the modern english novel on film

Transcription

Eötvös Loránd University of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
Faculty of Humanities
Doctoral Dissertation
by
Eszter Járdánházi-Kurutzné Torma
on
THE MODERN ENGLISH NOVEL ON FILM
submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
March 2009
Budapest
ESZTER J.K. TORMA – THE MODERN ENGLISH NOVEL ON FILM
Doctoral School of Literature
Director: Professor Dr Ernı Kulcsár Szabó
Modern English and American Literature Program
Director: Professor Dr Aladár Sarbu
Members of the Committee
President of the Committee: Professor Dr habil. Ágnes Péter CSc
Opponents:
Dr Ferenc Takács, Associate Professor
Professor Dr habil. György Báron DLA
Chancellor: Dr Judit Friedrich CSc, Associate Professor
Further Members of the Committee: Dr Attila Kiss PhD
Alternate Members of the Committee: Dr András Bálint Kovács, Dr Zoltán Dragon
Internal Supervisor: Professor Dr Géher István CSc
External supervisor
Professor Dr Peter Drexler (Universität Potsdam, Postdam, Germany)
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my appreciation to my internal and external supervisors,
Professor István Géher (Eötvös Loránd University of Sciences, Budapest) and Professor
Peter Drexler (University of Potsdam, Potsdam) for all the knowledge they shared with me
and for their never ceasing encouragement and enthusiasm regarding my area of work. I
will always be thankful for their professional inputs as well as personal caring during the
time of my promotion as a PhD student.
I would like to thank Professor Aladár Sarbu for his meaningful and critical insights
to my research topic and his exquisit help in the bureaucratic maze of the doctoral
procedure.
I would also like to acknowledge Dr Ferenc Takács and Dr György Báron for their
useful comments on my dissertation and for their professional corrections in the text.
I very much appreciate the work of Mr Milt Hostetter “Grandpa” for the editing and
correction of the dissertation text as a nativ speaker.
Thanks are also due to my entire family, especially to my mother, Mária Torma and
my husband, Dániel Járdánházi-Kurutz who always encouraged and supported me to
pursue what I love to do professionally. I am also grateful to my mother-in-law, Professor
Márta Kurutz for the example she set me professionally as well as personally.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..........................................................................................................................III
TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................................................V
INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................... 9
CHAPTER 1 .................................................................................................................................................. 13
ADAPTATION: HISTORY AND THEORY ......................................................................................................... 13
The Source of Contempt......................................................................................................................... 14
A few notes on the history of adaptation................................................................................................ 17
The Fidelity Conflict .............................................................................................................................. 21
Theories of Adaptation........................................................................................................................... 24
Possible Solutions .................................................................................................................................. 33
CHAPTER 2 .................................................................................................................................................. 37
THE MODERN BRITISH FICTION ON PAPER AND ON THE BIG SCREEN .......................................................... 37
Cultural and Historical Background ..................................................................................................... 37
The Modern Novel at the Beginning of the Century............................................................................... 40
The Beginnings of the British Film ........................................................................................................ 45
The Modern Novel around World War II............................................................................................... 47
Hitchcock, Asquith and Korda and the Films Around World War II..................................................... 49
The Modern Novel: The Post-war Years and the New Wave ................................................................. 54
British Film: The Post-war Years and the New Wave ........................................................................... 58
The Modern Novel ................................................................................................................................. 61
British Film from the Swingin’ Sixties on .............................................................................................. 65
The British Novel under Margaret Thatcher ......................................................................................... 69
Movies in the 1980s and 1990s .............................................................................................................. 72
CHAPTER 3 .................................................................................................................................................. 79
MAURICE ..................................................................................................................................................... 79
Reasons Behind Making The Film ......................................................................................................... 79
What makes Maurice a typical heritage film? ....................................................................................... 80
The Significance of the Novel and the Film ........................................................................................... 82
Crossing sexual boundaries................................................................................................................... 85
Crossing class boundaries ..................................................................................................................... 89
Social criticism ...................................................................................................................................... 91
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Representation of women in the film ......................................................................................................93
Humor.....................................................................................................................................................96
Physical vs. Intellectual..........................................................................................................................97
Major Cardinal Functions....................................................................................................................100
Character Functions.............................................................................................................................103
Motivation Behind Clive’s Transition: Added Parts ............................................................................103
Segmentation and Camerawork............................................................................................................106
Mise-en-scène .......................................................................................................................................107
Dialogues..............................................................................................................................................109
Music ....................................................................................................................................................110
A Short Note on the Ending ..................................................................................................................111
CHAPTER 4 .................................................................................................................................................113
ORLANDO...................................................................................................................................................113
Virginia Woolf and Her Style ...............................................................................................................113
A Connection Made – Woolf and Potter...............................................................................................114
Sally Potter and Film............................................................................................................................116
Heritage or Post-heritage?...................................................................................................................119
Feminism ..............................................................................................................................................122
Film and Novel .....................................................................................................................................126
Making up for the Lost Literary Content..............................................................................................130
Frames..................................................................................................................................................131
Time and Space.....................................................................................................................................132
Character Functions............................................................................................................................133
Mise-en-scène and Setting ....................................................................................................................138
Music and Sound ..................................................................................................................................140
Segmentation and Camerawork............................................................................................................142
Conclusion............................................................................................................................................143
CHAPTER 5 .................................................................................................................................................147
LORD OF THE FLIES ....................................................................................................................................147
The Novel..............................................................................................................................................147
Intertextuality .......................................................................................................................................148
The Adaptations....................................................................................................................................150
Symbols.................................................................................................................................................169
Music and Sound ..................................................................................................................................174
Conclusion............................................................................................................................................176
CHAPTER 6 .................................................................................................................................................179
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ROOM AT THE TOP ..................................................................................................................................... 179
The Novel ............................................................................................................................................. 180
The Film............................................................................................................................................... 185
Major Cardinal Functions ................................................................................................................... 187
Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................... 195
CHAPTER 7 ................................................................................................................................................ 197
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE ........................................................................................................................... 197
The Novel ............................................................................................................................................. 199
The Title ............................................................................................................................................... 200
Nadsat .................................................................................................................................................. 201
Psychological Theories Behind the Novel............................................................................................ 203
The Film............................................................................................................................................... 205
Structural Patterns............................................................................................................................... 208
Character Functions ............................................................................................................................ 216
Other Characters ................................................................................................................................. 219
Dialogue .............................................................................................................................................. 220
Symbols ................................................................................................................................................ 221
Music.................................................................................................................................................... 222
Narration ............................................................................................................................................. 226
Mise-en-Scène...................................................................................................................................... 228
Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................... 233
CHAPTER 8 ................................................................................................................................................ 235
THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT’S WOMAN ....................................................................................................... 235
The Book .............................................................................................................................................. 237
The Un-Victorian Victorian Novel....................................................................................................... 237
Background Information on Characters .............................................................................................. 240
Sexuality And Libido In The Book........................................................................................................ 241
The Difference Between Two Women .................................................................................................. 245
Character Functions ............................................................................................................................ 254
Shot Analysis........................................................................................................................................ 257
Setting .................................................................................................................................................. 260
Music and Sound.................................................................................................................................. 261
Language Codes .................................................................................................................................. 262
The Unconventional Costume Film...................................................................................................... 262
The Unfilmable Parts........................................................................................................................... 263
Interpretations ..................................................................................................................................... 265
Sexuality and Libido in the Film .......................................................................................................... 267
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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The Second Level..................................................................................................................................268
The Endings..........................................................................................................................................269
Conclusion............................................................................................................................................270
CHAPTER 9 .................................................................................................................................................273
THE REMAINS OF THE DAY ........................................................................................................................273
The Remains of the Day as Heritage Film............................................................................................273
Reasons Behind the Novel and the Making of the Film ........................................................................275
Historical Relevance ............................................................................................................................276
Themes..................................................................................................................................................289
Reliable Memories?..............................................................................................................................295
Landscape as Reflection .......................................................................................................................298
Humor and the Comic ..........................................................................................................................299
The Remains of the Day: A Happy Ending? .........................................................................................303
CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................305
APPENDIX...................................................................................................................................................309
SEGMENTATION: MAURICE .......................................................................................................................309
SEGMENTATION: ORLANDO.......................................................................................................................313
SHOT ANALYSIS: A CLOCKWORK ORANGE ...............................................................................................315
SHOT ANALYSIS: THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT’S WOMAN ...........................................................................331
SEGMENTATION: THE REMAINS OF THE DAY ............................................................................................351
BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................................357
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Writing about adaptations in academic circles may turn out to be an adventurous
enterprise. Those on the literary side try to play down the significance of adaptations
referring to the superiority of literature while those on the side of film studies either want
to forget that these works have literary origins or consider them to be too close to literature
to be taken seriously. However, my goal with this dissertation is to create something like a
handbook for those who are interested in adaptation. Adaptation, not solely as a cinematic
phenomenon, but also as a collection of works that bear the markings of their cultural,
literary or cinematic background. This goal is in correspondence with the new adaptation
discourse that has been trying to dissolve the supremacy of the fidelity debate in order to
be able to concentrate on new, culturally rich approaches. Already in 1961 Raymond
Williams urged that at universities “There should be a widening of syllabuses to take in
social studies, art history and criticism, including film, television drama and jazz as well as
the traditional arts.”[1] My hope is that this work will contribute to this widening horizon.
