As the director for the proposed film adaptation of The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, my intention is to embody the essence of the original award-winning novel in a cinema masterpiece. In order to fulfill this goal, there are several treatments that have to be satisfied. Beginning with the setting, a majority of this film will take place in a graveyard. The benefit to this will be keeping location cost to a minimum. There are over 120,000 graveyards in the United States alone, so finding a site to film should not be too much of a struggle. It is important this graveyard is larger in size.
We want it to be convincing since Bod lived there his first 15 years of life. Sticking to the source material, the storyline takes place in England. We know it can get cold and snow in this setting. Since our production company is based in the U. S. , I have staked out locations in the Northeast in states like Vermont to New Hampshire that can closely match the geographic qualities of the book. With a plentiful amount of small towns in those woodland states, we will have easy access to nearby communities that were briefly explored by Bod in the novel.
Expanding beyond the location, I look to employ a skilled cast that can truly embody the unique set of characters used in the original work. There are many actors I have considered playing the roles of the film’s leading roles. For the role of Nobody “Bod”, the star of the graveyard, I would select Robert Pattinson. Best known for his work in the Twilight movie franchise, we can see the struggle he has faced living between two worlds. In the Graveyard Book, Bod is a living boy who resides with the dead.
Bod, while emotional at times, is inheritably strong for his age and can inflict fear among his opponents. Bod is inquisitive, and fights for justice. From my analysis, Pattinson exemplifies this quality in the Twilight film series. Cunning and intelligent, it would be an honor to have him represent the main protagonist in the film adaptation. For the role of Elizabeth Hempstock, the witch who serves as Bod’s friend, I would cast Jane Levy. She can convincingly pass as a teenager as seen in her performance in the 2012 reboot of the Evil Dead.
This film needs a Liz who “looks neither friendly nor unfriendly. Wary, mostly….. a face that was intelligent and not even a little bit beautiful (Gaiman 109) Metaphorically assuming the last part of that quote, it is important that the viewer’s ot make judgments of her mood simply from her facial expression. As a mysterious character with a complicated past, it is important that this actress can act without showing expression, but her mood can be determined by the way she moves and reacts to physical objects in her surroundings.
For instance, the scene where she touches Bod on the face, or where he is looking up at her after falling from a tree. She was unjustly murdered in the name of religious tyrants, which in today’s world is reserved for only the most fanatical people. Back in Liz’s time, the whole town ganged up against her. Given Liz’s past, Jane Levy will need to embody centuries of skepticism into this role. For the position of Jack/Mr. Frost, I would cast Health Ledger. With consideration of Health’s role in The Dark Knight, I believe he can convey a realistic villain and nice-guy persona in the same movie.
It is critical that the man who plays this role is convincing with both roles (essentially playing a Jekyll and Hyde role). In one regard, we have to see him as a coldblooded killer with no remorse for his actions. On the other side, we need to see a somewhat awkward, but friendly guy that at times could imagine as your next-door neighbor. This dualpersonality is important so the audience can believe Scarlett and her mother genuinely like Mr. Frost. From Health’s previous acting roles, he can shift from one personality to the next very convincingly.
That is what makes Jack dangerous. For the role of Silas, I would pick Bengt Ekerot who stared in the Swedish film The Seventh Seal. Through hints presented in the text, it could be argued that Silas is a breed on vampires. Not having a visible shadow, “had anyone cared to looked, they might have observed that the tall man [Silas] had no reflection” (Gaiman 291) Silas plays a critical role in the development of Bod. He is very caring in nature. Silas tells Bod that at one point in his life, “I did worse things than Jack” (Gaiman 303).
With an omniscient view of the novel, and how he fights evil beings, it is not a stretch of the imagination. Going with the supernatural theme, the actor I have chosen to play Silas has “passed” through in our world. This experience of Mr. Ekerot will help give him the experience to play such a cool character. Like Silas, he can walk the fine line between the living and the dead. Bengt Ekerot played the role of Death in his lead movie. Death is not “evil” so to speak, but there is a great deal of mystery surrounding the character. Similar with Silas, neither character allows emotion to dictate their actions.
Instead, they rely on logic and reason to make decisions. Through the film, Silas has to be played with a straight personality and little visible character development. . That is why I have suggested Mr. Ekerot to his role in the film. For the character of Mr. and Mrs. Owens, I would choose Dr. Bryon McKeeby and Nan Wood Graham respectively, better known for their roles in the painting American Gothic. The couples in the book are traditional folk you would likely imagine from the predominantly farming-dominated time period of their lifetime. While Mr.
Owens, “died the prosperous head of the local cabinetmaker’s guild, and the cabinetmakers had wanted to ensure he was properly honored” (Smith 31), that does not mean Dr. Bryon Mckeeby could not pull of a convincing impression. Since Mr. and Mrs. Owens are not significantly involved with Bod’s adventures in and out of the graveyard, there characters are not deeply explored in the novel. As such, a convincing country-folk couple would fit nicely into this role. Living their lives in more simple times, they represent what many envision as a more pure time in history.
Mr. and Mrs. Owens are both very fond of Bod; it is representative of the tight-family connections that existed during the couple’s life on Earth. In the panting, the husband and wife stand tall and determined. In the novel, the couple is respected by the community and has stuck by the responsibility of raising Bod. We are not making this film for the sole purpose of profiting off the supernatural genre. As technology continues to advance, we are living in a world with text messages and e-mails consuming a great deal of our attention day after day.
The occupants of this graveyard passed long before the advent of such technologies. The idea that what happens in the past, stays in the past is simply not true. While the story is fictional, people could be inclined to do their own research to fulfill their curiosity. The first-hand accounts of the ghosts at the graveyard do not reflect the “official” recordings of history. When Bod attended history class “he often had to resist the urge to say that it hadn’t happened like that, not according to people who had been there anyway” (Gaiman 191).
There is a very real distortion between the “facts” presented in textbooks and how history actually took place. While the victors tell the story after the battle, it is important we have multiple perspectives to judge the past. This film will challenge viewers to expand beyond the 90 minutes of film and start thinking more openly about the past. History is continuously being rediscovered, whether it be through the use of high-tech research labs or digging for fossil remains. The past has covered too much time to be considered “irrelevant”. Death has been a timeless topic for all living organisms.
We have to all face the very real certainty of death. The ghosts of the graveyard can only share stories from the past. By deaths inherit design; they will only have existed further and further into the past as time moves forward. In order to make new stories, we need to look to the future. When Silas tries to metaphorically explain to Bod that people who commit suicide tend to regret their decision, as like “people who believe they’ll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn’t work that way” (Gaiman 104), he gives moral advice to the audience that death is inevitable.
We have a short amount of time living before we spend the rest of eternity dead. The end of the film will give confidence to the viewers that life is something we must make the most of before it passes. We need to “leave a footprint” (Gaiman 304) on society so that people do not end up “lost to all but memory” (Gaiman 221) With the right location, casting decisions and the excellent source material we have been provided to work with, I am confident we can create the most powerful film of the year.
