Two versions of one woman’s life in Africa:

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Two versions of one woman’s life in Africa:

Sydney Pollack’s film adaptation of Karen Blixen’s Out of

Africa.

Name: Violette N.M. Frentrop Student number: s1532111 Supervisor: dr A.C. Hoag Date of completion: 1 July 2013 Word count: 14.294

Master Thesis

English Language and Culture Faculty of Arts

University of Groningen

Masterscriptie Engelse Taal en Cultuur

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1

Introduction

“I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong hills” (13) is the famous first line in Karen Blixen’s book Out of Africa, published under the pseudonym Isak Dinesen. The line reflects the narrative of a woman struggling with her farm in Africa during the colonial period. This line represents the main focal points of the narrative: Africa, her farm, and her own journey. A stark contrast can be seen in Sydney Pollack’s film adaptation in which the first spoken line by Meryl Streep, as Blixen, can be heard in a voiceover in which she says: “He even took the gramophone on safari” (00:34-37). With this line the character of Blixen refers to Denys Finch Hatton, instantaneously establishing him as the main focal point of her experiences in Africa. In many ways, the film adaptation represents her life in Africa through her relationship with Finch-Hatton. This difference immediately shows a discrepancy regarding the focus of each narrative; whereas the novel focusses on Blixen herself and her life in Africa, in the film adaptation her life experiences become secondary to the romance between Blixen and Finch-Hatton. Pollack indicates in an interview that the screenplay by Kurt Luedtke is based on Blixen’s novel and also on Judith Thurman’s Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Story Teller. While the film ignores most of Blixen’s experiences and relationships she describes in the novel in favour of displaying a romanticised image of Africa and the relationship between Blixen, played by Meryl Streep, and Finch-Hatton, played by Robert Redford, Blixen’s narrative in Out of Africa maintains her focus on her relationship with the African people and Africa itself. Therefore, I consider Sydney Pollack’s film version to present a limited perspective on Blixen’s Out of Africa as it provides a restricted insight on her narrative and ignores the deeper layers of the novel. As a result, the film fundamentally disregards the complexity of Blixen’s role as a woman placed in a position of power as a coloniser, as well as her position as a women writer.

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3 images from the film. The novel is surpassed by the popularity of the film, which creates a biased depiction of Karen Blixen because the character portrayed in the film is criticised for her lack of sensitivity about colonialism. However, I do not think the film adaptation does Blixen’s novel justice, because her novel was not meant as an entertaining romance piece, but as a profound reflection on her life in Africa during the colonial era in which she displays both problematic statements about colonialism as well as ideas which were controversial at the time for criticising imperialist views. Pollack’s account can be seen as an example of the way in which not only Blixen’s work, but the work of women writers in general, especially in the genres of travel writing and colonial writing, has not been taken seriously; their work has been diminished compared to that of their male counterparts. It is exactly this effect that Pollack’s adaptation has by diminishing Blixen’s work and consequently her efforts to comment on colonialism by presenting this misreading of her novel in the film adaptation. Discussing the film adaptation not only reveals a problem of fidelity regarding the narrative, but Pollack’s film adaptation causes a conflict of gender roles, for a man is representing a woman’s voice and perspective, as Pollack takes control over Blixen’s story.

In order to ensue my discussion, I will examine the film adaptation and the original narrative of Out of Africa in detail. Firstly, I will present a brief analysis of the many film reviews

Out of Africa has received. This examination will provide insights into whether there is a general

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4 adaptation in relationship to the novel, I will also examine the film and the book separately. By looking at the film as a separate, cinematographically aesthetic entity, I recognise and understand the praise the film gains for its cinematographic presentation.

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5 However, the question remains whether the film truly represents Blixen’s autobiographical account or whether it merely reflects Pollack’s misreading of Blixen’s novel. Whereas many famous filmmakers had expressed their interest in making a film adaptation of Blixen’s novel, none of them had dared to adopt the project and considered it a substantial challenge which they did not know how to adapt successfully (Maslin, Alaton, Ansen and McAlevery). Pollack, perhaps, was an unconventional choice: his previous film was the 1982 American comedy Tootsie starring Dustin Hoffman as a struggling actor with a difficult reputation trying to find a job as a woman. Pollack’s film adaptation is constructed from the screenplay and the cinematographic elements of filming. Cinematic elements refer to the techniques used by filmmakers; the theatrical elements in film adaptations signal the aspects involved in staging the productions concerning all aspects seen in a shot, such as the film set, lighting, costumes, and props, but also actors and their acting. These elements and, more precisely, the directors use of the cinematic and theatrical elements can be used to highlight and illustrate the literary elements in film. The screenplay of the film adaptation of Blixen’s narrative is not just based on her novel Out of Africa, but also largely influenced by Judith Thurman’s biographical account of Blixen’s life (Canby, Scott). The addition of Thurman’s work as a source for the film adds a reason to why the film fails to adapt the different layers concealed in Blixen’s narrative to the screen and why the film takes a different direction. As a result, the film adaptation has a negative impact on the book because it does not represent its complexity, which the film audience is fails to recognise. Moreover, by examining the differences between the original narrative and the cinematographic narration, and the elements the director purposefully ignored in the adaptation, I will provide a further analysis of the elements in Blixen’s novel.

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6 previous successful films starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford probably contributed greatly to the popularity of the film (262). The actors account for the success of the film because of their “attractive screen presence” as well as their on screen chemistry. Nonetheless, the romance-focussed film undermines Blixen’s authority as both a woman and a writer; for in the film she is presented as a woman dependent on men, in particular on Finch-Hatton, which is a different reflection of her own telling of the narrative presented in the novel.