The chapters found in the following dissertation serve diverse goals. Chapter 1
introduces the reader to the history of adaptation: to its birth at the beginning of film
history, to the stages of its development, as well as the different approaches towards this
hybrid field throughout the last couple of decades. Since my case studies concern novels
taken from roughly each decade of the twentieth century, I found it essential to give a short
history of the modern British novel combined with the overview of the cultural and
cinematic developments of the century. This utterly interesting, and hopefully useful,
information is found in Chapter 2. Chapters 3 through Chapter 9 follow the case studies of
the different novels chosen for analysis in chronological order.
Since I have named my topic as a work dealing with the modern English novel on
film in general, I have decided to take one novel from roughly each decade of the twentieth
century up until 1990. It may seem strange that, while this work deals with adaptations,
the analyses are still put into order according to the publication of the novels, nevertheless,
I find this to be the most logical listing. The birth of the novels is the prerequisite of their
later film versions. Additionally, the order may also call the attention of the reader to the
oddity of the timing of the adaptations: in some cases it took only two years for a film to
come out, while in other cases it took several decades. The background information in
Chapter 2 and some sections of the case studies also try to help understand these
differences. Besides, the order of the case studies also provides a hint at the reason behind
INTRODUCTION
9
choosing especially these novels and adaptations for analysis. This selection was aimed to
reveal a kind of development but also a unity within the English novels of the century. The
development in style, the changes and experiments within the genre are more obvious than
the unity behind these works. However a deeper look reveals that most of these stories deal
with outsiders. They may reveal much of the age they were written in, may have had
achieved great success, they may even be called the pride of British literature, yet, they all
point to deeper meanings. The first novel, Maurice deals with the struggles of a
homosexual man in a conservative society; Orlando shows the difficulties of women in a
similar setting; Lord of the Flies reveals the difficulties of Ralph and Piggy in keeping up
the morale among the children, while, Joe Lampton, Alex, Sarah Woodruff or Mr Stevens
may all be considered outsiders in their surroundings. Following from these observations
the reason behind my choice of these novels is twofold: I wanted to show a kind of
development of the English novel in the twentieth century, while choosing novels that
reveal something more about the difficulties of the individual within society.
In the analyses I have tried to give unbiased observations about the novels and their
film adaptations. To be able to systematically call the attention to the most important
changes or even similarities between the novel and the film, I chose to make use of Brian
McFarlane’s method found in his book Novel to Film: An Introduction to the Theory of
Adaptation written in 1996. This method is based on the structuralist theory of Roland
Barthes who argues that all narratives include distributional functions which are made up
of cardinal functions and catalyzers. The major cardinal functions are the essential events
in the story. If these events or functions are altered for some reason the whole narrative
changes.[2] For this reason, when analyzing an adaptation it is useful to list these ‘hinge
points’ and see how they were transferred to film in order to be able to render a reason for
occasional changes. In each case study then I give a general introduction to the novel and
the film which ensues by the list of the major cardinal functions and the analysis of the
alterations in the film version. Similarly, in most films there is a transfer of character
functions that tries to represent the characters of the original narrative also in the film. If
the character traits or functions of the main protagonists are changed, the film may take on
a different course than the novel and these may change the view of the given character(s).
Good examples of such changes are Joe Lampton in Room at the Top or Mr. Stevens in
The Remains of the Day. Since in the original novel they share their personal insights only
with the reader in a first person narration, the directors had to come up with different
solutions to represent the inner life of these characters. In the case of Room at the Top this
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INTRODUCTION
resulted in the manipulation of the other characters’ attitudes, while in The Remains of the
Day Mr. Stevens remains as asocial in the film as in the book and thus from a basically
verbose old man he transforms into the model of English reserve. In the analysis of the
character functions I then try to give an account of the changes made by the directors.
Nevertheless, each case study found in this paper is different and focuses on the
most important themes of the novel that were found relevant at the birth of the book but
also reveal something about the adaptation. Following from this approach, for instance in
Chapter 4, I lay great emphasis on the background and character of the director Sally Potter
when analyzing her adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. The fact that the film was
made sixty-four years after the publication of the book and that it was made by a feminist
director reveals a great deal about the cultural and social phenomena behind the scenes.
Similarly, the peculiarity of Kubrick’s cinematic style, for instance, allowed a deeper
analysis of the camerawork and its implications than in other works. In Chapter 8, Fowles’
novel induced a more literarily biased analysis that reveals much about the symbolism of
the book and the mystery of the individual characters within it. Nevertheless, I have tried
to construct the case studies in a way that the resulting work could be used also as a kind of
encyclopedia for those who are only interested in one or two of the adaptations included.
Thus, although I give a historical and cultural overview of the novels and films in Chapter
2, I also summarize these facts in the given case studies, although sometimes with different
emphasis or more detail, as the case may require. If my goals should be fulfilled, those
who are interested in literature or film studies or adaptation in general will find this work
hopefully not only informative but also entertaining.
[1]
Roy Shaw and Gwen Shaw, ‘The Cultural and Social Setting,’ Modern Britain: The Cambridge Cultural
History, ed. Boris Ford (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992) 11.
[2]
For more detail please see Chapter 1.
INTRODUCTION
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CHAPTER 1
ADAPTATION: HISTORY AND THEORY
Although there have always been attempts to dissolve the tensions between film
and literature, there has been a constant rivalry induced by scholars between the two
media. People very often see high culture and especially literature in danger as they think
films can rule out the latter. This, obviously, does not promote the prestige of cinema
among literary scholars. It is still essential to understand that by paying more attention to
the hybrid study of adaptations, one might learn much from both the novel and its
cinematic adaptation. By being forced to understand the narrative nature of the novel and
how this narrative works in an absolutely different media, one cannot but deepen his
knowledge about the source and the resulting adaptation. The root of the phenomenon, that
many people watch the movie instead of reading the novel, goes back as far as the birth of
the cinema. Silent films were, of course shorter than feature films today and that limited
the application of adaptation as well. Also, since the question of copyrights was not fixed
at the time and the tradition of adaptation, especially faithful adaptation was not developed,
silent film adaptations “were, at best, simplifications and substitutes for a viewing public
that was, in many quarters, at least semi-literate.”[1] For these reasons adaptation is usually
condemned by many intellectuals. Still, they have been watched by masses of people and
that is exactly what evokes fear in many scholars, who are afraid that “[w]hat are now
called departments of English will be renamed departments of ‘cultural studies’ where
Batman comics, Mormon theme parks, television movies and rock will replace Chaucer,
Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth and Wallace Stevens.”[2] While this is an exaggeration,
the quote reveals the fact that film is considered as some kind of illness or virus that can
distort what we still hold dear or would call high culture today. For this reason it is
important to realize that film is an independent art form that does not mean to usurp the
position of literature, which it would be unable to fill anyway. It thus becomes necessary to
recognize adaptations in their own right, partly independently of literature.
