“With The Monkees in particular what the writers intended is not always what the audience continues to read into each show. Amid all the slapstick and recycled vaudevillian bits there are deeper themes that spoke to teenagers then and speak now such as the idea that fame is not a desired goal, rather making a living as an artist is the desired goal.”
You Can Please Some of the People Some of the Time… None of the People All of the Time: A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More!
Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! at the California State University, Fullerton Library
Part of the program series for Dune by Frank Herbert: A 50th Anniversary Celebration.
So, how did I get interested in this? Well, look at that, when I was a kid this was a big book in the little kid’s library. The Trapp Family Singers, right, and everybody knows this book got turned into what?
Student: …the movie?
Welch: First, the play The Sound of Music. So, adaptations can come from books. They can come from theater. We’ll even see a cute little thing later on that’s like, ‘How did they do that?” So, first they took this true-life story. Often, obviously, an adaptation comes from a true-life story and they turned it into a theatrical event, a musical starring Mary Martin. Never got the chance to see that. I wasn’t born yet, but of course it turned into the movie that everybody in the world has seen a million times and you’ve gone to the Hollywood Bowl and you’ve done the sing-a-long and it’s become this popular culture thing. However, when I saw this movie as a kid, what struck me was — and everyone generally knows the story of The Sound of Music, right, I don’t have to go over it, but it’s the family that escapes when the Nazis take over Austria. At the end of the movie, their going to perform at a big cultural festival and it’s the night they escape instead and they’ve left their manager to say, “Here they are!” and they don’t show up and you know the Nazis are going to be very angry at this guy. So, I was very worried about they’re manager, Max Detweiler.
About this talk
Dr. Rosanne Welch (RTVF) speaks on the craft of history of film adaptations from the controversy of the silent film Birth of a Nation (protested by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1915) to Breakfast at Tiffany’s (to which author Truman Capote famously said, “The only thing left from the book is the title”) to The Godfather . Naturally, the behemoth in adaptation – Harry Potter (which depended on the relationship created by adapter Steve Kloves and author J.K. Rowling) will be discussed, as will the subject of this month’s celebration: Dune.
Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm
About Dr. Rosanne Welch
Dr. Rosanne Welch is a professor in the Low Residency MFA in Screenwriting Program from Stephens College, California State University, Fullerton, Mount San Antonio Community College and Cal Poly Pomona. In 2007, she graduated with her Ph.D. in 20th Century U.S./Film History from Claremont Graduate University. She graduated with her M.A. in 20th Century United States History from California State University, Northridge in 2004.
Welch is also a television writer/producer with credits for Beverly Hills 90210 , CBS’s Emmy winning Picket Fences and Touched By An Angel . She also writes and hosts her own podcasts on 3rdPass.media, her first one titled “Mindful(I) Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch.”
“Studying The Monkees illustrates the history and evolution of the medium of television and provides a time capsule of American society at the burgeoning of the focus on youth culture that continued into the millennium generation”
You Can Please Some of the People Some of the Time… None of the People All of the Time: A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More!
Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! at the California State University, Fullerton Library
Part of the program series for Dune by Frank Herbert: A 50th Anniversary Celebration.
Thank you very much. It’s very cool to have this exhibit. It’s very exciting to think about the work of screenwriters as something that’s culturally of value to us. That obviously interests me, because that’s what I work on here at the university. So, I’m really excited to be talking about this and when you think about adaptations as I talked to Patricia I said “Well, we’re going to talk about a slew of different film adaptations across time. Why changes that were made were made. Of course, we’re going to talk about several, so we’re going to hit on them all a little bit. Then I have some stuff up front, if you want to look at them later. Obviously some books that have been turned into films as well as, recently, at the very end, we’ll talk about “The Martian” and a small, one of the small changes they made to that, which has a big, big, ripple effect and I think that’s a problem when people don’t look at the books first or, at least, afterwards. When I was a kid, you saw the movie and then you went to the library and got the book and that was how you got the rest of the story and I think that was really the plan and I hope that people today use movies in that way — to expand the information and the introduction to the book.
About this talk
Dr. Rosanne Welch (RTVF) speaks on the craft of history of film adaptations from the controversy of the silent film Birth of a Nation (protested by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1915) to Breakfast at Tiffany’s (to which author Truman Capote famously said, “The only thing left from the book is the title”) to The Godfather . Naturally, the behemoth in adaptation – Harry Potter (which depended on the relationship created by adapter Steve Kloves and author J.K. Rowling) will be discussed, as will the subject of this month’s celebration: Dune.
Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm
About Dr. Rosanne Welch
Dr. Rosanne Welch is a professor in the Low Residency MFA in Screenwriting Program from Stephens College, California State University, Fullerton, Mount San Antonio Community College and Cal Poly Pomona. In 2007, she graduated with her Ph.D. in 20th Century U.S./Film History from Claremont Graduate University. She graduated with her M.A. in 20th Century United States History from California State University, Northridge in 2004.
Welch is also a television writer/producer with credits for Beverly Hills 90210 , CBS’s Emmy winning Picket Fences and Touched By An Angel . She also writes and hosts her own podcasts on 3rdPass.media, her first one titled “Mindful(I) Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch.”
“If mentioned in television histories at all, The Monkees were seen as the bastard child when discussing counter-culture humor in 1960s television, behind Laugh-In and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, yet they prefigured and influenced both of those programs.”
I didn’t pick, because I’m not going to pick for you. You’ve got to pick for yourself. These are the messages that we’re being sent by this piece o popular culture. So, how we’re relating to those messages is the question. What I did do was look into who the show named as the most manly man and they did in The Day of the Doctor. They made a choice. They mentioned the man that all men should live up to. Anyone remember who it was? It’s at the very end of The Day of the Doctor. And it’s John Hurt talking. He’s made that choice, right, in the end. Made the cool choice not to bow everybody up. I thought that was brilliant writing. Who knew you could do that? Literally, re-wrote the last 10 years of the series with that one choice. Who did he pick as the manliest man ever to appear on Doctor Who? A Woman! A modern women is the equal to any man. That’s a modern an talking. That’s a modern man thinking about people as complete and total equals and, to me, that was so cool when I stumbled on that. Didn’t even occur to me. Now, Clara’s not necessarily my favorite character, but in this particular episode she helped a decision be made that saved the world. She’s the one who told him he didn’t have to drop the bomb. That’s a huge, manly, choice. She influenced the lives of millions by standing up and saying that. So, I think that was hilarious and wonderful which brings us back to that first quote. “Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.” Right now! Today! Which means be a good family man. There you have it. Thank you so much for coming.
A clip from this 5th talk on various aspects of Doctor Who presented by Dr. Welch. You can find Dr. Welch’s other Doctor Who talks using the links below.
“Television forced families to see things they might not have chosen to see, but needed to see, such as independent women, people of color and new political perspectives. All these things appeared on The Monkees long before the rise of social commentary comedies such as All in the Family.”
![Adapting The Sound of Music from A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! [Video] (1:13)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/adapt-02-sound-of-music-1.jpeg)
![Introduction from A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! [Video] (1:05)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/adapt-01-intro-anim.gif)
![Who is the Manliest Companion on Doctor Who? from How Doctor Who Redefined Masculinity [Video] (2:13)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/dw-masculinity-24-manliest-companion-anim.gif)