Adaptation

The field of adaptation studies, according to Thomas Leitch, “stood apart from the main currents in film theory [and rather] traces its descent more directly from literary studies” (3). George Bluestone’s Novels into Film, which is regarded as the founding source of adaptation theory, explains that “changes are inevitable the moment one abandons the linguistic for the visual medium” (5-6). Adaptations have been popular from the earliest film productions; therefore, “adaptation theory, the systematic study of films based on literary sources, is one of the oldest areas in film studies” (Leitch 1). In Screen Adaptation: Impure Cinema, Cartmell and Whelehan address the controversy of where the field of Adaptation Studies belongs, for it both combines the critical theory of film and literature. They explain that “the use of both ‘literature’ and ‘screen’ [moves] beyond the novel/film nexus to incorporate literature such as popular fiction, poetry, theatre, memoirs, and essays and screen to embrace television and video screens as well as films” (1). They explain that “‘adaptation’ helpfully focusses on the process of exchange first and the concern of narrative form second” (1). Furthermore, they illustrate that the “development of adaptation studies as a critical approach” has taken a long period of time, while they see a positive change resulting in adaptation studies from discussions of “impure cinema” towards making “substantial theoretical challenges and contributions to film, media and literary scholarship” (2).

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7 eloquently states, in her work Screening Novel Women, that “the relationship between original and copy is as problematic as the assumption that a literary text has one essential meaning” (5). Therefore, she believes that “the question so often asked in adaptation studies about whether one form, a ‘copy’, is ‘faithful’ to the essence of another form, an ‘original’ is theoretically flawed” (5). In my research I will refrain from addressing this question and follow one of the leading critics in the area of film adaptation, Robert Stam who expresses, in his research Literature

Through Film, the notion that novels should be “treated in their own terms, as novels, but also as

seen through their various filmic adaptations” (xi). With this statement Stam makes an interesting remark by implying that films can be seen as “‘rereadings’ of these same novels as ‘performed’ by film” (xi). The statement reflects the idea that each adaptation is a subjective reflection of the original source.

The medium of film is different from the medium of literature, therefore it is obvious there will be differences between a film adaptation and the original source text; nonetheless, examining the film adaptation in relation to the literary source can reveal discrepancies in theme and focus. In a similar fashion to Stam’s remarks, André Bazin illustrates in What is

Cinema? that it is irrelevant whether films are cinematographically “pure”, “impure” or “mixed”

and relevant that any literary idea can be adapted to the medium of film (53-153). Bazin disregards the discussion of fidelity in adaptations and maintains focus on the cinematographic aspects of film. Whereas Stam makes a valid remark as he notes that the issue of ‘fidelity’ does contain “its grain of truth” (3), it should not “lead us to endorse fidelity as a methodological principle” (3). On the subject of ‘fidelity’ of film adaptations, Stam summarizes that:

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8 to apprehend and reflect on Blixen’s awareness of problematic colonial implications and omits prominent features of the novel to create his own version of Out of Africa. Consequently, I believe that Pollack’s film adaptation is a cinematographically beautiful work, but a misreading of Blixen’s Out of Africa in terms of its focus and theme.

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Chapter I

An analysis of Out of Africa’s film reviews

Numerous filmmakers have expressed their desire to set Karen Blixen’s memoir Out of Africa to film, but Sydney Pollack was the director who finally started filming an adaptation in 1983 (Maslin, Alaton, Ansen and McAlevery). According to film critic Janet Maslin, filmmakers like Orson Welles, David Lean, and Nicolas Roeg, all considered adapting Blixen’s memoir but their “thoughts of filming the book [never] materialised” (54). An explanation for this is provided by Maslin as she expresses the idea that even though the film “has a keen sense of character and place that have made it alluring from the film maker's standpoint, it also has an uneventfulness that has kept it well out of reach” (54). Pollack appears to agree with this notion for he claims that “the book itself [Blixen’s Out of Africa] has no story at all [but is] a very, very poetic memoir” (qtd by Salem Alaton). Therefore, to the directors, the novel was recognised as difficult to translate from the book into a filmable script. A solution was provided by looking at other source material to complete the image of Blixen’s life in Africa. A review in Newsweek by Ansen and McAlevery states that “there were gaps and mysteries in the story deliberately created by Dinesen” and the publication of Judith Thurman’s biography of Blixen in the 1980s helped create a more complete picture (72). With the help of screenwriter Kurt Luedtke, Pollack then made an attempt to create a film adaptation of the novel that would suit the Hollywood studio executives and the audience.

The title of the film Out of Africa causes confusion as it gives the impression that the screenplay was written as a direct adaptation of Karen Blixen’s novel. However, the screenplay written by Luedtke draws on Blixen’s novel Out of Africa, as well as Judith Thurman’s biography

Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller, and Errol Trzebinski’s biography of Denys Finch Hatton Silence Will Speak. Some reviewers clearly state the origins of the film by addressing its multiple

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10 by Rita Kempley in which she states that Blixen’s memoirs “are the basis of this film set at the foot of the Ngong Hills” (29). The film audience is likely to remain unaware of the other source material as the title of the film indicates that the film is a direct representation of the novel.