To state my case, that adaptation discourse is an important section of film studies, it
is enough to note that more than half of all the films made in the last hundred years are
adaptations of different novels or other literary works. The prestige of adaptation is
illustrated best if we consider that at the Academy Awards ceremony adapted and original
screenplays constitute two identically important categories. I will also recount later on the
CHAPTER 1 – ADAPTATION
13
percentage of adaptations in the last seventy decades to prove its importance in film
production.
The study of adaptation has been considered a ‘hybrid field’ as it involves not only
literary criticism but also film studies. Since it is a developing and in fact, an ever present
phenomenon, it is interesting that relatively regular publications have been present only
since the 1960s and many of these are focusing primarily on the “fidelity debate.” As
opposed to the argument for “faithful adaptations,” the auteur theory also developed
emphasizing the creative power of the auteur/director in contrast to the author. But in my
point of view, an even newer approach is needed that looks at films not only as a product
of a team or a director but as the stamp of the period in which a particular film was made.
The contemporary culture, and more importantly the current approach to adaptation must
have a significant effect on the films made in that period (consider for instance the relative
success of Branagh’s Hamlet – its costumes suggesting the 19th century, while its set
design is closer to modern than historical – while in contrast most adaptations hustle to
emphasize their fidelity to their sources). This effect must be analyzed in future studies,
replacing the ever reoccurring fidelity debate. Before turning to the case studies in later
chapters, in Chapter 2 of my dissertation I try to focus exactly on the above mentioned
questions, i.e. the historical and political background of the twentieth century novel
including the works chosen for analysis.
THE SOURCE OF CONTEMPT
Film is mostly associated with leisure and recreation as opposed to the novel or literature
in general which represents high culture and intelligence. Novel and film are linked in
adaptation but they represent “opposing elements and mentalities – art and commerce,
individual creativity and collaborative fabrication, culture and mass culture, the verbal and
the visual.”[3] If we consider this dichotomy we must realize that in the mind of most
scholars such words as art, creativity, and culture carry a valuable meaning as opposed to
commerce, mass culture, or fabrication. Thus films are foundationally doomed to be
inferior to literature. But if we keep in mind that in other media film is referred to as visual
art then we get closer to our goal to view film adaptation not as inferior but parallel to
literature. While literary scholars are attacked for their hostility toward adaptation, it is
important to note what Whelehan put down so rightly:
Readers of adaptations, in common with mass-media fans, can become more
conscious of their active role as critics by evaluating both literary text and its
adaptation, looking beyond issues of success or failure and considering, among
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other things, the choices made by the adapter, the conditions of those choices,
other possible options and their possible effects. As well as considering their
own historical vantage point, the adaptation’s audience needs to consider the
historical context and technological constraints within which the adaptation is
produced.[4]
This attitude might lead to the reconciliation between literature and the film which has
been long overdue.
Before reconciling the two seeming opponents, however, let us now consider what
makes the two media so different from one another. The basic contrast lies partially in the
fact that, as opposed to film, the novel can take up almost any form in the minds of those
reading it. If the author writes “she wore a red jacket” the reader can decide for him or
herself how long this jacket is, whether it has stains on it or not, whether it has pockets,
how big the buttons are, or whether it has a zipper, etc. On the other hand, films already
make these decisions for us. We do not see on the screen the imagined reality created by us
but the decisions met by the director, photographer, or costume designer of the film. Also,
in movies such factors as lighting, angle, soundtrack, sound effects, and other means of
movie making, absent from the novel, have a decisive influence on our perception. Film
operates with visual, aural, and linguistic effects, whereas the novel only has the means of
using words to create a whole world in the mind of the reader. Another difference may be
found in the material realization of the two media: the novel is printed as opposed to film
which is recorded on celluloid and is transferred later on to video or DVD. Other, more
theoretical differences between the two genres will be elaborated later on.
If we consider literary history, it is interesting to note that no other art has been so
harshly attacked for borrowing from literature as film. Yet, painting, sculpture, music and
ballet all use novels as sources. In addition, as Bazin notes in his essay Adaptation, or the
Cinema as Digest: “One must not forget that the adaptation and summary of original works
of art have become so customary and so frequent that it would be next to impossible to
question their existence today.”[5] Nevertheless, if we take a closer look at literature itself, it
must be realized that what we call an authentic literary work today might also have
borrowed from folk tales, newspaper articles, letters, etc. Apparently, many stories of
Shakespeare are taken from the English or Danish or other folk tradition; and the greatest
antique work, The Odyssey is built upon anonymous oral formulaic stories. Don Quixote is
based on old chivalric romances, and the list could be continued endlessly. Thus the great
playwrights and authors we hold in high esteem may just as well be attacked for
15
borrowing, or even parasitism, as film adaptations are. If we venture out this deep we can,
after a while, question the liability of any original work. Here we might call to help
Derridean deconstruction which claims that the prestige of the original does not run
counter to the copy, but it is actually created by the copy. Otherwise the word “copy”
would lose its meaning. In line with this reasoning we may state that the more copy an
original work in fact has, the more prestigious it actually becomes. A new novel then often
gains its prestige by the number of copies it was able to sell. Thus the whole idea of
adaptation could be considered as the affirmation of great literary works.
The other side of the coin is that film, besides being considered a lower art than
literature, is mostly attacked for taking particularly novels as the base of a given
adaptation. Still, if we consider, film has more in common with theater and dramas than
with long narratives. As Kamilla Elliott notes, film at the beginning “had a more difficult
time outdoing and separating itself from theater. It was frequently perceived as a reduced
form of theater – theater’s color, sound, and live three-dimensional performance reduced to
silent black-and-white two-dimensional.”[6] Film was, at its early stage, considered a mere
technological recording device for theater. Film historians argue that cinema was able to
free itself from its resemblance to theater first in the 1910s and 1920s. The event that made
this break possible was Griffith’s invention of editing which enabled filmmakers to break
up static single-shot scenes and bring film closer to novels. The camera was now able to
tell a narrative just like the novel.
However, as it will be elaborated in the next section, many scholars argue that film
was in fact already inherent in the novels of such a great artist as Charles Dickens whose
novels are supposed to have a “camera eye.” Still, many critics argue that “from film’s
earliest days to the present, film nomenclature offers no evidence that the novel was film’s
most influential aesthetic predecessor.”[7] This view is supported by the fact that the lingo
of the film industry is based on words borrowed from theater. The place where movies are
shown is called film theater, while people working on a film include directors or actors,
the dresses people wear on the set are called costumes, and there is a setting just like in the
theater. Also, the person who goes to see a movie is called a spectator who sits in the
cinema for about an hour and a half (nowadays many times even three hours) as opposed to
the readers of the novels who might spend days if not weeks by reading the book. The
question then may arise: why are films mostly associated with novels? “[N]ovel shares
with film a realist, empirical, visual representational style,”[8] Elliott explains, also referring
to the fact that both movies and novels have the means to shift back and forth between
16
characters, and cut between various points of view within a scene. Even in the light of
these similarities, the point that movies stand closer to the novel than any other literary
form remains unproven. As a conclusion, it is now time for film to admit that it also
borrows from several distinct art forms (theater, novel, photography, painting, etc.) and
realize that its greatest achievement is exactly the mingling of all these forms into one
medium.
A FEW NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF ADAPTATION
Although film history started with the appearance of the ‘actualities’ played in different
variety theaters or music halls, the pioneer filmmakers already drew on literary sources all
over the world right from the very beginning. In the United States Harriet Beecher Stowe’s
Uncle Tom’s Cabin was made into a film – even if by very crude means – by Edwin S.
Porter and D.W. Griffith as early as 1903, while the Frenchman Georges Méliés adapted
Jules Verne’s A Trip to the Moon in 1902, and Alice in Wonderland was filmed by Cecil
Hepworth in England in 1903. Of course, numerous Shakespeare, Dickens, Dumas, and
Balzac adaptations were also made, just to name a few, proving that literary adaptation
dates back all the way to the birth of the medium.
