Ryan Hooper
This context research presentation will be focused on the decision to adapt Persepolis to film and the associated production challenges, as well as the benefits of this medium.
Persepolis (film) was developed as a co-production between French and Iranian film companies. The movie was co-directed by Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi herself. She emphasized in an interview that animation was her first choice for the film adaptation, saying, “With live-action, it would have turned into a story of people living in a distant land who don’t look like us. At best, it would have been an exotic story, and at worst, a ‘third-world’ story. The novels have been a worldwide success because the drawings are abstract, black-and-white. I think this helped everybody relate to it, whether in China, Israel, Chile, or Korea; it’s a universal story.” Satrapi clearly valued the drawings in the graphic novel for their ability to capture the empathy of the reader and wanted this effect to be maintained for the film.
This proved not to be as simple as transposing the artwork for the movie, however. It was considered an artistic constraint to just use black-and-white hues for an animated film. Because of this, the producers focused on maintaining the feel of the novel while making the necessary adjustments for the new medium. Backgrounds for scenes were created from scratch, and various grey shades were integrated using pictures of Tehran and Vienna for inspiration. This shading was contrasted with fluent lines. “We had to bear in mind not to soften the graphic strength of Marjane’s universe,” said Paronnaud. While 2D imaging techniques on pen tablets were experimented with, the production team was unsatisfied with the lack of definition. The team eventually went with traditional pen and ink, which resulted in a style that successfully emulated Satrapi’s original work in the novel. Using a black-and-white presentation for an animated movie also presented challenges in terms of avoiding mistakes that wouldn’t be as blatant in a color context. “From a technical point of view, you can’t make any mistakes,” said art director and executive producer Marc Jousset, “As soon as an eye isn’t drawn in the right place, or a pupil not perfectly drawn, it shows up straight away on the large screen.” Animating all of the necessary characters for the film also took a substantial amount of time. Models had to be created for settings in the story with different clothing styles, different character ages, and plenty of extras. Marjane drew all of the characters for the film, over 600 in total. Overall, around 80,000 drawings for 130,000 images were created. Satrapi actually even insisted on being filmed playing out every scene to provide additional insight for the animators.
While adapting Persepolis to film had its animation challenges, it also provided the opportunity to enhance the story with sound. The score was composed by Olivier Bernet, who created four different “musical atmospheres” to go with the film’s four distinct parts. “The first and second ones are quite sober, and chiefly with string instruments,” said Bernet, “The dream scenes (dialogues with God) are plainer: a piano, a few string instruments. I also had fun in the first half of the film when we see people dancing to disco music. It had to sound like Iranian disco music – well, at least what I figured the music sounded like! For other scenes, I drew my inspiration from an Iranian rock CD that Marjane had lent me. The third and most diverse part is the one taking place in Vienna with the rock concerts, the hippies in the woods with their guitars, the nightclubs, etc.” The attention to detail in composing the score of the film brings depth to the story, which is especially important with how much of Marji’s youth revolves around listening to music.
All of the work on animation and music paid off as the positive reviews and rewards quickly flooded in. One review said “nothing was lost” in the adaptation, that “fluid movement boosts the emotional meaning of Satrapi’s images,” and that “music brings depth to the story.” Among many award wins and nominations, the film was nominated for “Best Animated Feature” at the Academy Awards, “Best Foreign Language Film” at the Golden Globe Awards, and made #6 on Time magazine’s “Top 10 Movies of 2007”. Adapting Satrapi’s Persepolis to film was a bold choice that reaped rewards primarily due to the amount of care dedicated toward preserving what made the novel so powerful.
References
Hetherington, Janet. “Persepolis’ in Motion.” Animation World Network, 2007.
https://www.awn.com/animationworld/persepolis-motion
Sampath, Sheila. “Persepolis the Film: A Moving Adaptation of Graphic Storytelling.” Shameless. 2008.
https://shamelessmag.com/blog/entry/persepolis-the-film-a-moving-adaptation-of-graphi
“Persepolis (film)” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, Last Edited 1 October 2020.