Pollack’s film centres on the romance between Karen Blixen and Denys Finch Hatton and appears to use the African savannah as a mere backdrop to the story. In Ansen and McAlevery’s analysis of the film, they state that Pollack is known for filming “his characters as tiny figures against lush landscapes” (72). In an attempt to give background information to the film, Canby gives a brief presentation of Blixen’s journey and her life in Africa. He highlights that the introduction of Denys Finch Hatton to her life is the starting point of the narrative in the film for it is “this affair that provides the elusive heart of Sydney Pollack’s ‘Out of Africa,’ a big, physically elaborate but wispy movie” (“Screen” 17). Similarly, Kempley describes the film as “a gorgeous, gushy and sometimes garbled account of the heroine's epic life, skimming her many tribulations to focus on her affair with a big game hunter […,] the saga turns into Love Safari” (29). Ansen and McAlevery contradict this notion and state that “‘Out of Africa’ is a sprawling but always intelligent romantic epic that depicts Karen Blixen's struggles to hold on to both the man and the land she loves and cannot possess” (72). Moreover, they do indicate that the screenplay is romance-centred, but they also draw their focus to the surrounding plot and theme. By focussing on the romance, and its presentation of that love story, the film is often said to lack depth (Sterritt, Canby “Screen”, Kempley). The general opinion in the reviews is that the romance exceeds the narrative and becomes the focal point of the film and, hence, the focal point of the reviews.

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11 view” 17). The romance-focussed plot appears to lack a narrative arc, which is also illustrated in an article from the Washington Post Style section which describes the film as a motion picture that “runs 2 1/2 hours and seems even longer” (C1) In a similar fashion, Kempley finds fault with “the long and ineffective screenplay” which “grinds on and on and on” (29). While Canby praises Meryl Streep’s performance in his film review in the New York Times he negatively comments on the role of Finch Hatton (“Screen”). According to Canby, the writing is extremely disappointing and despite Robert Redford’s acting skills “there’s no role for [Redford] to act” (“Screen” 17). Most critics negatively comment upon the screenplay and the length of the film, yet conversely the film is praised for its cinematographic representation of Africa; in many extreme long shots Pollack attempts to capture Africa in a single wide frame.

Perhaps the feature of the film that best reflects Blixen’s original work are the cinematographic elements reflected on screen. Pollack was assisted in the production of the film by David Watkins who won an Academy Award for the film’s cinematography, receiving high acclaim for his camera work.(Harmetz 15) Pollack believes he accepted a challenge in representing the Africa Blixen had experienced, and tried to do so with the help of Watkins’ camera work. Pollack wanted to recreate her perception of Africa in order to reflect the notion that “those values she perceived could be transferred to the viewer. You have to re-create the paradise to feel the loss” (qtd in Ansen and McAlevery 72). Concluding his film review, Canby expresses the importance of the filmic elements by stating that “the pleasures of ‘Out of Africa’ are all peripheral – David Watkin’s photography, the landscapes, the shots of animal life – all of which would fit neatly into a National Geographic layout” (“Screen” 17). Alaton expresses a similar sentiment as he states that the film is “set in exotic Kenya and features dandy scenes with frisky lions and sinking suns.” Pollack’s focus on images of the African landscape received wide acclaim as the film has won Academy awards and Golden Globes for its cinematography.

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12 of Blixen’s narrative. A review in Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt states that “there isn't much to it[, merely] pretty pictures [which function as] its only real attraction” (22). Similarly, Canby remarks that the cinematographic techniques used in the film provide an image of Africa “photographed so picturesquely in the movie” (“Screen” 17). The narrative appears to become secondary to the cinematographic elements of the film. Extreme longshots of the African landscape attract attention to the beauty and grandeur of Africa. By focussing on the graphic aspects, the film diminishes Blixen’s narrative and her efforts to convey her view of life in colonial Africa. A review in the Washington Post Style section makes the statement that the film appears to be “an elevated form of tourism” (C1). Errol Trzebinski expresses her concerns that, following the film release, “Karen Blixen’s Kenya has now been depicted for an immeasurably wider audience” which may induce a “new wave of travellers” (15). Critics realise the colonialist insinuations of the film, and comment on the exoticising of the landscape by saying that despite its inaccuracy in its glorification, the cinematic image represents Karen Blixen’s Africa in the eyes of the film audience. Reviews point out deficiencies in the adaptation in that Pollack’s version presents a glorification of Africa.

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13 intellectual stimulation” (“Screen” 17). He states that “there remains the suspicion throughout the film, as well as in her writings, that Africa exists only as she perceives it - an exotic landscape designed to test her soul” (“Screen” 17). It is exactly this aspect Pollack appears to exemplify in his film by presenting Africa in its visual grandeur to please his audience, using staging and filtering to present his vision of Africa as the prominent backdrop of the film.

Pollack’s disregard of the challenging facets of the narrative and his decision to focus on the cinematographic representation of Africa are problematic because this image of Africa is a romanticised version in itself. John Belton states in a chapter eloquently labelled “Paradise lost/ Paradise regained” that Out of Africa is one of the primary examples of “obvious attempts by filmmakers to return to a world of nature” which was popular for the American cinema in the 1980s (380). Pollack’s focus on the staging the scenery ignores other features of Africa. Ironically, as Ansen and McAlevery point out, “the ‘star’ animals -- five lions, three dogs and an eagle -- had to be imported from California” (72). Moreover, Mary Battiata describes how the Africans in the film remain in the background. She quotes Meja Mwangi an assistant director to the film who states that there is “no interaction between [Blixen in the film] and those Africans”, and while “Pollack tried very hard” to depict Africans respectfully, the film remains “mostly as story about her and her boyfriend” (qtd in Battiata C1). With the film’s focus remaining on the love story, the underlying themes and its colonial aspect appear to be of secondary importance to the plot.