Nevertheless, at the beginning of film history directors and cameramen tended to
use the camera as if it were a spectator in the theater as already noted above. The camera
did not move, did not use focus or angle, and without the help of editing, the whole scene
became a stage act. “In many early films,” Bluestone notes, “an immobilized camera, set at
a given distance, recorded the action before it in sequences that corresponded roughly to
theatrical acts.”[9] The same way, when talkies appeared after 1927, the dialogues were
very similar to stage dramas. As the genre of the movie kept developing, scriptwriters had
to realize that they were making a piece of art that was more naturalistic than theater and
therefore required a more casual vocabulary and presentation. Thus everyday language
trickled slowly into the film dialogue. Nonetheless, many artists were struck by the talkies
and claimed that film was mainly a visual art that needed no help from sound. It is still
often noted that good films are those that can tell stories solely through images and good
editing instead of dialogue, soliloquy, let alone voice-over.
As aforesaid, some critics argue that the kernel of adaptation had already appeared
before film was invented, namely in the works of Charles Dickens. As Sergei Eisenstein,
the most influential Russian filmmaker and theorist of the early 20th century said, Dickens
17
was able to write with a sort of “camera eye”. He pans the scenes as the camera pans down
the setting, he uses cross-cutting from one scene to the other; dissolves, slow motion and
other typically filmic devises can be discovered in his works. Dickens is thus held as the
“visionary prophet of photographic – and by extension – cinematic effects.”[10] With the
birth of this view the first direct – and much-debated – link between the novel and the film
was created. As a matter of fact, the dominance of the Dickens adaptations has been
continual. From a British point of view, the most important Dickens movies would be for
example David Lean’s Great Expectations (1946) and Oliver Twist (1948). Yet the
industry seems to be dependent on drawing on the great Victorian author which is
confirmed by the fact that on the webpage of the Internet Movie Database[11] 261 Dickens
adaptations are listed starting with an Oliver Twist burlesque from as early as 1897.
Tibbetts and Welsh broaden the scope of writers the scriptwriters borrowed from by
bringing H.G. Wells into focus, stating that, as opposed to Dickens, he could have been
influenced by cinematic mechanisms while writing his book, The Time Machine, in 1895.
The novel is regarded as a significant one from the point of view of the modern science
fiction novel, but also it “certainly is one of the first literary works to directly consider and
exploit the effects and implications of the cinema. Descriptions of the machine
unmistakably evoke the mechanisms of camera and projector.”[12] Thus it becomes readily
apparent that it is not only film that borrows from literature but rather the two media
retroact against each other. As the novels of Dickens and other novelists of the 19th century
anticipated cinematic effects and techniques, so did early films influence even modernist
writers which can be detected in, for example, the stream of consciousness technique of
Woolf and Joyce. Elliott says about this phenomenon that
Studies of the cinematic novel fall into two main camps: those that address
contemporaneous cross-fertilization between novels and films in the twentieth
and twenty-first centuries and those that discover a cinematic novel before the
birth of cinema and press it into an anachronistic argument of historical
influence.[13]
In Britain, adaptation became even more dominant after the Second World War. Post-war
British film was dominated by traditional literary adaptations and this trend only changed
in the 1950s and 60s, when the angry writers and their novels came to the foreground of
adaptation. In these years the books of such authors as Allan Sillitoe or John Braine were
called upon to make movies from. Meanwhile, traditional literary adaptation did not die
away as it is illustrated by the emergence of the heritage cinema in the 1980s and 90s. This
18
was the time when the quality costume film of Merchant Ivory et al. dominated the British
adaptation market, causing the national film industry to boom after a long period of
decline. Ever since then adaptations like Nick Hornby’s About a Boy (1998, adapted 2002)
or the Bridget Jones movies (written in 1996 and 1999, adapted in 2001 and 2004) rule the
market, trying to appeal to the audiences in a more Hollywood-like style. Of course, such
adaptations as Pride and Prejudice (2005) still try to keep up the classic literary adaptation
trend and the fact that the film was nominated for Oscar mostly for its artistic qualities in
costume design and musical score, reveals that the heritage look still has a prestige today
not only in Britain but also internationally.
These notes on adaptation history, without attempting to be exhaustive in any
aspect, mean to suggest that the history of cinema has always been marked by adaptation.
It is difficult to say what percentage of the films ever made can be considered to be
adaptations. It might be the aim of a long and tedious study to show how many TV series,
short films, feature and video films are based on novels and plays or other literary
properties. Yet, to gain some kind of a picture about the popularity of adaptations, let us
take into consideration Linda Seger’s listing of Academy Award winner films found in her
book The Art of Adaptation.[14] Seger lists the winners between 1930 and 1990 and states
that 85 percent of all Academy Award-winning Best Pictures are adaptations, whereas 45
percent of television movies-of-the-week are adaptations, while 70 percent of Emmy
Award winners are made up of these movies. 83 percent of all miniseries are adaptations,
and 95 percent of Emmy Award winners are drawn from these films. According to Elliott,
67% of the Oscars for Best Picture given between 1927 and 2000 went to literary
adaptations, while 67% of the American Film Institute’s top 100 list is made up of films
adapted from novels.[15] This short outline suggests that even though adaptation is
considered inferior to literature, in the art of filmmaking it is kept in high regard. On the
other hand, the genre as it is causes value conflicts even within film production:
From the Film D’Art movement of the 1910s to the highbrow Merchant Ivory
films of the 1990s, literary cinema has been positioned as a high art branch of
cinema, constantly reminding film proper that it is “low art.” Film scholars, in
turn, have retaliated by calling literary cinema ‘bad’ cinema or ‘uncinematic
cinema.’[16]
Nevertheless, the popularity of literary adaptation does not seem to sink with time. More
and more executives and producers are turning to adaptations for their film material. Many
of them state that it is commercially more viable to choose a material that already has an
19
audience. Parallel to this, there seem to exist novelists who “look to film to give their
stories a second chance and increase readership.”[17] In an essay written after the
appearance of The Witches of Eastwick, John Updike expressed his hope that the movie
version would urge viewers to read the original in order to find out what the novelist could
have meant or achieved.[18] The fact that film adaptations help to sell a greater number of
books is proved by the effect of tie-ins in the industry. The retroaction of film to the sales
of the novels has always been detectable in various cases. In the 1930s when David
Copperfield came out “the demand for the book was so great that the Cleveland Public
Library ordered 132 new copies”[19] and after the success of Wuthering Heights in 1939
more copies of the book were sold than in the previous ninety-two years of the novel’s
existence. The same was the case with the 1941 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, or
Moby Dick, or Tolstoy’s War and Peace. But we do not even need to go back as late as the
1930s: the phenomenon can be witnessed in today’s Harry Potter mania perfectly well.
With clever tie-ins and good advertising, the book series has become one of the most read
sequences among the young and even older public around the world, while the Harry
Potter films also accumulate box-office successes. This proves that the attraction of an
adaptation can indeed draw readers to the original book. Many children today grow up by
reading each book year-by-year and later comparing it to the movie versions. The same
way, in December 2005 the first book of C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the
Witch, and the Wardrobe was sold out in most bookshops around Budapest, most probably
as a result of the adaptation that came to the movies in Hungary only a few weeks before.
The reasons behind such sales rates can, of course, be twofold: the parents either want to
surprise their children with the book to prolong the experience of the movie version, or
they hold more conservative views and tell their children they can only watch the film after
they have read the novel. This later attitude is, of course the source of the fidelity bias
against adaptations in our age, suggesting that it is more valuable if audiences have the
chance to read the book using their own imagination without the influence of another
person’s insight recorded on celluloid.
Nevertheless, in many cases the audience is not aware that they are watching an
adaptation, and as stated above, it is the movie that increases the readership of a novel.
