Jane Austen
"Lady Susan"
"Lady Susan" is one of those works whose length makes it difficult to categorize it. Is it a short novel or a novella? I guess I will put it in the novella category. It wasn't published until 1871, fifty-four years after she died in 1817. Why it took the family so long to release it is beyond me. I found it a thoroughly delightful story, featuring one of those villains we (at least I do anyway) love to hate. If this was a Gaslight Theatre production, the audience would be expected to boo and hiss whenever she appeared.
To be honest, this is a one character tale. This is Lady Susan's story. The supporting characters are just that, there to provide fodder for Lady Susan's manipulations. They are well-drawn but are overshadowed by Lady Susan. What contemporary readers may find disturbing is that it is an epistolary novel, so the plot is carried forward by a series of letters passing back and forth among the various characters.
The letters that I find most fascinating are those from Lady Susan to her friend, Mrs. Johnson. In those letters, she seems to be completely honest about what is going on, perhaps. The letters remind me of that theater convention, the "aside," when characters directly address the audience to reveal their innermost thoughts and motives while the other characters are oblivious of what is being said. One gains a more or less true picture of her and her actions by comparing her letters to Mrs. Johnson with the other letters she writes, and, of course, the letters written by the others entangled in her
machinations give us a picture of her effect on them.
The first letter in the work provides an excellent example:
From Lady Susan's letter to Charles Vernon, the brother of her recently deceased husband.
"My dear brother,
I can no longer refuse myself the pleasure of profiting by your kind invitation when we last parted, of spending some weeks with you at Churchill, and therefore if quite convenient to you and Mrs. Vernon to receive me at present, I shall hope within a few days to be introduced to a sister whom I have so long desired to be acquainted with."
This is followed by Lady Susan's letter to her friend, Mrs. Johnson.
"I take town in my way to that insupportable spot, a country village, for I am really going to Churchill. Forgive me my dear friend, it is my last resort. Were there another place in England open to me, I would prefer it. Charles Vernon is my aversion, and I am afraid of his wife. At Churchill I must remain till I have something better in view."
Some background information here is necessary. Prior to Lord Vernon's death, there had been little contact between Charles and Lady Susan since Charles's marriage. At that time, Lady Susan had worked hard to prevent Charles's marriage to that "sister whom I have so long desired to be acquainted with." This is why she is "afraid of his wife." Moreover, upon her husband's death, Charles had attempted to buy the family estate, but she had prevented it because she "could not endure that (her) husband's dignity should be lessened by his younger brother's having possession of the family estate." She did sell it eventually to someone else. We never do learn why she was opposed to Charles's marriage or to the purchase of her deceased husband's estate. I would think she would be happy to keep it in the family.
In the same letter to the Vernons, Lady Susan also explains why she must leave the Manwarings at Langford: "My kind friends here are most affectionately urgent with me to prolong my stay, but their hospitable and cheerful dispositions lead them to much into society for my present situation and state of mind; and I impatiently look forward to the hour when I should be admitted into your delightful retirement."
However, once again in her first letter to Mrs. Johnson, we learn a different tale. Lady Susan writes of her position at Langford, "At present nothing goes smoothly. The females of the family are united against me." Mrs. Manwaring is jealous and "enraged" because Lady Susan "admitted no one's attentions but Manwaring's" and he has become madly in love with her.
We also learn of the engagement between the Manwarings's daughter and Sir James Martin. But, as Lady Susan notes in her letter, she "bestowed a little notice (on Sir James Martin) in order to detach him from Miss Manwaring." She goes on to say that, if people were aware of her motive, instead of condemning her, "they would honor me." That motive was "the sacred impulse of maternal affection," for she interfered with their engagement only in order to secure him for her own daughter.
She has a genius for duplicity, manipulation, and rationalization. Regardless of how poorly she treats people, she always manages to find herself the injured party when they become angry at discovering just how she has used them or injured them. And, no matter how difficult or embarrassing the predicament she finds herself immersed in, she manages to charm her way out of it.
She is a most marvelous character and I strongly urge you to make her acquaintance, if you haven't already done so..
Showing posts with label film adaptations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label film adaptations. Show all posts
Sunday, October 16, 2016
Monday, February 9, 2015
Some Great Books Read in 2014
The following are books that I really enjoyed reading during the past year, and, if granted time, there's a good chance I will read them again.
Anthony Powell: A Dance to the Music of Time, Movements 1 and 2.
--We start with Nick Jenkins as a school boy just after WWI and follow him and his friends and acquaintances up to just before the outbreak of WWII. A fascinating look at English life between the two world wars.
--Movements 3 and 4 will probably cover WWII and after. I've got them and they're just waiting for some free time.
--Link to post
http://tinyurl.com/lbyystr
Adrian McKinty: The Cold Cold Ground and I Hear the Sirens in the Streets
--the first two of McKinty's four mysteries set in the Time of the Troubles in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Books 3 and 4 are on my TBR list. It's 1981, and Sean Duffy is one of the few Roman Catholics in the predominantly Protestant police force in Belfast and is viewed with suspicion by both Catholics and Protestants. Complex plots and local color set against a background of a city at war with itself in an undeclared civil war make this a must read series.
--the first two of McKinty's four mysteries set in the Time of the Troubles in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Books 3 and 4 are on my TBR list. It's 1981, and Sean Duffy is one of the few Roman Catholics in the predominantly Protestant police force in Belfast and is viewed with suspicion by both Catholics and Protestants. Complex plots and local color set against a background of a city at war with itself in an undeclared civil war make this a must read series.
M John Harrison: Light, Nova Swing, and Empty Space: A Haunting, the Kefahuchi trilogy
--a space adventure that ranges from the late 20th century to the 25th century. Strange things happen, and some of them never get explained, especially those involving aliens.
--The three novels are relatively independent of each other, but I would recommend reading them in the published order.
--Humans in space, in Harrison's trilogy (in fact in most of his novels), encounter aliens that are truly alien, not just humans in Halloween costumes, as are so many in other works involving aliens. Some are harmless, some helpful, some dangerous (some deliberately and some ??), and many inexplicable.
If you're looking for something different, try this series.
.
Michael Stanley: Death of the Mantis and Deadly Harvest.
--Books 3 and 4 of the cases of Detective "Kubu" of the Botswana Police. Good mysteries, good plots, interesting characters, and fascinating lore about the people of Botswana and southern Africa in general. Waiting now for Book 5. The novels are independent of each other, so they can be read out of order. If you can read only one, then choose Death of the Mantis.
--Books 3 and 4 of the cases of Detective "Kubu" of the Botswana Police. Good mysteries, good plots, interesting characters, and fascinating lore about the people of Botswana and southern Africa in general. Waiting now for Book 5. The novels are independent of each other, so they can be read out of order. If you can read only one, then choose Death of the Mantis.
Shirley Jackson: The Haunting of Hill House
--the best haunted house novel I have ever read.
--see post on Oct. 31, 2010, made the first time I read it. The post also contains some comments about the 1963 film.
http://tinyurl.com/mkoy6qj
Gregory Benford: Anomalies
--a great collection of short stories, covering a wide variety of topics: adventures involving time travel, black holes, cryogenics, high tech warfare, a mix of science and religion, and several cosmological theories.
Link to a number of posts about the stories.
http://tinyurl.com/nf3tjja
David Brin: Existence
--Brin's most recent novel. A new look at the First Contact theme and its possible threats.
--he uses multiple narrators to provide a variety of viewpoints responding to the first contact.
--link to post
http://tinyurl.com/on9w5vq
Loren Eiseley: The Night Country
--I joined the Time Reading Program after seeing an ad about the program which featured one paragraph from another of his books. After reading that one, The Immense Journey, I searched for everything and anything written by him.
--See link to various posts about this work.
http://tinyurl.com/k4g9muh
--he uses multiple narrators to provide a variety of viewpoints responding to the first contact.
--link to post
http://tinyurl.com/on9w5vq
Loren Eiseley: The Night Country
--I joined the Time Reading Program after seeing an ad about the program which featured one paragraph from another of his books. After reading that one, The Immense Journey, I searched for everything and anything written by him.
--See link to various posts about this work.
http://tinyurl.com/k4g9muh
Kobo Abe': The Face of Another
--a man whose face is terribly scarred from an industrial accident creates a lifelike mask, that seems to take on a life of its own when he wears it.
--a man whose face is terribly scarred from an industrial accident creates a lifelike mask, that seems to take on a life of its own when he wears it.
The following link leads to posts about the novel and the film
http://tinyurl.com/pvdmbjt
Franz Werfel: Star of the Unborn
--little known and mostly ignored SF novel about a man who dies and is resurrected 100.000 years in the future and presented as a wedding gift.
--fascinating picture of future humans and their culture
--stuffy and somewhat pompous narrator adds to the fun. He reminds me of the narrator in Thomas Mann's Dr. Faustus.
--link to posts about the novel
http://tinyurl.com/o3dr7vdhttp://tinyurl.com/pvdmbjt
Franz Werfel: Star of the Unborn
--little known and mostly ignored SF novel about a man who dies and is resurrected 100.000 years in the future and presented as a wedding gift.
--fascinating picture of future humans and their culture
--stuffy and somewhat pompous narrator adds to the fun. He reminds me of the narrator in Thomas Mann's Dr. Faustus.
--link to posts about the novel
Sunday, October 12, 2014
The Maltese Falcon: Three film versions
A classic example of Hollywood's ongoing struggle to be creative,
imaginative, and original is the remake. A great film comes out, or
at least one that does very well at the box office, and in a frenzy
of creative energy, remakes appear, or, if not remakes, then at least
a host of films that strongly resemble their progenitor. In most
cases, therefore, the remake is a pale copy of the original. Only
rarely does the opposite occur: the remake is actually the superior
version. I am aware of only two cases in which this has happened.
However, I'm sure that this has happened more often; I'm just not
aware of them, and I would appreciate hearing about other examples.
The two cases I'm familiar with and have viewed are the two versions of Gaslight (see my post of August 26, 2008) and the three versions of The Maltese Falcon. The Maltese Falcon has long been a favorite of mine, so I was surprised and intrigued when I recently discovered the two previous attempts at film versions of Dashiell Hammet's fine novel. The two earlier versions are The Maltese Falcon which came out in 1931 and Satan Met a Lady, which appeared in 1936. The classic or best known version with Humphrey Bogart appeared in 1941.
Satan Met a Lady is quite different from the other versions for it is a comedic adaptation of Hammett's novel. Most of the basic plot elements are present, although in a modified form. The black bird becomes a ram's horn, specifically the horn Roland the Brave finally sounded to bring back Charlemagne, although too late to save him and the rear guard from annihilation. (See Le Chanson de Roland, an epic poem of some 4000 words written probably around the early 12 century.) The horn is, of course, stuffed with jewels. Along with various plot element changes, the characters were renamed:
Actor Character Hammett's character
Warren William -- Ted Shane (Sam Spade)
Bette Davis -- Valerie Purvis (Ruth Wonderly/Brigid O'Shaughnessy
Alison Skipworth -- Madame Barabbas (Casper Gutman)
Marie Wilson -- Miss Murgatroyd (Effie)
Porter Hall -- Milton Ames (Miles Archer)
Arthur Treacher -- Anthony Travers (Joel Cairo?)
Maynard Holmes -- Kenneth (Wilmer Cook--young gunman)
Imdb.com gives the complete cast for those who are interested.
The film opens with Ted Shane being kicked out of a small town. He then returns to rejoin his former partner Milton Ames. The Woman appears, and the plot loosely follows the novel, more or less, mostly less. Although I watched the movie last week, I've forgotten most of it.
Warren William makes Shane a bit of a dunderhead, always tripping over his own feet, metaphorically speaking. Bette Davis clearly is the Class Act as Valerie Purvis. She is too strong for the rest of the cast. Alison Skipworth's Madame Barabbas was also quite good. I wonder if Greenstreet had watched her performance. Marie Wilson played Effie as a ditsy blond, much like her later roles as the ditsy blond in several Dean Martin--Jerry Lewis comedies. Maynard Holmes' Kenneth (the young gunsel) becomes a schoolyard bully who spends considerable time scowling and whining.
The title isn't as weird as it sounds, for Hammett in the first paragraph of the novel describes Spade:
"Sam Spade's jaw was long and bony; his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth. His nostrils curved back to make another, smaller v. His yellow-grey eyes were horizontal. The v motif was picked up again by thickish brows rising outward from twin creases above a hooked nose, and his pale brown hair grew down--from high flat temples--in a point on his forehead. He looked rather pleasantly like a blond satan." So, the satan met a lady.
The 1931 version, the first version, plays it straight. As far as I could tell, the only significant plot difference between it and the 1941 version is the ending. The 1931 version kept Hammett's original ending in which Wilmer kills Gutman. Aside from that, there are only a few differences between it and the Classic 1941 version. The secondary characters seem to have less onscreen time in comparison to the Classic version. This perhaps may partially be the cause for what I see as the most significant difference between the two.
It's hard to describe the difference, but the closest I can come to it is to say that the characters in the first version were thin in comparison to those in 1941. They seemed to be surface characters only while the characters in the 1941 film had depth to them. Moreover, the choice of Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade is bewildering. Why it was decided to cast someone who appears to be the Latin lover--Ramon Navarro or Valentino--is beyond me. Perhaps that type of leading man was the rage at that time.
Cortez is not convincing as Spade. For example, when Ruth Wonderly is doing her helpless heroine bit, Cortez has this big wide grin on him--this is all fun and games. Bogart, on the other hand, has just the slightest grin, and it's not an all fun and games grin. It is a tired, cynical grin; he has been lied to by his clients in the past and it always made his job harder, and now he's hearing more lies again.
And again, when Cortez explains to Wonderly at the end why he's going to turn her in to the police, it seemed to be just someone reading lines. Bogart looks directly and her, and then turns away, looks down at the floor because he can't face her. He may be in love with her, but other considerations are more important--loyalty to a dead partner being one of them.
The same holds true for the rest of the cast: there really is no comparison between Greenstreet, Lorre, and Elisha Cook and their counterparts in the 1931 version. The dialogue and the encounters among them are similar, but the difference is between real people and one-dimensional cardboard cutouts.
There's always the debate as to whether it's the director or the cast that's most important. Would Roy Del Ruth, director of the 1931 film, have produced the same film if he had the 1941 cast? What would John Huston have done with the 1931 cast? Intriguing questions. I don't have an answer, except the perhaps too obvious suggestion that it is the combination of director and cast that creates a forgettable film in 1931 and a classic some ten years later.
Overall Rating: Have some fun and see all three. Read the novel too.
The two cases I'm familiar with and have viewed are the two versions of Gaslight (see my post of August 26, 2008) and the three versions of The Maltese Falcon. The Maltese Falcon has long been a favorite of mine, so I was surprised and intrigued when I recently discovered the two previous attempts at film versions of Dashiell Hammet's fine novel. The two earlier versions are The Maltese Falcon which came out in 1931 and Satan Met a Lady, which appeared in 1936. The classic or best known version with Humphrey Bogart appeared in 1941.
Satan Met a Lady is quite different from the other versions for it is a comedic adaptation of Hammett's novel. Most of the basic plot elements are present, although in a modified form. The black bird becomes a ram's horn, specifically the horn Roland the Brave finally sounded to bring back Charlemagne, although too late to save him and the rear guard from annihilation. (See Le Chanson de Roland, an epic poem of some 4000 words written probably around the early 12 century.) The horn is, of course, stuffed with jewels. Along with various plot element changes, the characters were renamed:
Actor Character Hammett's character
Warren William -- Ted Shane (Sam Spade)
Bette Davis -- Valerie Purvis (Ruth Wonderly/Brigid O'Shaughnessy
Alison Skipworth -- Madame Barabbas (Casper Gutman)
Marie Wilson -- Miss Murgatroyd (Effie)
Porter Hall -- Milton Ames (Miles Archer)
Arthur Treacher -- Anthony Travers (Joel Cairo?)
