The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam (documentary and graphic novel)
By Ann Marie Fleming
Documentary published 2003
Graphic Novel published September 2007
· It is notable that the graphic novel left out details that were not present in the documentary that said graphic novel was adapted from. This included the fate of the five theatres that Long Tack Sam owned that was briefly mentioned in both the documentary and the graphic novel. In the graphic novel, Long Tack Sam’s son Bobbie and thus Ann Marie’s granduncle noted that though the Chinese government did take away land from the landowners like Long Tack Sam, they did compensate the losses later on with documented proof of ownership. Long Tack Sam, in his despair in the past, threw them away as he saw he could never get his fortune back. This note was not in the documentary, as were other tidbits of information.(Fleming, 150)
· With the international resources Ann Marie had, the documentary had a notable better international flavor with the people that she interviewed. An example would be Mr. Sun Tai. (Fleming, 58-67) In the documentary there was a seen interpreter that told Ann Marie of the back story of her great-grandfather. This was done with the native Mandarin language on his part, Ann Marie in English on her part and the translator as the mediating factor. This type of conversation was not in the graphic novel, which seemed to be purely Ann Marie reinterpreting the words of Mr. Tai later on. Said bias may be due to the fact that I happen to speak several Chinese dialects, but the graphic novel happened to not include the international flare that the audience of Long Tack Sam had, as with the graphic novel the entirety was provided in English written by Ann Marie.
· The documentary had the coherent representation of Ann Marie by her recording. This was consistent throughout the film. However, the graphic novel did not have said coherence. At the beginning, Ann Marie swapped her sketched persona of herself with “Stickgirl,” who would be her representing factor in the graphic novel for most of the comic. (Fleming, 4) This action was redundant in the graphic novel, as Ann Marie doubles her dissociation with the graphic novel with this minor point of difference. Should we read into her decision to make her story as such, she had a representation drawn to represent her representation. Rather than keep to one caricature of herself, she further separates herself from the tale by having “Stickgirl” as the biased omnipresent narrator. The use of Stickgirl is reduced when we realize that this representation of Ann Marie is not necessarily needed for the story. There are pictures of her throughout the graphic novel taken by the documentary alongside her long narrations. Most of the time Stickgirl served no purpose towards Ann Marie’s identity in her journey.
· The overall flow of the graphic novel seemed built around the words as opposed to the amalgamation of words and pictures. It is apparent in the documentary of Ann Marie’s film background, as the set up of the iconography seemed tailored towards the narration of Ann Marie. With the comic, however, there is little space for all the grandiose amount of text that went with Ann Marie’s narration from the graphic novel. Ann Marie had an interesting back story to how Long Tack Sam’s troupe gained his name alongside an animation to supplement the meaning behind her great-grandfather’s name in Chinese. However, this was abridged with the graphic novel, most notably to supplement the small space provided in the book.(Fleming, 25)
· The documentary had noted animations that the graphic novel lacked. The graphic novels had stills for all the scenes with photography or the golden age animations, while the documentary had a motion comic approach with moving the still pictures according to the scene.
Overall, the two versions of the tale of Long Tack Sam as covered by Ann Marie are informative, yet is clear where Ann Marie's focus lied as her film abilities show more in the pacing and scenic choice of the documentary as opposed to the graphic novel.
Bibliography:
Fleming, Ann Marie. The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam. New York: Riverhead, 2007
Fleming, Ann Marie, dir. The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam. Sleepy Dog Film, 2004. Film.
No comments:
Post a Comment