This may be illustrated by the example of Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange (1962),
adapted by Stanley Kubrick. When Kubrick’s film came out in 1971 it created one of the
greatest scandals in British (or American) film history. The film was even withdrawn from
the British market as its affects on young adults and indirectly their environment became
20
so severe. As can be imagined, this overshadowed the original work of Burgess, and many
people on hearing the title A Clockwork Orange remembered Kubrick the genius and the
scandal following the film instead of the creator of the story, Anthony Burgess. In the same
way, Stam argues that critics tend to emphasize what is betrayed or lost in the adaptation,
and “forget to laud Hitchcock’s innovative transmogification of du Maurier’s story ‘The
Birds’, or Kubrick’s unforgettable satiric reconversion of Peter George’s ‘Red Alert’.”[20]
Hitchcock himself admitted to Truffaut that he usually read the book he wanted to adapt
only once and then used it only as an inspiration. If it did not move him he considered it
unfit for adaptation. In short, the way films influence authors in the 20th and 21st century,
so do films influence readership, sometimes calling the attention to works otherwise
forgotten or never discovered.
THE FIDELITY CONFLICT
“’Fidelity discourse’ relies on essentialist arguments in relations to both media. First, it
assumes that a novel ‘contains’ an extractable ‘essence’ (…) hidden ‘underneath’ the
surface details of style.” But, in fact, there is no such transferable code: “a single novelistic
text comprises a series of verbal signals that can trigger a plethora of possible readings,”[21]
notes Stam in Literature and Film. In fact, with the help of his book Stam attempts to
create a new way of discussion about film adaptation, trying to avoid the traps of the
fidelity debate. This debate lies in the conscious or unconscious presupposition that
literature is a higher art form than film, and by making a movie from a novel the
filmmakers simply “dumb down” the original to help the masses digest it. As Tibbetts
notes “[i]t is precisely the point that Hollywood distorts and corrupts serious literature for
the entertainment pleasures of a mass audience” while “in general Hollywood is not at all
interested […] in the issue of fidelity.”[22] What Hollywood or any film company is
interested in is success and profit. Once the rights of a particular novel are sold, the author
has given up his control of the book and also his right to complain about the resulting film.
The seed is sown and a new plant is to be born. But what is the problem with this new
creation? Whelehan notes that
For many people the comparison of a novel and its film version results in an
almost unconscious prioritizing of the fictional origin over the resulting film,
and so the main purpose of comparison becomes the measurement of the
success of the film in its capacity to realize what are held to be the core
meanings and values of the originary text.[23]
21
However, the realization of a film adaptation is bound to countless obstacles that make it
impossible to expect faithfulness from a movie. Not only is the imagination of the director
a subjective one but the pressure of mass consumption, the presence of censorship and the
influence of the Hollywood studio system all add up to a force that hinders any adaptation
from being faithful to its source novel.
As we read the Introduction of Tibbett and Welsh’s book, we must realize that they
did not take into consideration Bluestone’s warning of the fidelity issue quoted below. Nor
did they have the chance in 1998 to read Whelehan’s suggestion, published in 1999:
“perhaps the chief problem lies in teasing out our own and others’ conscious and
unconscious prejudices about this kind of ‘hybrid’ study.”[24] For them fidelity is an
important thing and they call the language theory about adaptation to help when they
compare the act of adaptation to the linguistic act of translation. As will be illustrated later,
this idea of fidelity as translation from novel into film, and the fidelity discourse as it is,
was first significantly challenged by Bluestone in 1957. Ever since then the debate has
been going on. Even scholars like Brian McFarlane, who emphasize the impossibility of
faithfulness to the original work, tend to analyze films based on their fidelity to the source
novel. However, Tibbett and Welsh later admit: “Fidelity is an important consideration, no
doubt, but changes made by the screenwriter and director might not necessarily destroy the
original. In the best adaptations, narratives are translated and effectively transformed into
the medium of film.” [25]
I have to agree with Bluestone when he states that “Reality is never the same from
one moment to the next.”[26] The point this statement boils down to is that even if a person
read a novel, it is his personal image or impression of the novel that he later compares with
the film. According to this, each and every person compares his or her images, moods,
personal experiences with the work of another mind which, by definition, has to be
different. The director puts to celluloid his or her own imagination without claiming that it
corresponds to any other person’s in the world. Also, if one reads a great novel that has an
effect on him it becomes a part of his identity and changes him as a result, only if by the
fact that he is now richer with a story. Consequently, if that same person reads the same
novel again it will surely be under different circumstances as “reality is never the same”
and also, the experience will be different because he already knows the story. He will
discover very different aspects of the novel since he does not need to focus on the plot so
much as on the shades of characters, moods, etc. (Taken to the extreme, it might as well be
stated with the help of the fidelity vocabulary that the novel becomes unfaithful to itself, it
22
betrays the first reading.) Following from the above, if a novel cannot be the same when
read for the second time, a film can be even less similar to the experience of the read novel.
Any text may generate an infinite number of readings that are inevitably partial, personal,
conjunctural. If then the reading is infinite, any novel can generate any number of
adaptations, which is reflected in the numerous remakes of many classic stories. Thus,
according to the above argument, the question of fidelity becomes irrelevant.
Since the film is made for a wider audience than a particular novel it has to be
changed or generalized according to the taste of the public. Today’s audience is, for
example, obviously influenced by the Hollywood style which has a great effect on how
faithful an adaptation can remain to its original source. Bluestone quotes Lester Asheim’s
study of twenty-four film adaptations, where he finds that “seventeen increased the love
emphasis; that sixty-three per cent of all the films in the sample had a romantic happy
ending, but forty per cent (…) required an alternation of the story to accomplish it, and that
in no case was a negative ending retained.”[27] Now, one might assume that films and
audiences have changed since the late 1950s but if we open Linda Seger’s practical book
about scriptwriting we find a fairly long section dealing with happy endings. Here Seger
states
As a rule, Americans don’t like their major characters to lose or to die at the
end. We like happy endings. Perhaps it’s part of our idealism or optimism as a
country, but most American films show the villain getting his comeuppance
and the hero and heroine living happily together. Part of making it commercial
means knowing your market. If you are aiming for the American marketplace,
you need to be careful about your endings.[28]
Probably that is the reason why after such films as Sommersby (1993) or American History
X (1998) the audience is stunned. It was not false, it reflected reality and therefore it
touched lives even if it leaves the spectator in doubt about the fairness or rightness of the
actions. One has torealize that not every story ends happily no matter how few American
movies reflect that.
As Stam points out, even if we try to avoid it, we can still make use of the fidelity
discourse in the way we admit that it raises important questions about plot, characters,
settings, etc. Answering these questions may help us understand why we feel that a given
adaptation reflected our feelings about the novel while others are unable to. Stam, in the
introduction to both of his most recent books, emphasizes that when we say a film was
unfaithful to its source novel, i.e. when fidelity is violated, we simply express our deep
disappointment we feel when a film does not capture what we felt was the core of the
23
original work. Thus he softens the opprobrium of the fidelity discourse without doing away
with it totally and makes clear that we may make an emotional statement about it, but that
is not yet professional methodology or theory. As we will see later, many critics nowadays
argue that fidelity as it is cannot be realized and is even undesirable.
Stam also enfolds the basic differences between the two media, pointing out that the
film, being a multi-track medium, works not only with words but also with sound effects,
music, moving pictures. Based on this, it cannot be expected of any adaptation to be
faithful to a single-track medium, i.e. novel. Also, while novels are the work of a single
individual, films are the result of a crew’s creative work. This crew can be made up of four
to hundreds of people which may comprise very different characters with dissimilar
talents. If one wants to stick to the fidelity discourse, it might be advisory for him to
consider all the decisions a director has to make when adapting one scene. Not only are the
actors and the given lines important but one has to keep in mind such factors as costume
design, lighting, camera movement, angle, length of a shot; the director has to decide what
kind of music would suit the scene or whether to use sound effects, only to name a few
aspects of filmmaking. Thus, “A filmic adaptation is automatically different and original
due to the change of medium.”[29] Even if the scriptwriter follows the dialogue of the novel
perfectly, one reader might find the actor’s accent or speed of speech or the pitch of his
voice different from what he imagined while reading the novel. Thus “total fidelity” can
turn out a complete failure in one reader’s point of view while a perfect match for another.
The art of adapting literature to film must therefore become “one of deliterarizing literature
in order to make it cinematic…. If an adaptation fails under this model, it is not because
film is an inferior medium, but because a literary work has not been adequately purged of
its literariness.”[30] The fidelity issue thus finally seems to bleach in the adaptation
discourse.
