If Shakespeare can be adapted to a Japanese setting, perhaps it’s also possible for The Tale of Genji to be adapted to a setting in the West. Also, I believe that the Tale of Genji had been translated into contemporary Japanese several times over the course of history but I’m not sure whether or what type of changes were introduced. Just like with Shakespeare, there must be myriads of adaptations already existing, perhaps for television and even for feature films. I haven’t done any research on the subject so I can’t really talk about it.
It’s also one of the longest novels, so it would need to be substantially trimmed to fit into a film canister. I also think it would be hard to imagine a non-Japanese writer/director being able to do it justice. I see Ichikawa Kon directed a version in 1966. Has anyone seen this film?
It would be interesting as long as they don’t go the Beowulf route. There might actually be murders if that happens.
Well, i’ve only read part of it, but with something of quality length should be handled with respect. One of my favourite novels is the very long Tom Jones and the Oscar-winning film may have been frolicking fun but to me a travesty. Of course there are lots of examples. This is a major problem with the usual feature length expectation. Condensing pulp is a different matter. Mizoguchi could have done it justice, Kurosawa, Hiroshi Shimizu and Kobayashi probably a good fist of it. Lady Murasaki was a court contemporary of Sei Shonagon, whose Pillow Book is one of my favourites; Murasaki couldn’t stand her, considered her a terrible snob- and indeed that’s clear enough in The Pillow Book (which doesn’t detract from its pleasures one iota).
It has been done as film, but nothing very famous. Wikipedia names Mizoguchi’s Empress Yang Kwei-Fei, considered as a sort of pre-cursor, but of course that was Chinese, and best known in Po Chu-i’s poem Song of Everlasting Grief, quoted in The Pillow Book and so well known to Murasaki and the Japanese court
I don’t think the length would be a problem. Lord of the Rings was 3 films, Star Wars was 6, Harry Potter is however many, so Genji being stretched over 3 films is conceivable, the only problem I see is a studio that would deem the film as a worthwhile investment given that probably 80% of Americans under 30 have never heard of Genji.
No, length shouldn’t be a problem, just not made into an artificial one. Oh yes, i’d be shocked if Hollywood took it on, and if Memoirs of a Geisha is anything to go on (even allowing that was from an American book), better not. Scorsese’s doing a film based on Endo’s novel Silence, though isn’t he? Whisper it here very quietly, i hope it’s up to his classics not his more recent efforts
Personally I think that it will be very difficult to adapt Genji Monogatari in a movie (also if it will be very long). It’s not a story like Lord of the Rings, where lots of things happen; here is more conceptual and I think it will be very hard to condense all the love stories, the passions and the feelings of Genji Monogatari in a movie.
A second reason for which I hope they wouldn’t do this movie is the set: of course the could shoot it in Uji, but anyway it will be almost impossible to represent the original set of Genji Monogatari.
Third reason: actors/actress?! All the best Japanese actors are dead: Kinuyo Tanaka would have been perfect for Murasaki’s character.
I was thinking of Kobayashi’s Kwaidan, now that might be an interesting style and use of sets to adopt, or Suzuki’s Princess Raccoon
Yeah it would have a slow methodical mood like with Harakiri and perhaps Kwaidan in underlying gloom, heh.
Yeah, Kwaidan has good sets.
Jamie Mattick
The oldest novel in the world written by a woman. I just wondered does anyone think a modern day envisioning of some of the various story lines in the novel could work?
I don’t think its been done as a film, so it is an untapped pool of potential.
Would you leave the setting in Japan if you made a modern day version of it, or do you think a person from another country could adapt it successfully or do you think a lot of the themes are too closely centered to Japanese society