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Chapter II

An analysis of discrepancies between film and book scenes

A close scrutiny of Pollack’s film adaptation and Blixen’s Out of Africa reveals many discrepancies between Pollack’s translation and Blixen’s narrative. The popularity of the film overshadows the book and has negatively influenced the appreciation of the original narrative as a work on its own. In my opinion, the film does not do the narrative justice, for the book itself contains a high level of complexity which I think deserves more credit than the film provides or allows for. Pollack creates a distorted translation of Blixen’s narrative by focussing on the visual aspects of Africa in the film medium and by ignoring many aspects relevant to Blixen’s original ideas about Africa. Perhaps even more problematic is the fact that Pollack’s film adaptation presents a male perspective of a woman’s life and experiences in Africa, which causes conflicts in thematic and narrative structure. Pollack appears to diminish Blixen’s work by demonstrating a completely different narrative focus in his adaptation which not only presents the character of Blixen as a powerless and dependent woman, but also undermines her voice in the narrative.

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15 of Blixen's Out of Africa, as they state that the filmmaker’s interest “is satisfying the audience’s expectations, which entails honouring cinematic conventions and affirming cultural norms with which the audience is familiar” (228). In the film’s reviews there were selective comments on Pollack’s approach to colonialism, which is also illustrated by Cooper and Descutner who reveal that “a few dissenting critics objected to the movie’s glamorization of colonialism” (228). However, one can detect what Edward Said refers to in his Orientalism as “the Westerner's privilege” in both the film and the book, which implies that the narrator is able to “give shape and meaning” to the unknown because the Westerner’s culture was referred to as “the stronger culture” (45) and, in doing so, the narrator presents a subjective version of a story or events. According to Melissa Thackway, filming itself and the films discussing colonialism enforce colonial implications. Thackway’s comments can be linked to what Edward Said notes in his work Orientalism, in that “the Orient was almost a European invention, and had been since antiquity a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes, [and] remarkable experiences” which have become part of the colonial discourse” (1). Films have become part of this discourse as well and, consequently, contribute to the shaping of the exotic image. Thackway states that, even nowadays, Africans believe that “the traditionally negative representation of Africa in Western discourse and film can be seen as part of an overall hegemonic strategy born out of the European nations’ desire to expand their economic and imperial influence in Africa” (30). Despite the difference in medium, both the film and the novel demonstrate how “the Oriental is contained and represented by dominating frameworks” (Said 40); however, the approaches of both book and film reflect discrepancies.

Pollack’s Out of Africa appears to fall in to the category of what Thackway refers to as films that are “symptomatic of a yearning for Europe’s ‘good old’ colonial past” (36) and consequently present a “selective reading of history” (36). Richard Francaviglia makes an interesting remark regarding films and historic factuality when he responds to the disclaimer presented in the film

The Conquerer (1956) that states “this story, through fiction, is based on fact”. In his response,

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16 films” which should state: “This story, though supposedly factual, is based on fiction” (54). Francaviglia elaborates by saying that “[t]he fiction, of course, is the conjecture that the filmmakers introduce concerning geographic locale, artifacts [sic], and –most importantly – dialogue and motive” (54). In a way, this appears to be accurate for Pollack’s Out of Africa because of details regarding the filming process; Pollack had to import artificial earlobes to add authentic ‘artefacts’ and the ‘realistic’ tribal clothing was created especially for the film. Moreover, the cinematographic representation of Africa was said to focus too much on the aesthetic appeal of the African savannah. Cooper and Descutner eloquently describe how

[t]he beautiful scenery, the gracious colonists, the contended Africans, and two iconic movie stars entangled in a love affair in an exotic land all combine with the film’s narratives to mask the racism and supremacist attitudes of the settlers” by “turning the viewer’s gaze away from the moral and political issues that [Blixen] foregrounds in her texts. (248)

Cooper and Descutner emphasize that Pollack’s translation of the book into film diminishes many aspects of the book because of the “discrepancies between the book and the film” (228). They argue that foregrounding of the romance results in a distorted translation of Blixen’s narrative. Pollack’s Out of Africa, thus, is no longer a reflection of Karen Blixen’s life in Africa but may possibly be a romance between any two people set in Africa.

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17 information to a primary narrative of a love story. Her research in Africa Shoots Back presents, what she refers to as, the “essentialist construct [that] are used to define the African continent” both in the past and contemporary discourse and the “backward-looking ‘empire nostalgia’ films in the Eighties, which use colonial Africa as a backdrop for otherwise routine adventures and/or romances” (36) of which, according to Thackway, Out of Africa is a prominent example. Similar to Thackway’s views, Kobena Mercer suggests in his essay “Recoding Narratives of Race and Nation”, that the “renewed fascination with the exotic landscapes of the post-Empiric periphery” which is featured “prominently in mainstream cinema in the 1980s suggest a remythification of the colonial past” (93). This “remythification”, a retelling of history from a partial perspective, functions as a means of mastering the narrative of the colonial past by filming a limited version of history.