THEORIES OF ADAPTATION
The common theory of adaptation has mostly been fidelity oriented ever since the first
feature adaptations were made. The idea of fidelity is based on the a priori assumption that
film, as a narrative form, has to translate the novel into its own language without inducing
changes in it. The discussion about adaptations is dominated by such words and
expressions as being faithful to the “heart of the novel,” to the “meaning of the book,” to
the “spirit of the work,” or to the intentions of the novelist.” If these goals are not realized,
24
critics say the film is “unfaithful,” a “distortion,” a “betrayal” of the original work. These
arguments deny film its right to consider itself a different, independent genre which can
use its own language without the restraint of literary criticism.
Nevertheless, we must state that before the 1960s movies were not considered
mature enough to inspire serious academic criticism. Thus the first significant theorist who
attempted to dissolve the fidelity-driven analysis was George Bluestone, whose book
Novels into Films, written in 1957, has had a great influence on scholars in the field of
adaptation. Since his work counts as a milestone in adaptation theory, I will elaborate on it
in more detail than any other critic contributing to the theoretical debate about adaptation
after him. Novels into Films introduces film as “the new medium.” The reason for this is
that at the time films, and especially the talkies, were relatively young as opposed to the
novel which had been around for more than 150 years if not longer. This corresponds to
Stam’s “historical anteriority and seniority” bias which stresses literature’s superiority as a
historical antecedent to film. Bluestone later on stresses that the basic difference between
the two media is that novel is linguistic, having a conceptual and discursive form, whereas
film is visual completed by aural and also verbal elements, having a perceptual and
presentational form. Here he points at one of the most important steps toward ridding the
fidelity discourse: he states that regarding these differences the filmmaker can merely treat
the novel as “raw material,” a “point of departure” and then he “ultimately creates his own
unique structure.”[31] When taking the raw material it is inevitable to change it in order to
bring forth something new from it, otherwise it remains what it originally was from the
film’s point of view, namely raw material. What Bluestone finds a false reasoning is that
most critics presume that the novel has a core content that can be separated and
reproduced, along with the interchangeable characters, in film. These judgments take the
novel “as a norm and the film deviates at its peril.”[32] In order to nullify such arguments he
states: “It is as fruitless to say that film A is better or worse than novel B as it is to
pronounce Wright’s Johnson’s Wax Building better or worse than Tchaikovsky’s Swan
Lake.”[33]
Cinema is different from theater as well, as “the camera can go anywhere, see
anything, in the natural world.”[34] In the theater the audience can see the play only from the
position of his seat, whereas in film the director may use extreme long shots to extreme
close-ups or even microscopic shots. Film can distort light, sound and picture as opposed
to the theater or the novel. In the case of a written medium the reader is forced to look at
the thing the author writes about in the exact order of the sentences. In film, even if limited
25
by the focus of the shot, the spectator’s eye can pan the picture according to his own
delight. He can concentrate on the figures and happening, or on the background, maybe on
the sounds, or whatever catches his attention at a given moment. The camera very rarely
emphasizes one spot from the whole picture (an exception would be, for example, the little
girl in the red coat in Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List). Thus, although at first it is the
cinematographer who directs the camera in a certain angle and focus, later on it is left to
the audience to pick out any part of the given image. Bluestone further points out that as
opposed to films, in novels the word-symbols must be translated into feelings, images, with
the help of one’s own thought, whereas in the case of movies one sees and hears, and
receives the images directly through perception, just as in real life. That is why tropes,
especially metaphors cannot be put to screen word-by-word, since the whole point behind
the metaphor is that it is imaginative, referring to something more than the physical world
moving images can reflect. The same way we saw by tropes, it is impossible, according to
Bluestone, to put a character to the screen in the exact image one reads about him or her in
the novel.
When talking about the public of the two media, Bluestone emphasizes that “the
novel has retained a complex but common body of themes, settings and attitudes which are
characteristic of middle-class refraction.”[35] As opposed to this, under the pressures of
Hollywood and the film factory, films have to make a profit, which they can only achieve
by appealing to as many spectators as possible. It cannot stop at the middle class, although
the basic values of this class influence many aspects of the production (for instance,
censorship). These down-to-earth influences, i.e. the question of profit, censorship, etc.,
need to be balanced with “the filmic thinking of the individual craftsman, the rightness of
the screen for the freewheeling, plastic imagination, the resistance of film to any kind of
rigid code, the rich and complex subject matter offered by the film’s homogenous
audience,”[36] yet, in the final project the influences of social pressure will still be evident.
A novelist may write his novel at home, alone in his room even if he knows that it will not
be accepted at the period, but a film production company will never adhere to a film that is
doomed to failure right at the beginning.
Much of Bluestone’s later argument about variety and re-readability depends on
factors that have changed significantly not only by the appearance of video culture but
more by the overwhelming propagation of DVDs. Bluestone argues that readers have the
chance to put the novel aside, to re-read sections, to skip chapters, and of course I would
add, choose the language in which they wish to read the given novel. In 1957 Bluestone
26
only had the opportunity to pay a private cinema to show him the films he meant to
analyze. This he had to do without the chance of stopping or rewinding the film when he
found something important. The fact that renders Bluestones argument outdated is that by
renting or even buying a film on DVD, spectators have just as many choices as the
readership of the 1950s. He can choose when he wants to watch the film, in which
language, with or without subtitles; he can watch the film as many times as he wants, he
only needs to push a button to stop, rewind, or even skip a chapter in the film.[37] All the
more is it so that the viewing public can now watch any film at home as opposed to the
audiences of earlier decades. Thus the time and even the space difference between the two
media seem to disappear in this sense. This is, of course an exaggeration since the inner
time span of the novel can start form the happenings of a short hour all the way to an
almost infinite existence over hundreds of years (see Woolf’s Orlando), while reading the
novel can also take a few hours or several weeks. This leads to the fact that many
scriptwriters or directors decide to alter the original by omitting parts from the novel in
order to be able to concentrate on the most important aspects of the work. “While such
quantitative deletions do alter the originals, it is, in the last analysis the qualitative rather
than the quantitative differences that militate against film adaptations of the novel.”[38]
Naremore, on the other hand, criticizes Bluestone finding him unable to realize that
“when we start from the modernist position, the only way to avoid making film seem
belated, middlebrow, or culturally inferior is to devalue straightforward, high-cultural
adaptation altogether.”[39] And this is exactly what happened in the 1950s and 60s in British
film history: the appearance of the New Wave movement affirmed that prestigious
adaptation can be made not only from classic literature but even from middlebrow books.
However, in the making of the film the person of the auteur was to be more important than
the source novel. This phenomenon accounts for the success of such adaptations as Room
at the Top (1959), Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) or The Loneliness of the
Long-Distance Runner (1962) to name a few.
There is of course a difference between time in the novel and time in film. The film
is always present. It can, naturally, cut to the past by the use of flashback but with the help
of these images the past actually comes to life, i.e. it becomes present. As Béla Balázs
noted “Pictures have no tenses.”[40] As opposed to this, novels can use past, present, future
tense as their time, depending on the story and the means of the novelist. One cannot
denote thoughts without putting the verb into a particular tense, thus written works can
27
never be free of time, however much modernist writers of the early twentieth century
wanted to avoid it. As Bluestone summarizes:
The film, then, cannot render the attributes of thought (metaphor, dream,
memory); but it can find adequate equivalents for the kind of psychological
time which is characterized by variations in rate (distension, compression,
speed-up, ralenti); and it approaches, but ultimately fails, like the novel, to
render what Bergson means by the time-flux. (…) Both novel and film are time
arts; whereas the formative principle in the novel is time, the formative
principle in the film is space.[41]
The final moral of Bluestone’s argument might thus be summed up by the following quote:
…conceptual images evoked by verbal stimuli can scarcely be distinguished in
the end from those evoked by non-verbal stimuli. The stimuli, whether they be
the signs of language or the sense data of the physical world, lose their spatial
characteristics and become components of the total ensemble which is
consciousness.[42]
In his book The Novel and the Cinema, Geoffrey Wagner[43] defined three types of
adaptations that at first glance seem to be very practical for the analyzer. According to him,
adaptations that try to be faithful to the original novel are called transpositions; in the case
of adaptations “where an original is taken and either purposely or inadvertently altered in
some respect” we talk about commentary, whereas analogy is a sort of adaptation that uses
its source novel only as raw material and the essential context (shifts in action, time, etc.)