Maynard Holmes -- Kenneth (Wilmer Cook--young gunman)
Imdb.com gives the complete cast for those who are interested.
The film opens with Ted Shane being kicked out of a small town. He then returns to rejoin his former partner Milton Ames. The Woman appears, and the plot loosely follows the novel, more or less, mostly less. Although I watched the movie last week, I've forgotten most of it.
Warren William makes Shane a bit of a dunderhead, always tripping over his own feet, metaphorically speaking. Bette Davis clearly is the Class Act as Valerie Purvis. She is too strong for the rest of the cast. Alison Skipworth's Madame Barabbas was also quite good. I wonder if Greenstreet had watched her performance. Marie Wilson played Effie as a ditsy blond, much like her later roles as the ditsy blond in several Dean Martin--Jerry Lewis comedies. Maynard Holmes' Kenneth (the young gunsel) becomes a schoolyard bully who spends considerable time scowling and whining.
The title isn't as weird as it sounds, for Hammett in the first paragraph of the novel describes Spade:
"Sam Spade's jaw was long and bony; his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth. His nostrils curved back to make another, smaller v. His yellow-grey eyes were horizontal. The v motif was picked up again by thickish brows rising outward from twin creases above a hooked nose, and his pale brown hair grew down--from high flat temples--in a point on his forehead. He looked rather pleasantly like a blond satan." So, the satan met a lady.
The 1931 version, the first version, plays it straight. As far as I could tell, the only significant plot difference between it and the 1941 version is the ending. The 1931 version kept Hammett's original ending in which Wilmer kills Gutman. Aside from that, there are only a few differences between it and the Classic 1941 version. The secondary characters seem to have less onscreen time in comparison to the Classic version. This perhaps may partially be the cause for what I see as the most significant difference between the two.
It's hard to describe the difference, but the closest I can come to it is to say that the characters in the first version were thin in comparison to those in 1941. They seemed to be surface characters only while the characters in the 1941 film had depth to them. Moreover, the choice of Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade is bewildering. Why it was decided to cast someone who appears to be the Latin lover--Ramon Navarro or Valentino--is beyond me. Perhaps that type of leading man was the rage at that time.
Cortez is not convincing as Spade. For example, when Ruth Wonderly is doing her helpless heroine bit, Cortez has this big wide grin on him--this is all fun and games. Bogart, on the other hand, has just the slightest grin, and it's not an all fun and games grin. It is a tired, cynical grin; he has been lied to by his clients in the past and it always made his job harder, and now he's hearing more lies again.
And again, when Cortez explains to Wonderly at the end why he's going to turn her in to the police, it seemed to be just someone reading lines. Bogart looks directly and her, and then turns away, looks down at the floor because he can't face her. He may be in love with her, but other considerations are more important--loyalty to a dead partner being one of them.
The same holds true for the rest of the cast: there really is no comparison between Greenstreet, Lorre, and Elisha Cook and their counterparts in the 1931 version. The dialogue and the encounters among them are similar, but the difference is between real people and one-dimensional cardboard cutouts.
There's always the debate as to whether it's the director or the cast that's most important. Would Roy Del Ruth, director of the 1931 film, have produced the same film if he had the 1941 cast? What would John Huston have done with the 1931 cast? Intriguing questions. I don't have an answer, except the perhaps too obvious suggestion that it is the combination of director and cast that creates a forgettable film in 1931 and a classic some ten years later.
Overall Rating: Have some fun and see all three. Read the novel too.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Patricia Highsmith and the Talented Mr. Ripleys
The title is somewhat misleading for Patricia Highsmith is directly responsible for only one talented Mr. Ripley--the one found in The Talented Mr. Ripley, the first of five novels about his adventures. She is only indirectly responsible for the Ripleys found in the two films based on the first novel: a French version (1960) starring Alain Delon, which is titled Plein Soleil or Purple Noon, as it is in English, (no, I don't understand the choice of the title) and the Hollywood 1999 version titled more appropriately, The Talented Mr. Ripley, with Math Damon.
Spoiler Warning: I will reveal significant plot elements and endings.
In Highsmith's novel, Tom Ripley is sent to Italy by Dickie Greenleaf's father to persuade Dickie Greenleaf to return to the US. A similar theme is found in an earlier novel by Henry James' The Ambassador. Both ultimately fail, but that's the only similarity found in the two novels. Highsmith's ambassador, in contrast to James' Streuther, is a sociopath who fastens himself on his victims and lives the good life as long as he can, at their expense, of course.
Ripley is a complex character who alternates between cold "survival at any cost" behaviors and internal ruminations about how unfair people are and he is able, therefore, to justify himself by blaming everybody else for his actions. After all --what else could he do?-- he asks himself, as he murders two people: one who is about to send him packing, thereby eliminating Ripley's access to the good life, and one who is going to reveal his identity to the police, for Ripley has, by now, assumed the identity of and, most significantly, the fortune of Dickie Greenleaf.
After murdering Dickie, Ripley assumes his identity, and this part of the novel is the most complex and somewhat confusing. Ripley actually is forced to live as both Ripley and Greenleaf as he attempts to conceal his true identity, whichever that is at that particular moment. The police get involved when the body of Freddie is discovered. Freddie was last seen being helped into his car by Greenleaf (Ripley) and therefore is of interest to the police. Secondly, Tom Ripley seems to have disappeared, and the police are now also interested in what Greenleaf (Ripley) knows about him.
Ripley thus has to reappear as himself and remove that suspicion. But, in so doing, Greenleaf must temporarily disappear, which intensifies the police's interest even more. Ripley then has to re-establish Greenleaf's existence, and the plot becomes convoluted as Ripley hustles back and forth between Italy and France, sometimes as Ripley and sometimes as Greeleaf, frequently meeting people who know him as Ripley or Greenleaf. How Highsmith (or Ripley) keeps it all straight, I have no idea.
Two events that happen near the end push the plot beyond credibility. One involves Greenleaf's rings which Ripley wanted and therefore stupidly took from Greenleaf's body. When they are accidentally discovered by Marge, Greenleaf's fiance, Tom's excuse that Greenleaf gave them to him and that he simply forgot he had them is weak. Tom then suddenly remembers that Greenleaf had given him a letter to hold for awhile which he also has forgotten about until now. In the letter, "Dickie" hints at guilt for somethings he has done and declares Tom Ripley to be his heir. I was sure that the police and a private detective hired by Mr. Greenleaf would find both 'lapses" of memory too much to accept. However, I was wrong, and I find these events to be the weakest parts of the novel.
Frankly, I find Tom Ripley an unpleasant character, but Highsmith has created such a fascinating picture of him, that I read on, hoping that he does get caught in the end. Since four more novels about his adventures exist, one can guess the outcome of this novel. I don't know if I will read all four, but I certainly shall read the last one, in hopes that he will get caught in the end.
In the French film, Purple Noon, we see a different Tom Ripley, a highly efficient and coolly professional con man, who has no doubts about what must be done. Alain Delon plays him as the manipulating parasite who always comes out ahead with little or no qualms about his actions, including two murders. The film rearranges, drops, and adds plot elements in order to convey this image of Ripley. Moreover, the homoerotic elements strongly hinted at in the novel are gone. Ripley is definitely heterosexual in the film, which is rather doubtful in Higsmith's Ripley.
Another significant change involves the fake will: in this film "Greenleaf" leaves everything to Marge, his fiance. Ripley then returns as himself and courts Marge. She falls in love with him and, in this way, he will enjoy Greenleaf's fortune after all and, moreover, has turned suspicion from himself regarding Greenleaf's disappearance. However, good must prevail and evil punished at the end, so Highsmith's ending is changed and Tom is found out, just as he is beginning once again to live the good life, as Marge's lover.
In the 1999 version, with Matt Damon as Ripley, we see a very different Ripley, one much closer to Highsmith's Ripley than to Delon's supremely confident and competent Ripley. Damon's Ripley is a more complex individual who appears to be lonely and desires some companionship, much as does Highsmith's Ripley. He is hurt by the taunts and insults of Dickie and some of Dickie's friends. Moreover, the homoerotic elements are back and, in fact, more clearly brought out than the novel does.
There is also an attempt to soften Ripley's character. When Ripley murders Dickie in the novel and in the French version, we see little guilt in Ripley. It is something that has to be done if Ripley is to live as he desires. However, we are given a different Ripley in the Matt Damon version. Ripley only strikes out at Dickie after being told he is being cast off and after considerable taunting about his homosexuality. Finally Ripley strikes out and hits Dickie with an oar. Seeing Dickie fall, bleeding, to the bottom of the boat, Ripley drops the oar, and with a shocked look on his face, kneels down to help Dickie. Dickie then recovers and attacks Ripley who then kills him in "self-defense."
In this version, Dickie/Tom leaves an ambiguous suicide note about guilt and so forth and ends by saying Ripley is his best friend and he owes much to Ripley's help. There is no will in the note, but Greenleaf's father interprets the note as a suggestion to him and therefore tells Ripley that he will turn over half of Dickie's money to him.
Another modification involves the rings incident. Marge, who accidentally finds the rings, doesn't believe Ripley's story and is convinced that Ripley killed Dickie. Tom is about to kill her also, but a friend appears before Ripley can make a move and she survives, bu she is not believed.
Tom, at the end, when it appears that all is well, is forced to kill again. Since it is on a cruise ship, there is no place to hide, nor can he run anywhere. In addition, on the ship is a woman who knows him as Dickie Greenleaf. The last scene is of Ripley sitting alone in his cabin which can be interpreted as his realization that all is over--he has failed.
Earlier I had mentioned my problems with two incidents that occur near the end of the novel: the one involving the rings and Dickie's forged will. In the novel, he is successful in both endeavors. However, it seems as though there are some agree with me. In the French version, Ripley is successful in explaining away his possession of the rings, but he makes Marge the one who inherits Dickie's money, and not himself, as it is in the novel. In the later 1999 version, Marge does not believe Ripley's story about the rings, and Ripley forges only an ambiguous suicide note in which he says Ripley was a great friend: there is no will at all.
Summary Comments: I enjoyed the novel, and if I already didn't have so many books at home to read, I would go on and read the remaining four novels in the series. However, I definitely will read the last one: Ripley Under Water. That sounds ominous, but . . .
I found both films to be very enjoyable, but, surprisingly, the later Hollywood version with Matt Damon as Ripley is closer to the novel than is the French version with Alain Delon. In addition. Damon's Ripley, although softened a bit, is still closer to the complex Ripley in the novel than is Delon's. If I had to choose one to view again, I would, at least now, select the Damon version.
Spoiler Warning: I will reveal significant plot elements and endings.
In Highsmith's novel, Tom Ripley is sent to Italy by Dickie Greenleaf's father to persuade Dickie Greenleaf to return to the US. A similar theme is found in an earlier novel by Henry James' The Ambassador. Both ultimately fail, but that's the only similarity found in the two novels. Highsmith's ambassador, in contrast to James' Streuther, is a sociopath who fastens himself on his victims and lives the good life as long as he can, at their expense, of course.
Ripley is a complex character who alternates between cold "survival at any cost" behaviors and internal ruminations about how unfair people are and he is able, therefore, to justify himself by blaming everybody else for his actions. After all --what else could he do?-- he asks himself, as he murders two people: one who is about to send him packing, thereby eliminating Ripley's access to the good life, and one who is going to reveal his identity to the police, for Ripley has, by now, assumed the identity of and, most significantly, the fortune of Dickie Greenleaf.
After murdering Dickie, Ripley assumes his identity, and this part of the novel is the most complex and somewhat confusing. Ripley actually is forced to live as both Ripley and Greenleaf as he attempts to conceal his true identity, whichever that is at that particular moment. The police get involved when the body of Freddie is discovered. Freddie was last seen being helped into his car by Greenleaf (Ripley) and therefore is of interest to the police. Secondly, Tom Ripley seems to have disappeared, and the police are now also interested in what Greenleaf (Ripley) knows about him.
Ripley thus has to reappear as himself and remove that suspicion. But, in so doing, Greenleaf must temporarily disappear, which intensifies the police's interest even more. Ripley then has to re-establish Greenleaf's existence, and the plot becomes convoluted as Ripley hustles back and forth between Italy and France, sometimes as Ripley and sometimes as Greeleaf, frequently meeting people who know him as Ripley or Greenleaf. How Highsmith (or Ripley) keeps it all straight, I have no idea.
Two events that happen near the end push the plot beyond credibility. One involves Greenleaf's rings which Ripley wanted and therefore stupidly took from Greenleaf's body. When they are accidentally discovered by Marge, Greenleaf's fiance, Tom's excuse that Greenleaf gave them to him and that he simply forgot he had them is weak. Tom then suddenly remembers that Greenleaf had given him a letter to hold for awhile which he also has forgotten about until now. In the letter, "Dickie" hints at guilt for somethings he has done and declares Tom Ripley to be his heir. I was sure that the police and a private detective hired by Mr. Greenleaf would find both 'lapses" of memory too much to accept. However, I was wrong, and I find these events to be the weakest parts of the novel.
Frankly, I find Tom Ripley an unpleasant character, but Highsmith has created such a fascinating picture of him, that I read on, hoping that he does get caught in the end. Since four more novels about his adventures exist, one can guess the outcome of this novel. I don't know if I will read all four, but I certainly shall read the last one, in hopes that he will get caught in the end.
In the French film, Purple Noon, we see a different Tom Ripley, a highly efficient and coolly professional con man, who has no doubts about what must be done. Alain Delon plays him as the manipulating parasite who always comes out ahead with little or no qualms about his actions, including two murders. The film rearranges, drops, and adds plot elements in order to convey this image of Ripley. Moreover, the homoerotic elements strongly hinted at in the novel are gone. Ripley is definitely heterosexual in the film, which is rather doubtful in Higsmith's Ripley.
Another significant change involves the fake will: in this film "Greenleaf" leaves everything to Marge, his fiance. Ripley then returns as himself and courts Marge. She falls in love with him and, in this way, he will enjoy Greenleaf's fortune after all and, moreover, has turned suspicion from himself regarding Greenleaf's disappearance. However, good must prevail and evil punished at the end, so Highsmith's ending is changed and Tom is found out, just as he is beginning once again to live the good life, as Marge's lover.
In the 1999 version, with Matt Damon as Ripley, we see a very different Ripley, one much closer to Highsmith's Ripley than to Delon's supremely confident and competent Ripley. Damon's Ripley is a more complex individual who appears to be lonely and desires some companionship, much as does Highsmith's Ripley. He is hurt by the taunts and insults of Dickie and some of Dickie's friends. Moreover, the homoerotic elements are back and, in fact, more clearly brought out than the novel does.
There is also an attempt to soften Ripley's character. When Ripley murders Dickie in the novel and in the French version, we see little guilt in Ripley. It is something that has to be done if Ripley is to live as he desires. However, we are given a different Ripley in the Matt Damon version. Ripley only strikes out at Dickie after being told he is being cast off and after considerable taunting about his homosexuality. Finally Ripley strikes out and hits Dickie with an oar. Seeing Dickie fall, bleeding, to the bottom of the boat, Ripley drops the oar, and with a shocked look on his face, kneels down to help Dickie. Dickie then recovers and attacks Ripley who then kills him in "self-defense."
In this version, Dickie/Tom leaves an ambiguous suicide note about guilt and so forth and ends by saying Ripley is his best friend and he owes much to Ripley's help. There is no will in the note, but Greenleaf's father interprets the note as a suggestion to him and therefore tells Ripley that he will turn over half of Dickie's money to him.
Another modification involves the rings incident. Marge, who accidentally finds the rings, doesn't believe Ripley's story and is convinced that Ripley killed Dickie. Tom is about to kill her also, but a friend appears before Ripley can make a move and she survives, bu she is not believed.
Tom, at the end, when it appears that all is well, is forced to kill again. Since it is on a cruise ship, there is no place to hide, nor can he run anywhere. In addition, on the ship is a woman who knows him as Dickie Greenleaf. The last scene is of Ripley sitting alone in his cabin which can be interpreted as his realization that all is over--he has failed.