In a similar fashion, Pollack’s adaptation also appears to reshape the narrative with regards to gender constructions. In Screening Novel Women, Liora Brosh describes the idea that “domestic fiction both constructs and questions cultural ideas that define women in terms of their domestic roles” (3) and that this “ideological content” is a driving force behind many film adaptations. This idea can be related to Pollack’s adaptation as well, with regards to the way in which his approach redefines Blixen’s role in society as well as in her own narrative. Brosh explains how adaptations “attempt to construct gender ideals in terms of contemporary ideas about women and their relationship to a domestic sphere” (4). This is problematic because Blixen’s role as a woman is redefined by a man. Pollack not only rewrites the narrative, but also redefines Blixen and her role in society. Her position and authority as a woman is discredited in his adaptation as he silences much of Blixen’s narrative.

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18 force in his narrative. The beginning sequence of Out of Africa, in which a fade-in establishing shot presents the African savannah (00:20-34) and a cut-in displays a traveling shot through bush and high grass, which the soft focus gives a dreamlike feel, corresponding with a cut in of an aged Blixen in her bed apparently in a state of sleep. The shot sequence returns with an extreme long shot, revealing a male figure in the distance of the African savannah and Meryl Streep, as Blixen, can be heard in a voiceover (00:34-37). Immediately, the relationship between Finch-Hatton and Blixen is the focus of the film from the beginning onwards as the opening monologue focusses on Hatton. Cooper and Descutner point out that Blixen meets Finch-Hatton upon arrival in Africa which presents him as “the gateway to her experiences of Africa”, and, moreover, they emphasise that this immediately sets the tone in that “men, not Africa, will be the focus of the film” (242).

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19 privileged and restricted, acted upon and acting” (6). This ambiguity in a position of power can be related to Blixen’s position, for she acquired the farm through her marriage, yet she merely has ownership over the farm and the plantation because her husband is not present. In a similar fashion, Thackway describes how Western women may be “oppressed by the patriarchal structures of the West, but colonial discourse reveals that they may simultaneously find themselves in a dominant position vis-à-vis non-Western women and men” (148). Blixen’s narrative can be said to reflect conventions of imperial discourse, because Blixen’s writing assigns the Africans to an inferior position by placing herself as a woman in a superior position. Her position as a white woman in colonial hierarchy, reflects imperial implications as she is placed in a superior position with regards to the colonised. Both the novel and the adaptation exemplify the role of the white women in an authoritative position compared to subservient African men and women. Thackway explains how this role division is most often epitomised by presenting a “(usually desexualised) black male servant” and his “white mistress”, a power relation in which the white female maintains a dominant position in relation to her servant (148). This dominance can be seen in the relationship between Blixen and Kamante, her African help. Nonetheless, in Pollack’s film adaptation Blixen is not presented as a dominant white female because Blixen gains her access and authority through a white male; first, Bror Blixen is the reason she comes to Africa and secondly, Finch-Hatton who seems to be responsible for her contact with the land and the people of Africa. Regardless of her own efforts described in the original narrative, in the film adaptation the film character of Blixen maintains her dependency on male characters. In a way, Pollack takes away Blixen’s authority and partly excuses her from the responsibilities of the colonisers. As Blixen becomes a subject of colonialism and not an active participant, she remains dependent and defined by men.

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20 mostly travelling with male leadership and presented as a woman in need of assistance. For example, one account of a safari in which she obtains the leading position of the safari presents a hopelessly lost and helpless female, who luckily is saved by the assistance of Berkeley Cole and Denys Finch-Hatton who come to her rescue (46:29). This presents a portrait of Blixen different from her own narrative in Out of Africa which she tries to find her own way and be the caring and leading role for the other people in her company.

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21 Dissimilar to examples from the book, the safaris presented in the film adaptation can be seen as a way in which Pollack diminishes Blixen’s authority. One of the most famous scenes from the film is the scene in which Finch-Hatton washes Blixen’s hair on safari; a highly romanticised sequence starting with Blixen trying to brush her hair unsuccessfully as her comb gets stuck. Finch-Hatton is presented in a stereotypical male role of being the one to assist the helpless female and uttering the words “I can fix that” (1:25:05). The following sequence shows Finch-Hatton washing her hair and rinsing the soap out, after which he states “that’s better” (1:25:10-26:00). This sequence is long compared to the length of the sequences covering the travels themselves. Pollack embraces a more traditional view of gendered activities by emphasising the influence of her male companions and, in turn, insinuates that her position is merely that of a helpless female. Pollack weakens the female character’s authority and, thus, diminishes Blixen’s authority as a woman by enforcing the power of the male protagonist over women.

The complexity of the relationship between Blixen and Finch-Hatton detected in her novels is overly simplified in the film adaptation which results in an image of a dependent woman. In Out of Africa Blixen describes the relationship between herself and Finch-Hatton mainly by describing joint expeditions and events such as the flight over Africa and game hunting. In her narrative she describes how she felt united with Finch-Hatton. Separate hunting parties mostly resulted in a bad outcome for both as he often “vexed that he had been unable to [shoot a] lion”; whereas when they went on shooting safari “together, [they] had great luck with lions” for “the lions of the plain would be about, as in attendance” (195-6). Blixen does not present herself as a woman depending on a man, but as an equal partner to Finch-Hatton for they both need each other to fulfil the hunting safari; she describes how “in our hunt we had been a unity” (204). In her narrative, Blixen is not presented as a dependent woman despite the fact that hunting is traditionally perceived as a patriarchal activity.

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23 western audience of the 1960s by ignoring the position of power of the Chief and presenting him as a feeble old man. Whereas Blixen presents more ambiguous power relationships between the colonised Africans and herself in her narrative, the film version presents an unambiguous power relation in the way the colonial hierarchy is presented to the audience.

