Death Note
From page to screen
By Wayne Alan Brenner, Fri., Sept. 21, 2007
But, wait. Are we talking about the ability to kill people simply by picturing their faces and writing their names in a book? Or are we talking about the ability to embellish cinematic narrative with computer-generated graphics?
Films of the fantastic are facilitated, these days, by digital wizardry that allows artists to do in weeks and with air-conditioned ease what it would've taken the likes of Ray Harryhausen months of sweat equity to accomplish. Technology and its resultant techniques have provided the magic, the way a shinigami, a Japanese god of death, provides a death note to protagonist Light Yagami in the Shusuke Kaneko-directed film based on the immensely popular manga series of the same name. Light has to decide how to use the death note's incredible properties; his decisions and their consequences are what drive the story for better or worse. In real life, filmmakers have to decide how to use CGI's incredible properties; their decisions and ... ah, you can see where this is going.
Computer-generated graphics can, when used well, improve a narrative, increasing the impact a well-told tale will have on its audience. What they can't do is effectively replace the values of plot or character development in a story. Kaneko's Death Note, using the people and action structures established by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata in the manga, uses CGI sparingly: only to depict Ryuk, the shinigami who bequeaths the death note to our cunning protagonist. The manga wasn't chosen for film production because it would allow a showcase of special effects wizardry; it was chosen because, with its tight plotting and the depth of its characterizations, it's so profitably popular, so compelling a story.
But what we get onscreen doesn't do justice to its source. Partially because the manga is a continuing serial and has much more time, in panel after panel, volume after volume, to deeply establish the story's characters and realize the complex battle of wits between Light and his nemesis, the enigmatic L. Another reason is that, unlike the gorgeous illustrations and expertly planned POVs of Obata, the film's production values reek of a sort of 1970s U.S. made-for-TV quality, and the direction, workmanlike at best, seems downright haphazard at times. Also, while you might not be sure of the soundness of some of the manga's baroquely intricate plot points, the movie's relative simplicity contains a couple of logic holes vast enough to drive the battle cruiser Yamamoto through.
Still, though the movie functions best as a sort of extended trailer for the manga, it's exciting to see the static images in motion onscreen. And the depiction of the mysterious L, when he's finally revealed, is spot-on as portrayed by Kenichi Matsuyama and (for fans of the manga) also the most compelling reason to see this version of Death Note.
Death Note: Sunday, Sept. 23, 12:30pm; Wednesday, Sept. 26, 9:05pm
Death Note: The Last Name: Sunday, Sept. 23, 3:30pm; Wednesday, Sept. 26, 11:45pm
