Review: Liam Burke, The Comic Book Film Adaptation: Exploring Modern Hollywood’s Leading Genre (2015)
Liam Burke, The Comic Book Film Adaptation: Exploring Modern Hollywood’s Leading Genre (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2015).
The awarding of the Golden Lion to Todd Philips’ Joker (2019) at the Venice Film Festival in 2019 illustrates the overwhelming significance of comic book material and its characters for the contemporary Hollywood film industry. Telling the origin story of Joker, Batman’s nemesis, through the development of a violent, nihilistic character, Joker subverts the heroic expectations we might expect from a perceived comic book film. However, such expectations come from the conflation of the comic book film with a superhero narrative. Liam Burke’s The Comic Book Film Adaptation: Exploring Modern Hollywood’s Leading Genre (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2015) is an exploration of the evolution of the comic book film genre from multiple critical perspectives, one that interrogates the social, cultural, economic and industrial forces that have shaped cultural production of comic book cinema during the last few decades. In this way, Burke offers a deep and nuanced understanding of the comic book film that allows for exploration of the expansion of the genre represented most recently by Joker.
Burke elegantly brings together historical studies, fan research studies and genre studies within a particular adaptation studies approach, eschewing a narrow normative genre approach that might otherwise seem to be apt for discussion of films inspired by comic books. Given the significance of fan engagement in the development of both comic books and the comic book film adaptation, Burke’s approach has, in a way, reignited the significance of fidelity that has broadly been supplanted in adaptation studies.
Burke’s book-length study of the comic book film genre sits with other scholarship including work by authors Scott McCloud (2000), Will Brooker (2013), and edited collections by Julian Chambliss (with William L. Svitavsky, and Daniel Fandino) (2018) and by Claudia Bucciferro 92016). While Chambliss et al. and Bucciferro’s anthologies are certainly contributions to the field, their coverage of multiple perspectives means that they do not necessarily have the focus of a single-authored book. For me, Burke’s theoretical approach echoes the deep and critical engagement of Esther Leslie on animation in its serious approach to a medium that others might have dismissed as popular culture. As Leslie says of animation, “it is presupposed here that artefacts … can be understood only in the context of the whole scope of culture” (2004: vii). Similarly, Burke provides a broad social and cultural context for an interrogation of the nature of the comic book movie. Echoing the possibilities inherent in animation, he highlights the significance of the malleability of the film image as a factor in the development of the comic book movie, in part at least stemming from the “increased aesthetic freedoms” (53) afforded by the digital.
Burke offers a broad and useful definition of the genre as following “a vigilante or outsider character engaged in a form of revenge narrative and is pitched at a heightened reality with a visual style marked by distinctly comic book imagery” (106). His analysis of the rise of the comic book movie can be framed within two main themes. The first is the broad area of adaptation studies, which Burke utilises to interrogate the notion of genre conventions and the fan desire for fidelity. His analysis of the shifts in the fidelity of comic book adaptations links increased evidence of fidelity to the source material to the emergence of fans turned filmmakers and to a consequent recognition of the significance of the comic book source material, citing the significance of ‘a fidelity contract’ (149). Burke links the nuanced exploration of the significance of fidelity in adaptations to the development of the genre, the significance of fan discussion and the industrial demands of the studios using the proven source material to align with fan expectations. However, such a participatory culture may become problematic through the commodification of the fan base. Burke’s use of adaptation studies theory to ground his analysis of the comic book film allows for analysis of multiple perspectives and reignites the fidelity debate which has dogged popular interpretations of cultural adaptations.
Fig. 1 - The Matrix (The Wachowskis, 1999).
The second interlinked theme is the aesthetics of the comic book movie. Burke explores “the emergence of a comic aesthetic” which, for him, is “the most significant aspect of the golden age of comic book film making” (173). He identifies how it has permeated mainstream cultural production, using the example of the contraction/expansion of time through the use of the bullet-time trope in The Matrix (The Wachowskis 1999) (Fig. 1). He analyses what he terms “the semiotic back and forth between comics and cinema” (172) again explicitly addressing the concept of fidelity to the source material in the context of comic book filmmaking.
Illustrating the interlinked concepts of adaptation studies and aesthetics, Burke offers an in-depth analysis of how the “twin imperatives of fidelity and genre expectations” (256) are explicitly rendered in the aesthetic and semiotic conventions of the films that make up the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Of particular interest is Burke’s analysis of the complexity of fidelity to the source material and genre expectations in a transmedia age. While fidelity to a source is considered impossible within adaptation studies, it is nevertheless of significance to comic book fans (and non-fans), driven by both commercial imperatives and technological. According to Burke, acknowledging the work of Eileen Meehan on the role of profit in driving the rise of the superhero film (45), the golden age of the comic book film has not been driven solely by one force but has instead arisen from multiple forces including developments in technology, a shifting fan base, the rise of the comic book aesthetic, and the rise of filmmakers with knowledge of source material. Fidelity, and subversion thereof, remains a significant factor in shaping the comic book film – with Joker a significant example.
Reflecting my own research interests, it would be particularly interesting to unpack the development of the genre more thoroughly through a political economic lens. Burke does address the industrial/conglomerate factors shaping the development of the genre, framing the rise of the comic book movie and the emergence of what he terms the Golden Age of Comic Book Filmmaking within a context of multiple key causal agents. These include the post 9/11 environment in the USA and technological and conglomerate development, including the concepts of copyright, franchise and transmedia, There is, however, more to do in this area. For example, addressing what Burke terms “the mercenary tactics” of fans (153) from a political economy perspective could allow for deeper interrogation of the power struggles underpinning issues around delay release dates, territoriality and the impact of streaming services. But this is, of course, another theoretical perspective and this observation does not detract from Burke’s thorough approach to the genre.
Fig. 2 - Samuel L. Jackson as comic book fan Elijah Price / Mr. Glass in Unbreakable (M. Night Shyamalan, 2000).
While Burke’s theoretical focus stems from adaptation studies (and extends beyond it to include audience research and questions of aesthetics) what is particularly strong about his approach is the wide-ranging approach from both a theoretical and methodological standpoint but also in the film examples used, which include both traditional comic-book adaptations and “undeclared adaptations” (227) such as The Matrix and Unbreakable (M. Night Shyamalan, 2000) (Fig. 2). Furthermore, his identification of the role of the complex changes in development, distribution, acquisition of rights and exhibition brought about by the ascent of streaming services, which I contend, is one of the most significant issues for cinema, not only the comic book adaptation genre. This comprehensive approach ensures this book is essential for any students of the comic book film genre.
**Article published: March 20, 2020**
References
Brooker, Will. 2013. Batman Unmasked: Analyzing a Cultural Icon. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Bucciferro, Claudia (ed.). 2016. The X-Men Films: A Cultural Analysis. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Chambliss, Julian C., William L. Svitavsky, and Daniel Fandino (eds.). 2018. Assembling the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Essays on the Social, Cultural and Geopolitical Domains. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Leslie, Esther. 2004. Hollywood Flatlands: Animation, Critical Theory and the Avant-Garde. London: Verso.
McCloud, Scott. 2000. Reinventing Comics: How Imagination and Technology Are Revolutionizing an Art Form. New York: HarperCollins.
Biography
Maria O’Brien has recently completed her PhD on the political economy of audiovisual industries in the School of Communications, Dublin City University. She formerly worked as a lawyer before moving into film and screen studies. Her research interests lie in the intersection of law and policy as it relates to screen media. Her film interests are varied (like the world of film) and include animation, the cinemas of East Asia and, of course, the comic book movie.