfilled, too, the things a movie can do that a novel can't. It was an exciting prospect. They were talking at that time of a large-scale theater movie, although the possibility of a TV miniseries was mentioned. They said that they had already secured Philippa Boyen (who scripted The Lord of the Rings) as principal scriptwriter, and reported that she was eager to work on an Earthsea film. As the script was, to me, all-important, her presence was the key factor in my decision to sell them the option to the film rights. Time went by. By the time they got backing from the Sci Fi Channel for a miniseries -- and Robert Halmi Sr. had come aboard -- they had lost Boyen. That was a blow. But I had just seen Mr Halmi's miniseries Dreamkeeper with its stunning Native American cast, so I said to them in a phone conversation, hey, maybe Mr Halmi will cast some of those great actors in Earthsea! -- Oh, no, I was told -- Mr Halmi had found those people impossible to work with. "Well," I said, "you do realise that almost everybody in Earthsea is 'those people,' or anyhow not white?" I don't remember what their answer to that was -- it may have used that wonderful weasel word "colorblind" -- but it wasn't reassuring, because I do remember saying to my husband, oh, gee, I bet they're going to have a honky Ged. . . This was in the spring of 2004. They moved very fast then, because if they didn't get into production, they would lose their rights to the property. Early in this period they contacted me in a friendly fashion, and I responded in kind; I asked if they'd like to have a list of name pronunciations; and I said that although I knew well that a film must differ greatly from a book, I hoped they were making no unnecessary changes in the plot or to the characters -- a dangerous thing to do, since the books have been known to millions of people for over 30 years. To this they replied that the TV audience is much larger, and entirely different, and changes to a book's story and characters were of no importance to them. They then sent me several versions of the script -- and told me that shooting had already begun. In other words, I had been absolutely cut out of the process. I withdrew my offered pronunciation guide (so Ogion, which rhymes with bogy-on, is "Oh-jee-on" in the film.) Having looked over the script, I realised they had no understanding of what the two books are about, and no interest in finding out. All they intended was to use the name Earthsea, and some of the scenes from the books, in a generic MacMagic movie with a meaningless plot based on sex and violence. (And "faith" -- according to Mr Halmi. Faith in what? Who knows? Who cares?) Larry Landsman, who looks after the book end of things at Sci Fi and has been very kind, sent me an early CD of the film, so I saw it some weeks before it was aired. There was nothing I could do about it at that point, and I said nothing negative in public. It seemed mean-spirited to bash the thing it before other people had a chance to see it. Anyhow, what's the use whining? Take the money and run, as whoever it is said. Someday, somebody would make a real Earthsea movie. . . But then Mr. Lieberman published a statement telling people what "Ursula" (whom he has never met) "intended" by the books. That changed the situation. They were taking advantage of my silence by sticking words in my mouth. I put a reply on my web site, and since then have spoken freely to interviewers who have asked my opinion of the production. My principal feeling about it is one of sadness, loss. An opportunity thrown away, at great expense. I'm sorry for the actors. They all tried hard. I'm sorry for the people who think they've seen Earthsea, but saw a stale, senseless rehash of bits of other fantasy films instead. I'm very sorry for my readers who tuned in thinking they were going to see a film version of my books. To you readers, I apologise. I love movies, and I did want to see an Earthsea movie, so I fell for it. I'm sorry! We'll do better next time. 2. Concerning race, color, and whitewash Most of the characters in my fantasy and far-future sf books are not white. They're mixed, they're rainbow. In my first big sf novel, The Left Hand of Darkness, the only person from Earth is a black man and everybody else in the book is Inuit (or Tibetan) brown. In my first fantasy novels (the ones the miniseries is "based on"), A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan, everybody's brown or copper-red or black, except the Kargish people in the East and their descendants in the Archipelago, who are white, with fair or dark hair. Tenar is a Karg, a brunette white person. Ged is an Archipelagan, a redbrown man. Vetch, from the East Reach, is black. This color scheme was conscious and deliberate from the start. I didn't see why everybody in sf had to be a honky named Bob or Joe or Bill. I didn't see why everybody in heroic fantasy had to be white (and all the leading women had "violet eyes"). I didn't even believe it. Whites are a minority on Earth now -- why wouldn't they still be either a minority, or just swallowed up in the larger colored gene pool, in the future? The fantasy tradition I was writing in came from North Europe, which is why it was about white people. I'm white, but not European. My people could be any color I liked, and I like red and brown and black. I was a little wily about my color scheme. I figured some white kids (the books were published for "young adults") might not identify easily straight off with a brown kid, so I kind of eased the information about skin color in by degrees -- hoping that the reader would get "into Ged's skin," and only then discover it wasn't a white one. I was never questioned about this by any editor. No objection was ever raised. I think this is greatly to the credit of my first editors at Parnassus and Atheneum, who bought the books before they had a reputation to carry them. These editors took a risk without complaint. But I had endless trouble with cover art. Not on the great cover of the first edition -- a strong, red-brown profile of Ged -- or with Margaret Chodos Irvine's four fine paintings -- but all too often. The first British "Wizard" was this pallid, droopy, lily-like guy -- I screamed at sight of him. Gradually I got a little more clout, a little more say-so about covers. And very, very, very gradually the cover departments of major publishers may be beginning to lose their blind, panic terror of putting a colored face on a book. "Hurts sales, hurts sales" is the mantra. Yeah, so? On my books, Ged with a white face is a lie, a betrayal -- a betrayal of the book, and of the potential reader. A brown face might hurt sales in the short run, but my books are long-distance runners, and for the long haul, only the truth will serve. I think it is possible that some readers never even notice what color the people in the story are. Don't notice, don't care. Whites of course have the privilege of not caring, of being "colorblind." Nobody else does. I have heard, not often, but very memorably, from colored readers who told me that the Earthsea books were the only books in the genre that they felt included in -- and how much this meant to them, particularly as adolescents, who'd found nothing to read in fantasy and sf except the adventures of white people in a white world. Those letters have been a tremendous reward and true joy to me. I have not had protests from white readers who resented reading about colored people, but racial bigots often hide their bigotry behind accusations of "witchcraft" and such. The Earthsea books have been forced many times to run the school banning gamut operated by fundamentalist Christians. These censorship operations against schools and libraries are stronger than ever in the present religio-political climate. They often focus on fantasy and sf books, which foster that deadly enemy to bigotry and blind faith, the imagination. So far no reader of color has told me I ought to butt out, or that I got the ethnicity wrong. When they do, I'll listen. As an anthropologist's daughter I am intensely conscious of the risk of cultural or ethnic imperialism -- white writer speaking for nonwhite people, co-opting their voice, an act of extreme arrogance. In a totally invented fantasy world, or in a far-future sf setting, in the rainbow world we can imagine, this risk is mitigated. That's the beauty of sf and fantasy -- freedom of invention. But with all freedom comes responsibility. . . . . .which is something these film-makers seem not to understand. The books are about two young people finding what their power, their freedom, and their responsibility is. I don't know what the film is about. It's full of scenes from the story, but in this different plot, they make no sense. Its hero goes through lots of Ged's experiences, but learns nothing from them. How could he? He isn't Ged. Ged isn't a petulant white kid. It's like casting Eminem as Jim in Huckleberry Finn. And how did Danny Glover, the Token Mage, get into this Clorox archipelago? What island is he from? Poor guy! No wonder he gets the true name and the nickname mixed up, and solemnly baptizes Ged with his nickname! I really am sorry for the actors. They all tried awfully hard. It's not their fault. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
