Worksheet Colin Gregg’s ‘To the Lighthouse’ Based on Virginia Woolf’s ‘To the Lighthouse’

 

Worksheet

 

Colin Gregg’s ‘To the Lighthouse’

Based on 

Virginia Woolf’s ‘To the Lighthouse’

Welcome Readers,

                    Englishness in character but stays mentally outside of English culture, born in the Victorian environment but has a modernist dilemma- Virginia Woolf- associated with the Bloomsbury group of modern literature has authored 'To the Lighthouse' one of the finest work of modernist literature in the stream of consciousness technique. 

 

                This kind of narrative technique takes time and a lot of effort in reading but when one gets absorbed in this kind of reading then to detach becomes very much difficult. 

 

            Now that various researches are done in the areas related to Literature on screen, the process of adaptations of literary work as well the imagination of the director plays a very vital role in providing a novel and contemporary perspective to the art. The poetic imagination, as well as artistic freedom which the filmmakers enjoy providing novelty, can enhance the imaginative capability of the readers. Along with the translation as an adaption from book to the cinema, the narrative design plays a very vital role in conveying the plot artistically to the audience. The improvisation of the novel in adaptation becomes an important part to be observed. 

 

Deborah Cartmell introduces the hybrid subject of adaptation-  

“Literature on screen was too literary for film studies and too film-based for Literary Studies, and has tended to occupy an uneasy place between the two, perhaps tending towards departments of literature in the main. but until the last decade there have been few attempts to evaluate the process of adaptation itself and even then, only some of these investigations attempt to theorize the textual transactions that occur in the process – whether in the mind of the adaptor, the critic, or the reader/viewer”. (Cartmell and Whelehan)

 

Linda Hutcheon defines adaption as -

“an extended, deliberate, announced revisitation of a particular work of art” 

(Hutcheon and O’Flynn)

 

                        Modernist novelists like James Joyce or Virginia Woolf can be assumed to have absorbed some of the narrative practices of film, in their writing career, in relation to depicting shifts in time and place.

                Virginia Woolf's prominent novel 'To the Lighthouse' published in 1926 contains a striking quality which engages with the intricacies of ‘‘life’’ in very cinematic ways. The film adaptation of the novel seems to catch the daily perplexities and different perspectives as well as the main aspect - the stream of consciousness narrative artfully. Additionally, the director's imagination to add subtle and correlated esteems along with colliding thoughts of characters. 

 

                This blog post reflects the frame reading of Colin Gregg’s ‘To the Lighthouse' 1983 based on Virginia Woolf’s novel ‘To the Lighthouse’ published in 1927. Click here to watch the film directed by Colin Gregg. 

 

                   While reading the novel 'To the Lighthouse' one can feel that the narrative moves faster than the characters. 

 

The film's cast is mentioned below-

                        As a perfect adaptation, the film 'To the Lighthouse' does not completely follow the proper narrative structure as described in the novel but it, to some extent, but the director maintains some part as it is with artistic freedom. 

The Window

                   The initial fadeout frame, the darkness in the frame of the opening scene flows by focusing on certain images - candle, toys, dolls, shells, etc on a table. 

whereas on the other hand, the novel opens up in the middle of the conversation between Mrs Ramsay and her six-year-old son James sitting in a living room of their summer house. 

"Yes, of course, if it's fine tomorrow," said Mrs. Ramsay. "But you'll

have to be up with the lark," she added.

(Woolf)

            These words of his mother conveyed a great joy to James as his joy had no bounds at the same moment it seemed as if the boy is overjoying and all his hopes were dashed to the ground by his father. 

                Rather than a conventional beginning of the novel, 'To the Lighthouse' begins in 'Medias Reis' - 'in the middle of the things'. The exposition in the novel is filled with gradual dialogues but there are no major flashbacks in this narrative as such. The film begins with a gloomy frame of toys with a cut and the frame of a doll, which is making a huge statement of artistic liberty. Perhaps the director is trying to inform the audience about the illuminating force of everything. It can be assumed from the surface level and to a certain extent that in 'To the Lighthouse', the character Mrs Ramsay may be the illuminating force which always is helping the family and others in generating the optimism. 