Even more problematic is Pollack’s redefinition of Blixen and her relation to Africa. Blixen is presented as an enforcer of imperialism. This is in contrast to Finch-Hatton who is portrayed as the guardian of Africa and the game. An example can be seen of Pollack’s Blixen enforcing her possessive notions in a sequence showing Blixen in discussion with Farah about her demand for a pond. She tells him “Now, if you put a dam here to stop the water, than I can make a pond here. Do you know how to make a pond?”. In this exchange, she appears to emphasise herself and her ownership. Farah responds by telling her that the “water must go home to Mombasa”. A self-righteous response by Blixen ensues stating that the water “can go home after we make a pond” (24:25-45). The version of Blixen represented in the film displays mere disrespect for the cultural beliefs of the Africans and for the land itself: Blixen appears to be intent on merely taking into account her own desires. However, in her original narrative Blixen states: “You are always short of water in Africa. It would be a great gain to the cattle to be able to drink in the field, and same themselves the long journey down the river” (168). With these remarks, Blixen reflects on the need for water by the land itself, the people and the animals living there. Despite the fact she later on refers to the pond as being “very pretty” (169), the dam was not intended to appease by her own visual desires or selfishness. In her work Isak Dinesen and the Engendering

of Narrative, Susan Hardy Aiken points out that it is “undeniable that she remained remarkably

free, given her historical circumstances, from the smug ethnocentrism typical of most white settlers” (39). Examining remarks such as these reveals Blixen’s awareness of colonialism and aspects such as these are ignored by Pollack in his adaptation, which consequently undermines her original narrative.

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24 compassion for the Africans that Blixen expressed in her narrative. A prime example is the film sequence in which the New Year’s Eve party shows Blixen and Finch-Hatton, while dancing, having a discussion about Blixen’s plans to build a school. In the discussion, Finch-Hatton expresses his disapproval of Blixen’s plans for educating the Africans. As Karen Blixen in the film asks whether “stories [can] possibly harm them?”, Finch-Hatton responds by saying that “they have their own stories; they’re just not written down” (1:11:08-11:34). This discussion, however, reveals a contrasting situation as Blixen’s views have become Finch-Hatton’s views in the film. For instance, in her narrative Blixen states her admiration for the Kikuyu culture as she articulates that “they had preserved a knowledge that was lost to us” (27). She continues by elaborating that if one is receptive of education and knowledge than “Africa […] will teach it to you” (27). Her willingness to learn from her surroundings appears to challenge the imperial mind-set. As a result of her “genuine interest in [African people and their] cultures”, Aiken states, “among her contemporaries [Blixen] was widely regarded as suspiciously radical” (40). Yet in the film Finch-Hatton is presented as ‘the radical’ as he states his fear that the Africans “should be turned into little Englishmen” (1:11:20-11:42). In a similar fashion, in the novel it is Blixen who comments on how “The Church of Scotland was working hard to put the Natives into European clothes,” which, according to her, “did them no good from any point of view” (35). Consequently, in the adaptation the character of Blixen reflects colonialist statements whereas in the original narrative Blixen is the one who expresses ideas Finch-Hatton utters in the film.

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25

Chapter III

An close scrutiny of the novel Out of Africa

In the film adaptation, Pollack oversimplifies Blixen’s narrative and disregards her negotiation of gender and her reflections on imperialism. In her book, Blixen appears to present a play with gender conventions and reveals subversive remarks on colonialism. Blixen’s play with gender distinctions and her intermixing of both male and female voice undermines the imperialistic characteristics of her narrative. Of course, there are many aspects of Blixen’s language use which display an imperialist attitude. As a woman writing from the project of imperialism, Blixen writes from a difficult position as she struggles for authenticity and authority within the conventions of colonial discourse and travel writing. The use of a pseudonym, however, allows Blixen to play with genre conventions and allows her access to these different discourses. Despite problematic remarks in Blixen’s narrative, Pollack’s adaptation appears to highlight mainly those aspects and ignores many more nuanced elements of Blixen’s narrative which convey an awareness of gender and subversive comments on colonialism; by negotiating gender and authority in her writing, Blixen simultaneously subverts imperialist discourse.

Pollack’s film adaptation completely ignores the complexity of the ways in which Blixen plays with gender conventions. Blixen’s narrative is constructed as a sort of dual discourse: reflecting a discourse from both a position of authority and subservience. It was common for female travel writers to play with gender conventions to adhere to constrictions within the writing genre. One of the ways in which Blixen attempted to play with gender constrictions is by leaving the sex of the narrator unspecified. Whereas the film adaptation immediately presents Blixen as the narrator – a woman commemorating her past – in the novel, the sex of the narrator remains unspecified until later in the narrative.

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26 character, because it is written under a false name. Thurman’s account of Blixen’s many pseudonyms refers to the meaning of the name Isak as “the one who laughs” (5), which could imply that Blixen was aware of this paradoxical presentation. Blixen’s use of a male pseudonym is not a unique authorial tool as it was common for female authors in travel literature and colonial literature to publish their work under a male pseudonym (Mills 41), In the narrative, Blixen does not define the narrator’s gender until Kamante refers to her as “Msabu” after which Blixen discloses that the Africans use “this Indian word when they address white women” (33). By not explicitly stating the sex of the narrator at the beginning, but casually referencing it in the course of the narrative, Blixen employs this ambiguity of the role of the narrator.

