Alasdair Gray + Yorgos Lanthimos
Alasdair Gray’s niece Kat explains why she believes that Yorgos Lanthimos’s film Poor Things is such a fascinating and informative companion piece to Alasdair’s book.
A meeting of minds
Alasdair always wanted Poor Things to be a film as well as a book. He told me he made the book very visual in the hope of inspiring someone to turn it into a movie. And his strategy clearly worked. As Yorgos Lanthimos said in a recent interview that one of the reasons he wanted to film Poor Things was because Alasdair’s book was “so cinematic”.
Yorgos optioned the movie rights to Poor Things back in 2011 but it didn’t go into production until after Alasdair died. Alasdair had watched and enjoyed one of Yorgos’s earlier films - Dogtooth – before agreeing to the option and he was excited by the prospect of the film being made.
He also talked warmly about meeting Yorgos and taking him on a tour of some of his favourite Glasgow haunts including The Necropolis – a huge neo-classical cemetery on a hill overlooking the city. The family joke is that Alasdair took Yorgos to see the Necropolis because being Greek, Alasdair thought he would enjoy it. But to be fair Alasdair took everyone to the Necropolis because he loved it. And it was somewhere we visited together many times when I stayed with him.
Complementary creations
Poor Things is my personal favourite of Alasdair’s books and also one of his most accessible and enjoyable – although if you’ve only seen the film Poor Things you may wonder what this says about Alasdair’s other books! I read an early draft which I couldn’t put down. And Alasdair always spoke about this book and the characters in it, with warmth and affection.
When we found out that the film was actually going into production I was excited but also nervous. As I’d heard that while Yorgos’s films were something special, they were also emotionally quite cold. And for me this is the opposite of Alasdair’s work. Which can be complex, challenging and disturbing but is always profoundly humane.
The dedication in my copy of Poor Things
So it was a relief after the film debuted at Venice, to read so many reviews describing Poor Things as Yorgos’s warmest film to date. When I saw it myself, I was delighted to find that while Yorgos’s narrative differs from Alasdair’s in a number of ways the film and the book are both clearly telling the same story. And it is this combination of the same story told in different ways that for me, make the book and the film such great companion pieces.
So why do I feel that Yorgos’s film is such an interesting creative complement to Alasdair’s book?
Fantastical stories
As I said, to me they’re both fundamentally telling the same story but in different ways. And with some interesting shifts in focus and emphasis. One of the main ones is that while Alasdair’s story is fantastical it’s set in a very specific time and place – 19th century Glasgow. And he describes the physical geography of that city in loving detail. So in Alasdair’s Poor Things you get a tension between the realistic physical environment and the extraordinary story.
Title page, Alasdair Gray’s book Poor Things
Poor Things movie. Searchlight Pictures.
Yorgos’s film is ostensibly set in London, Lisbon and Paris but everything in his film is fantastical. And each creative element seems to have its own independent logic. The physical settings have distinctive characteristics, but they’re distorted and dreamlike versions of their namesakes. The costumes deconstruct and subvert the dress of the late 19th century to express Bella’s personal development. And the music is like nothing I’ve heard in a film before. An aural narrative that works in counterpoint to the visual one - highlighting the emotional discomfort and difficulty of certain scenes and experiences.
Different perspectives
While we have a consistent setting in the novel Poor Things, the film’s multiple creative elements are matched by Alasdair’s multiple competing stories. History, politics, medicine and societal attitudes are among the many themes described and discussed in Alasdair’s version of Poor Things. Our primary narrative voice is Archibald McCandless - Max in the film. And Bella’s perspective on her story is confined to letters home during her travels with Duncan Wedderburn and as an alternative perspective on events at the end of the book.
Alasdair Gray’s drawing of Archibald McCandless
Ramy Youseff as Max McCandless. Searchlight Pictures
Yorgos’s film by contrast, is very much Bella Baxter’s story. We follow her experiences throughout the movie and Emma Stone (as Bella) is rarely offscreen. This means that many events which get a brief mention in the book are explored in detail in the film. A few episodes have been added to the film that don’t exist in the book at all. And inevitably, the scope and content of the book and it’s complex and competing themes have been significantly reduced.
Alasdair Gray’s drawing of Bella Baxter
Emma Stone as Bella Baxter. Searchlight Pictures
A shameless woman
But whatever their differences – and they are significant and interesting – Poor Things the book and Poor Things the movie are both exploring the same thing. Which is the ways that women and children have been - and still are - treated and mistreated by those more powerful than themselves.
Poor Things the book is dedicated to Alasdair’s second wife Morag and her portrait appears inside a human skull near the beginning of it. Morag was a small but determined person. And her perspective would have heightened Alasdair’s already very well-developed understanding of the frustrations of being a woman in a male-dominated society.
Original drawing for the illustration in Poor Things by Alasdair Gray
Printed illustration at the start of Poor Things book by Alasdair Gray
Alasdair was also interested in how we’re all shaped by our childhood experience of being physically weak and dependant on more powerful adults for our survival. And this concern with the experiences and feelings of those who are – or feel themselves to be – disempowered in our society is typical Alasdair. His heroes and heroines can generally be characterised as ‘outsiders’. And as a rule, they’re not very heroic in the traditional sense of the word.
Bella Baxter however, is definitely an exception in Alasdair’s oeuvre! Emma Stone describes Poor Things as the story of a woman “who doesn’t have to deal with shame”. And I’ve heard Alasdair explain his novel in exactly the same words. So the driving force behind Bella’s story is the same in Alasdair’s book and Yorgos’s movie. They’re both exploring what it would be like as a child and a woman, to grow up without feeling powerless and frightened.
An adult fairytale
Alasdair cited fairytales among the many sources of inspiration for Poor Things. And in stories such as Hansel and Gretal and Little Red Riding Hood, child protagonists find themselves in some deeply disturbing situations! Hung in a cage from the ceiling being force-fed for the witches next meal. Or in bed with a predatory big bad wolf who’s just eaten granny.
Poor Things movie. Searchlight Pictures.
Poor Things movie. Searchlight Pictures.
To me, Alasdair Gray’s Poor Things and Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things are both fairytales. Stories that gleefully - and at times uncomfortably - explore the possibilities of a childlike heroine who is physically full-grown and emotionally uncowed and unconstrained. And through their fantastical narratives, they both shine a light on some uncomfortable and unsettling aspects of our own society and our own experiences.
Explore more…
Who is Alasdair Gray?
Personal insights into a genius Uncle.
Poor Things: Monstrously good fun
Enjoy more personal perspectives on Poor Things and Alasdair’s other novels.
Adapting Poor Things
Screenwriter Tony McNamara answers our questions about adapting Poor Things.
External links…
Watch movie trailer and video clips on IMDb.
Mark Kermode interviews Yorgos Lanthimos: “My films are all problematic children”: director Yorgos Lanthimos on Poor Things, shame and his creative soulmate Emma Stone.
Kermode and Mayo's Take: Mark Kermode reviews the film Poor Things. Watch on YouTube.
SBIFF Cinema Society Q&A with screenwriter Tony McNamara, talking about adapting the book and working with Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone.
You can hear Alasdair reading and talking about books on our YouTube channel