for Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
Logline
Will humanity be able to survive itself or will it succumb to it’s own madness? Or will humanity succumb to its own stupidity?
Introduction to key characters
Felix Hoenikker – One of the key researchers who worked to create the nuclear bomb that was dropped on Japan. He is cagey, irritable, and seems more to resent his kids than appreciate them. He resents them because she died giving birth to her third born. This affects the way that he treats his youngest son, and how the youngest son is raised.
Emily Hoenikker - Southern Bell. She truly did love Felix, but never felt loved by him. Only exists in flashbacks. Yet she represents an important part of the film from these.
Frank Hoenikker – Second child of Felix and Emily Hoenikker. Frank is selfish and prefers not to be in the company of other people. He does not see the individual value of people, instead he always is looking for ways to use people to get what he wants.
“Papa” Monzano – An elderly dictator of the Republic of San Lorenzo. He walks with an entourage of people to serve him. Gave Frank a position in exchange for the Ice-nine machine. Angela Hoenikker – Oldest child of the family. Very tall. The narrator of the film. She is unhappy and idealizes her father. She is unhappy, yet she has a keen sense of humor. She is very sarcastic and often uses this during her narration of the film.
Newt Hoenikker – Midget who Emily died giving birth to. Optimistic. Married Zinka, a Ukrainian midget, but also a spy. Steals Newt’s share of ice-nine for the government of “Chikistan” Though people often underestimate him, Newt believes in his self. He things that everything in the world happens for a reason and that a person’s job after getting knocked down is to get back up again.
Synopsis
Now, it’s time to expand your logline into a three-act narrative. You won’t have space for every detail, so the challenge is to create a coherent story with a beginning, middle, and end in only a few sentences. You’ll break the synopsis down using three acts as follows:
Act 1, The Set-up: Begins in the research lab. At this point the readers do not know who the main characters are. Men in white suits rove about the lab. Then the narrator, Angela begins telling the backstory. This ends with the scientists watching an explosion on a screen. Then it changes to a real explosion.
Act 2, The Conflict: The main conflict is going to be to the CIA tracking down ice-nine since it can be turned into a weapon. At the point the film climaxes in several places. Mostly the action follows the two Hoenikker brothers along their respective plot lines in the film.
Act 3, The Resolution: Through a non-linear narrative, the plot will thicken, as it seems more of the Ice-nine has gotten out to people around the world. When the “good guys” get all the remaining polymorph and destroy it in the artic. Newt finds himself happy, not because he did anything right, but because he did not do anything wrong and he had good intentions. He is the only character that genuinely cares about other people, so the moral of the story is that the good end up winning and getting what they deserve in the end. Essay:
For many it may seem surprising that such a popular book as Cat’s Cradle has not been adapted into a film before. But reading through the book one sees that there is a non-linear plot occurring within the text. If was an easy novel to turn into a film, someone likely would have done it already. There is a complicated cast of characters, and the novel jumps from one seen for another. As it can sometimes be a difficult novel to follow because of its non-linear form, it would likely be a very difficult film to follow for the very same reasons. For this reason my treatment of the film departs greatly from the novel. Because the United States is no longer competing with eh Soviet Union, and because of the surrealistic elements of the story, the Soviet Union has been replaced with the fictional country of “ Chikistan.” In order to make the plot easier to follow, Angela has been promoted to the narrator.
One of the most important questions in deciding how to adapt the film to a book is deciding which genre it would be in. The story is unique in that it lends itself to almost any genre. There are certainly romance stories that could be focused on by making a romance film. There is the relationship between Newt and his Soviet spy girlfriend. There is certainly the hallmark of a successful romance: “Midget’s girlfriend actually a Soviet spy on a mission to capture the Ice-nine. However, many movies that are not strictly romances, include romance elements to them, so ultimately in my treatment I decided to include this romance, but not to focus on it exclusively.
The book could also be a drama. From the three children’s detached father, to their different paths to find meaning, but often finding despair, it would be a dark drama. There are also some very comedic elements of both the narration and the characters which would suit the movie to being a good comedy. With the Ice-nine capable of being used as a weapon of mass-desctruction, the storyline would also make for a good thriller. But ultimately in deciding between these genres, I opted to find a way to include elements from a wide range of movie genres. I did this by deciding to make it a modern Avant guard film in the Wes Anderson Quentin Tarantino film. Doing it this way allows different elements of various genres to be mixed to suit the mood of the scenes.
Much of the book Cat’s Cradle is about writing a book called The Day The World Ended. For the film, this has been decided to be the title of the movie. This way the original narrator, John or Jonah, has been completely nixed from the narrative. In the film version it will be more compelling to have one of the main characters—Angela—telling the story, since she is more closely related to the family and she will be able to tell a lot of the background without needing to work through John as the middle person to tell the story.
The story line will be non-linear. Like the film Magnolia there will not be a traditional narrative line. Instead this story will be told with a series of vignettes. The book is satirical in many ways, so the film will be a dark comedy that relies on humor rather than cohesive plot to hook the viewer. There will be times in the course of the film where the audience might feel “lost” in terms of following the plot, but this will not matter so much as long as they are being entertained through each scene. This can be achieved by proper casting.
The first scene will take place in Technicolor and it will consist of technicians in the laboratory who are working on creating an atomic bomb. Angela is a good person to tell this story because a she will be able to then narrator who her father is. As she does this the viewer will see what she is narrating. Then she will be able to tell the story of her brother Frank, and his exploits in the Island nation of San Lorenzo. All of these characters but the midget, Newt will be distasteful to the viewer. Newt will have the advantage of being genuine in his intentions. The love story between him an another midget who is actually a spy will provide the romance story for the film. In order to further gain sympathy for Newt it will be clear that the family and his father resents him for the death of Emily. The only remembrance of Emily will be through Newt’s recollection. This is impossible, since he could not have remembered the mother who died giving birth to him. While this causes the rest of his family, especially his father, to resent him, it is Newt who actually has the best relationship with Emily through his fictitious imaginings of her. These “flashbacks” will happen when Newt is going through difficult times and he will begin speaking to by saying, “Oh mother. . . “ and then the screen will dive into a dream sequences where he is with his beautiful mother.
The film will be fast moving, with Angela helping the viewer understand what is happening. The story will focus on the characters but there will be wider and greater political implications explored through the rendering of the story. There will be a side story happening on the Island of San Lorenzo. Whereas all of the other characters goals will not be achieved, the film will end with Newt enjoying a margarita almost the size of him on an white sand beach.
In terms of pallet, I envision this film to be similar to the Wes Anderson film The Royal Tenebaums. I have chosen to tell the story this way, because I think it is nearly impossible to take a text like this and turn it into a “normal” linear story. Short vignettes will much better serve a film adaptation of this. This is the best way to represent a novel, which does not follow a traditional form. In this way the author of the original work will likely be satisfied with the film adaptation.
Works Cited:
Vonnegut, Kurt. Cat's Cradle. New York, N.Y.: Delta Trade Paperbacks, 1998. Print.
MLA formatting by BibMe.org.
