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Author F.H. Batacan talks about film adaptation of ‘Smaller and Smaller Circles’
The world of "Smaller and Smaller Circles" is growing larger and larger. Maria Felisa H. Batacan's novel won a Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature in 1999, and got a US release in 2015 when it was published by Soho Press.
Now, Batacan's Seminal crime novel is heading to the big screen.
Read: Trust and collaboration: Adapting ‘Smaller and Smaller Circles’ for film
The film, directed by Raya Martin from a screenplay by Ria Limjap and Moira Lang, stars Nonie Buencamino and Sid Lucero.
GMA News Online got in touch with the acclaimed author to discuss what it's like to make the leap to film.
GMA News Online: Were there initial apprehensions when the topic of a film adaptation was brought up?
F. H. Batacan: I think there were the usual apprehensions—would the casting be appropriate, would the adaptation be as faithful as possible to the book, and so on. I think more than anything I wanted it to be faithful to the spirit of the book, that its commentary on the country's political and social problems not be diluted. Once I had that assurance from the producers, those apprehensions were significantly eased.
How involved were you in the adaptation?
It was a conscious choice on my part not to be too involved, partly because I am not based in Manila so 100% involvement wouldn't have been workable. But also because I wanted to give the producers the leeway to run with the material and pursue their own vision of it. They did however consult me throughout the process.
Did you find yourself being surprised by how certain scenes translated in a different medium?
Well, I only saw a few scenes being filmed, and what I saw was pretty fantastic. When the film is released, I'll be right there with the audience being surprised and thrilled!
Having had these experiences, what strengths do you see in films as a literary medium?
When "The Night Manager" was released as a four-part adaptation and became such a massive hit, John le Carré wrote about what he had learned after having around 15 of his novels adapted into film: "That any author who goes into a script conference seeing himself as the guard dog of his novel is wasting his time. The reasons are so obvious they’re silly. A novel that takes a dozen hours of patient reading is to be transformed into a film that takes a hundred minutes of impatient viewing. The most the novelist can ask is that somehow the arc of his story survives and the audience will leave the cinema having met some of the characters, and shared some of the emotions, that the reader experienced when he closed the book."
And that's pretty much been my own approach to this film. Books and films are two different worlds, and operate by different rules, I suppose.
In the hands of the right director, the right actors, a film can make the images in your head come to life, or alter them such that you cannot imagine them any other way.
Are there certain things in novels that you feel will never be translated in any other medium?
I think there is an intimacy in reading a book that is difficult to replicate with watching a film—the sense of deep immersion, of being lost in a world and losing track of time and place. I say difficult, but not impossible. I've come out of watching certain films feeling as though the ground has shifted beneath my feet, but I have to say I've felt that feeling much more often with books.
What do you think is gained and lost when adapting a novel into film?
Obviously you're not going to squeeze every detail out of 360-something pages of a novel into a 2-hour film. But again, in the hands of the right director, it will hardly matter at all. A truly good adaptation becomes inseparable from the work—look at "To Kill a Mockingbird" or "The Godfather"—and, in my opinion, a bad one hardly sticks. — BM, GMA News
"Smaller and Smaller Circles" is currently in the final stages of post-production. Follow the Smaller and Smaller Circles official Facebook page for updates.