Earlier I had mentioned my problems with two incidents that occur near the end of the novel: the one involving the rings and Dickie's forged will. In the novel, he is successful in both endeavors. However, it seems as though there are some agree with me. In the French version, Ripley is successful in explaining away his possession of the rings, but he makes Marge the one who inherits Dickie's money, and not himself, as it is in the novel. In the later 1999 version, Marge does not believe Ripley's story about the rings, and Ripley forges only an ambiguous suicide note in which he says Ripley was a great friend: there is no will at all.
Summary Comments: I enjoyed the novel, and if I already didn't have so many books at home to read, I would go on and read the remaining four novels in the series. However, I definitely will read the last one: Ripley Under Water. That sounds ominous, but . . .
I found both films to be very enjoyable, but, surprisingly, the later Hollywood version with Matt Damon as Ripley is closer to the novel than is the French version with Alain Delon. In addition. Damon's Ripley, although softened a bit, is still closer to the complex Ripley in the novel than is Delon's. If I had to choose one to view again, I would, at least now, select the Damon version.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Walter Van Tilburg Clark: The Ox-Bow Incident
Warning: I will discuss significant plot elements and the ending.
Walter Van Tilburg Clark: The Ox-Bow Incident
Gil and I crossed the eastern divide about two by the sun. We pulled up for a look at the little town in the big valley and the mountains on the other side, with the crest of the Sierra showing faintly beyond like the rim of a day moon. We didn't look as long as we do sometimes after a winter range, we were excited about getting back to town. When the horses had stopped trembling from the last climb, Gil took off his sombrero, pushed his sweaty hair back with the same hand, and returned the sombrero, the way he did when something was going to happen. We reined to the right and went slowly down the steep stage road.
I don't have to tell anyone what kind of story this is. How many western novels and films have we seen that opened just this way--one or more men on the top of a hill, looking down at a small town in the valley, one road leading into town and one leading out in the opposite direction, and surrounded by snow-capped mountains?
In The Ox-Bow Incident, Walter Van Tilburg Clark gives us the full treatment: the saloon, the painting of the nude behind the bar, the poker game, the accusations of cheating, the barroom brawl, cattle rustlers, and a posse. We get the full picture from Art Croft, the first person narrator of the story. He's one of the two men we meet in the first paragraph and the naive narrator, for he tells us honestly what he sees and thinks and feels, but he doesn't realize the full implications of his tale.
Clark turns the accepted stereotypes around in this tale. It isn't the card sharper who's accused of cheating, it's Gil Carter, Art Croft's working buddy. The fight resulting from that wasn't the typical good-natured brawl we've come to expect from numerous John Wayne westerns. After Gil knocks out his accuser, he then is about to continue beating on the unconscious man when the bartender knocks him out with a skillfully wielded bottle.
Then a rider rushes into town and tells them that the rustlers have struck again, and this time they murdered Kinkaid, a lifelong friend of Farnley, the man who had accused Carter of cheating and had gotten knocked out as a result. Farnley is now out for blood. A posse is formed, but this is not the typical posse one finds in a typical western. This one doesn't rush off in pursuit but delays and delays while the debate goes on.
The debate is simple. What will happen to the men if the posse catches up to them. This is a serious issue for the sheriff is not available to lead the posse, assuming he would even want one. The storekeeper, the minister, and the judge argue that they should be brought back to town for trial. But, there are those, who argue that the law is too slow and too uncertain. Some crooked lawyer might confuse the jury and they might go free. Justice should be quick and certain and on-the-spot and ideally should avoid the necessity of a trial; one can hardly believe that these are real Americans saying these things here!
Why does the posse hang around? My guess is that most of the men feared that there would be a lynching and didn't want to become part of it because they knew it was wrong but were afraid to speak out against it. Why? They feared they might be considered a coward, or perhaps a friend of the rustlers, or perhaps "womanish," the major fear of most of them there. Croft himself refers to those who speak out in favor of bringing them back for trial and cowardly and "womanish."
Someone in the watching crowd asks what they are waiting for and someone else replies "a leader." A cynic remarks that they are really looking for a scapegoat in case something goes wrong, a prophetic remark that comes true by the end of the novel.
A leader appears, a former Confederate army officer, who brings information about cattle tracks heading out of the valley and up into the mountains. They mount up again and finally go. They catch up to three men, driving a small herd of cattle that belongs to one of the ranchers in the valley. One of the posse works for the rancher and insists that he would never sell cattle in the spring, and that he would always give the buyer a receipt. There was no receipt, and moreover, one of the three had a gun that belonged to Kinkaid, the murdered ranch-hand. The three still insist they are innocent and ask that they be brought back to town while their story is checked out. Such a simple thing to ask.
But, it's too much to ask. Justice must be served. The men vote, and only five vote to bring them back to town and let the law handle it. Art Croft and Gil Carter vote with the majority to hang them now.
This is a bare-boned synopsis of this short novel, some 220 pages long in my edition. What Clark gives us, through Art Croft's eyes, is an examination of why relatively decent men turn into a lynch mob, for that is what the posse really is. And all know it from the beginning. When Croft revives Gil after being knocked out by the bartender, they discover something is going on outside the saloon, and when they ask, Canby the barkeep replies, "Lynching, I'd judge."
They are not monsters, inflamed by a desire to kill somebody. I think the delay demonstrates that. Unlike the myth of the American male as one who thinks for himself and makes decisions based on what is right and wrong in spite of what the crowd may want, Clark shows us that they are strongly influenced by those around them, influenced sufficiently to vote for death, even though they may feel it wrong, by the fear that others may not see them as true men, but as cowards or womanish.
As I mentioned earlier, Clark did not fashion a mob of blood-thirsty people. Some were nasty and downright evil; they enjoyed the situation and looked forward to the hanging. Others were trapped on the one hand by their own sense that this was not right and on the other by their perception of the myth of what a man was like. Showing compassion for others or concern for the law was not part of the myth. In fact, even the victims were expected to act as men, strong and silent and taking their punishment like a man, as several told them repeatedly. All were disgusted when one of the men, Martin, broke down and began crying.
One of the most ironic comments in the story is a thought by Croft. After Martin, seemed to regain control, Croft thought, I hoped, for our sake as much as his, that he'd make the decent end he now had his will set on. (emphasis mine) Martin should now straighten up and take his punishment decently as a man should, and that would make it easier for the lynchers as well as for him.
The Ox-Bow Incident ("incident," a truly ironic title) was published in 1940, and the film, starring Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, Anthony Quinn, and Henry Morgan, came out in 1943. The ending was changed in the film to make Carter and Croft oppose the hanging. The DVD of the film had an interview with the son of the director, William Wellman, who explained that the studio felt that the ending was too bleak for the American public in midst of the war. Apparently they felt Americans wanted heroes more than they wanted the truth.
Back in the 1960s and '70s, many organizations were holding consciousness raising sessions to show men and women the way that cultural expectations were restricting the freedom of women. I remember that someone once suggested the same be done for men for they also were controlled by cultural expectations. Unfortunately nothing ever came of it, or at least I had never heard of anything happening.
Overall Reaction: This novel should be required reading for every high school and college student in the USA.
Walter Van Tilburg Clark: The Ox-Bow Incident
Gil and I crossed the eastern divide about two by the sun. We pulled up for a look at the little town in the big valley and the mountains on the other side, with the crest of the Sierra showing faintly beyond like the rim of a day moon. We didn't look as long as we do sometimes after a winter range, we were excited about getting back to town. When the horses had stopped trembling from the last climb, Gil took off his sombrero, pushed his sweaty hair back with the same hand, and returned the sombrero, the way he did when something was going to happen. We reined to the right and went slowly down the steep stage road.
I don't have to tell anyone what kind of story this is. How many western novels and films have we seen that opened just this way--one or more men on the top of a hill, looking down at a small town in the valley, one road leading into town and one leading out in the opposite direction, and surrounded by snow-capped mountains?
In The Ox-Bow Incident, Walter Van Tilburg Clark gives us the full treatment: the saloon, the painting of the nude behind the bar, the poker game, the accusations of cheating, the barroom brawl, cattle rustlers, and a posse. We get the full picture from Art Croft, the first person narrator of the story. He's one of the two men we meet in the first paragraph and the naive narrator, for he tells us honestly what he sees and thinks and feels, but he doesn't realize the full implications of his tale.
Clark turns the accepted stereotypes around in this tale. It isn't the card sharper who's accused of cheating, it's Gil Carter, Art Croft's working buddy. The fight resulting from that wasn't the typical good-natured brawl we've come to expect from numerous John Wayne westerns. After Gil knocks out his accuser, he then is about to continue beating on the unconscious man when the bartender knocks him out with a skillfully wielded bottle.
Then a rider rushes into town and tells them that the rustlers have struck again, and this time they murdered Kinkaid, a lifelong friend of Farnley, the man who had accused Carter of cheating and had gotten knocked out as a result. Farnley is now out for blood. A posse is formed, but this is not the typical posse one finds in a typical western. This one doesn't rush off in pursuit but delays and delays while the debate goes on.
The debate is simple. What will happen to the men if the posse catches up to them. This is a serious issue for the sheriff is not available to lead the posse, assuming he would even want one. The storekeeper, the minister, and the judge argue that they should be brought back to town for trial. But, there are those, who argue that the law is too slow and too uncertain. Some crooked lawyer might confuse the jury and they might go free. Justice should be quick and certain and on-the-spot and ideally should avoid the necessity of a trial; one can hardly believe that these are real Americans saying these things here!
Why does the posse hang around? My guess is that most of the men feared that there would be a lynching and didn't want to become part of it because they knew it was wrong but were afraid to speak out against it. Why? They feared they might be considered a coward, or perhaps a friend of the rustlers, or perhaps "womanish," the major fear of most of them there. Croft himself refers to those who speak out in favor of bringing them back for trial and cowardly and "womanish."
Someone in the watching crowd asks what they are waiting for and someone else replies "a leader." A cynic remarks that they are really looking for a scapegoat in case something goes wrong, a prophetic remark that comes true by the end of the novel.
A leader appears, a former Confederate army officer, who brings information about cattle tracks heading out of the valley and up into the mountains. They mount up again and finally go. They catch up to three men, driving a small herd of cattle that belongs to one of the ranchers in the valley. One of the posse works for the rancher and insists that he would never sell cattle in the spring, and that he would always give the buyer a receipt. There was no receipt, and moreover, one of the three had a gun that belonged to Kinkaid, the murdered ranch-hand. The three still insist they are innocent and ask that they be brought back to town while their story is checked out. Such a simple thing to ask.
But, it's too much to ask. Justice must be served. The men vote, and only five vote to bring them back to town and let the law handle it. Art Croft and Gil Carter vote with the majority to hang them now.
This is a bare-boned synopsis of this short novel, some 220 pages long in my edition. What Clark gives us, through Art Croft's eyes, is an examination of why relatively decent men turn into a lynch mob, for that is what the posse really is. And all know it from the beginning. When Croft revives Gil after being knocked out by the bartender, they discover something is going on outside the saloon, and when they ask, Canby the barkeep replies, "Lynching, I'd judge."
They are not monsters, inflamed by a desire to kill somebody. I think the delay demonstrates that. Unlike the myth of the American male as one who thinks for himself and makes decisions based on what is right and wrong in spite of what the crowd may want, Clark shows us that they are strongly influenced by those around them, influenced sufficiently to vote for death, even though they may feel it wrong, by the fear that others may not see them as true men, but as cowards or womanish.
As I mentioned earlier, Clark did not fashion a mob of blood-thirsty people. Some were nasty and downright evil; they enjoyed the situation and looked forward to the hanging. Others were trapped on the one hand by their own sense that this was not right and on the other by their perception of the myth of what a man was like. Showing compassion for others or concern for the law was not part of the myth. In fact, even the victims were expected to act as men, strong and silent and taking their punishment like a man, as several told them repeatedly. All were disgusted when one of the men, Martin, broke down and began crying.
One of the most ironic comments in the story is a thought by Croft. After Martin, seemed to regain control, Croft thought, I hoped, for our sake as much as his, that he'd make the decent end he now had his will set on. (emphasis mine) Martin should now straighten up and take his punishment decently as a man should, and that would make it easier for the lynchers as well as for him.
The Ox-Bow Incident ("incident," a truly ironic title) was published in 1940, and the film, starring Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, Anthony Quinn, and Henry Morgan, came out in 1943. The ending was changed in the film to make Carter and Croft oppose the hanging. The DVD of the film had an interview with the son of the director, William Wellman, who explained that the studio felt that the ending was too bleak for the American public in midst of the war. Apparently they felt Americans wanted heroes more than they wanted the truth.
Back in the 1960s and '70s, many organizations were holding consciousness raising sessions to show men and women the way that cultural expectations were restricting the freedom of women. I remember that someone once suggested the same be done for men for they also were controlled by cultural expectations. Unfortunately nothing ever came of it, or at least I had never heard of anything happening.
Overall Reaction: This novel should be required reading for every high school and college student in the USA.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Shirley Jackson: The Haunting of Hill House, novel and film
Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House is the best "haunted house" novel I have read. I realize there may be those who have their own favorites here, and I would appreciate learning of some titles.
Haunted house stories seem to come in two flavors. There are those in which the innocent victims move into a house, usually somewhat isolated. The rent or sale price is absurdly low, and they feel they have stumbled onto a bargain. And, they don't understand why the house has been empty for so long.
The second type involves those who are knowledgeable about the house's unsavory past and intend to stay only a short time. Some come there as the result of a dare or a bet, and their stay normally is for one night only. Psychic researchers comprise the other type of short term residents, and they usually plan to stay at most a week or so, if that long. They are there to prove or disprove the existence of spirits. This type consists usually of one lead psychic researcher, usually an academic, and two to four assistants, who frequently are the psychic researcher's graduate students and whose main role is to provide victims for the demons that occupy the premises.
Jackson's characters belong to the latter group. Dr Montague is determined to make a name for himself by proving the existence of the spiritual or non-material world. Hill House has a long and honorable history of being a true haunted house with ghostly appearances and tragic deaths. His assistants, though, are not typical graduate students. Over the years, Dr. Montague has collected newspaper reports of individuals who have been involved in events which involve some sort of spiritual or paranormal activity. Now that he has rented the house, he contacts these people and offers them a short term job as his assistant. He believes these people who have already been touched by the psychic activity would be more sensitive to the spiritual influences in the house.
Of the many he has contacted, only two appear. One is Eleanor Vance--the point of view character. She has come to escape her drab and restricted life. She has spent most of her life taking care of her invalid mother. The mother died several months ago, and Eleanor now lives with her sister and brother-in-law. She is bullied and abused by her sister. This is her first attempt at changing her life. She sees this as an adventure, one that will change her life. Her mantra throughout is "Journeys end in lovers meeting."
We never learn much about the other two assistants--Theodora, except for some hints that she has led a somewhat adventurous life, and Luke, who really isn't an assistant but the nephew of the woman who owns Hill House. Accepting Luke as part of his team was necessary if Dr. Montague was to rent the house.
In addition to the four researchers are the Dudleys. They are the caretakers, he mostly outdoors and she indoors. They don't stay the night, but leave as soon as it begins to get dark. They are a strange pair, well fit for Hill House.
Approximately a week after Dr. Montague and his team move in, they are joined by two unwelcome visitors--Dr Montague's wife and her friend Arthur. At best one might call them comic relief. She is the bossy, take-charge type who knows everything and knows how to do everything better than anybody else. She has come to take charge of the study. She is a complete believer in everything, from astrology to the use of the planchette, a type of Ouija board. She firmly believes that all spirits are benign as long as one treats them with "infinite compassion," something only she is best qualified to do. While I generally am on the side of the humans, I will gladly make an exception in her case and nominate her as First Victim.
If one is looking for buckets of gore and body parts scattered about, one will be disappointed here. The terror and fright are generated more by not knowing who or what occupies Hill House. The tension and suspense slowly build as we see Eleanor become increasingly influenced and changed as the days pass. Moreover, in spite of the terrifying manifestations that take place during the night, Eleanor finds herself more and more attracted to the house. At one point she thinks, "Odd, she thought sleepily, that the house should be so dreadful and yet in many respects so physically comfortable--the soft bed, the pleasant lawn, the good fire, the cooking of Mrs Dudley."