is changed. In this respect we can argue that Clueless (1995) is obviously an analogy as it
takes Jane Austen’s Emma and updates it to twentieth century America (not only time but
also place changes radically). William Wyler’s Wuthering Heights (1939) could be
considered a commentary in Wagner’s terminology, as the director omitted two thirds of
the novel and followed the story only until Cathy dies, meanwhile emphasizing the
romantic love story of the original novel. On the other hand, the Merchant Ivory adaptation
of E.M. Forster’s Maurice (1987) can be categorized as a transposition, as it follows the
novel very closely, only changing it in one aspect, i.e. by the Risley case the filmmakers
added motivation to the change of Clive’s sexual orientation.[44] Nevertheless, Wagner is
nowadays criticized for his categorization as he valued and ranked his three models of
adaptation according to their degree of infidelity to the original thus strengthening the
ruling fidelity driven adaptation theory.
In the 1980s, scholars like J. Dudley Andrew argued for a balanced translation
model in which fidelity to the novel and to film conventions is honored equally, while
Gérard Genette[45] created different types of transtextuality that can help defining
28
adaptations as well. According to his categorization there are five types of transtextuality:
intertextuality, i.e. the “effective co-presence of two texts” as in quotations, plagiarism,
and allusions; paratextuality i.e. “anything belonging to the text proper” such as titles,
prefaces, dedications, illustrations, etc. or in the case of film interviews, extras, posters,
trailers, etc.; metatextuality which is a “critical relation between one text or another” where
adaptations are seen as the readings of or the critique of the novel. In these cases the story
is rewritten in a new context, (see Clueless); under the category of architextuality we find
falsely or misleadingly titled adaptations, such as Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, which use
allusion to the title of another work (in this case Living Theater’s Paradise Now) while
using a novel under a different title (Conrad’s Heart of Darkness) to avoid copyright
troubles. The last category is hypertextuality which is the most relevant to adaptation. It
indicates the relation between one text, i.e. the hypertext to an anterior text, i.e. hypotext
which the former transforms, modifies, elaborates, or extends. In this view the different
adaptations of the “same novel can be seen as variant hypertextual ‘readings’ triggered by
the same hypotext.”[46]
By the 1990s and 2000s, the fidelity imperative has appeared as the arch-villain of
adaptation studies. To fight this bias, new significant critics like neoformalist David
Bordwell and Kristin Thompson emerged, developing their arguments based on the works
of structuralist and poststructuralist Roland Barthes. Nevertheless, I would rather like to
point out Brian McFarlane whose book Novel to Film was published in 1996.[47] McFarlane
starts out to develop his methodology by calling Barthes to help, explaining his
categorization of narrative functions. He distinguishes between distributional (functional)
and integrational functions (indices). From an adaptational point of view we need to
concentrate on the distributional functions as these are divided into two other categories:
cardinal functions (nuclei) and catalyzers. In this sense cardinal functions are called the
“hinge-points” of the narrative, meaning that “the actions they refer to open up alternatives
of consequences to the development of the story.”[48] The point McFarlane makes is that out
of the long and complex story of the novel these cardinal functions are transferable to film,
or “when a major cardinal function is deleted or altered in the film version of a novel […],
this is apt to occasional critical outrage and popular dissatisfaction.”[49] He then bases his
argument in the case studies on analyzing which of these cardinal functions were
transferred to the film and which were left out. Although in the first sections of the book he
openly criticizes the fidelity bias he still, in some way, discusses films according to their
fidelity.
29
In their book Adaptations: From Text to Screen, Screen to Text, Cartmell and
Whelehan also try to place adaptation theory in a new perspective. By including chapters
not only on classic literature (such as Austen or Hawthorne adaptations) but also on such
issues as the filming of the Batman comics and the story of The Hundred and One
Dalmatians, they try to stretch the adaptation debate beyond the limits of classic literary
adaptations bound by the fidelity argument. I perfectly agree with Whelehan when she
states that instead of seeing “the film/TV adaptation of a literary text as necessarily lacking
some of the force and substance of its original, it might be more fruitful to regard this and
subsequent adaptations of a novel in terms of excess rather than lack.”[50]
Naremore’s Film Adaptation, a wonderful anthology of key writings on adaptation,
emphasizes the different approaches in film history towards adaptation and especially
fidelity. He states that even nowadays two approaches are competing with each other: the
Bluestone approach and that of the auteurists’. The Bluestonian idea relies on adaptation as
a metaphor of translation which leads to a “concept of literary versus cinematic form”[51] as
opposed to the auteurist approach which is based on the “metaphor of performance.” This
idea, besides paying attention to textual fidelity, emphasizes the differences rather than the
similarities. In Naremore’s point of view the later approach is more helpful today as it
considers audiences, historical situations, and also cultural politics. Viewing adaptations
with this approach, the England of the 1980s, for instance, is a wonderful soil for auterists
as the cultural politics of Margaret Thatcher was of great influence on the British film
industry. As illustrated in Chapter 2 we can indirectly thank her for the revival of the
heritage industry which brought forth so many of the renowned “quality adaptations” of
the last two decades.
Kamilla Elliott, on the other hand, starts her book Rethinking the Novel/Film debate
(2003) by analyzing the situation of book illustration parallel to film’s relationship to
words. As she notes, words are rejected by most filmmakers as they slow down perception
and “water down the emotional impact of the image.”[52] Still, behind this hostility towards
words, the film language analogy persists, stating that film has a language into which the
words of the novel can be translated. She emphasizes her point by listing books dealing
with films as readable objects, among them James Monaco’s How to Read a Film (2000),
Metz’s Film Language (1974) or Kevin Jackson’s The Language of the Cinema (1998).
Within her argument she points to the contradiction presented by such titles and the fact
that many critics find verbal narration in film ‘uncinematic’. “Their central objection is to a
mastering, omniscient narrative verbal voice, for such a voice smacks too much of verbal
30
dominance over the image.”[53] Later on, in the efforts to counter the fidelity discourse,
Elliott creates a milestone by bringing in a new taxonomy of models for the discussion
about adaptation. She develops a whole new series of concepts regarding adaptations. The
first among these is the psychic concept, dealing with the idea that the novel has a spirit
that can be passed into the new medium. The second, i.e. the ventriloquist concept is in a
way the opposite of the first, meaning the emptying out of the novel’s signs and filling
them with the filmic spirits. The third, genetic concept is, according to Elliot, well
established in narratological approaches to adaptation, which figure “what transfers
between literature and film as an underlying ‘deep’ narrative structure akin to genetic
structure, awaiting […] a ‘manifest substance’ in much the same way the genetic material
awaits manifesting substance in the cells and tissues of the body.”[54] The re(de)composing
concept assumes that the novel and film “decompose, merge, and form a new composition
as ‘underground’ levels of reading”[55] which merger can become so strong that the
audience does not even realize which signs come from the film and which from the novel.
The incarnational concept is based on the idea of Christian theology that the word can
become flesh. From dark ink it can be formed into light and color, a living entity. The sixth
concept is the trumping concept which “tests the novel’s representations against other texts
deemed more authoritative – against written and artifactual history, psychoanalytic
theories, and contemporary politics – and finds the novel not altogether legitimate.”[56] All
these concepts are duly, if sometimes too abstractly, illustrated by the help of the different
adaptations of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights.