I really like the way you went in depth in explaining the specific details that made the Persepolis film successful. A lot of times, when converting novels into film, many people are dissatisfied with the result because it doesn’t capture the same emotions or outcomes that the book evoked. However, the fact that the Persepolis movie was fluent in its ability to remain graphic and simple in its appearance, sound, and color scheme helps to synchronize the book and movie, which is probably the reason for its success. Marjane being one of the directors of the film was probably essential in its success as well because she was able to make the executive decisions to create the movies that was synonymous with the novel.
Hi Ryan
Thank you for the background context to how the graphic novel Persepolis was adapted to film version. I enjoyed reading how it every aspect of the novel was carefully considered when transforming it into a film.
I am not surprised Satrapi emphasized the importance that the film remain in abstract drawing format. It is true that had the film been live action it would have lost the universal appeal Satrapi made sure was so clear in the graphic novel.
Hi Ryan,
It was interesting to read about how the concept of the movie was made. I think the was that Marjane had the concept for the movie, was the best way to share the emotions and details of her story to the best outcome possible. The concept from the book translated well to film format, with the black and white graphics in the novel, to adding color in the film. Marjane was able to use the features she wanted in both, and able to share the culture, ideas, and concepts that she wanted in the long run.
Hi Ryan,
It’s really interesting to hear about what went on behind the scenes for the production of this movie. I really never knew how much work went into making an animated movie, so now I will appreciate it more. I think the decision to keep the movie a cartoon instead of live action was a really strong one. When something is a cartoon, its a lot more universal and easier for people of different backgrounds to watch.
Ryan,
Your context presentation was excellent! I am looking forward to watching the Persepolis film. I will be sure to be listening for the 4 different scores and contemplating how to adds to the scene. Sound is such an important aspect that truly adds to the viewers emotions, it guides the viewer to feeling a certain way. When I watched to trailer and saw it was animated I was disappointed however, after reading your presentation, I understand and completely agree with the decision to make to movie animated rather than live-action.
Hi Ryan,
I found the way you went into detail speaking on the film and the work that was put into it to be very interesting. The use of animation to avoid poor depiction of the characters in the movie, and using this to show the emotion in the movie was overall quite interesting. I feel that by keeping it a cartoon it will allow for many different people of different backgrounds to enjoy the movie for its value, and learn important things. Marjane creating all the characters alone is quite an interesting feat, as many movies will have many developers that work on tasks like this, to take it all on to oneself is a heavy load and shows dedication.
Thank you for your post Ryan. From an artistic point of view Satrapi really did go in depth to keep the integrity of her story as close as it replicated the graphic novel. Wat I enjoyed about this is it let’s Satrapi tell her story and honestly and genuine as it occurred through her eyes. Especially down to the simple music chosen for poignant scenes. Thank you for the information!
I don’t claim to know much about filmmaking, but I love hearing about how films get made, especially the scores. First, it’s very interesting to me that it would have been more difficult to digitally animate the film, considering the illustrations in the book are so simple. Ultimately I’m glad that they chose to go with pen and ink, as it keeps the sentiment of the book that Satrapi intended. Second, I liked how you discussed the score of the film. For me, the music in each scene of the movie had a huge impact on how I understood the film; the way that they arranged music in high-intensity scenes helped convey the mood in a way that a book can’t. After reading this and watching the film, I’m glad to see the detail they put into the production show on screen.
Hi Ryan, this presentation about the adaptation of the film was interesting to read. I believe it was best that they kept the animation of the film similar to the book and focused more on carrying the same ‘feel’ of the book into the movie. What was most fascinating what that Marjane drew all those animations which shows her dedication to her story being portrayed in a way she thought was most fitting. The personalization she put into the making of Persepolis was excellent, also the effort put into making it was shown in the film.
Ryan,
I really liked how you examined what went into the making of the film Persepolis. I know a lot of the times when a novel is being made into a film a lot of people don’t support it because they know the movie will never be able to live up to the book. However, I believe the making of this film was the best possible choice. It gives an even clearer picture to what life was like for Marjane and her family as they are living in such a trying time in Iran. The movie is able to show much more emotion and with the use of voices and songs we can really grasp what the characters were feeling. Satrapi did an amazing job of making this novel and film so personal for her and she was able to make a tribute to herself.
Thank you very much for the presentation. I really like the detailed introduction you brought to us about the production of film animation. Especially for the explanation that the theme color in the movie is black and white. At the same time, I am also a student studying animation. The animation team mentioned in the article uses traditional pen and ink, which is also very inspiring.