One of those manifestations that seems most chilling is the following: it is night and Eleanor and Theadora are in sharing a bedroom and "From the room next door, the room which until that morning had been Theadora's , came the steady low sound of a voice babbling, too low for words to be understood, too steady for disbelief. . .Eleanor and Theadora listened, and the low, steady sound went on and on, the voice lifting sometimes for an emphasis on a mumbled word, falling sometimes to a breath, going on and on. Then, without warning, there was a little laugh, the small gurgling laugh that broke through the babbling, and rose as it laughed, on up and up the scale, and then broke off suddenly in a little painful gasp, and the voice went on."
I find that small gurgling laugh, amidst that mumbling voice, most chilling, especially since it seems to accompany the horrendous blows struck at the intervening door, the blows that almost but not quite break down the door. Who or what is beyond the door?
Two films were made of The Haunting of Hill House, one in 1963 with Julie Harris as Eleanor and Claire Bloom as Theadora, and a remake in 1999, with digital special effects and gore, from what I have read. I have seen the 1963 version and found it a very good adaptation. The most significant difference was in the portrayal of Dr. Montague's wife. In the film she is portrayed as a complete skeptic and insists on sleeping in the nursery, the heart or source of the ghostly manifestations. I haven't seen the remake yet, but if I find it I will take a look at it.
Overall Reaction: a great novel and a very good film version--the 1963 version anyway. Highly recommended. It being Halloween, tonight would be a good night for either the novel or the film.
Haunted house stories seem to come in two flavors. There are those in which the innocent victims move into a house, usually somewhat isolated. The rent or sale price is absurdly low, and they feel they have stumbled onto a bargain. And, they don't understand why the house has been empty for so long.
The second type involves those who are knowledgeable about the house's unsavory past and intend to stay only a short time. Some come there as the result of a dare or a bet, and their stay normally is for one night only. Psychic researchers comprise the other type of short term residents, and they usually plan to stay at most a week or so, if that long. They are there to prove or disprove the existence of spirits. This type consists usually of one lead psychic researcher, usually an academic, and two to four assistants, who frequently are the psychic researcher's graduate students and whose main role is to provide victims for the demons that occupy the premises.
Jackson's characters belong to the latter group. Dr Montague is determined to make a name for himself by proving the existence of the spiritual or non-material world. Hill House has a long and honorable history of being a true haunted house with ghostly appearances and tragic deaths. His assistants, though, are not typical graduate students. Over the years, Dr. Montague has collected newspaper reports of individuals who have been involved in events which involve some sort of spiritual or paranormal activity. Now that he has rented the house, he contacts these people and offers them a short term job as his assistant. He believes these people who have already been touched by the psychic activity would be more sensitive to the spiritual influences in the house.
Of the many he has contacted, only two appear. One is Eleanor Vance--the point of view character. She has come to escape her drab and restricted life. She has spent most of her life taking care of her invalid mother. The mother died several months ago, and Eleanor now lives with her sister and brother-in-law. She is bullied and abused by her sister. This is her first attempt at changing her life. She sees this as an adventure, one that will change her life. Her mantra throughout is "Journeys end in lovers meeting."
We never learn much about the other two assistants--Theodora, except for some hints that she has led a somewhat adventurous life, and Luke, who really isn't an assistant but the nephew of the woman who owns Hill House. Accepting Luke as part of his team was necessary if Dr. Montague was to rent the house.
In addition to the four researchers are the Dudleys. They are the caretakers, he mostly outdoors and she indoors. They don't stay the night, but leave as soon as it begins to get dark. They are a strange pair, well fit for Hill House.
Approximately a week after Dr. Montague and his team move in, they are joined by two unwelcome visitors--Dr Montague's wife and her friend Arthur. At best one might call them comic relief. She is the bossy, take-charge type who knows everything and knows how to do everything better than anybody else. She has come to take charge of the study. She is a complete believer in everything, from astrology to the use of the planchette, a type of Ouija board. She firmly believes that all spirits are benign as long as one treats them with "infinite compassion," something only she is best qualified to do. While I generally am on the side of the humans, I will gladly make an exception in her case and nominate her as First Victim.
If one is looking for buckets of gore and body parts scattered about, one will be disappointed here. The terror and fright are generated more by not knowing who or what occupies Hill House. The tension and suspense slowly build as we see Eleanor become increasingly influenced and changed as the days pass. Moreover, in spite of the terrifying manifestations that take place during the night, Eleanor finds herself more and more attracted to the house. At one point she thinks, "Odd, she thought sleepily, that the house should be so dreadful and yet in many respects so physically comfortable--the soft bed, the pleasant lawn, the good fire, the cooking of Mrs Dudley."
One of those manifestations that seems most chilling is the following: it is night and Eleanor and Theadora are in sharing a bedroom and "From the room next door, the room which until that morning had been Theadora's , came the steady low sound of a voice babbling, too low for words to be understood, too steady for disbelief. . .Eleanor and Theadora listened, and the low, steady sound went on and on, the voice lifting sometimes for an emphasis on a mumbled word, falling sometimes to a breath, going on and on. Then, without warning, there was a little laugh, the small gurgling laugh that broke through the babbling, and rose as it laughed, on up and up the scale, and then broke off suddenly in a little painful gasp, and the voice went on."
I find that small gurgling laugh, amidst that mumbling voice, most chilling, especially since it seems to accompany the horrendous blows struck at the intervening door, the blows that almost but not quite break down the door. Who or what is beyond the door?
Two films were made of The Haunting of Hill House, one in 1963 with Julie Harris as Eleanor and Claire Bloom as Theadora, and a remake in 1999, with digital special effects and gore, from what I have read. I have seen the 1963 version and found it a very good adaptation. The most significant difference was in the portrayal of Dr. Montague's wife. In the film she is portrayed as a complete skeptic and insists on sleeping in the nursery, the heart or source of the ghostly manifestations. I haven't seen the remake yet, but if I find it I will take a look at it.
Overall Reaction: a great novel and a very good film version--the 1963 version anyway. Highly recommended. It being Halloween, tonight would be a good night for either the novel or the film.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Blade Runner: Five film versions
Blade Runner is one of my favorite SF films, but it has taken multiple viewings to get me to the point where I begin to understand why. The story is a classic SF/Police procedural mix with a film noir atmosphere. Only recently have I been able to spend time away from the central action and concentrate on the background. It is this, the imaginative and painstaking attention to the setting, that makes Blade Runner the outstanding film that it is: the various people on the streets, the clothing, the introduction of animals in an urban environment, the stores, the various small and unique businesses (snakes and owls and llamas? made to order), and the dark and brooding atmosphere so reminiscent of films of the 40s and 50s.
Of course, when I heard of the Director's Cut, I had to see what Riddley Scott, the director, now thought should be in the film, and then when the Final Cut came out, I decided to run my own Blade Runner film festival. I started by renting them or getting them from the public library, which had the theatrical version. I then learned there was a collector's edition out and decided that this was something I should have in my own private collection of DVDs, of which I now have six. I investigated and found the 5 Disc Collectors' Edition at a reasonable price.
What really sold me on it was that it claimed to have five versions of Blade Runner. Now this I had to see. It arrived with five DVDs: three with the various versions of the film, but also two DVDs with extras-- Dangerous Days: Making Blade Runner and The Enhancement Archive. This was in addition to the Special and Bonus Features found with the various film versions. To be honest, I haven't watched the two DVDs yet. I keep getting distracted by the films, but one of these days . . .
I will not be writing about Philip K. Dick's novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which was published in 1958. The changes are so significant that it would take a book to adequately discuss them.
I shall discuss significant events and the endings of the film versions.
The Five Faces of Blade Runner
THE WORKPRINT: this version has never been released for viewing in the theaters. It is, as the label suggests, a working version of the film, made prior to the release of the theatrical versions. Aside from a few minor technical problems with color and the sound track, it is a version that is very acceptable. When I saw it, I thought that if I had seen this in a theatre, I would have guessed that it was an older version that had become a bit tired over the three decades since its release.
THE THEATRICAL RELEASE: US Version, 1982. This is the first release of the film, and frankly, it is still my favorite. It bombed when it came out. Film-goers weren't ready for it; I wonder if there's an audience for it today, some three decades later.
THE THEATRICAL RELEASE: International Version, 1982. This version was for theaters outside of the US. The only differences I can see are minimal: in the International version, some of the fight scenes are a few seconds longer and the violence more explicit, and some brief nudity in the dressing room of Zhora, the snake dancer. These differences are included in the Director's Cut and the Final Cut.
THE DIRECTOR'S CUT: 1992. This appeared a decade after the theatrical release. Generally a re-release such as this would include some scenes that weren't in the first release and possibly the editing or even the outright deletion of scenes that the director now felt didn't work. The major differences, that I can see, are the loss of the voice-overs (a serious error by Riddley Scott, as far as I'm concerned), the bewildering introduction of the unicorn scene, and the truncated ending. My opinion is that Scott's changes weakened the film.
THE FINAL CUT: 2007. This version came out some fifteen years after the Director's Cut. The changes in this version had to do with several technical flaws and didn't introduce anything new to or take anything out of the Director's Cut.
1. In the scene when Deckard talks to the creator of the snake for Zhora, the sound track didn't match up exactly with the visual scene. Since Ford was busy, they got his son to come in and reshoot the scene. They filmed Ford's son as he lipsync'd (is there such a word?) to the audio track and then inserted that into the film.
2. The second reshooting took place in the scene where Deckard shoots Zhora as she goes crashing through the plate glass in the store. Apparently, Scott? felt that the face of the double for Zhora was too noticeable. To solve this problem, Joanna Cassidy came in and they filmed her face as she twisted and turned to match the positions of the double's face in the film. This was then inserted into the film, so that it is now Joanna Cassidy's face one sees crashing through all that plate glass.
3. At the end of the film, at the point when Roy dies, he releases the white bird which then flies up into the sky. As the camera follows it up into the clear blue sky, I wondered what had happened to the rain. Had it suddenly stopped? Well, that doesn't happen in the Final Cut. That bird now flies upward into the rain falling from a dark sky (it was a dark and stormy night--sorry, couldn't resist that).
The white bird: Scott said that it originally was just a sign that Roy had died and had let go of the bird, but everybody else took the bird as symbolic of the freedom that Roy finally achieved. For many viewers, the white bird is Roy's soul ascending to heaven. He had developed a soul and was now human.
This has been just a brief overview of the five films. Following is a discussion of some of the major differences that appear among the five versions, or at least I see them as major. There may be other differences equally important, but they've escaped me so far. Perhaps I'll finally see them in subsequent viewings.
The Voice-overs: these appear only in the initial theatrical releases. They are not found in the Workprint (with one interesting exception which I will bring up later), and were removed from the Director's Cut and were not restored in the Final Cut. This is a major error in judgment on Scott's part, for, in my opinion, it weakens the film. One of the film's strengths is its dark, gloomy atmosphere, for many scenes take place at night and in the rain. Harrison Ford's first scene is outside on the street on a drizzly night. Take a close look at Rachel's clothing, hairstyle, and makeup, and then look at photos of women taken during the 1940's and 1950's. Rachel's appearance puts her much closer to that period then to the 1980's or the early 21st century when the story takes place. The voice-over is a powerful reminder of the noir films that appeared after WWII, many of which were crime films in which one man was depicted on the trail of criminals or on a mission of revenge. Blade Runner clearly fits in with these films.
Reaction: removing the voice-over was a mistake. I think it weakens the film It is the single most important reason why I rate the theatrical version higher than the Director's Cut and the Final Cut.
The Unicorn: the unicorn appears only in the Director's Cut and the Final Cut. Rachel has just left Deckard's apartment (her first visit in which she argues that she isn't a replicant). After she leaves, Deckard is shown sitting at the piano, picking out a few notes when he suddenly and inexplicably thinks of a unicorn running through the woods. He then gets up and begins to use his computer to work on one of Leon's photos.
In one of the bonus features, I learned that the brief appearance was actually shot especially for the film and wasn't borrowed from another film. I also learned that it supposedly supports Scott's idea that Deckard is a replicant. It's intended to tie in with the unicorn origami (I think that's what it is) that Gaff leaves by Deckard's apartment at the end of the film. How else would Gaff know about Deckard's unicorn daydream if a unicorn hadn't been placed in Deckard's memory? Huh!
I gather that this was an afterthought on Scott's part because people weren't getting Scott's idea that Deckard is human. Frankly, I don't get it either. There are too many other ways for a unicorn to appear in Deckard's memory without the need for a memory implant. A unicorn traditionally is a symbol of virginity, for only a virgin could capture one. Rachel certainly comes across as innocent and naive and perhaps virginal? OK, it's a stretch, but no more so than the "official" interpretation.
Reaction: I see no reason for this scene. It doesn't convince me that Deckard is a replicant, which is why it was inserted in the last two releases. It doesn't work. To be honest, when a friend mentioned the unicorn in the film, I didn't remember it, even though I had just seen the film a few weeks earlier. I either wasn't watching the film those few seconds it was on or I considered it irrelevant and simply forgot about it.
Roy's Death: the scene of Roy's death is the same for the four releases. It differs only in the workprint version. It is also the only example of a voice-over other than in the initial theatrical releases. In the workprint, Roy doesn't die when he says "Time to die," ironically using the same words Leon used when he was about to kill Deckard, and when the white bird flies upward, but he struggles against death for several hours afterwards. Deckard in the voice-over comments that Roy's death took hours. He also thinks about why Roy saved his life. Perhaps Roy, his own death so imminent, realizes how important life is, even a blade runner's life.
The Escape at the End: The theatrical versions are the only ones that have the final scene out in the countryside. The others end with the closing of the elevator doors. I guess that the prejudice against a possibly happy ending is responsible here. If so, then somebody has forgotten a short but significant conversation between Deckard and Rachel. They are back in his apartment, now for the second time. Deckard is cleaning up when Rachel mentions leaving the city and heading north. She asks him if he would come after her, would hunt her down. Deckard replies that he wouldn't for he owes her one. . . but that somebody would.
Have they really escaped? I doubt it, for all they have done by leaving the city is to delay being tracked down. If Deckard also is a replicant, then surely the authorities would go after them, especially since Rachel, an experimental model, has no termination date. She could live for decades. They are too dangerous to allow to live free. Other blade runners will soon be on their trail, if they weren't already on their way.
Is Deckard a replicant? This is probably the point that is most controversial. I've seen numerous commentaries that argue both sides. I've come to the conclusion that there is no concrete evidence clearly and unambiguously supporting either position. Riddley Scott, the director, says that Deckard is a replicant. While he says Deckard is a replicant, his film suggest something quite other than that.
If Deckard is a replicant, then he must be the most incompetent replicant in existence. He can't be a Nexus, the same type as Roy and his friends are, for there is no comparison between them. He is slower than them, clearly weaker than them, and is always caught by surprise by them.
Zhora: in the dressing room, she catches him by surprise, even though he knows she's a replicant, and is about to kill him when others walk into the dressing room. She flees, and Deckard then shoots her in the back as she flees through the store. He fires and misses several times before he finally hits her.
Leon: Deckard has just killed Zhora and is leaving the scene when Leon catches him offguard. Deckard pulls his gun, but Leon merely flicks it away, says "Time to Die," and is just about to kill him when Rachel appears, picks up Deckard's gun and shoots Leon in the head from a distance of twenty or thirty yards, hitting him with one shot. Of course, she's a Nexus model and functions competently in this situation. It's Rachel who kills Leon, not Deckard, who is the best blade runner in the city, according to Bryan, his boss.
Pris: Deckard is wandering around Stevenson's apartment looking for replicants, his gun still in its holster. He gets suspicious of one of the large dolls and goes over there without pulling his gun. Pris jumps him and is about to kill him when she decides to have some fun. This gives Deckard a chance to finally get his gun out and kill her as she tries to stomp him to death.
