Assignment Paper

AsAm 5
CR exercise #3: Hwang
Adapting a postmodernist play into a realist movie entails making a great many decisions. This
exercise is aimed at helping you to recognize authorial/directorial choices more clearly, and to
distinguish between choices made on the level of the “content” of the story vs. on the level of its
“form.” While the point is to see that the latter has implications for the first, it is necessary to begin
by sorting each out as clearly as possible.
Compare this:
with this:
STEP 1: Use the tables below to sort commonalities and differences between the scenes (these can
include not just dialogue but stage directions, props, etc.—anything on the page/screen). Address each
example on a separate line. You should have at least one “yes” and one “no” in each table.
COMMONALITIES: Potentially useful quotes or details that are the
same across play and movie
Is the play version of
your example possible
in realism? (Y/N)
Form or
content?
DIFFERENCES: Potentially useful quotes or details that the movie has
changed from the play
Is the play version of
your example possible
in realism? (Y/N)
Form or
content?
Play: from “SONG: The change I’m going to make…” to “Underneath, he wears a
well-cut suit” (pages 78-80)
in combination with
Play: from “SONG: Yes. You” to “SONG: … I might have blown a puff of
smoke right between your eyes. Come.” (pages 20-21)
Film: backstage scene to “my cigarette?” (7.15 through 8.36)
STEP 2: A surface “reading” of the M. Butterfly play and movie might well be that the story is the “same”
across the two presentations. Consider formal changes made in the service of realism (i.e., “no”
examples in the previous chart). How do those directorial (movie) choices produce a different underlying
meaning than the authorial (play) ones? (1 ¶)
• OPTIONALLY, you may wish to also include/discuss content-level details that further support the
movie’s shift to realism. How do they do so? What meanings were lost or new ones created? (1 ¶)
STEP 3: Develop a thesis explaining how differences in formal choices between the scenes above
are meaningful and, thus, deliver different experiences or messages—even when basic character and
plot facts are unchanged. Consider the different choices (in staging, etc.) that make one presentation
postmodernist and the other realist. What experiences or messages does the play make possible
that the movie forecloses (or vice versa)? Note that you must do more than merely describe or
summarize the differences. Argue your thesis, dissecting specific details from the two versions of
the given scenes to support each element of your claims.
Your argument may discuss content-level choices as a supplement,
but must center an analysis of formal changes and their implications for meaning.
Note: Apply terms and analytical frameworks from lecture, as you deem necessary, to help structure
your explanations. You are not, however, required to define the terms explicitly—only to use
them accurately. (300-500 words)