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Dinesen in three dimensions: A comparing of irony in two films of Dinesen's stories
Literature Film Quarterly, 2000 by Branson, Stephanie
The best setting for the tales of Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen 1885-1962) is undoubt edly their original setting-in the parlor of her house in Africa, before the fire, as friends and lovers gathered to hear her tell a story. The best medium, her rich, deep, heavily-accented voice. This setting and this medium would capture the best of what a reader may enjoy in reading the stories-the possibility to imagine what each house, field or stream in which the action takes place looks like, to explore the ghostly or otherwise unearthly atmosphere which hangs around the tale. In addition, the listener would be enthralled by the narrator's voice. As Nadia Fusini says of Dinesen's tales: "II racconto a dunque questo all'inizio per lei: a voce, prima the scrittura" (Noni 21); "The story is essentially this, from the beginning, for you: the voice, before the written word" (my translation).
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But Isak Dinesen is dead, and while it is possible to listen to recordings of her voice, the effect is not as strong. Moreover, our imaginations are limited by our experience, and not all of us have traveled all over the world by ship, as Dinesen herself did. It may be hard, then, to imagine India or China or even Denmark. Perhaps film producers such as Orson Welles or Gabriel Axel can imagine for us, and capture on film their version of the stories. As with the recordings of Dinesen's voice, however, something may also be lost in filming the tales. Johannes H. Christensen, in "Besogende hos elverdranningen," asks why, ultimately, make movies of the tales of Isak Dinesen:
Sa er det, man sporger, hvorfor overhovedet filmatisere Blixen-nar det et svaert, nar sa meget Jigger bundet i sproget og naeppe lader sig udvinde i billeder,-nar der skal mange anstrengelsen til for at fa blot en line del of pointerne frem,-nar sa meget alligevel bliver ubegribeligt. (20)
And so it is that one asks, why, ultimately, film Blixenwhen it is difficult, when so much is bound up in words, and so little reveals itself in images, when so much effort must be expended to express a small part of the idea, when so much remains puzzling despite that effort. (my translation) In 1966, despite the challenge described by Christensen, Orson Welles produced and starred in a film version of Dinesen's "The Immortal Story." In the 1980's, several films were made for Crone TV (Denmark)- adaptations of Dinesen's "Sorrow Acre," "Converse at Night in Copenhagen," and "The Ring." Radiotelevisione Italiana produced a version of Dinesen's Ehrengard, and Danish television filmed the novel Revenge of Truth. Finally, in 1987, Gabriel Axel's Oscar-winning Babette's Feast appeared, demonstrating that popular audiences, even in America, could appreciate film adaptations of Dinesen's work.
Christensen and other critics viewing films made of Dinesen's stories conclude that despite the difficulty of translating her written tales to an audio-visual medium, that effort is nevertheless justified by the essentially oral and visual nature of Dinesen's writing, Dinesen was herself a painter, and the skills needed to produce graphic art carry through into her verbal landscapes and vivid character portrayals.
Wherein lies the difficulty, then, of filming Dinesen's tales? As Birgitte Debusigne notes, "Karen Blixen's particular way of using time and space in her imagery seems finally difficult to reproduce" ("Literary" 255). Time in Dinesen's tales in non-linear, and the tales are told retrospectively, whereas in film time is normally linear, and a possible present is posited. In addition, place in Dinesen has an unusual importance; it can be seen as a character in the story. For example, her first published tale, "Deluge at Norderney," opens with a personification of the sea, the "terrible and faithless gray monster westward" which "sings" to the farmers as it inundates their crops and homes (Seven Gothic Tales 1,3). Dinesen describes the flood in some detail, creating a scene which begs to be filmed. In fact, Orson Welles had wanted to film "Deluge," but because of the difficulties posed, he filmed "The Immortal Story" (a much less visually compelling story) instead:
More importantly, perhaps, Dinesen's tales are difficult to film because in rendering life situations ironically, Dinesen opens up a space between the real and the ideal-what might be called a rhetorical distance-which is difficult to fill with imagery or sound. As Debusigne remarks regarding "Sorrow Acre," "One of the problems in filming Karen Blixen's story is probably the long passages of philosophical reflection" (222). The ideas in Dinesen's talesfor example, her concept of fate-are complex and involved, and hard to convey visually.
For the purpose of assessing the success that filmmakers have had in translating ironic language and dramatic irony in Dinesen's tales to film, I would like to analyze that aspect of two of the films mentioned above: The Immortal Story (ORTF/Albina Films, 1966) and Babette's Feast (Panorama Film International/Nordisk Film A/S, 1987). Vincent Canby's assertion that Babette's Feast "does justice to the precision of the Dinesen prose, to the particularity of her concerns and to the ironies that so amused her" ("Axel's `Babette's Feast"' 22) is well countered by Christensen's estimation of the film: "Hvad vi har er fine, professionelt lavede film, der fortaeller historierne, men deres and er forduftet som Hofmansdraber fra en flaske uden prop" ("Besogende" 20); "What we have here is a wonderful, professionally made film, that tells the story, but whose soul has flown, much as the strength of Hoffman's anodyne is lost with the cork removed" (my translation). The "soul" of "Babette's Feast" is its ironic overtones, many of which are lost in Axel's adaptation of the story to film.