Roy: Deckard has the gun and Roy has no weapon. Deckard becomes the prey, even if he is armed, and at the end, Roy has to save Deckard's life. Roy dies because he has reached his termination date and not because Deckard kills him.
All four Nexus replicants are superior to Deckard. All four could have killed him, but three were prevented by chance, and the fourth chooses to save Deckard's life instead. What kind of replicant is Deckard? Surely not a Nexus.
Deckard is told that the Tyrell Corporation is determined to build replicants that become more and more human. Perhaps Deckard is a Nexus 7, next year's model that is so human that it is as incompetent as the average human.
Riddley Scott says Deckard is a replicant; his film says no, Deckard is human.
Overall Reaction: the theatrical versions get a 5 on a five point scale; the others a 4.
Of course, when I heard of the Director's Cut, I had to see what Riddley Scott, the director, now thought should be in the film, and then when the Final Cut came out, I decided to run my own Blade Runner film festival. I started by renting them or getting them from the public library, which had the theatrical version. I then learned there was a collector's edition out and decided that this was something I should have in my own private collection of DVDs, of which I now have six. I investigated and found the 5 Disc Collectors' Edition at a reasonable price.
What really sold me on it was that it claimed to have five versions of Blade Runner. Now this I had to see. It arrived with five DVDs: three with the various versions of the film, but also two DVDs with extras-- Dangerous Days: Making Blade Runner and The Enhancement Archive. This was in addition to the Special and Bonus Features found with the various film versions. To be honest, I haven't watched the two DVDs yet. I keep getting distracted by the films, but one of these days . . .
I will not be writing about Philip K. Dick's novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which was published in 1958. The changes are so significant that it would take a book to adequately discuss them.
I shall discuss significant events and the endings of the film versions.
The Five Faces of Blade Runner
THE WORKPRINT: this version has never been released for viewing in the theaters. It is, as the label suggests, a working version of the film, made prior to the release of the theatrical versions. Aside from a few minor technical problems with color and the sound track, it is a version that is very acceptable. When I saw it, I thought that if I had seen this in a theatre, I would have guessed that it was an older version that had become a bit tired over the three decades since its release.
THE THEATRICAL RELEASE: US Version, 1982. This is the first release of the film, and frankly, it is still my favorite. It bombed when it came out. Film-goers weren't ready for it; I wonder if there's an audience for it today, some three decades later.
THE THEATRICAL RELEASE: International Version, 1982. This version was for theaters outside of the US. The only differences I can see are minimal: in the International version, some of the fight scenes are a few seconds longer and the violence more explicit, and some brief nudity in the dressing room of Zhora, the snake dancer. These differences are included in the Director's Cut and the Final Cut.
THE DIRECTOR'S CUT: 1992. This appeared a decade after the theatrical release. Generally a re-release such as this would include some scenes that weren't in the first release and possibly the editing or even the outright deletion of scenes that the director now felt didn't work. The major differences, that I can see, are the loss of the voice-overs (a serious error by Riddley Scott, as far as I'm concerned), the bewildering introduction of the unicorn scene, and the truncated ending. My opinion is that Scott's changes weakened the film.
THE FINAL CUT: 2007. This version came out some fifteen years after the Director's Cut. The changes in this version had to do with several technical flaws and didn't introduce anything new to or take anything out of the Director's Cut.
1. In the scene when Deckard talks to the creator of the snake for Zhora, the sound track didn't match up exactly with the visual scene. Since Ford was busy, they got his son to come in and reshoot the scene. They filmed Ford's son as he lipsync'd (is there such a word?) to the audio track and then inserted that into the film.
2. The second reshooting took place in the scene where Deckard shoots Zhora as she goes crashing through the plate glass in the store. Apparently, Scott? felt that the face of the double for Zhora was too noticeable. To solve this problem, Joanna Cassidy came in and they filmed her face as she twisted and turned to match the positions of the double's face in the film. This was then inserted into the film, so that it is now Joanna Cassidy's face one sees crashing through all that plate glass.
3. At the end of the film, at the point when Roy dies, he releases the white bird which then flies up into the sky. As the camera follows it up into the clear blue sky, I wondered what had happened to the rain. Had it suddenly stopped? Well, that doesn't happen in the Final Cut. That bird now flies upward into the rain falling from a dark sky (it was a dark and stormy night--sorry, couldn't resist that).
The white bird: Scott said that it originally was just a sign that Roy had died and had let go of the bird, but everybody else took the bird as symbolic of the freedom that Roy finally achieved. For many viewers, the white bird is Roy's soul ascending to heaven. He had developed a soul and was now human.
This has been just a brief overview of the five films. Following is a discussion of some of the major differences that appear among the five versions, or at least I see them as major. There may be other differences equally important, but they've escaped me so far. Perhaps I'll finally see them in subsequent viewings.
The Voice-overs: these appear only in the initial theatrical releases. They are not found in the Workprint (with one interesting exception which I will bring up later), and were removed from the Director's Cut and were not restored in the Final Cut. This is a major error in judgment on Scott's part, for, in my opinion, it weakens the film. One of the film's strengths is its dark, gloomy atmosphere, for many scenes take place at night and in the rain. Harrison Ford's first scene is outside on the street on a drizzly night. Take a close look at Rachel's clothing, hairstyle, and makeup, and then look at photos of women taken during the 1940's and 1950's. Rachel's appearance puts her much closer to that period then to the 1980's or the early 21st century when the story takes place. The voice-over is a powerful reminder of the noir films that appeared after WWII, many of which were crime films in which one man was depicted on the trail of criminals or on a mission of revenge. Blade Runner clearly fits in with these films.
Reaction: removing the voice-over was a mistake. I think it weakens the film It is the single most important reason why I rate the theatrical version higher than the Director's Cut and the Final Cut.
The Unicorn: the unicorn appears only in the Director's Cut and the Final Cut. Rachel has just left Deckard's apartment (her first visit in which she argues that she isn't a replicant). After she leaves, Deckard is shown sitting at the piano, picking out a few notes when he suddenly and inexplicably thinks of a unicorn running through the woods. He then gets up and begins to use his computer to work on one of Leon's photos.
In one of the bonus features, I learned that the brief appearance was actually shot especially for the film and wasn't borrowed from another film. I also learned that it supposedly supports Scott's idea that Deckard is a replicant. It's intended to tie in with the unicorn origami (I think that's what it is) that Gaff leaves by Deckard's apartment at the end of the film. How else would Gaff know about Deckard's unicorn daydream if a unicorn hadn't been placed in Deckard's memory? Huh!
I gather that this was an afterthought on Scott's part because people weren't getting Scott's idea that Deckard is human. Frankly, I don't get it either. There are too many other ways for a unicorn to appear in Deckard's memory without the need for a memory implant. A unicorn traditionally is a symbol of virginity, for only a virgin could capture one. Rachel certainly comes across as innocent and naive and perhaps virginal? OK, it's a stretch, but no more so than the "official" interpretation.
Reaction: I see no reason for this scene. It doesn't convince me that Deckard is a replicant, which is why it was inserted in the last two releases. It doesn't work. To be honest, when a friend mentioned the unicorn in the film, I didn't remember it, even though I had just seen the film a few weeks earlier. I either wasn't watching the film those few seconds it was on or I considered it irrelevant and simply forgot about it.
Roy's Death: the scene of Roy's death is the same for the four releases. It differs only in the workprint version. It is also the only example of a voice-over other than in the initial theatrical releases. In the workprint, Roy doesn't die when he says "Time to die," ironically using the same words Leon used when he was about to kill Deckard, and when the white bird flies upward, but he struggles against death for several hours afterwards. Deckard in the voice-over comments that Roy's death took hours. He also thinks about why Roy saved his life. Perhaps Roy, his own death so imminent, realizes how important life is, even a blade runner's life.
The Escape at the End: The theatrical versions are the only ones that have the final scene out in the countryside. The others end with the closing of the elevator doors. I guess that the prejudice against a possibly happy ending is responsible here. If so, then somebody has forgotten a short but significant conversation between Deckard and Rachel. They are back in his apartment, now for the second time. Deckard is cleaning up when Rachel mentions leaving the city and heading north. She asks him if he would come after her, would hunt her down. Deckard replies that he wouldn't for he owes her one. . . but that somebody would.
Have they really escaped? I doubt it, for all they have done by leaving the city is to delay being tracked down. If Deckard also is a replicant, then surely the authorities would go after them, especially since Rachel, an experimental model, has no termination date. She could live for decades. They are too dangerous to allow to live free. Other blade runners will soon be on their trail, if they weren't already on their way.
Is Deckard a replicant? This is probably the point that is most controversial. I've seen numerous commentaries that argue both sides. I've come to the conclusion that there is no concrete evidence clearly and unambiguously supporting either position. Riddley Scott, the director, says that Deckard is a replicant. While he says Deckard is a replicant, his film suggest something quite other than that.
If Deckard is a replicant, then he must be the most incompetent replicant in existence. He can't be a Nexus, the same type as Roy and his friends are, for there is no comparison between them. He is slower than them, clearly weaker than them, and is always caught by surprise by them.
Zhora: in the dressing room, she catches him by surprise, even though he knows she's a replicant, and is about to kill him when others walk into the dressing room. She flees, and Deckard then shoots her in the back as she flees through the store. He fires and misses several times before he finally hits her.
Leon: Deckard has just killed Zhora and is leaving the scene when Leon catches him offguard. Deckard pulls his gun, but Leon merely flicks it away, says "Time to Die," and is just about to kill him when Rachel appears, picks up Deckard's gun and shoots Leon in the head from a distance of twenty or thirty yards, hitting him with one shot. Of course, she's a Nexus model and functions competently in this situation. It's Rachel who kills Leon, not Deckard, who is the best blade runner in the city, according to Bryan, his boss.
Pris: Deckard is wandering around Stevenson's apartment looking for replicants, his gun still in its holster. He gets suspicious of one of the large dolls and goes over there without pulling his gun. Pris jumps him and is about to kill him when she decides to have some fun. This gives Deckard a chance to finally get his gun out and kill her as she tries to stomp him to death.
Roy: Deckard has the gun and Roy has no weapon. Deckard becomes the prey, even if he is armed, and at the end, Roy has to save Deckard's life. Roy dies because he has reached his termination date and not because Deckard kills him.
All four Nexus replicants are superior to Deckard. All four could have killed him, but three were prevented by chance, and the fourth chooses to save Deckard's life instead. What kind of replicant is Deckard? Surely not a Nexus.
Deckard is told that the Tyrell Corporation is determined to build replicants that become more and more human. Perhaps Deckard is a Nexus 7, next year's model that is so human that it is as incompetent as the average human.
Riddley Scott says Deckard is a replicant; his film says no, Deckard is human.
Overall Reaction: the theatrical versions get a 5 on a five point scale; the others a 4.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Friedrich Durrenmatt: The Pledge, novel and film
Friedrich Durrenmatt
The Pledge
Mystery, police procedural?
The description for the film, The Pledge, sounded interesting, so I rented it. It is a mystery story, but the focus is more on the detective than on the killer. A detective, played by Jack Nicholson, takes on the case of the murder of a child the day before he had intended to retire. The cast is also one of the inducements for viewing it: Jack Nicholson, Helen Mirren, Vanessa Redgrave, Sam Shepard, Aaron Eckhart, and Robin Wright Penn.
While researching the film on imdb.com, I learned that the film is based on a novel by the same name by Friedrich Durrenmatt, whom I had never heard of. Some of the comments about Durrenmatt included statements that he was one of the most significant European writers and dramatists of the second half of the 20th century. It was then that I discovered that I had encountered Durrenmatt once before, some 45+ years ago in fact. I had seen his play, The Visit, on stage with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontane.
I have never forgotten the play. A small town is dying. The company that was responsible for its economic life had closed down. A visitor comes to town. She had left this town many years ago, driven out, in fact, in disgrace when her lover denied being the father of her child. She has returned, one of the richest women in the country, and offers financial inducements in return for revenge. Her offer is refused, at first...
The Pledge is a subtly constructed novel about a promise made by Matthai, the police officer. Even though he supposed to leave the next day to take a job as police chief in Jordan, Matthai promises the mother of the murdered girl that he will catch the killer. The story is of that pledge and its effects upon the officer who has no life outside of his police work.
Suspicion falls upon an individual seen in the vicinity of the body. This individual, unfortunately for him, has a past record and is taken into custody. However, Matthai does not believe this man is the killer, so he starts his own investigation. Apparently two other young girls, both resembling the recent victim, have been killed within the past several years. While each was from a different small town in the mountains, there is an intersection in which the roads to each of the small towns meet and, moreover, one must come to this same intersection if one comes from outside the area. At this intersection is a gas station with a few rooms for travelers. Matthai buys the station and waits.
While this does seem to be an example of an excessive commitment on his part, especially since the police and citizenry are satisfied that the killer has been caught, I didn't think it actually had reached the stage of being an obsession. It wasn't until later in the film that I began to feel uneasy about his behavior, for everything he did made sense. His behavior made sense, but at a certain point he crossed the line beyond which no rational person would go.
There are some significant differences between the novel and the film but none that affect the overall theme of the novel. The differences are more about timing, about the presentation of information, and the focus of the theme--just how far should one go, even in attempting to prevent more murders in this case--remains the same.
Warning: What follows is information about significant events.
In The Pledge, like his play which I mentioned earlier, Durrenmatt gives us a situation in which an individual is placed at risk in order to benefit the group. One of the significant differences between the novel and the film is the way the officer sets up his trap for the killer.
In the novel, Matthai, now on inactive duty, goes to an orphanage and attempts to adopt a young girl, but he is refused. He then hires a local woman to clean the place and help him with customers. She has a young child, a girl about the same age and description, even to having blond hair, as did the previous victims. This might be a coincidence, except that now he has the girl always with him out in front, by the side of the road where drivers can't miss seeing her.
In the film, this is handled somewhat differently. One night, a young woman whom Nicholson had befriended in the past, comes to the station, seeking protection from an abusive ex-spouse. Nicholson lets her stay the night and then offers to let her stay if she will help out with the place.
Her appearance here with her young daughter then is a matter of chance. In the film then, there is always the possibility that her unexpected and unplanned appearance gave him the idea, whereas in the novel, he clearly plans to use the young girl as bait.
In the film version, Nicholson buys her a swing and puts it up in front of the station, in full view of drivers. When asked, he explains that it's safer out front where he can see her, whereas if he installs it in back, where there are no windows, anybody could come up out of the woods and he wouldn't be able to see him.
I don't want to reveal the rest of the story, so I'll stop here. That there is a killer who preys upon young children is horrifying enough, but that the detective is willing to use a young girl as bait to lure the killer into a trap is just as horrifying. What is most chilling is that when confronted with what he was doing, the officer is confused, for he doesn't see the problem. The killer is a threat and must be stopped. Nothing could happen to the young girl for she was well protected.
Perhaps I'm being overly sensitive here, but I don't think there's any justification that could justify putting a young child at risk. An adult could weigh the risks and decide whether to allow this to happen, but not a young child.
I wonder--am I being overly sensitive here?
Overall Rating: Nicholson and a great cast give us an excellent film version of a very chilling novel.
The Pledge
Mystery, police procedural?
The description for the film, The Pledge, sounded interesting, so I rented it. It is a mystery story, but the focus is more on the detective than on the killer. A detective, played by Jack Nicholson, takes on the case of the murder of a child the day before he had intended to retire. The cast is also one of the inducements for viewing it: Jack Nicholson, Helen Mirren, Vanessa Redgrave, Sam Shepard, Aaron Eckhart, and Robin Wright Penn.
While researching the film on imdb.com, I learned that the film is based on a novel by the same name by Friedrich Durrenmatt, whom I had never heard of. Some of the comments about Durrenmatt included statements that he was one of the most significant European writers and dramatists of the second half of the 20th century. It was then that I discovered that I had encountered Durrenmatt once before, some 45+ years ago in fact. I had seen his play, The Visit, on stage with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontane.
I have never forgotten the play. A small town is dying. The company that was responsible for its economic life had closed down. A visitor comes to town. She had left this town many years ago, driven out, in fact, in disgrace when her lover denied being the father of her child. She has returned, one of the richest women in the country, and offers financial inducements in return for revenge. Her offer is refused, at first...
The Pledge is a subtly constructed novel about a promise made by Matthai, the police officer. Even though he supposed to leave the next day to take a job as police chief in Jordan, Matthai promises the mother of the murdered girl that he will catch the killer. The story is of that pledge and its effects upon the officer who has no life outside of his police work.
Suspicion falls upon an individual seen in the vicinity of the body. This individual, unfortunately for him, has a past record and is taken into custody. However, Matthai does not believe this man is the killer, so he starts his own investigation. Apparently two other young girls, both resembling the recent victim, have been killed within the past several years. While each was from a different small town in the mountains, there is an intersection in which the roads to each of the small towns meet and, moreover, one must come to this same intersection if one comes from outside the area. At this intersection is a gas station with a few rooms for travelers. Matthai buys the station and waits.
While this does seem to be an example of an excessive commitment on his part, especially since the police and citizenry are satisfied that the killer has been caught, I didn't think it actually had reached the stage of being an obsession. It wasn't until later in the film that I began to feel uneasy about his behavior, for everything he did made sense. His behavior made sense, but at a certain point he crossed the line beyond which no rational person would go.
There are some significant differences between the novel and the film but none that affect the overall theme of the novel. The differences are more about timing, about the presentation of information, and the focus of the theme--just how far should one go, even in attempting to prevent more murders in this case--remains the same.
Warning: What follows is information about significant events.
In The Pledge, like his play which I mentioned earlier, Durrenmatt gives us a situation in which an individual is placed at risk in order to benefit the group. One of the significant differences between the novel and the film is the way the officer sets up his trap for the killer.
In the novel, Matthai, now on inactive duty, goes to an orphanage and attempts to adopt a young girl, but he is refused. He then hires a local woman to clean the place and help him with customers. She has a young child, a girl about the same age and description, even to having blond hair, as did the previous victims. This might be a coincidence, except that now he has the girl always with him out in front, by the side of the road where drivers can't miss seeing her.
In the film, this is handled somewhat differently. One night, a young woman whom Nicholson had befriended in the past, comes to the station, seeking protection from an abusive ex-spouse. Nicholson lets her stay the night and then offers to let her stay if she will help out with the place.
Her appearance here with her young daughter then is a matter of chance. In the film then, there is always the possibility that her unexpected and unplanned appearance gave him the idea, whereas in the novel, he clearly plans to use the young girl as bait.
In the film version, Nicholson buys her a swing and puts it up in front of the station, in full view of drivers. When asked, he explains that it's safer out front where he can see her, whereas if he installs it in back, where there are no windows, anybody could come up out of the woods and he wouldn't be able to see him.
I don't want to reveal the rest of the story, so I'll stop here. That there is a killer who preys upon young children is horrifying enough, but that the detective is willing to use a young girl as bait to lure the killer into a trap is just as horrifying. What is most chilling is that when confronted with what he was doing, the officer is confused, for he doesn't see the problem. The killer is a threat and must be stopped. Nothing could happen to the young girl for she was well protected.
Perhaps I'm being overly sensitive here, but I don't think there's any justification that could justify putting a young child at risk. An adult could weigh the risks and decide whether to allow this to happen, but not a young child.
I wonder--am I being overly sensitive here?
Overall Rating: Nicholson and a great cast give us an excellent film version of a very chilling novel.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Ray Bradbury: A Sound of Thunder--story and film
A number of Ray Bradbury's stories and novels have been made into films, with varying degrees of success. Few really have been able to capture the atmosphere that Bradbury imbues in his works. Frequently, it is obvious that the director doesn't even try. Bradbury's short story "The Fog Horn," which I mentioned in an earlier post, is an example of this. It was turned into a creature feature which focused on the destructive creature who destroyed everything it could for no explicable reason. I guess it was just born that way, in distinction to Bradbury's creature who acted out a very recognizable impulse of frustration and loneliness and then went home, somewhere under the sea.
Another more recent example of this is the film version of Bradbury's time travel story, "A Sound of Thunder." The film A Sound of Thunder came out in 2005 and was directed by Peter Hyams. I recognized no one in the cast except for Ben Kingsley.
The story's plot is quite straightforward. Time travel has been invented, and safaris are now organized for those who wish to hunt for dinosaurs. Fearing to change the future in some way, the organizers are very careful to select as prey only those animals who will die in a few minutes or less. Killing them a few minutes earlier reduces the risk of a major effect on the future to a minimum. Moreover, the hunters are warned to stay on a path that will not affect any of the living creatures there.
However, on the trip featured in the story, a hunter becomes frightened, steps off the path, and crushes a butterfly. On their return back to their present, they find that the spelling of English words has changed and the results of an election have been reversed. Instead of Keith, the humane liberal-minded candidate who will work for peace, Deutscher, a hard-liner fascist, "an iron man," has been elected. "Deutsch" is the German word for "German"; "Deutschland" is their name for Germany. Interestingly, "Stalin" means "man of steel" in Russian.
What's left of the story in the film? Well, there's time travel and the hunting safari and the dead butterfly. In one way, this story has also been turned into a creature feature. In the film, the effect of the dead butterfly has not yet happened when they returned. Instead there are time waves that come forward changing everything around them. The simplest living beings change first--plants and insects. This is followed by larger, more complex animals--the mammals. The last wave will come and change the humans into something else.
SPOILER WARNING: Information about the resolution of the film follows.
However, unlike the characters in the story, the film's characters are able to change everything back to the way it was at the end. Unfortunately, this comes about through an apparent contradiction in the plot. In the short story, Bradbury is careful to have his hunt organizers study the prey very carefully, and they have selected a number of them whose death will make no difference.
In the film, the hunt organizers have selected only one T. Rex as the prey for all of the hunts. During the last hunt, the chief guide stands there and predicts each movement by the T. Rex. He has "hunted" this animal so many times before that he knows each step it is going to take and each bodily movement it will make before it makes it. Yet, even though this is the same animal, and it is the same few instants before its death, we see no other hunting parties led by this same guide. Where or perhaps when are they?
The film, however, ignores this problem for the solution is to send the guide back just before the T. Rex appears and to warn them about the death of the butterfly. He is successful: the hunter is prevented from stepping off the path, and we see the butterfly flutter safely off. Everything now returns to the way it was, except that the characters remember what happened. The problem is simple: why was he able to make contact with the last safari and yet see none of the others that traveled back to this exact time. Or, as I asked earlier, why weren't the other safaris able to see each other?
Hyams, the director, turned the story into a decent fast-paced action film with various nasty critters and even a few large carnivorous plants. The special effects were good, and frankly the pacing was so fast that the actors didn't have much opportunity to emote, aside from fear, surprise, and whatever would be expected here.
Sadly, the special effects and the fast-paced plot bury Bradbury's point: that even the smallest action we take has unexpected consequences which we are unable to predict and frequently we are not even aware of them. I guess Hyams, the director, did attempt to make this point at the end when the members of the safari team decided to do what they could to call off the hunts. However, the point made in the film seems to apply solely to the fantasy world of time travel and not to our own actions.
Overall: good short story and a decent action film with special effects, none of which are the effects produced by Bradbury in the story though. It's not Bradbury, but it is a decent late night film that goes well with popcorn and your favorite beverage.
Another more recent example of this is the film version of Bradbury's time travel story, "A Sound of Thunder." The film A Sound of Thunder came out in 2005 and was directed by Peter Hyams. I recognized no one in the cast except for Ben Kingsley.
The story's plot is quite straightforward. Time travel has been invented, and safaris are now organized for those who wish to hunt for dinosaurs. Fearing to change the future in some way, the organizers are very careful to select as prey only those animals who will die in a few minutes or less. Killing them a few minutes earlier reduces the risk of a major effect on the future to a minimum. Moreover, the hunters are warned to stay on a path that will not affect any of the living creatures there.
However, on the trip featured in the story, a hunter becomes frightened, steps off the path, and crushes a butterfly. On their return back to their present, they find that the spelling of English words has changed and the results of an election have been reversed. Instead of Keith, the humane liberal-minded candidate who will work for peace, Deutscher, a hard-liner fascist, "an iron man," has been elected. "Deutsch" is the German word for "German"; "Deutschland" is their name for Germany. Interestingly, "Stalin" means "man of steel" in Russian.
What's left of the story in the film? Well, there's time travel and the hunting safari and the dead butterfly. In one way, this story has also been turned into a creature feature. In the film, the effect of the dead butterfly has not yet happened when they returned. Instead there are time waves that come forward changing everything around them. The simplest living beings change first--plants and insects. This is followed by larger, more complex animals--the mammals. The last wave will come and change the humans into something else.
SPOILER WARNING: Information about the resolution of the film follows.
However, unlike the characters in the story, the film's characters are able to change everything back to the way it was at the end. Unfortunately, this comes about through an apparent contradiction in the plot. In the short story, Bradbury is careful to have his hunt organizers study the prey very carefully, and they have selected a number of them whose death will make no difference.
In the film, the hunt organizers have selected only one T. Rex as the prey for all of the hunts. During the last hunt, the chief guide stands there and predicts each movement by the T. Rex. He has "hunted" this animal so many times before that he knows each step it is going to take and each bodily movement it will make before it makes it. Yet, even though this is the same animal, and it is the same few instants before its death, we see no other hunting parties led by this same guide. Where or perhaps when are they?
The film, however, ignores this problem for the solution is to send the guide back just before the T. Rex appears and to warn them about the death of the butterfly. He is successful: the hunter is prevented from stepping off the path, and we see the butterfly flutter safely off. Everything now returns to the way it was, except that the characters remember what happened. The problem is simple: why was he able to make contact with the last safari and yet see none of the others that traveled back to this exact time. Or, as I asked earlier, why weren't the other safaris able to see each other?
Hyams, the director, turned the story into a decent fast-paced action film with various nasty critters and even a few large carnivorous plants. The special effects were good, and frankly the pacing was so fast that the actors didn't have much opportunity to emote, aside from fear, surprise, and whatever would be expected here.
Sadly, the special effects and the fast-paced plot bury Bradbury's point: that even the smallest action we take has unexpected consequences which we are unable to predict and frequently we are not even aware of them. I guess Hyams, the director, did attempt to make this point at the end when the members of the safari team decided to do what they could to call off the hunts. However, the point made in the film seems to apply solely to the fantasy world of time travel and not to our own actions.
Overall: good short story and a decent action film with special effects, none of which are the effects produced by Bradbury in the story though. It's not Bradbury, but it is a decent late night film that goes well with popcorn and your favorite beverage.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky: ROADSIDE PICNIC and STALKER
While Arkady and Boris Strugatsky have collaborated on a number of novels, Roadside Picnic is probably their best known work in the West. It was written in 1971 and published in 1972. It seems to have been first published in the US in 1978, for it was nominated for a John W. Campbell Award for the best SF novel of that year. It came in second place to one of Fred Pohl's best novels, Gateway, and ahead of Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly.
It was obviously a highly regarded novel at that time, and it still is, as it was just reprinted in 2007 as a SF Masterworks edition, which is the edition I have. It seems that 1978 was a banner year for SF since the top three finalists for the John W. Campbell Award have all been reprinted in the SF Masterworks Series: Gateway, Roadside Picnic, and A Scanner Darkly.
Andrei Tarkovsky became interested in the work and in 1979 directed a film based on the novel. It was first seen outside the Soviet Union in the Netherlands in 1980, and it appeared in the US in 1982. Tarkovsky won two awards for the film, one being an Ecumenical Jury Award (a special award) at the Cannes Film Festival in 1980.
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky are the credited screenwriters for the film, while Andrei Tarkovsky, the director, according to imdb.com, is listed as an uncredited screenwriter. After viewing the film, I suspect that Tarkovsky was a major influence, if not the most significant screenwriter of the three.
As I am usually biased against the film when I read the novel first, I saw the film and then reread the novel. I had read it several decades ago and had only the vaguest idea of what was in the novel.
The Novel: Roadside Picnic
The plot of the novel, Roadside Picnic, is relatively simple. Unknown aliens have visited a number of places in the Northern Hemisphere. Why they came and what they did is unknown. All that is known is that they came and the places they visited have been changed. They also left a number of artefacts behind them which provides the title for the novel. As one of the characters explains:
"Imagine a picnic... A picnic. Picture a forest, a country road, a meadow. A car drives off the country road into the meadow, a group of young people get out of the car carrying bottles, baskets of food, transistor radios, and cameras. They light fires, pitch tents, turn on the music. In the morning they leave. The animals, birds, and insects that watch in horror through the long night creep out from their hiding places. And what do they see? Gas and oil spilled on the grass. Old spark plugs and old filters strewn around. Rags, burnt out bulbs, and a monkey wrench left behind. Oil slicks on the pond. And of course, the usual mess--apple cores, candy wrappers, charred remains of the campfire, cans bottles, somebody's handkerchief, somebody's penknife, torn newspapers, coins, faded flowers picked in another meadow."
In other words, humans are as unable to understand what the aliens left behind as the inhabitants of the meadow are unable to understand the debris left by humans. And, some of that debris might be beneficial while other items might be most deadly.
The plot element of an alien visitation, and the Zone created by that visitation, was later taken up by M. John Harrison in his novel Nova Swings, published in 2006. It also received considerable recognition as it won the Arthur C. Clarke and the Philip K. Dick awards for best novel respectively in 2006 and 2007.
In Roadside Picnic, the governments has interdicted the area and banned all travel into and within the Zone, the area affected by the Visitation. Red Schuhart works for a government agency and guides scientists into the Zone, both for research and for the artefacts which are brought out for study in various laboratories. When he's on his own though, he is also a stalker, one of those who enter the Zone illegally. He guides clients who pay a considerable amount for his services. He also brings back artefacts which he sells to buyers, who understandably are eager to possess something from the Zone.
WARNING: SPOILER MATERIAL COMING UP
In the novel, Schuhart is eventually caught and spends several years in prison. He can't get his job back when he gets out. What happens is obvious. He becomes a stalker. Moreover, he is strongly attracted to the Zone, to the dangers he finds there and which he has successfully avoided so far. These are real dangers, inexplicable as they may be, and someone is injured or killed on all of the trips into the Zone that appear in the novel. In addition, the Zone has other effects as the children of the stalkers show a higher degree of mutation and birth defects than found in the general population. Schuhart's own daughter is nicknamed Monkey primarily because of her high activity level and for the fur that covers her body, and as she gets older, she seems less and less human.
The Artefact that all search for, whether they believe in it or not, is not the Golden Fleece, but the legendary Golden Ball. Supposedly those who find it can make a wish, and it will grant their deepest desire, which may or may not be known to those making the wish. Even here there is danger, for which of us can be sure that we know what we really want. The novel ends as Schuhart approaches the Golden Ball.
The Film: Stalker
The film begins roughly about 1/3 of the way into the novel, shortly after the Stalker (I could never catch whether he had a name in the film version and the cast of characters on imdb.com lists him simply as Stalker) has been released from prison and now is a full time stalker.
The setting is similar to the novel: an alien visitation has created the Zone which the government has cordoned off and forbidden to all unauthorized individuals. At the beginning of the film the Stalker meets his two clients who want him to guide them to the Golden Room (the equivalent of the Golden Ball in the novel) in which one is granted one's deepest desire. They encounter several threats which are never shown and in which the clients and the viewers have to take solely on faith in the Stalker's sanity.
In the novel, the Stalker approaches the Golden Ball thinking of "Happiness for All," while in the film, the Stalker and his clients debate the dangers of the granting people's deepest desires, including those of a very evil person. One of the Stalker's clients in the film is a scientist who has stolen a small nuclear device and intends to blow up the Golden Room, for it is too dangerous to be left for anyone to enter it and get one's deepest desire realized. The others persuade him to dismantle the bomb, and the three leave without having entered the room.
The only "special effect" in the film is Tarkovsky's decision to film the opening scenes, which are set outside the Zone, in sepia. I guess it's sepia as it looks to me like old photographs taken before color film was available. However, when they enter the Zone, Tarkovsky switches to color. It's a very intense color, but I'm not sure if that's just the effect of the first part being shot in brown and shades of brown. For the most part, the environment inside the Zone, mostly rural scenes, is far more pleasant than that outside the Zone, which appears to be a bombed-out area or one affected by urban decay. Tarkovsky then shoots the ending of the film, set outside the Zone, in color, though a washed-out color in comparison to the Zone. One is free to contemplate the significance of the color changes.
The pacing is slow. Be prepared to spend considerable time studying the character's profile, the short bristly hairs on the side of the character's head and unshaven chin. At another point, one gets slow pans of a pond with various submerged objects. Tarkovsky seems far more interested in a film that provides atmosphere and far less interested in telling a story.
Overall Reaction:
I recommend the novel for it has interesting characters, action, and an intriguing SF theme--our perception of truly alien artefacts. A great many SF works, prose fiction and films, assume that we would be able to understand and use alien items while this work suggests it might be more difficult than we assume and in some cases impossible.
I would recommend the film only to those who will not be turned off by the slow pacing of the film and the focus on settings and objects which seem designed more to provide an atmosphere than to move the plot forward. In addition, I would recommend that one does not come prepared to see a dramatized version of Roadside Picnic, except in only the broadest sense--that there is an alien zone and people enter it for various reasons.
It was obviously a highly regarded novel at that time, and it still is, as it was just reprinted in 2007 as a SF Masterworks edition, which is the edition I have. It seems that 1978 was a banner year for SF since the top three finalists for the John W. Campbell Award have all been reprinted in the SF Masterworks Series: Gateway, Roadside Picnic, and A Scanner Darkly.
Andrei Tarkovsky became interested in the work and in 1979 directed a film based on the novel. It was first seen outside the Soviet Union in the Netherlands in 1980, and it appeared in the US in 1982. Tarkovsky won two awards for the film, one being an Ecumenical Jury Award (a special award) at the Cannes Film Festival in 1980.
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky are the credited screenwriters for the film, while Andrei Tarkovsky, the director, according to imdb.com, is listed as an uncredited screenwriter. After viewing the film, I suspect that Tarkovsky was a major influence, if not the most significant screenwriter of the three.
As I am usually biased against the film when I read the novel first, I saw the film and then reread the novel. I had read it several decades ago and had only the vaguest idea of what was in the novel.
The Novel: Roadside Picnic
The plot of the novel, Roadside Picnic, is relatively simple. Unknown aliens have visited a number of places in the Northern Hemisphere. Why they came and what they did is unknown. All that is known is that they came and the places they visited have been changed. They also left a number of artefacts behind them which provides the title for the novel. As one of the characters explains:
"Imagine a picnic... A picnic. Picture a forest, a country road, a meadow. A car drives off the country road into the meadow, a group of young people get out of the car carrying bottles, baskets of food, transistor radios, and cameras. They light fires, pitch tents, turn on the music. In the morning they leave. The animals, birds, and insects that watch in horror through the long night creep out from their hiding places. And what do they see? Gas and oil spilled on the grass. Old spark plugs and old filters strewn around. Rags, burnt out bulbs, and a monkey wrench left behind. Oil slicks on the pond. And of course, the usual mess--apple cores, candy wrappers, charred remains of the campfire, cans bottles, somebody's handkerchief, somebody's penknife, torn newspapers, coins, faded flowers picked in another meadow."
In other words, humans are as unable to understand what the aliens left behind as the inhabitants of the meadow are unable to understand the debris left by humans. And, some of that debris might be beneficial while other items might be most deadly.
The plot element of an alien visitation, and the Zone created by that visitation, was later taken up by M. John Harrison in his novel Nova Swings, published in 2006. It also received considerable recognition as it won the Arthur C. Clarke and the Philip K. Dick awards for best novel respectively in 2006 and 2007.
In Roadside Picnic, the governments has interdicted the area and banned all travel into and within the Zone, the area affected by the Visitation. Red Schuhart works for a government agency and guides scientists into the Zone, both for research and for the artefacts which are brought out for study in various laboratories. When he's on his own though, he is also a stalker, one of those who enter the Zone illegally. He guides clients who pay a considerable amount for his services. He also brings back artefacts which he sells to buyers, who understandably are eager to possess something from the Zone.
WARNING: SPOILER MATERIAL COMING UP
In the novel, Schuhart is eventually caught and spends several years in prison. He can't get his job back when he gets out. What happens is obvious. He becomes a stalker. Moreover, he is strongly attracted to the Zone, to the dangers he finds there and which he has successfully avoided so far. These are real dangers, inexplicable as they may be, and someone is injured or killed on all of the trips into the Zone that appear in the novel. In addition, the Zone has other effects as the children of the stalkers show a higher degree of mutation and birth defects than found in the general population. Schuhart's own daughter is nicknamed Monkey primarily because of her high activity level and for the fur that covers her body, and as she gets older, she seems less and less human.
The Artefact that all search for, whether they believe in it or not, is not the Golden Fleece, but the legendary Golden Ball. Supposedly those who find it can make a wish, and it will grant their deepest desire, which may or may not be known to those making the wish. Even here there is danger, for which of us can be sure that we know what we really want. The novel ends as Schuhart approaches the Golden Ball.
The Film: Stalker
The film begins roughly about 1/3 of the way into the novel, shortly after the Stalker (I could never catch whether he had a name in the film version and the cast of characters on imdb.com lists him simply as Stalker) has been released from prison and now is a full time stalker.
The setting is similar to the novel: an alien visitation has created the Zone which the government has cordoned off and forbidden to all unauthorized individuals. At the beginning of the film the Stalker meets his two clients who want him to guide them to the Golden Room (the equivalent of the Golden Ball in the novel) in which one is granted one's deepest desire. They encounter several threats which are never shown and in which the clients and the viewers have to take solely on faith in the Stalker's sanity.
In the novel, the Stalker approaches the Golden Ball thinking of "Happiness for All," while in the film, the Stalker and his clients debate the dangers of the granting people's deepest desires, including those of a very evil person. One of the Stalker's clients in the film is a scientist who has stolen a small nuclear device and intends to blow up the Golden Room, for it is too dangerous to be left for anyone to enter it and get one's deepest desire realized. The others persuade him to dismantle the bomb, and the three leave without having entered the room.
The only "special effect" in the film is Tarkovsky's decision to film the opening scenes, which are set outside the Zone, in sepia. I guess it's sepia as it looks to me like old photographs taken before color film was available. However, when they enter the Zone, Tarkovsky switches to color. It's a very intense color, but I'm not sure if that's just the effect of the first part being shot in brown and shades of brown. For the most part, the environment inside the Zone, mostly rural scenes, is far more pleasant than that outside the Zone, which appears to be a bombed-out area or one affected by urban decay. Tarkovsky then shoots the ending of the film, set outside the Zone, in color, though a washed-out color in comparison to the Zone. One is free to contemplate the significance of the color changes.
The pacing is slow. Be prepared to spend considerable time studying the character's profile, the short bristly hairs on the side of the character's head and unshaven chin. At another point, one gets slow pans of a pond with various submerged objects. Tarkovsky seems far more interested in a film that provides atmosphere and far less interested in telling a story.
Overall Reaction:
I recommend the novel for it has interesting characters, action, and an intriguing SF theme--our perception of truly alien artefacts. A great many SF works, prose fiction and films, assume that we would be able to understand and use alien items while this work suggests it might be more difficult than we assume and in some cases impossible.
I would recommend the film only to those who will not be turned off by the slow pacing of the film and the focus on settings and objects which seem designed more to provide an atmosphere than to move the plot forward. In addition, I would recommend that one does not come prepared to see a dramatized version of Roadside Picnic, except in only the broadest sense--that there is an alien zone and people enter it for various reasons.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Combination Plate 7
Tom Robb Smith
Child 44, a novel
Mystery: police procedural
Setting: Soviet Union, under Stalin
I guess the novel is best described, as far as a type of mystery anyway, as a police procedural, since Leo Demidov, an officer with the MGB, the State Security Agency, is the investigator. He has two problems. The first is to identify and apprehend the individual who has been killing children over a period of at least a decade or two. The second is to get the MGB to admit to the presence of a serial killer. The problem is that the ideology of Stalin's regime defines the society as the perfect society in which serial killers can not exist. Only the societies of the decadent West could produce such monstrosities. To insist that a serial killer could develop under the present system, communism, is to cast doubt on the entire system--a criticism of the system and, worse, a criticism of Stalin himself. This is treason, and there can be only one penalty for treason--swift and sure execution.
At the beginning, Leo Demidov is a true believer: anything and everything can be done to bring into existence the future Edenic state promised by Marxist-Leninist ideology, including the need to install terror into society. He has performed acts that he would rather not have done, but it was in the name of the future good of society. His disillusionment begins with the loss of his idealistic and unrealistic views of society and his relationship with his wife.
The major problem that I found, and no doubt many others will argue this is actually a strength and not a weakness, concerns the emphasis of various topics or themes in the work. Smith's main emphasis is on getting across to the reader what it was like to live in Russia under Stalin. Second in importance is what it is like to be an MGB officer. Least important, or so it seems to me anyway, is the mystery itself . Perhaps Smith should have written a novel about life under Stalin and forgotten about the mystery element.
I borrowed this book for a discussion group from the local library, and it seems as though someone at the library agrees with me since the novel is listed as fiction, and not as a mystery.
However, I must also say that this is a remarkable first novel. Smith is able to convey the claustrophobic oppression that all suffered under Stalin, including the MGB officers themselves. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?-- or "Who will watch the watchers?" The answer is --other watchers, who are also being watched.
I have heard a second book in the series is out or almost out, and I plan on taking a look at it. Perhaps he will devote more time to actual police procedures in this one. If so, it should be a very interesting read.
==================================================
Jo Nesbo
Redbreast, a novel
Mystery : police procedural
Setting: present day Norway
Harry Hole is a detective with the Oslo Police Department, much to their dismay at times. Some of his colleagues and superiors regard him at best as a loose cannon. Nesbo has now written seven novels detailing the exploits of Harry Hole. From what I can gather, Redbreast is the fourth novel in the series, but the first to be translated into English. The fifth book in the series, Nemesis, has just recently been translated.
In Redbreast, Harry Hole's case has its roots in the past, WWII to be precise. The case involves in some way those Norwegians who fought with the Germans against the Russians; some no doubt saw Russia as a greater threat to Norway than the Germans, while others had absorbed the Nazi ideology and saw themselves as Aryans.
My major problem with the novel is that I'm not certain if the novel is primarily about Norwegians who fought on the Russian Front with the German army or about the solution to several crimes that take place today in Norway, at least an half century later. The problem is actually similar to the one I discussed in the comments about Smith's book. The novel spent too much time in the past on the front lines and in a recuperation hospital and too little time ihn the present solving the crimes. I realize that the novel's argument is that the roots of the present day crimes lie back in the past, but even Freud recognized that the issues have to be resolved in the present as it is impossible to go back and resolve them when they happened.
Again, like Tom Rob Smith, I find Nesbo to be an excellent writer and one that I will look into again, hoping he spends more time in the present in his other works. I have heard that the next book to be translated, Nemesis, is much more tightly written and has fewer excursions into the past. That sounds promising.
In both novels, Child 44 and Redbreast, we see talented writers with considerable skills creating police procedurals with interesting characters, on both sides of the law. I'd like to see more emphasis on them and less on the past.
==================================================================
Northanger Abby: the film version, 2007
Director: Jon Jones
Screenplay: Andrew Davies
Felicity Jones as Catherine Morland
Perhaps I should begin by saying that dramatization lasted around 90 minutes. A director can't do much more than present the skeleton of the plot in only an hour and a half. At the end, I thought about renaming the film to Northanger Abbey Lite. The basic structure is there: she travels to Bath, meets some people, is invited to stay with some of them (the Tilneys of Northanger Abbey), has some adventures there, mostly embarrassing for her, and gets sent home, rudely and inconsiderately. But, all is not lost...and they live "happily ever after," although if one reads Austen's last paragraph closely, one might have some doubts.
I have read Northanger Abbey several times and have felt it is an incomplete novel (see post Combination Plate 6 on July 4). Actually, it seems to me to be two separate novellas: the first being a comedy of manners in Bath, while the second is a satire on Gothic novels and those who spend too much time reading them. (I wonder what Madame Bovary would have been like if she had read too many Gothics instead of too many romances, or Don Quixote, if he had read too many Gothics instead of fantastic tales of knight errantry.)
Some one must have felt the same way for, during the first half of the novel, we see interspersed with the scenes in Bath some of her imaginative flights of fancy, all obviously influenced by thse Gothic novels. These do not appear in the novel. Somebody, Davies the screenwriter or perhaps Jones the director, felt that something needed to be done to prepare the viewer for the satiric Gothic elements in the last half of the film. And whoever made the decision got it right.
The casting wasn't bad, except for the choice of William Beck for John Thorpe. In the novel, John Thorpe is a mostly harmless, self-centered, pompous fool, one who "rattles about" according to his best friend, James Morland, Catherine's brother. Instead Beck comes across as a nasty-looking villain, one belonging more rightly in a Gothic tale than in a comedy of manners.
What is missing? Well, the skeleton is there, but most of the flesh is gone.
Overall: a pleasant 90 minutes or so.
=================================================================
Chronicles of Riddick, a film
sequel to Pitch Black
Chronicles of Riddick takes place some five years after the events depicted in Pitch Black (see post Combination Plate 6, on July 4). Again Riddick is being hounded by mercs ( bounty hunters). He is surprised to find that there is now an excessively high price on his head, but he must be brought back alive. He is also surprised to discover who put the high price on him.
Civilization is being threatened by a horde of religious fanatics whose tactics are simple: convert or die. While their death rates are exceedingly high, they always find plenty of replacements after conquering the planet. Riddick's task is to stop them. I hope there's a third, because the ending really seems to be a new beginning.
As usual, the special effects are great. Vin Diesel is the star of the show, playing a role that seems designed with him in mind. He has plenty of opportunities to glower at his enemies, and few can manage to glower as well as he can. However, Riddick does seem to mellow a bit in this film. A third film should tell us whether this was only a momentary loss of focus or whether he is in the process of becoming a soft-hearted, sentimental marshmellow. Riddick a marshmellow? Can't happen. Well, let's wait for the third, if there is one.
I'm not counting the animated version which is also out. I will see it some time in the future.
Overall rating: lots of high tech stuff and interesting settings. Good clean fun.
=================================================================
Pat Murphy
The Falling Woman, an SF/F novel
In the cover blurb, Samuel R. Delany, critic and author, describes this novel as "A lovely and literate exploration of the dark moment when myth and science meet..." Generally blurbs found on the covers, front and back, usually provide strong support for the theory that there really are many universes in existence and that blurb writers seldom live in the same one the book exists in. This is an exception.
The science is archeology and the myth is Mayan. Elizabeth Butler is leading an archeological expedition working on a Mayan site on the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico. She has been separated for decades from her husband who has just recently died. Diane, her daughter, whom she hasn't seen in many years, has come to spend some time with her at the dig. She's not sure why she came--perhaps to reestablish some sort of relationship with her mother, now that her father has died.
The story is told by both Elizabeth and Diane in alternating chapters. Interspersed are several unnumbered sections of three to four pages each which are supposed to be notes from a book Elizabeth is writing. Actually it's a clever way of getting some information about the Mayans and archeology across to the reader without seriously disrupting the narrative flow. Those who wish to read the sections can do so; those who aren't interested can skip the sections and continue on with the narrative.
Elizabeth has a reputation for being a lucky expedition leader. Her digs frequently come up with discoveries that shouldn't have been found because there was no evidence to suggest anything of importance being buried there. And this dig is no different. She told them to dig where no one could see anything that even suggested something was underground there.
Actually Elizabeth cheats. She sees things that other people don't see; she sees people that others can't see. It's as if she can see into the past and get glimpses of the people who lived at this site. At times she can see the place as it was centuries ago, if not thousands of years ago. But, something is different at this site: she not only can see them, but at least one of them, a Mayan priestess, can see her. And, they can communicate to some extent.
A series of accidents occur, injuring one young worker. The local inhabitants insist that the place is haunted and demand a curandera be called in. The curandera performs the necessary ceremonies. But, before she leaves, she warns Elizabeth that both she and Diane must leave. If not, at least Diane must be sent away or there will be a tragedy.
It's a quiet novel--that's the best way I can describe it. There are no monsters here, but there is a slowly growing sense of danger which affects everybody on the dig to some extent. All will be glad when this one is over.
Overall Rating: good novel, meant to be read in a quiet place and in long segments.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Jerzy Kosinski's _Being There_, novel and film
I had seen Being There many years ago and was intrigued by it. Recently I found a copy of the novel by Jerzy Kosinski, so I thought it would be interesting to see the film again and compare it with the novel. I decided to watch the film first and then read the novel, for I have found that reading the story first tends to prejudice me against the film version. So, that's the way it happened, and I found the experience very interesting and a bit confusing also.
First, I should point out that the good folks at the International Movie Database site (imdb.com) assert that Jerzy Kosinski not only wrote the novel but that he is also the film's screenwriter. To the usual questions that always arise whenever a book is adapted for film, are added several others. Why did the novelist make these changes in his story? Were they just the usual changes that are made when transferring the story from print to film? Were some of these changes really ones he wished he had made in the novel in the first place? Were they ideas that he had initially rejected when writing the novel or perhaps ideas that came after he had published the novel? Only Kosinski, obviously, can tell us, and I've never read any comments by him about either the novel or the film.
Spoiler Warning: from this point on, I shall be discussing important plot elements and also revealing the endings of both the novel and the film.
The basic plot structure of the novel is retained in the film. Chance (played by Peter Sellers) is an orphan and is taken into a rich man's house. He becomes the gardener. Chance's benefactor dies, and he must leave the house that he hasn't left for some 40 years or more. He has met less than five people up to this point: his benefactor, two maids, and the gardener before him who stayed around only long enough to tell Chance what his duties were. After The Old Man died, Chance then met two more people from the law firm that his benefactor employed. They were the ones who told him he had to leave.
He leaves and is injured, painfully though not seriously, by a limousine owned by the wealthy and powerful Ben Rand. His wife (Shirley MacLaine) was in the vehicle and invited him to stay at their place until his injury, a bad bruise, is healed. Her husband is dying, and they have an extensive medical setup in the house. The doctor is also living there at this time.
Chance, now known as Chauncey Gardiner (she misunderstood his answer to her question regarding his name--Chance, the gardener), moves in and charms both Rands. He meets the US President and impresses him also. Since the President quoted him, Chance then became news and appears on a TV late night show and becomes an instant celebrity. He has two sexual encounters, one homosexual and one heterosexual with Mrs. Rand. His reaction to both is curiosity only, and both realize that he is uninterested in sex.
The power brokers behind the present President then decide that he is a liability and that if they wish to control the White House they must dump him and select someone else. They finally decide on Chauncey as their candidate for President.
That's the bare bones of the story, the novel and the film. What does Chance/Chauncey have that so impresses people? It is his seemingly childlike simplicity and, conversely, his presumed ability to discuss complex issues in a very basic way. He appears to be one who simply and naively says what he thinks at all times. When asked about the dire economic situation (sounds much like today), he responds with an analogy from gardening, the only thing he knows, besides TV. He compares the recession? depression? with the seasons. It is now autumn and time for many plants to die or at least go into a resting state. However, spring will come, and the garden will bloom once again. Some plants will need help while others will survive on their own. This is true also of the present economic situation.
What also is evident is that each person who hears him interprets Chance's statements. Chance is really a mirror in which all see their own faces and all hear what they want to hear. At a party, the Russian ambassador asks Chance if he knows the fables of Krylov. Being agreeable, Chance smiles. The ambassador says something in Russian and Chance laughs. The ambassador immediately assumes that Chance understands Russian and was laughing at what he said.
While the basic plot structure is the same, there are a number of curious changes that are incorporated in the film. I won't discuss those changes that I think are inevitable when going from print to film. A number of the changes, though, are curious.
One of the most important changes is in the depiction of Chance. In the film, he comes across as being almost retarded, socially retarded if not mentally anyway. He speaks as a young child with very simple sentences. "I am glad to meet you...Yes, I am hungry also." He seems to be all surface, and his behavior is always calm and somewhat flat. He also seems to be a reactive sort of person in that he seldom initiates a conversation and usually waits for the other person to begin. He then takes his cues from that person.
However, that's not quite the way he appears in the novel. For example, in the film, gardening and watching TV are the two most important activities in Chance's life. Nothing in the film, however, suggests that watching TV is any more significant for him than it is for any other TV addict. But, Chance has a very clear and distinct idea about his relationship with the TV set:
"By changing the channel he could change himself. he could go through phases, as garden plants went through phases, but he could change as rapidly as he wished by twisting the deal backward and forward. In some cases he could spread out into the screen without stopping, just as on TV people spread out into the screen. By turning the dial, Chance could bring others inside his eyelids. Thus he came to believe that is was he, Chance, and no one else who made himself be."
Chance in the novel is a somewhat more complex person than he is in the film. At several points in the novel, Chance finds himself in a novel situation. Not knowing what to do or say, he decides to act as he has seen others act on TV in similar situations. He is not acting naturally or spontaneously, as it appears on film or to the other characters, but he is putting on a facade that he thinks is appropriate for the situation. For example, during the first morning that Chance finds himself in the Rand mansion, he is still in bed when Mrs Rand (Eve in the film and EE), comes in and begins talking.
"Thinking that he ought to show a keen interest in what EE was saying, Chance resorted to repeating to her parts of her own sentences, a practice he had observed on TV. In this fashion he encourages her to continue and elaborate."
And again, when Chance meets the President--
"Remembering that during his TV press conferences, the President always looked straight at the viewers, Chance stared directly into the President's eyes."
However, TV's limitations are also Chance's limitations. At one point, when EE attempts to seduce him, Chance doesn't know what to do. He had watched many scenes on TV in which males and females kissed and hugged and even started to remove some articles of clothing, but then the scene changed or a commercial came on, so he never knew what came next.
It seems clear to me that throughout the novel, Chance is not just the simple soul he appears to be on the surface, but someone more complex; however just what that is, I don't know. The picture of Chance in the film is different for only near the end of the film does Chance act in a way that suggests something more than the wise sage that others take him to be.
In the film, the doctor (Richard Dyshart) plays a minor role, but a much greater one than he does in the novel. I think he appears several times in the novel, but only to act as a doctor. In the film, though, he is the only one who slowly begins to wonder about Chance, and he begins to do some investigating on his own. He at the end of the film is the only person who knows that Chauncey Gardiner is really Chance, the gardener. What is strange is Chance's comment to the doctor near the end of the film when Benjamin Rand dies. Shortly after Rand's death, Chance says to the Doctor, "You will be leaving now." It is uncertain whether this is a question or a statement. The doctor seems puzzled by it also.
The other curious incident is the ending of the film. Benjamin Rand is alive in the novel, although he has just had a serious relapse, whereas he dies in the film. Rand's associates in both the novel and the film decide to drop their support for the President (whom they feel won't win his reelection bid) and back Chance instead. As far as I can tell, Chance does not know of their decision.
At the ending of the novel, Chance is at a party, and he steps outside on a balcony: "A breeze fell upon the foliage and nestled under the cover of its moist leaves. Not a thought lifted itself from Chance's brain. Peace filled his chest."
In the film, Chance is at the cemetery where he is attending the funeral ceremonies for Ben Rand. At the end, he walks away from the gathered mourners, goes down a hill, and begins to walk across a pond. He appears to be walking on water. He stops in the center of the pond, looks around, and then sticks his umbrella into the water where it sinks in, thus suggesting that the water is at least several feet deep. Who is it that can walk on water? Again, this ending occurs in the film only.
However, even this is strangely ambiguous. Chance leans over and inserts the umbrella about two or three feet from where he is standing, so it is quite possible that he could be standing on a submerged dam or walkway. I wonder why it was chosen to do it this way, for Chance could have inserted the umbrella right by his own feet which would have unequivocally removed this doubt. Perhaps that was the what was wanted--a doubt. But, why?
Overall Impression: a strange novel and film. There are puzzling elements in both. I will read the book and watch the film again. Maybe time will help resolve some of the uncertainties.
First, I should point out that the good folks at the International Movie Database site (imdb.com) assert that Jerzy Kosinski not only wrote the novel but that he is also the film's screenwriter. To the usual questions that always arise whenever a book is adapted for film, are added several others. Why did the novelist make these changes in his story? Were they just the usual changes that are made when transferring the story from print to film? Were some of these changes really ones he wished he had made in the novel in the first place? Were they ideas that he had initially rejected when writing the novel or perhaps ideas that came after he had published the novel? Only Kosinski, obviously, can tell us, and I've never read any comments by him about either the novel or the film.
Spoiler Warning: from this point on, I shall be discussing important plot elements and also revealing the endings of both the novel and the film.
The basic plot structure of the novel is retained in the film. Chance (played by Peter Sellers) is an orphan and is taken into a rich man's house. He becomes the gardener. Chance's benefactor dies, and he must leave the house that he hasn't left for some 40 years or more. He has met less than five people up to this point: his benefactor, two maids, and the gardener before him who stayed around only long enough to tell Chance what his duties were. After The Old Man died, Chance then met two more people from the law firm that his benefactor employed. They were the ones who told him he had to leave.
He leaves and is injured, painfully though not seriously, by a limousine owned by the wealthy and powerful Ben Rand. His wife (Shirley MacLaine) was in the vehicle and invited him to stay at their place until his injury, a bad bruise, is healed. Her husband is dying, and they have an extensive medical setup in the house. The doctor is also living there at this time.
Chance, now known as Chauncey Gardiner (she misunderstood his answer to her question regarding his name--Chance, the gardener), moves in and charms both Rands. He meets the US President and impresses him also. Since the President quoted him, Chance then became news and appears on a TV late night show and becomes an instant celebrity. He has two sexual encounters, one homosexual and one heterosexual with Mrs. Rand. His reaction to both is curiosity only, and both realize that he is uninterested in sex.
The power brokers behind the present President then decide that he is a liability and that if they wish to control the White House they must dump him and select someone else. They finally decide on Chauncey as their candidate for President.
That's the bare bones of the story, the novel and the film. What does Chance/Chauncey have that so impresses people? It is his seemingly childlike simplicity and, conversely, his presumed ability to discuss complex issues in a very basic way. He appears to be one who simply and naively says what he thinks at all times. When asked about the dire economic situation (sounds much like today), he responds with an analogy from gardening, the only thing he knows, besides TV. He compares the recession? depression? with the seasons. It is now autumn and time for many plants to die or at least go into a resting state. However, spring will come, and the garden will bloom once again. Some plants will need help while others will survive on their own. This is true also of the present economic situation.
What also is evident is that each person who hears him interprets Chance's statements. Chance is really a mirror in which all see their own faces and all hear what they want to hear. At a party, the Russian ambassador asks Chance if he knows the fables of Krylov. Being agreeable, Chance smiles. The ambassador says something in Russian and Chance laughs. The ambassador immediately assumes that Chance understands Russian and was laughing at what he said.
While the basic plot structure is the same, there are a number of curious changes that are incorporated in the film. I won't discuss those changes that I think are inevitable when going from print to film. A number of the changes, though, are curious.
One of the most important changes is in the depiction of Chance. In the film, he comes across as being almost retarded, socially retarded if not mentally anyway. He speaks as a young child with very simple sentences. "I am glad to meet you...Yes, I am hungry also." He seems to be all surface, and his behavior is always calm and somewhat flat. He also seems to be a reactive sort of person in that he seldom initiates a conversation and usually waits for the other person to begin. He then takes his cues from that person.
However, that's not quite the way he appears in the novel. For example, in the film, gardening and watching TV are the two most important activities in Chance's life. Nothing in the film, however, suggests that watching TV is any more significant for him than it is for any other TV addict. But, Chance has a very clear and distinct idea about his relationship with the TV set:
"By changing the channel he could change himself. he could go through phases, as garden plants went through phases, but he could change as rapidly as he wished by twisting the deal backward and forward. In some cases he could spread out into the screen without stopping, just as on TV people spread out into the screen. By turning the dial, Chance could bring others inside his eyelids. Thus he came to believe that is was he, Chance, and no one else who made himself be."
Chance in the novel is a somewhat more complex person than he is in the film. At several points in the novel, Chance finds himself in a novel situation. Not knowing what to do or say, he decides to act as he has seen others act on TV in similar situations. He is not acting naturally or spontaneously, as it appears on film or to the other characters, but he is putting on a facade that he thinks is appropriate for the situation. For example, during the first morning that Chance finds himself in the Rand mansion, he is still in bed when Mrs Rand (Eve in the film and EE), comes in and begins talking.
"Thinking that he ought to show a keen interest in what EE was saying, Chance resorted to repeating to her parts of her own sentences, a practice he had observed on TV. In this fashion he encourages her to continue and elaborate."
And again, when Chance meets the President--
"Remembering that during his TV press conferences, the President always looked straight at the viewers, Chance stared directly into the President's eyes."
However, TV's limitations are also Chance's limitations. At one point, when EE attempts to seduce him, Chance doesn't know what to do. He had watched many scenes on TV in which males and females kissed and hugged and even started to remove some articles of clothing, but then the scene changed or a commercial came on, so he never knew what came next.
It seems clear to me that throughout the novel, Chance is not just the simple soul he appears to be on the surface, but someone more complex; however just what that is, I don't know. The picture of Chance in the film is different for only near the end of the film does Chance act in a way that suggests something more than the wise sage that others take him to be.
In the film, the doctor (Richard Dyshart) plays a minor role, but a much greater one than he does in the novel. I think he appears several times in the novel, but only to act as a doctor. In the film, though, he is the only one who slowly begins to wonder about Chance, and he begins to do some investigating on his own. He at the end of the film is the only person who knows that Chauncey Gardiner is really Chance, the gardener. What is strange is Chance's comment to the doctor near the end of the film when Benjamin Rand dies. Shortly after Rand's death, Chance says to the Doctor, "You will be leaving now." It is uncertain whether this is a question or a statement. The doctor seems puzzled by it also.
The other curious incident is the ending of the film. Benjamin Rand is alive in the novel, although he has just had a serious relapse, whereas he dies in the film. Rand's associates in both the novel and the film decide to drop their support for the President (whom they feel won't win his reelection bid) and back Chance instead. As far as I can tell, Chance does not know of their decision.
At the ending of the novel, Chance is at a party, and he steps outside on a balcony: "A breeze fell upon the foliage and nestled under the cover of its moist leaves. Not a thought lifted itself from Chance's brain. Peace filled his chest."
In the film, Chance is at the cemetery where he is attending the funeral ceremonies for Ben Rand. At the end, he walks away from the gathered mourners, goes down a hill, and begins to walk across a pond. He appears to be walking on water. He stops in the center of the pond, looks around, and then sticks his umbrella into the water where it sinks in, thus suggesting that the water is at least several feet deep. Who is it that can walk on water? Again, this ending occurs in the film only.
However, even this is strangely ambiguous. Chance leans over and inserts the umbrella about two or three feet from where he is standing, so it is quite possible that he could be standing on a submerged dam or walkway. I wonder why it was chosen to do it this way, for Chance could have inserted the umbrella right by his own feet which would have unequivocally removed this doubt. Perhaps that was the what was wanted--a doubt. But, why?
Overall Impression: a strange novel and film. There are puzzling elements in both. I will read the book and watch the film again. Maybe time will help resolve some of the uncertainties.
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