                    The doll lying on the floor may be an illustration of the crushed dreams of women in the patriarchal society. (Because a doll was always and is always associated with female identity) As the novel has a kind of mid-Victorian and early modernist setting, the film may have captured this moment or has tried to emphasize on the authoritative mindset of an elder towards the children. A doll is lying on the floor suggests 'left behind' - abandoned ideology. 

                           Gradually the camera flashed on a little girl sleeping on the bed and finally, the fourth frame takes us towards a little boy looking passionately towards something out of the window at night. 

the next few frames are about the title which informs the audience that this boy is James who is looking at the lighthouse out of the window. The film may fail to make sense to those who haven't read the novel. In the novel, James' passionate urge to visit the lighthouse is displayed in this film through the above-mentioned frame.

            The frame is of the 'Summer House' of the Ramsay's at the Hebrides. A comparatively rich home and the parts of the house which is to be repaired is represented through characters' acts. It has a titular significance both in the novel and the film also. The physical condition of the house reveals the psychological connections of individuals. The Summer house closely resembles Mrs.Ramsay and her shabbiness when she looks herself in the mirror. Ideally, it is believed and is a well-nurtured stereotypical notion that a homemaker should take care of other members of the family, sometimes losing her own individuality. The individuality all of a sudden is replaced by 'role' of wife and then a homemaker. 

                    Mrs Ramsay is the source of unity in the house, physically and psychologically as well as throughout the novel represents the Victorianism, she is "the angel in the house", her households define her dutiful qualities, besides her outer interests also turns her in domestic life-

“All she could do now was to admire the refrigerator, and turn the pages of the Stores list in the hope that she might come upon something like a rake, or a mowing-machine, which, with its prongs and its handles, would need the greatest skill and care in cutting out”

(Woolf)

                Then comes the dinner table scene, an important aspect in the film, the novel has only one dinner planned by Mrs Ramsay for her guests but her party. Part 1 'The Window' the longest part of the novel and is captured with some modifications in the film. The expedition to the lighthouse moves the plot.

Mrs Ramsay becomes nervous when her son James makes noise upstairs. She goes and consoles her child. 

                This frame reveals the oedipal nature of the relation between a mother and her son, later in this blog, some scenes will be interpreted considering this nature. James attachment towards his mother and his frustration, hatred and grudges towards his father is reflected in the film.

                 Mr Ramsey in the next scene talks about philosophy, all the normal conversations are filled with deeply engrossing philosophical thoughts and insights. Mr Ramsay is referring to F H Bradley's philosophy- 'Appearance and Reality'. 

                            Amid the philosophical discussion, Mrs Ramsay appears with James who presents his childlike stubborn nature towards his father. In the novel, it is very clear from the beginning that James doesn't like his father much because his father is too harsh with him and has some very realistic notion with a certain authoritativeness. But in the Film, James seems to hold the grudge on his father right from the beginning, and this is where the prior reading of the novel helps us in understanding the behaviour of James towards his father. 

                It seems as if James is revolting against his father. The expression of James reveals his hatred of feelings. In the novel, this expression is described in words, the stream of consciousness of James but with another reference. 

"Had there been an axe handy, a poker, or any weapon that would have gashed a hole in his father's breast and killed him, there and then, James would have seized it." 

(Woolf)

                     His sharp expression of looking directly on his father's eyes is an act of revolt. It seems as if he is checking all the limits of his father. James' look is urging his father to remove the mask of sophistication in front of the guests. The next frame captures one of the daughters of Ramsay, in the garden full of bushes who seems to be breeding in her heart some thoughts which seems to be less appropriate in the ways of Mrs Ramsay. The girl is snatching the petals from the flowers which can be said 'a thought of manliness in the girlish heart'. And she views from there her brother sitting on the lap of her mother. 

                    The camera of the second frame may reveal the partial behaviour of a mother towards the gender. Mrs Ramsay is treating her daughter with a more regressive perspective, perhaps because of her era and treats her sons more nourishingly. The narrative shifts towards Lily Briscoe’s stream of consciousness where it focuses on sea saying that sea is full of eternal life yet threatens with oblivion. She represents all the artist's Living a life full of activities but what if one forgets everything one day?

                The narrative shifts towards Lily Briscoe’s stream of consciousness where it focuses on sea saying that sea is full of eternal life yet threatens with oblivion. She represents all the artist's Living a life full of activities but what if one forgets everything one day?