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27 ‘mask’, thereby, encompasses everything between someone’s own notion of their personality and other people’s ideas (61). Blixen’s traumatic experience of leaving Africa is, according to Hannah, a large part of the alienation process between the two selves. Moreover, he states that viewing “herself through the eyes of the Africans” made her see herself as a different person (61). Blixen experienced this as literally travelling between two worlds, in which she had to maintain two versions of herself: the Karen known by the Africans, and public persona of Isak Dinesen who was able to convey her account of colonial life in Africa. Blixen’s voice and narrative are presented though the use of a pseudonym. The pseudonym functions as a mask and offers Blixen the opportunity to present her narrative.

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28 gendered genre of colonial discourse. Blixen’s use of a pseudonym reflects the complexity within the narrative because she challenges the reader’s expectations within genre conventions by not revealing her gender.

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29 In presenting herself as Isak Dinesen, a person in a position of authority, Blixen appears to play with the genre conventions of travel writing, which is illustrated by Shirley Foster and Sara Mills who express in their introduction to An Anthology of Women’s Travel Writing that travel writers had to comply with “discursive constraints [which are] the range of ‘rules’ and systems of representation and meaning within which writers negotiate in order to write what they wish” (5). They emphasise that these discursive constraints were different for men and women. In

Travel Writing, Casey Blanton examines the different ways in which men and women are

influenced by discursive constraints in their narratives. She explains that it “is not until the late nineteenth century that women begin to regularly produce the more ‘factual’ (and less confessional) travel books”, because primarily “women’s authorship was typically found in the private sphere” and that “[p]aradoxically perhaps, travel writing’s close connection to these kinds of texts, especially the memoir, allowed women entry into the travel genre” (57). Blanton emphasises how male travel writing was better received than writings by their female counterparts, and the personal narrative allowed women to produce their own accounts of travel writing. Blixen’s narrative is often referred to as a memoir, which aligns her work with the “traditional” conventions regarding women’s travel writing.

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30 common in writings by women, an anxiety which is not present in male travel writing (71). By stating that her narrative reflects the contemporary situation of life in Africa and expressing that it might be seen as a piece of “historical interest”, Blixen attempts to lift the narrative up from the sphere of fictional stories into an authoritative account. Blixen’s writing reflects an ambiguity regarding social and discursive constraints and by using the pseudonym Blixen appears to view gender as means of challenging writing conventions. By interchangeably accessing a male and female voice, she is undermining gender distinctions also undermining imperialist implications of writing. Pollack, however, minimises Blixen’s struggle with gendered conventions and ignores the more nuanced colonialism in Blixen’s narrative.

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31 Scandinavian woman Blixen amplifies the notion that her narrative adheres to imperial conventions.

However, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o1_{presents a different opinion in that he maintains a critical}

outlook on Blixen’s writing because her narrative voices the colonial experience from only the colonisers’ perspective, yet also qualifies her more nuanced reflections. Ngũgĩ asserts this as a problematic aspect of colonial discourse, because it was the primary reflection on a representation of culture for the Africans. In his analysis of colonial discourse, he defines three categories of literature about the colonisation period that is available for children in Africa in classes, in libraries for school and university education. He primarily described these categories in Writers in Politics in the essay “Literature in society” and revisited them in his later work

Decolonising the Mind. Ngũgĩ describes the first category of writers as those who display the

“great humanist and democratic tradition of European literature” (91), which mostly reflect European views of history and the colonisation period. The second category is described as “literature of liberal Europeans who often had Africa as the subject of their imaginative explorations” (92). The third tradition is described as the “downright racist literature of writers” in which two types of Africans are depicted: the good and the bad. The Africans in these works are characterised as two separate groups who are either cooperating with the European colonisers or resisting foreign conquest. Ngũgĩ states that these writers guide the reader in identifying with the collaborating Africans, and distancing the reader from those who oppose colonialism. Ngũgĩ explains that he believes Blixen’s book falls within the second category, the “liberal mould: to her Africans are a special species of human beings endowed with a great spirituality and a mystical apprehension of reality or else with the instinct and vitality of animals, qualities which ‘we in Europe’ have lost” (92). Following Ngũgĩ’s analysis, Blixen’s writing is still colonial even though she appears to present a “liberal” attitude. In Blixen’s

1 _{In the essay, I refer to Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o as Ngũgĩ, because his name does not consist of a first name}

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32 attempt to translate her life and her experiences onto paper in writing, Blixen writes about the inhabitants of the farm and her experiences from her personal (Western) perspective.

In imperial literature women settlers were encouraged to fulfil a female’s role in domesticating the empire and creating a new home. The link between imperialism and domesticity can traced the verb “to domesticate”, for, as Karen Hansen describes, this verb is etymologically linked to the verb “to dominate” (3) and both verbs are interpreted as a form of “to civilize” (23). Anne McClintock states that “In the colonies, […] the mission statement became a threshold institution for transforming domesticity rooted in European gender and class roles into domesticity as controlling a colonized people” (35). The emphasis on domesticity in discourse becomes an imperialist implementation. Thurman explains that Blixen brought luxury items to create a domestic setting, as she had had “the ambition to make her house an oasis of civilisation” even before leaving Denmark (Thurman 136). Blixen’s decorations highlight an imperialist mind-set as she appears to literally bring “civilisation” to Africa. Domestication, hence, became an imperial aspect as, according to McClintock, the domestic was projected into the imperial sphere and was part of the civilisation mission (232-57). Blixen’s narrative reflects colonial implications in its emphasis on domesticity, yet by challenging gendered conventions of domesticity, Blixen in turn challenges the imperialist mind-set.

