The ‘Waste Land’ project: framing practice-based research through literary adaptation

ABSTRACT

T. S Eliot’s seminal poem, ‘The Waste Land’ (1922) was chosen as an explorative text to acquire an understanding of my interpretation methods for my practice-based PhD, which culminated in a collection of photographic and video installations (2005–2010). Examination of orthodox film adaptation theory established the key debates within this genre – its emphasis upon fidelity criticism, the latitude of translation and the range of methods available to the adaptor. Recognition of the subversive quality of European avant-garde films and its relationship to modernist literature allowed me to implement appropriate stylistic strategies that replicated ‘The Waste Land’s’ cinematic montage. This article considers the way in which my early video experiments were informed by this theoretical and contextual framework, testing out different modes of adaptation in order to reflect upon my process. I argue that undertaking such a methodical approach enabled a better understanding of my role as an editor, re-imagining the source text through extracting fragmentary elements that possess an autobiographical significance. By questioning how literature operated as a resource to represent the self within my practice and acknowledging biographical connections to Eliot, the ‘Waste Land’ project became an attempt to address the breakdown of my parent’s marriage.

KEYWORDS:

• Film adaptation
• artist video
• practice-based research
• autobiography
• T.S Eliot
• The Waste Land

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Sally Waterman’s video and photographic works explore memory, place and familial relationships through literary adaptation. She received her practice-based PhD Media and Photography: ‘Visualising The Waste Land: Discovering a Praxis of Adaptation’ from the University of Plymouth, in 2011. Past group exhibitions and film screenings include Wolverhampton Art Gallery; Oriel Davies Gallery, Newtown, Wales; Pitzhanger Manor House and Gallery, London; CCA, Glasgow; Aesthetica Short Film Festival, York; Turner Contemporary, Margate; ViSiONA festival, Huesca, Spain and Moviemento, Berlin, Germany. Her published work includes ‘Performing Familial Memory in Against’ in Picturing the Family: Media, Narrative, Memory, edited by Silke Arnold-de Simine and Joanne Leal (Bloombury, 2018) and ‘Re-imagining the Family Album through Literary Adaptation’ in Global Photographies: Memory-History-Archives, edited by Sissy Helff and Stefanie Michels, (Transcript, 2018). She is a sessional lecturer at UCA, Rochester and Ravensbourne University, London and is the founder of the research group, Family Ties Network. Her website is: www.sallywaterman.com

Notes

1 The ‘Waste Land’ (2005–2010) project consists of ten looping artist videos and two photographic series, although this article will highlight the experimental adaptation processes, influences and theories that informed them, rather than critiquing the final works in depth. The work is available at www.sallywaterman.com and full-length versions of the videos are available at: https://vimeo.com/sallywaterman. See also, Sally Waterman (2018). Available as a free PDF download: https://www.transcript-verlag.de/en/978-3-8376-3006-0/global-photographies/

2 Evidenced in ‘The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism’ (1933) and On Poetry and Poets (1957).

3 My doctoral study analysed my different methods of self-representation through performed role-play, acknowledging the fact that I use visual masking strategies in order to situate myself apart from my audience, appearing as an anonymous figure, a disembodied self, or a ghostly trace. The study of women’s photographic self-portraiture detected a subversion of objectification, replaced by an involvement with masquerade and self-effacement, together with the creation of shifting rather than fixed identities, informed by female artists such as Francesca Woodman, Ana Mendieta and Sam Taylor-Johnson.

4 These choices were dictated by access to the shooting script and were The Informer, Wuthering Heights, Pride and Prejudice, The Grapes of Wrath, The Ox-Bow Incident, Madame Bovary. James Naremore recognises Bluestone’s Novels into Film (1957) as the first academic analysis of film adaptation in America (Naremore 2000, 6).

5 See https://vimeo.com/113612753

6 See https://vimeo.com/157100743. This video is based on the lines, ‘I could not/Speak and my eyes failed, I was neither/Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,/Looking into the heart of light, the silence’ (l.38–41).

7 See https://vimeo.com/146700638

8 See https://vimeo.com/24838945

9 See https://vimeo.com/157202874

10 See https://vimeo.com/195088203

11 See https://vimeo.com/70315513

12 Dr Joram ten Brink, (University of Westminster) highlighted this issue in his keynote paper at the AVPhD symposium at the University of Sussex, 4th July 2007, emphasising the role of theory to arise from the practice, rather than practice becoming an illustration of theory.

13 See https://vimeo.com/157198221

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by University of Plymouth [PhD Remission scholarship].