Thoughts on the works of Charles Dickens and Joss Whedon

Assuming the superiority of the novel

Joss Whedon recently released a film; Much Ado About Nothing. Perhaps you’ve heard of the play, the famous Shakespeare canonical piece of writing. Whedon is mainly known another film, Avengers Assemble, a spectacular swashbuckling action superhero film. It will suffice to say that one didn’t win any awards, but I am willing to bet that Much Ado About Nothing with its Black and White effects and little known cast will be a far more viable contender for the awards. Perhaps Whedon felt he had to bring more ‘artistic integrity’ to his direction, who knows. But however good that film, however ‘high-brow’, it will always be rated as generally inferior as an art form to the play as a piece of literature simply because it is a film.

Now, when you go into the library or the bookshop, depending on how much you support our local libraries, you will get shelves of literary criticism, of Carter, Austen, Atwood, Banks… but this criticism is not extended to film. Why? Film is capable as much as literature as getting the same themes across, violence, racism, relationships… it is only a matter of being a different form. Now, the fictitious novel has gone on a journey to reach its high status, the study of literature has expanded from being created as a ‘soft’ subject at Universities only studying canonical texts, to including modern authors and even graphic novels, there is no reason why further expansion could not include film.

Let us look at how our great literary art form was once seen a ‘pop’ in the same way cinema is seen. Our High Priest of Literature, Dickens, wrote Oliver Twist and Bleak House which have been cited as some of the greatest pieces of literature of all time. But when Dickens was writing he was not seen as a great author, he wrote for newspapers, he wrote ‘trashy’ fiction. Now we see him as an incredible author. Austen too had to battle critics who thought that novels were inferior, something which she brilliantly satirises in her novel Northanger Abbey:

"But you never read novels, I dare say?"

 "Why not?"

 "Because they are not clever enough for you - gentleman read better books."

But now English literature is studied at Universities as a respected ‘hard’ subject, and Austen’s novels are debated at works of art. ‘Fiction’ and the novel are still relatively modern as a concept.  So could it be that the reason we don’t consider film as a ‘hard’ subject is because it is too new a form, simply because we haven’t the hindsight to appreciate it? My sister had an interesting theory when I shared this idea with her. And in most cases it can be agreed that fiction is easier to read than non-fiction, more enjoyable. Could it be that the fact that it is ‘easier’ to read made people look down on the form? And could this not be the case with Cinema, the fact that the masses enjoy film and find it quicker and easier than reading make it a less valued art form. What snobs we all are.

So why don’t we consider Inception the way we might consider A Tale of Two Cities? Or even the same way we might consider Small Island by Andrea Levy published 2004 and studied for A level literature across the country. We should be able to recognise the merits of film as an art form, and be able to argue in the same depth at patterns and issues film deals with. I soon hope to see mingling with your Shakespeare books of essays such as ‘Race and religion in Gangs of New York’ or ‘How the proletariat always loses in Disney’. Maybe I’m being too optimistic, but hey, you know us Artsy folk. We’re all dreamers.