"...because distant views seem to outlast by a million years (Lily thought) the gazer and to be communing already with a sky which beholds an earth entirely at rest."

(Woolf)

                Mr. Ramsay remarks- 

"Time is slipping by"

A highly philosophical statement to which Charles Tansley reminds him of his thesis to be checked and not to live in the moment and try to enhance his knowledge. Tansley seems very much worried about his research throughout the film. 

                    

                                  James like a kite joins others in playing cricket, a kite whose strings are with Mr.Ramsay- Mr Ramsay is the empire who doesn't allow to play another ball because he is out. This fills James with more hatred ness towards his father. Mr.Ramsay is a man who believes in rules and regulations and also wants his children to follow them. 

Lily Briscoe joins the group and makes a self-critical comment which according to Mrs Ramsay is inappropriate and she exclaims- 

"Such a harsh judge on your own talents"

The ‘civilised life’ is the harmony of the family that Mrs Ramsay is trying to create, while the ‘primal rhythm’ is the tension in the family (for example the hatred of James towards his father). 

             Mrs Ramsay maintains harmony in the family, her role is like a woman who gives comfort to everyone. At once, James asked to visit Lighthouse which Mr.Ramsay denied which resulted in the hatred of James towards his father. Mrs Ramsay always tries to be a comforter for her children when the joyful idea of going to the lighthouse is extinguished at once by Mr Ramsay. The typical rhythm of the family always tunes some kind of tension between characters but Mrs Ramsay deliberately tries to resolve the conflicts. 

Herbert Marder points out- 

 

"Ideally, as Virginia Woolf saw it, the home may at times take on the sanctity of a shrine in which the mother-priestess celebrates a communion, uniting the members of the family circle by means of a mystical life force. The mother must be in touch, like Mrs. Ramsay, both with the conventions of civilised life, and with the primal rhythm that underlies all things; she must be able, somehow, to bridge the gulf between the two." (Limanta)

In their house, Mr Ramsay says, it's Mrs Ramsay's wishes that commands them all. 

The rhythm of the waves- drawing back-  falling again. 'It was so quiet I begin to hear waves. Sound of waves falling back drawing back falling again it frightened me' - Mrs Ramsay. The waves suggest constant flux of Time and Life. The sound of waves seem violent and threatening to snatch one's life. After the death of one of the members of a family friend, Mrs Ramsay goes to the sea in dark. 

Lily Briscoe rejects the fixed picture of women as a contrast to Mrs Ramsay. She is of opinion who admires her artistic soul and not marriage. 

Time Passes

• Summer House
• Mrs. Ramsay passes away 
• Marriage 
• War 
• Death of Prue due to childbirth 

(all these are recorded in parenthesis)

To the Lighthouse

Lily is an artist who truly cares about her work, her art. She picks her starts painting. While painting she remembers Mrs Ramsey and James- visualises them.

Lily Briscoe completes her painting - 

“There it was--her picture. Yes, with all its greens and blues, its lines running up and across, its attempt at something. It would be hung in the attics, she thought; it would be destroyed. But what did that matter? she asked herself, taking up her brush again. She looked at the steps; they were empty; she looked at her canvas; it was blurred. With a sudden intensity, as if she saw it clear for a second, she drew a line there, in the centre. It was done; it was finished. Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision.”

Finally, Lily Briscoe finds a vision and captures it in her painting and proves that- 

"A woman can paint, a woman can write" 

Lily established herself as a liberated female artist of her time. 

Thank you.

References-

• Cartmell, Deborah and Imelda Whelehan. The Cambridge companion to Literature on Screen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Document. 11 October 2020.

• Hutcheon, Linda and Siobhan O’Flynn. A Theory of Adaptation. Oxon: Routledge, 2013. Document. 11 October 2020.

• Limanta, Liem Satya. The Presentation of Gender roles in and outside the fiction. Surabaya, 2005. Document. 11 October 2020.

• To the Lighthouse. By Hugh Stoddart. Dir. Colin Gregg. Perf. Rosemary Harris, et al. Prod. Alan Shallcross. 1983. CD. 11 October 2020.

• Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse. New York, Columbia University Press, 1998. Pdf. 11 October 2020.