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33 as a problematic situation for she states that the squatters probably “saw the relationship in a different light, for many of them were born on the farm, and their fathers before them, and they very likely regarded me as a sort of superior squatter on their estates” (Blixen 18). While she refers to the squatters’ land as being part of her land, she also accepts that this part of the farm is owned by the squatters. Blixen realises the problematic relationship, for her land was once owned by people she now calls squatters. She poses the question of who then best deserves the title of ‘squatter’. In a way, Blixen questions the prerogative claim of the land and, thus, question its imperial implications.

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34 Blixen’s elaborate descriptions of individuals she encounters on the farm may appear to support conventions in colonial discourse in which the colonised is reduced to a passive object, but she subverts the conventions of colonial writings as she reveals awareness of a reversed gaze. In describing her relationship with the Kikuyu, Blixen states:

On our safaris, and on the farm, my acquaintance with the Natives developed into a settled and personal relationship. We were good friends. I reconciled myself to the fact that while I should never quite know or understand them, they knew me through and through, and were conscious of the decisions that I was going to take, before I was certain about them myself. (27)

Blixen challenges the imperial power of the gaze by recognising the reversal of gaze by the Kikuyu. The Africans seem to be able to obtain more knowledge over her than she can interchange. Blixen illustrates a reversal of gaze as the Kikuyu look at her and without revealing too much about themselves, while they, in contrast, are able to know all aspects of Blixen’s personality and her life. She simultaneously expresses a sense of pride and concern, because the Kikuyu challenge the authorial gaze in their knowledge of people and their ability to observe her and get to know her mannerisms and ideas. This reversal of gaze reflects the negotiation of power dynamics between the colonisers and the colonised, for the Kikuyu appear to have a sense of power over Blixen. This subversion addresses the distinction between the “observer” and the “observed” which challenges the traditional assumptions of control in imperial hierarchies.

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35 up in zoos” (224) and laments the fate of giraffes in captivity being transported by boat to a zoo in Germany.

The giraffes turned their delicate heads from the one side to the other, as if they were surprised, which they might well be. They had not seen the sea before. They could only just have room to stand in the narrow case. The world had suddenly shrunk, changed and closed round them. They could not know or imagine the degradation to which they were sailing. For they were proud and innocent creatures, gentle amblers of the great plains; they had not the least knowledge of captivity. (257)

In her comments, Blixen reveals her disdain for the desire to take features of Africa out of its natural environment. Remarking on the fact that the giraffes had not known captivity in Africa, Blixen implies her own appreciation of the space and freedom Kenya has offered her. Blixen amplifies her statement about the giraffes hoping they will never reach their destination alive. “All of us, we shall have to find someone badly transgressing against us, before we can in decency ask the giraffes to forgive us our transgressions against them” (258). According to Blixen, it is unforgivable to abduct the animals out of Africa to satisfy a Western need for entertainment and curiosity of exotic creatures. As Blixen advocates the preservation of Kenya and nature, she simultaneously comments on imperialist implications.

In order to convey her own opinion and statements about the process of colonialism, Blixen uses the iguana as a symbol of her conflicting emotions regarding imperialism. She comments on how taking ownership over Africa is most often unsuccessful, as she believes the idea is often more prosperous than the actual result.

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37

Conclusion

My examination of Sydney Pollack’s film adaptation alongside Karen Blixen’s original narrative shows discrepancies regarding the general focus and themes in both texts. I have argued that a comparison of the book and the film adaptation is useful because it reveals the most important differences between the film adaptation and the book regarding focus and themes as a development due to changing time and medium. Analysing the source text as well as the film adaptation allows for deeper scrutiny of the underlying themes in both.

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38 I have argued that Blixen’s struggles as a woman in Africa, her comments on colonialism, and her work as a writer itself are deemed unimportant in Pollack’s adaptation, as the film appears to present her writing merely as a work of reference. Pollack appears to adjust not only Blixen’s narrative but also her authority of voice: Blixen’s authority is surrendered to Finch-Hatton and other men in her life as she is presented in a subordinate role; her narrative is not accepted but altered to adhere to a male-dominant view, and her own voice is lost as her narrative is altered and her opinions are transferred to Finch-Hatton. I conclude that, apart from being a reinvention of the narrative, the film appears to be a reinvention of Blixen’s life and, consequently, not an accurate reflection of her perspective. Pollack’s version silences Blixen’s voice, as her narrative is reduced to a love story.

Pollack’s emphasis on the romance between Blixen and Finch-Hatton presents a limited view on Blixen’s life and displays a rather Denys-focussed image of her life in Africa. Similar to the way in which Blixen’s life is romanticised, the film romanticises Africa by presenting its beauty in elaborate wide angle establishing shots of the African savannah. As I have demonstrated, this is problematic because Blixen’s novel focuses on more aspects of life in Africa, such as her elaborate descriptions of the many visitors to her farm – both Europeans and different African tribes – rather than merely a Denys Finch-Hatton-centred version of events. To summarise, much of Blixen’s narrative appears to be rendered insignificant for Pollack’s limited perspective on Blixen’s novel provides a restricted insight on her narrative while it ignores the deeper layers of the novel and therefore disregards the complexity of Blixen’s work.

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40

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Two versions of one woman’s life in Africa: