Z is for Zut Alors! or Can a Movie Capture Personality?

I read part of The Masterpiece and then watched the movie Cezanne and Me about Cezanne and Zola.

Zola, author of The Masterpiece, was a member of a group of artists who straddle the emotionalism of Romanticism and the realism of Modernism. He was friends with Cezanne specifically from childhood and although tradition states that they fell out due to The Masterpiece, it is more likely that they fell out due to temperament. (The massive biography I am wading through by Matthew Josephson, published in 1929, makes this argument; I'm always fascinated when a myth continues despite someone arguing against it almost immediately).

The Masterpiece excellently captures the energy, opinions, physical exuberance, self-consciousness, ambition, and male comradery of those early friendships. I became less interested when the book became about the artist's "fall." The book ends with his suicide--hey, it's a classic; readers should know that--which made me sigh. 

Yes, they are all obsessively committed to their art, blah blah blah, but I still consider the long-lived Renoir more interesting. And truthfully, few artists from this time period committed suicide, whatever the demands of their art.

Many artists, by the way, claimed to be the main character, Claude Lantier, so apparently, they are liked the idea of being deeply scarred souls challenging The Establishment. (The painting that Lantier is working on at the beginning of the novel is basically Manet's Luncheon on the Grass.) 

Whatever its plot, The Masterpiece is quite lovely to read, it is so well-written. I'm always envious of writers who can easily convey description without sounding like, well, A.I. (Tolkien has the same ability.)

I intended, initially, to watch the movie to see how it portrayed Cezanne: Accurately? Non-accurately? Accurately according to Zola? Not accurately according to Zola?

However, I changed my mind when it became obvious that although the main character of The Masterpiece may be based partly on Cezanne, it is more likely based on a number of artists, including Manet, and, for that matter, Zola himself.

I then thought that I would watch the movie to connect the character of Sandoz to Zola, but that doesn't really work either. In fact, if the movie is accurate (and Josephson's biography seems to back up the movie), Zola's diffidence and his idealism of women were traits he gave Lantier, the artist, not Sandoz, the writer. Or maybe Zola put himself into every character, even Dubuche, the bourgeois who wants to marry well and live well and not starve in an attic, thank you very much.

The movie Cezanne and Moi impressively captures that possibility--that Zola was writing more about himself in The Masterpiece than about Cezanne. It also captures the  rivalry between the men, the possibility that Zola, at least, realized that Cezanne might eventually become better known than Zola, which is true. Both are seminal figures in their respective fields; generally speaking, Cezanne is more common currency. 

The movie does a decent job capturing the world of artists and writers in that time. In terms of the ultimate question (for almost all these books-to-movies posts), Did the movie capture the personalities of real people? 

Frankly, I didn't think it did. It tried, but unlike with J. Edgar, where I came away with a stronger sense of Hoover despite the movie's flaws, with Cezanne and I, I just came away thinking, "That was very French." A good film. But more about the themes than about the people.

In the next A-Z list, List 10, I will focus on this issue exclusively. How do books and films convey character well or badly? 

Books to Movies: Y is for Why Authenticity?

How authentic does authentic need to be?

Windwalker, the novel, was written by Blaine M. Yorgason. The movie stars two white dudes, in part because the initial principal actor, a Native American who would play the older Windwalker, got ill. (Windwalker's son is played by a Native American.)

And yet...

The movie feels quite "authentic," if such a thing matters and isn't kind of arrogant in the first place (the idea of "pure" cultures is an idea that really needs to go; there is no such thing; everything is impacted by something else).

But still, even by today's standards, it is more honest than many films. The film's characters use the Cheyenne and Crow languages (aside from the narrator's English). The story is told without reference to outside white people, not even as a lesson about how white people are supposed to think or as a showcase for how the "good" white people behave or how the "bad" white people are punished (I've said before--I'll say again--it's amazing how many white academics have managed to make the history of the world all about them, either in terms of white behavior or in terms of explaining white behavior, feeling guilty for white behavior, blaming white behavior, defining groups in contrast to white behavior...).

The setting is especially authentic as in it uses the actual American West, rather than, say, someplace in Eastern Europe. 

Most importantly, the movie is quite beautifully shot. I honestly expected something more kitschy and, well, uh, 80's looking. It's possible that the free version on Amazon has been remastered; if so, someone did a loving job. The movie is kind of slow but appealing. 

As for the book...

Despite an introduction by two Native Americans, John C. Rainer, Jr. and Verenda Dosela Rainer, Cheyenne and Apache, I had my doubts about the book. For one, the "all Indians love nature" motif is one of those "that culture is so much better than our culture" tropes I tend to be skeptical of on principle. For another, the protagonist's poetry/dialog, which encapsulates a series of learning experiences, is not exactly my choice for fiction.

However, the love of nature is a love of all nature, not just the sweet side. The starving wolves, the cold and slippery snow, the old man's initial struggles and final illness are matter-of-factly conveyed. If one is going to embrace creation, one should embrace all of it.

The learning experiences are the product of the protagonist's personality. They are part of the story rather than sermons aimed at the reader. The book is more Siddhartha than after-school special. (Still not my type of thing, but I give it kudos for doing its job.)

In fact, the end is quite touching. I got weepy as the old man reached the end of his life. As the book's introduction states, "[The Windwalker] is the story of age, its wisdom and memories."

Both book and movie exemplify a quality that I think ultimately communicates itself through any medium: the love of the author (director, scriptwriter) for the topic. 

That love is the ultimate authenticity.

Books to Movies: X is for the X-Marks-the-Spot Quest of History Movies

What should a history movie do? Be visually stimulating? Be a story? Be accurate? Can it be accurate?

I occasionally show my College Writing students a clip from Cameron's Titanic. I point out all the inaccuracies. I also point out that the movie offended some people, namely citizens of Commander Murdoch's hometown. No, Murdoch did not commit suicide because he ran the ship into an iceberg.  

I ask my students, "Do you think Century Fox should have apologized? Since they did, was the money [pocket change to James Cameron] enough?" 

Most of them think a movie is a movie but the low compensation was tacky. 

Since I'm going in alphabetical order, I picked Xenophon for the history movie here. Xenophon was an Ancient Greek who wrote about Ancient Greek stuff.

300 was the movie. 

Although Xenophon lived later than the events in 300, he did write about Sparta and Spartans. A rather melodramatic person, it is doubtful whether Xenophon's knowledge of Sparta was more than cursory. He lived near Sparta since he fought with them but he doesn't strike me as a guy that delves beyond what he is told. Kind of like Charles Lindbergh and the Nazis only Xenophon is slightly less irritating.


I would not say that 300 is a historically accurate film. Rather, it is a melodramatic film with the look of its graphic novel, which means...

It does its job.

In terms of history, Gary Corby's fiction books about an Athenian detective captures the Sparta upbringing somewhat better. The detective meets Markos, a great character who was raised in the Spartan way. Markos is clever and cunning and tough and practically sociopathic. He embodies why Sparta was so successful and, also, why it eventually couldn't sustain itself. Human nature cannot be so strenuously "cancelled" for a social good. It just doesn't happen.
 
300 does imply that family ties are stronger than the Spartans like to admit. It also leaves out a, uh, great deal. It also, like a good graphic novel, occasionally provides quite lovely images. And the narration by Wenham is stirring. (Wenham has one of those "marbles in the mouth" rounded voices, like James Sloyan's, that I happen to adore.) 


In sum, despite the dubious historical accuracy, I would argue that the movie, again, does its job. I get irritated by books that whine about "WHAT MY TEACHER DIDN'T TELL ME!" The fact is, when teaching history, one has to focus on what is possible. I try to teach my students that history is complicated but most of the time, I just want them to know that the Enlightenment occurred before the Industrial Revolution and that the Spanish-American War occurred before World War I. And yeah, it matters, because later times react against previous ones. People purposefully challenge older ideas as well as use them, change them, adapt them, get influenced by them. Beliefs and ideas also continue, having far longer pedigrees than modern humans often acknowledge. Historical events are not islands.

Would I have suggested changes to the 300 script? Yeah. For one, don't use "Greek." It is highly doubtful that the city-states saw themselves as having a common culture. Common cause, yes. Not necessarily a common culture.

I think it would be okay to leave in all the freedom stuff, even though (1) the Spartans had slaves (so did the Athenians); (2) most of the ideas about reason and self-governance come from Athenian writings, not Spartan ones. But the city-states were, in essence, fighting off an empire for the sake of making their own decisions. And they succeeded. (Alexander the Great eventually "united" what we think of as Greece, not the Persians.)

Although the 1962 movie The 300 Spartans has MORE anachronisms, the politics is somewhat more accurate. But it doesn't remotely capture Spartan culture, so 300 comes out ahead there. (If you are thinking The 300 Spartans looks like a World War II film with fresh-faced G.I.s.,you would be entirely accurate.)
 
Of course, capturing mindsets is a different problem from capturing facts.

Books to Movies: Rear Window and Rear Window

I originally intended this post to tackle the issue, What about when the movie is better than the book?

I choose the wrong "book"--Cornell Woolrich's "Rear Window," which of course, became Hitchcock's Rear Window. 

The movie is extremely close to the short story. There are differences, of course, including the dead dog (movie) and the main character's occupation as well as the love interest. But the series of events in the short story are almost directly replicated. More importantly, the short story is well-worth reading (and can be read in The Best Mystery Stories Century, edited by Tony Hillerman).

And yet, my choice defends my basic premise: Movies aren't books. A story must be changed in order to fit a different medium. And it may end up enchanting audiences in an entirely different way. 

What makes a story good versus what makes a film good? 

The short story "Rear Window" is suspenseful, in part because the reader isn't told until the end why the main character is relying on others to investigate and why the main character doesn't leave as soon as he realizes the murderer has sussed him out. I'm generally not a fan of this type of reveal--his leg is in a cast--but in this case, the character's apparently non-proactive behavior is unnerving enough to feed the story's suspenseful tone. 

It wouldn't work in a movie. Sure, every shot could show Jimmy Stewart from the waist up--like filming pregnant women only when they are sitting down. But it's unnecessary and far more interesting in the film for the visiting insurance nurse, played by the marvelous Thelma Ritter, to provide banter. 

The film's setting also captivates. Jeffries is looking out on a series of apartments that share linked courtyards. The stories of various tenants intertwine, from that of the dog owners to that of the two lonely-hearts. The tenants also provide opportunities for character-building dialog as when Jeff comments on the socialite across the way and Lisa dryly says, "She's juggling wolves." 

The entire panoply of apartments and neighbors wouldn't work in the story. The narrator comments on the different tenants but the focus must be on the possible murder. In a full-length book, every tenant could possibly receive a chapter, but it would get distracting and could possibly backfire. The narrator's focus in the text must be kept limited. 

Stories can do things that films don't. And vice versa. 

Books to Movies: Verne and the Problem of the Travelogue Continued

Can the travelogue have a successful narrative arc?

Like most seeking-for-parents/family movies, In Search of the Castaways is a shaggy dog story, which means it is entirely in keeping with Verne's approach. As Wikipedia states about the book, the search for the children's father along the 37th parallel south provides A "pretext to describe the flora, fauna, and geography of numerous places to the audience."

That is, the search for the parent provides a pretext to send ordinary people into various dangerous and exciting situations. It's not that different from Hitchcock's Torn Curtain. 

This approach works with books in part because the individual chapters are rather like graphic novel/manga volumes--the adventure and momentary interactions are the point. Out of the Verne books I've read, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea grabs me the most (despite the singular inability to explicate Captain Nemo's motivations) because the under-ocean setting is so enthralling. I can imagine that for budding sci-fi readers in the late-1800s, Verne offered something that captured both the steampunk impulse and the exploration impulse.

On screen, however, I prefer more of a definitive narrative arc. 

So, can the travelogue be transformed into a arc? 

One of my mom's favorite novels, Nevil Shute's Trustee from the Toolroom, is a "searching" travelogue that would make a great movie! The main character--a non-wealthy, unassuming man of mechanical genius--has to get across the world by relying on contacts (nope, not email! contacts created through letters). He has to problem-solve various hiccups, including how to retrieve and safely guard his niece's inheritance from her dead parents' yacht. 

The parents thankfully don't turn out to be alive. And yes, frankly, I prefer that. I always found the BBC Little Princess far preferable to versions that keep the father alive. To me, that story is about survival and revelation, not about a return to the status quo. Likewise, Trustee is about the uncle doing everything he can for his niece, not about everything going back to what it was before.

Written in 1960, Trustee would now be a historical film!

In sum, one approach to turning a travelogue into a film is to present a series of events, cameos, and interesting settings. There's nothing wrong with that approach!

The other, as with Trustee, is to make the journey itself a matter of character development or revelation--that is, the characters solve problems rather than having things happen to them. In many ways, this solution is the mystery novel solution: the protagonist/traveler as detective moving towards an epiphany. 

Books to Movies: Verne and the Travelogue

A few years ago, I read some Verne books and watched a great many Verne movies. Links to reviews and other commentary are listed below.

This time around, I decided to watch ones I hadn't watched before, including Jackie Chan Around the World in 80 Days and In Search of the Castaways

First, the problem: 

Do main characters in a film need more than a series of adventures?

Many stories fall back on MacGuffins: a pointless or offhand excuse for characters to go and do interesting things. The pointless excuse doesn't need much focus or even a pay-off. It just needs to happen. 

 

Film is a visual medium. It seems like the one medium where MacGuffins would be standard (and they kind of are). After all, does it much matter why the characters are, uh, stealing The Declaration of Independence or trying to escape Germany?

 

However, I would argue that the MacGuffins is more noticeable in films than in books. 

 

Verne wrote travelogues (see the link below about Verne versus Wells). Quite honestly, while reading Verne's books, I don't much care why the characters are stuck on a submarine or going around the world. The travel is what matters. 

 

But in a movie, it rather does matter.

 

Surprisingly enough, Brendan Fraser's Journey to the Center of the Earth comes closest to capturing Verne's vision of an ongoing series of adventures. Though, honestly, my favorite part of that movie is the main characters trying to pronounce Icelandic names.

 

As for Jackie Chan's version:

It is clearly a tribute to Cantinflas. The main character is the stunt-performing "servant"--in this case, the stunt-performing research assistant.

Phineas Fogg, though not exactly the Phineas Fogg of the book, values efficiency and time management and argues with his girlfriend about fantasy versus realism (dogs playing poker without opposable thumbs).

In many ways, the movie is very meta. A scene in a French art gallery involves Jackie Chan performing stunts with buckets of paint and...Vincent Van Gogh! In fact, the movie is one feat of slapstick after another, not my favorite movie genre. But everyone in the movie seems to be having fun, which I'm not always sure of with modern remakes.

As for a narrative arc...actually, there is one! Jackie Chan's character, Lau Xing, is responsible for pressuring Fogg to take the journey so Lau Xing can return an important object to his village. In many ways, arguably, the movie is an excuse for Jackie Chan and a host of his fellow martial artists to have a confrontation in China. 

The movie does end with Fogg et al. back in London. And it is engaging enough not to flag too much after the China scenes. But it does lose its impetuous. 

A classic narrative arc ENDS with the climax--the Death Star blows up; Hans falls from the skyscraper; Dorothy gets home; Wells' character learns what happened to the aliens.

Around the World in 80 Days, the book, has a kind of climax or epiphany--but I'm not sure a movie is the best way to deliver it. It seems a great many scenes to sit through for a character to say, "Oh, now, I get it."

Links to posts about Verne:

• Verne and Wells
• 2,000 Leagues Under the Sea
• Around the World in 80 Days
• Part 1 
• Part II
• Part III

 

 

Books to Movies: What Makes an Epic an Epic?

For "U" from A-Z List 2, I watched Exodus (author Leon Uris), starring Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint, and Sal Mineo. I read the book years ago in high school. I didn't remember much of it except it was big and grand. 

So, if you are going to create an epic, how do you do it?

1. Put Herman Mankiewicz in charge of your photography.

 

Julius Caesar (1953), a filmed version of Shakespeare's play, is impressive. For one, Mankiewicz treated it like a film, not a play. The settings are not elaborate, but the characters are constantly moving as is the camera. The end result is impressive: a visual treat, not merely a thematic or splashy effects set.

 

Regarding Exodus, Otto Peminger strikes me as more pedestrian than Mankiewicz but still gifted. The film never feels "small," though a great deal of it involves conversations.

 

2. Special effects do matter--if they are part of the plot.

 

The destruction of the fort in Guns of Navarone is fantastic. And the director--who gives credit to his special effects team--intelligently has the guns themselves fall into the ocean. That's the whole point!

 

In Exodus, many of the effects occur at a distance, such as a hotel bombing. Likewise, the best special effect of Die Hard, the bombing of the lower floor by the hero, is impressive precisely because it happens so quickly and in part from the hero's perspective. The special effects are well-placed.

 

3. Cast does matter--to a point. 

 

In an epic, I think the audience will allow for less than good actors. However, I must admit that great actors help. Rex Harrison isn't even vaguely my idea of Caesar. But he's so good, what does it matter?

 

Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra is a slight disappointment until one compares her to all the other (fairly dreadful) Cleopatras out there, and then, she looks impressive in comparison!

 

Actually, the 2003 miniseries Julius Caesar, starring Jeremy Sisto, Christopher Noth, Christopher Walken and Richard Harris is quite good, precisely because the actors all match each other with Richard Harris chewing scenery up till his character's death in the first twenty minutes. 

 

From Exodus, Sal Mineo was rightfully nominated for his role as Dov while Eva Marie Saint produces one of those performances that often gets underappreciated. She is seemingly fragile yet tough without apology. She doesn't rush around shrieking, which is always appreciated.

 

4. Oddly enough: there are few obvious villains. 

 

Epics seem to rely on the grandeur and variation of human nature rather than easily identified villains. Even in Ten Commandments, the bigger-than-life villain, Yul Brynner's pharaoh, has a gentle side when he mourns his son. In Guns, the German soldiers who man the guns are ordinary youths, not sneering villains spouting evil propaganda.

 

Likewise, Exodus attempts to be as complicated as the book and the reality (not an easy task) so Sal Mineo's Dov is understandable even as he seems to be heading down the wrong path. And the efficient British soldiers who capture the terrorists are, in fact, doing their jobs.

 

4. Pacing

 

I've mentioned elsewhere that I find chase-chase-chase scenes irritating. On the other hand, the movie The Robe, based on the book, astonishes me because it leaves out such scenes, scenes that are in the book. 

 

A well-paced movie can handle even the "slow" bits without losing the viewer. In Guns, the scene in the marketplace during the wedding is gripping despite its relative quietness. 

 

With Exodus, I got somewhat distracted after the first 90 minutes (the same thing happens with me and musicals), but the first 90 minutes are fairly impressive since so much of that section of the film is quiet: no chases or bombs. The entire sequence on the boat moves at an impressive clip despite that sequence being principally about a blockade and a hunger strike.

 

5. A big issue is at stake.

 

Sort of. I think the perception that something bigger is at stake matters. Presumably, World War II would have been won whether or not the (fictional) guns of Navarone were destroyed (a character says as much at one point). The governments of ancient Rome and Israel have somewhat more obvious and long-lasting consequences. 

 

But a lone individual coming up against something far bigger than the individual (so the individual believes) partly defines the epic. Like Irving Stone's The Ecstasy and the Agony, a great deal of highly complex and historical context can be presented if it is delivered steadily through a single focus.

 

Books to Movies: Is the Flawed Character Likable?

The issue for this post is:

Can a a movie help us audience members love a flawed character?

Loving a flawed character is is not quite the same as loving a villain. Lots of viewers love villains! Fredric Lehne from Supernatural discusses how Supernatural fans adore him. In fact, he has been treated better as a fantasy villain than he has as a "realistic" villain, proving (once again) that fantasy and sci-fi fans are much more level-headed than people who favor "true to life" drama.

I personally am endlessly amused by Cigarette Smoking Man in X-Files. Good villains are rather easy to love. 

But--can people love the hero who not only makes mistakes but is not always entirely appealing?

We forgive Darcy for being rude because he later helps. But I think viewers also forgive Darcy not just because Colin Firth is handsome but because he captures the self-conscious uncertainty of a guy at a party he would rather leave. 

That is, movie/television can go a long way towards selling a character who is not entirely appealing on paper. 

When I read The Warden by Trollope, I honestly thought the author was being more sardonic than supportive regarding the titular character, Mr. Septimus Harding. There is a very funny sequence in the book where Harding sneaks around to avoid his family members; he is worried that they will overbear him with their arguments before he can make the right decision. Trollope uses a slightly aloof tone--he comes across as not entirely sympathetic to Harding though he entirely sides with Harding at the end.

In the BBC production, Harding is played by Donald Pleasance! I mean...it's Donald Pleasance! He is totally adorable. Go, Harding! The audience WANTS him to get away from his overwhelming family. 

Likewise, Sean Bean in Lord of the Rings is a far more sympathetic character as Boromir than the book Boromir.

This issue may be one where movies have an edge over books--as long as one can get the right actor!

Books to Movies: Plays are Not Movies Either, Shaw's Pygmalion to My Fair Lady

The position I maintain in this A-Z list is that books are not movies. When an artist switches mediums, that artist needs to be prepared to make changes. 

Agatha Christie understood this truth very well. The plays she wrote of her own books are not the same as the books. In one case, she actually changes the identity of the murderer. In another, she changes the love interest. In another, she leaves two people alive. And so on...

The point here is that a movie is ALSO not a play (and, to make things more complicated, a stage drama is not a musical). One of my favorite Hitchcock's, Rope, points the difference. Based on a play, it was filmed in several long takes in a single location, like a play. I think it is a great experiment, but I can also see why it is seldom repeated. Although the film mimics a play, the elements that benefit a play are missing: spectacle and context.

Musical productions such as Webber's Phantom and Les Miserables the Musical provide continual spectacles--almost a series of magic tricks--while the songs perform the same function as soliloquies: they encourage the audience to invest in specific characters. 

A stage drama relies far more on context, the overall experience. The eye can roam more naturally than it does with film. The result is about the drama's overall impact or purpose, though the stage type itself can make a difference. I saw Ian McKellan live in both Richard III and The Cherry Orchard during a study-abroad Theatre in London program. Richard III was captivating but mostly I remember it as a series of images. Cherry Orchard, which was performed in a smaller theater with audience members on three sides (a thrust stage), was gripping. I still remember hanging over the "standing room only" area watching Ian McKellan WALK. I was utterly captivated. 

I would have yet a different reaction to a movie version of either play. 

Shaw's Pygmalion and then My Fair Lady showcase the changes that occur when a story moves from stage drama to musical to movie. 

One major change is who Eliza ends up with. In the stage drama, she ends up with Freddy, not the professor. Shaw provides a long explanatory essay at the end of Pygmalion regarding Eliza and Freddy's future. Their ineptness at running a flower shop leads to the couple being continually supported by the Colonel and Higgins. Shaw remarks, 

"And it is notable that though she never nags her husband, and frankly loves the Colonel as if she were his favorite daughter, she has never got out of the habit of nagging Higgins that was established on the fatal night when she won his bet for him. Galatea never does quite like Pygmalion: his relation to her is too godlike to be altogether agreeable."

Shaw is right at the human level. A movie, however, creates investment at the personal level. In My Fair Lady the movie, the camera focuses on the professor--the audience is drawn to him (quite literally) and invests in him. Since the couple have chemistry, the audience can "buy" into Eliza returning to him rather than going off with Freddy. (The musical numbers further that bond. Besides, in a musical, the leads always end up together.)

On stage without music, Freddy is one of several people Eliza can go off with. He isn't really the point anyway. Professor Higgins isn't either. The point is the scenery or--if the director goes in for bare bones--the lack of scenery. It's the costumes. It's the cast. It's the banter at full volume. It's the entire stage.

On the same study abroad when I saw McKellan, I saw Heartbreak House (another Shaw) with Paul Scofield, Vanessa Redgrave, and Felicity Kendal (Good Neighbors). It was a fantastic production with the addition of music (the director was Trevor Nunn). What I remember now is the main characters standing about the sumptuous drawing room in the final scene. The combination of set and lighting created a portrait. (I remember equally sumptious sets from a production of The Importance of Being Earnest staged by SPAC's in-door theater.)

Back to My Fair Lady: despite my deep love and admiration for Julie Andrews, I do think Hepburn was the right casting choice for the movie. Hepburn pulls off waifish half-orphan. Andrews to me is way more put-together. That nearly queenly persona works on stage--it may even be necessary on stage. But it would have changed the movie's tone--THIS Eliza wouldn't marry either Higgins or Freddy. She would go on tours to America and become a hit in her own right (while outwitting the Nazis).

Books to Movies: Damon Runyon and Can a Movie Capture the Narrator?

Can a movie capture the narrator?

Damon Runyon's tales are quite reliant on the narrator. "Madame La Gimp," specifically, is funny precisely because of the deadpan narrator.

The short story has been made into several movies, two by Frank Capra: Lady for a Day and Pocketful of Miracles. Pocketful of Miracles is way too long, so much so the joke gets lost (a bunch of gangsters pretend to be high society folks to fool Spanish nobility who come from a small town and don't care).

But Pocketful has Peter Falk as Joy Boy, the head gangster's factotum, who watches the  wild pretense with insouciance while delivering deadpan reactions. In fact, early on, Joy Boy has a voice-over which dryly establishes the premise.

Unfortunately for the movie, the voice-over rapidly disappears. Voice-overs are their own problem area since explaining is the opposite of showing (and a movie is all about showing). In this case, I think the lack is regrettable. Every time Peter Falk shows up on the screen, he is hilarious, even if he is just standing there and rolling his eyes. He has a Charles Grodin ability to evoke the audience's sympathy as the observer. His facial expressions and tone match Runyon's written narrator, and Falk was nominated for the role of supporting actor.

But again, unfortunately, the story and story's voice is sacrificed to...I'm not sure what. Capra reputedly wasn't as directly involved in Pocketful as in his other films, precisely because of all the big names. The lack of a strong story arc run by a single strong main protagonist (with the narrator dragging us back to the strong story arc) shows.  

The nurse is in the movie--she plays a

a very minor role

My overall thought regarding the question is that the scriptwriter(s) and director have to value the narrator if the movie is going to have the same tone (and the scriptwriter of Pocketful is very confused). I've always consider Murder in Mesopotamia one of Christie's best Poirots, precisely because the nurse narrator has such a strong character and voice. The reader sees everything and everyone, including Poirot, through her eyes. 

The Poirot movie moves her to the sidelines, possibly to highlight Suchet as Poirot. The plot is mostly kept. But is the plot what makes the story so fantastic? 

Hmmm--maybe. But without the narrator, it's another Poirot movie--with the wonderful Suchet--not that story with the idiosyncratic narrator.

Books to Movies: Acting is a Job

Acting is a job.

I can never forget this fact. It's one reason I often feel bad when an actor is dropped from a series. I can't forget that the actor has just lost income.

 

I can also never forget that actors are always looking for work. 

 

The Bridgerton series on Netflix, based on the same novel series by Julia Quinn, uses the premise that George III, played sweetly by James Fleet, married a woman with possible African ancestry. This possibility is highly unlikely. However, it expands casting to black actors.*

 

I have mixed feelings about these types of changes. They rarely happen in the other direction. And I get irritated when critics accuse anyone who balks as "racist." I thought people who wanted The Little Mermaid producers to cast a Danish girl with red hair as Ariel had every artistic right to want that. I didn't mind the casting (the far-too-long script suffers for reasons that have nothing to do with the casting), but objections to casting aren't automatically about politics. They can, in fact, be about imagination. (See post about Cadfael.)

 

Regarding Bridgertons, I mostly don't mind. I thought that Regé-Jean Page made a great Darcy (the Simon Bassett character). I think Adjoa Andoh makes a fantastic Lady Danbury. If the British ARE going to keep producing these Jane Austen-type pieces, might as well expand them so more people can get work.

Of course, another approach would be to develop stories about black members of the middle class at that time period. There were not very many, but there were some. Just as there were Black Boston Brahmin in America by the mid-eighteenth century.

 

Does a made-up history result in people missing THOSE stories?

 

From the point of view of employment, I suppose what matters is that parts are out there.

 

*Murdoch Mysteries and Sister Boniface take an interesting approach here--they increase the percentages. Many Sister Boniface episodes involve celebrities visiting the small village of Great Slaughter. And in truth, in the 1960s, many black actors and actresses and singers were television celebrities (see Sidney Poitier, Nichelle Nichols plus performers, including Nat King Cole, on the Ed Sullivan Show). And, regarding Murdoch Mysteries, there were in truth far more black doctors and dentists and business owners in the early 1900s than current histories of the Western world might suggest. The numbers are greater on Murdoch Mysteries and Sister Boniface but historical reality is not being tampered with. 

Books to Movies: When the Character Doesn't Match the Actor

One of the biggest issues with books to movies is that the image can't match the result. Not totally. Not ever. Readers can always imagine something different. And producers/directors have to make choices among living, working actors.

One of those choices is, Does one go for the "look" of the character? Or does one go for the actor?

 

I consider The Fellowship of the Ring one of the best-cast movies in existence because it got decent actors with the right look. And in the second trilogy when Lee Pace, Ian McKellan, Luke Evans, and Martin Freeman all show up in the same place at the same time, I think, Gosh, how many more strong actors who match their parts could we drag into this scene? As I mention later, Richard Armitage and Luke Evans's scenes are some of the best in both trilogies.

 

I'm less positive about the Cadfael series.

 

Sean Pertwee as Hugh Beringer is pretty close to the book description and a decent actor in his own right. I had a total crush on him when I was younger (I still swoon at the sound of his voice).

 

Derek Jacobi is...

 

How can I criticize Sir Jacobi?! He's an amazing actor! He can do anything!

 

The problem is, I read and listened to most of Ellis Peters' books before I saw the series, including the audiobooks read by Patrick Tull. And Derek Jacobi does not match my mental image of Cadfael.

I see Cadfael as a Welsh version of Graham Greene. There are some points of resemblance between Jacobi and Greene, but I imagine more "cowboy" than guy-with-posh-accent. I pretty much always have. So when I watch the Cadfael series, I experience this sense of cognitive dissonance.

But would NOT casting Derek Jacobi truly be the best option? Would any director NOT cast him?

 

I think the producers were wise, once they had him, to NOT to alter his features or change his voice. But then, the British tend to shrug off such efforts, so that even when they are playing French characters, they just keep speaking with crisp British accents (with David Suchet as the major exception). The whole world should sound like this! 

 

The Cadfael scripts are all over the map, writing-wise. The first season seems to have spent most its money on Jacobi plus the set and then got lucky with Pertwee and a few others, such as Michael Culver (Prior Roberts). Everything else feels somewhat cobbled together. But worth watching!

Books to Movies: Is the Movie Giving Readers What They Loved in the First Place?

What do people love about a book? If a movie doesn't capture the thing that people truly love, has the movie failed?

I've read The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy and frankly, it is over-the-top sentimentalism (in one scene, Percy kisses his wife's footprints). The legend of the Scarlet Pimpernel, however, is of a foppish, silly, mentally lacking gentleman who turns into a clever, brave operative. It's a variation, in some ways, on the laid-back hero. 

 

Anthony Andrews' Scarlet Pimpernel is the ultimate version--funny and high-energy, he engages both as the fop and as the clever spy. 

 

I was equally impressed--rather to my surprise--by Leslie Howard's Scarlet Pimpernel. He switches within seconds from drawling aristocrat to serious planner. He isn't quite as engaging as Andrews, who manages to retain his joie de vivre no matter his persona, but he does capture the legend.

Richard E. Grant's version doesn't quite capture those double roles. His Scarlet Pimpernel is less foppish and more sarcastic. He seems to be deliberately baiting his enemies rather than "hiding" in plain sight. Of course, the Richard E. Grant version takes place after Percy and Marguerite have reconciled and Chauvalin is already convinced of Percy's true self. 

 

The series has its points, namely the political and interpersonal wrangling between Chauvlin (Martin Shaw) and Ropiespierre (Ronan Vibert). 

 

But is the series a faithful rendering of the BOOK? Or, if not the book, of the legend that people love?

 

In many ways, the Blackadder III episode "Nob and Nobility" is more faithful. This is the episode in which BlackAdder pretends (or, rather, pretends that he is going to pretend) to be a spy in the style of Scarlet Pimpernel and keeps running into noblemen, including one played by Tim McInnery, who claim, "I am the Scarlet Pimpernel."

 

The issue here is why I feel that post-Hickson Agatha Christie BBC productions fail while Criminal Games, the recent French versions of Agatha Christie, succeed, despite taking enormous liberties. The things that I love about Christie (the hint of wryness, the anti-melodrama since everything is so ultimately normal, day-to-day life, matter-of-fact commentary) is distilled in the case of Hickson and Criminal Games. The other versions seem to take a tiny element and ignore the rest for the sake of BIG MEANING AND SELF-APPOINTED DARKNESS.

 

*Heavy sigh.*

 

Did the book get turned into a movie--or just the title?