The last person in the theory of adaptation I mean to mention is Robert Stam who
helps the critical reader to arrive from strict fidelity to the “undesirability” of fidelity. His
idea of historical authority and seniority sheds light on the double priority of literature
lying in the a priori assumption that what is older must also be better. In this sense, as
already alluded to above, literature is better than film for it was born much earlier, and so
novels as part of literature and predecessors of films must evidently be better. According to
Stam, this is the first source of hostility between novel and film. In an indirect way this is
also emphasized by Naremore who argues that most English departments are presupposing
the Arnoldian ideas about society, i.e. culture is the sum of great works of art, “the best
that has been thought and said,”[57] which can have a civilizing effect, reaching over
differences in class and leading to a more tolerant society. According to this view the new
is rooted in the old, strong, “wise” predecessors and thus film can never be stronger or
wiser than the literary source that taught it all it has. Stam later enumerates all the other
31
sources of hostility including dichotomous thinking which assumes a bitter rivalry between
literature and film. Then there is iconophobia rooted in the early Judaic-Muslim-Protestant
prohibition of depiction, and also in the Platonic and Neoplatonic idea that spectacle
overwhelms reason. The next source of hostility is logophobia which heralds written
literature as “the privileged medium of communication”[58] The fifth opposing power is
called anti-corporeality which emphasizes the fleshiness of film, and the effect of the
physical images on the mind. As opposed to the novel where the reader uses his mind’s
eye, in the case of film a real bodily (an impudent) response is generated by the image
seen. The next point of opposition can be found in the myth of facility emphasizing that it is
too easy to make a movie which requires no brains to watch. Here Stam emphasizes the
gigantic effort behind the process of the making of a film, and points out that this attitude
“ignores the intense perceptual and conceptual labor – the work of iconic designation,
visual deciphering, narrative inference, and construction – inherent in the film.”[59] Beside
these biases toward the novel one can find the subliminal form of class prejudice, based on
the origins of cinema audience in the working class masses and variety theaters. According
to this view, adaptations are the simplified versions of their source novels that try to
substitute high culture only accessible to higher classes. This is indeed confirmed by
Kamilla Elliott when she says
Under most literary lenses, literary cinema represents a falling off from the
book, an inferior reproduction of a superior original, a failed translation, an
infantile filmic drawing displayed on literary refrigerators, pabulum for mass
audiences who cannot digest the meatier text, or a pedagogical hook to lure
lackluster students from the rising tide of mass culture to the higher, dryer
shores of canonical literature.[60]
Finally, Stam’s last source of prejudice against film is parasitism. Films steal the stories,
the body of the source novel: they actually strut in borrowed plumes. Yet in this lies the
“Catch 22” of the situation as Stam calls it, as those adaptations that tend to stick to the
original novel are labeled unimaginative and dull, whereas those which dare to handle the
source novel freely are doomed as destroyers of the original work. Film can never win. To
be able to get rid of the ruling discourse of the fidelity debate we must create new
vocabulary along with new methodology to analyze film adaptations in the future.
32
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
It is not easy to change our thinking about literary adaptations when we have to undo the
influence of several decades’ discourse. The main point, as suggested above, is to view
literature and film not with the idea of superiority-inferiority in mind, but by seeing that
these are legitimate art forms existing parallel to each other. As Stam rightly states:
The inclusion of the subliterary into the literary, the rethinking of the very
category of the literary as an unstable, open-ended configuration, in this sense,
makes for a more tolerant view of what has often been seen as a “subliterary”
and “parasitic” genre – the adaptation.[61]
Beside these theoretical considerations it is also important to discover new fields for
analyzing adaptations. One such area could be the discourse about the cultural and political
background of the period the given adaptation was made in. Naremore also suggests
something similar when he states “that what we need instead is a broader definition of
adaptation and a sociology that takes into account the commercial apparatus, the audience,
and the academic culture industry”[62] He also notes that critics should pay closer attention
to the “historical relation between movies and book publishing” and why certain books are
favored by Hollywood in certain periods.”[63] With the help of such new approaches and
methods the hostility between film and literature could finally be relieved if not abolished.
My goal with this dissertation is a similar one. I will attempt demonstrate how
adaptation analysis can be realized without being judgmental in the direction of either
literature or film studies. Thus, in the next chapter I will concentrate on the political and
cultural background of the novels I have chosen for analysis. The following study includes
the contemporary trends and fashion of the film industry, as well as the different
movements and tendencies of the contemporary literary scene. After looking at the
background information on the birth and the adaptation of a given novel, I will concentrate
on these works in the form of case studies. Since it would be difficult to analyze an
adaptation without narrative hinge points, I have decided to draw on Brian McFarlane’s
method and make use of the list of major cardinal functions in each novel.[64] After thus
analyzing the transferable parts of the novels, I also take a look at cinematic factors such as
mise-en-scène, lighting, music, etc. as these have a major influence on how the movie is
received. These case studies should contribute to the success of adaptations in their
acceptance in academic circles.
33
[1]
John C. Tibbetts, James M. Welsh, eds., The Encyclopedia of Novels into Film (New York: Facts on File,
Inc., 1998) xiv.
[2]
Harold Bloom quoted in Deborah Cartmell and Imelda Whelehan eds. Adaptations: From text to screen,
screen to text (London: Routledge, 1999) 18.
[3]
Tibbetts xiii.
[4]
Cartmell 17.
[5]
André Bazin, “Adaptation, or the Cinema as Digest,” Film Adaptation, ed. James Naremore (London: The
Athalone Press, 2000) 19.
[6]
Kamilla Elliott, Rethinking the Novel/Film Debate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) 115.
[7]
Elliott 119.
[8]
Elliott 122.
[9]
George Bluestone, Novels into Film (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1957) 17.
[10]
Tibbetts, xiv.
[11]
International Movie Database, 05 Dec. 2008, http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002042/.
[12]
Tibbetts xv.
[13]
Elliott 113.
[14]
Linda Seger, The Art of Adaptation (New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc., 1992)
[15]
Elliott 131.
[16]
Elliott 127.
[17]
Seger xii.
[18]
Quoted in Tibbetts xviii.
[19]
Bluestone 4.
[20]
Robert Stam, Literature and Film: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Film Adaptation (Oxford:
Blackwell Publishing, 2005) 4.
[21]
Stam 15.
[22]
Tibbetts xvi-xvii.
[23]
Cartmell 3.
[24]
Cartmell 3.
[25]
Tibbetts xix.
[26]
Bluestone 12.
[27]
Bluestone 42.
[28]
Seger 6.
[29]
Stam, 17.
[30]
Elliott 129.
[31]
Bluestone vii-viii.
[32]
Bluestone 5.
[33]
Bluestone 6.
[34]
Bluestone 15.
[35]
Bluestone 32.
[36]
Bluestone 35.
[37]
The fact that the different shorter segments of a film on DVD are called chapters reinforces the close
relationship of film to the novel, just as much as the fact that DVDs are released in a book rather than a CDcase format.
[38]
Bluestone 50-51.
[39]
Naremore 6.
[40]
Béla Balázs, Theory of the Film. (New York: 1953) 40.
[41]
Bluestone 61.
[42]
Bluestone 47.
[43]
Geoffrey Wagner, The Novel and the Cinema (Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson. University Press,
1975)
[44]
See Chapter 3 for more detail.
[45]
Gérard Gennette, Palimpseste (Paris: Seuil, 1982).
[46]
Stam 31.
[47]
Brian McFarlane, Novel to Film (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).
[48]
McFarlane 13.
34
[49]
McFarlane 14.
Cartmell 16.
[51]
Naremore 8.
[52]
Elliott 79.
[53]
Elliott 85.
[54]
Elliott 150.
[55]
Elliott 157.
[56]
Elliott 174.
[57]
Naremore 2.
[58]
Stam 6., This aspect of adaptation is also noted by Naremore but from a different point of view. He notes
that it were exactly adaptations made in Hollywood that were predestinated to gain legitimacy for film
among the middle class.
[59]
Stam 7.
[60]
Elliott 128.
[61]
Stam 9.
[62]
Naremore 10.
[63]
Naremore 11.
[64]
See above for more detail on the major cardinal functions.
[50]
35
36
CHAPTER 2
THE MODERN BRITISH FICTION ON PAPER AND ON
THE BIG SCREEN
A short hitory of the modern British novel and British film in the 20th Century
“Modernism cannot be adequately explained solely in terms of an evolution within
the arts. Literary mutation is an expression of and a response to large-scale changes in the
human world.”
Jacque Berthoud[1]
1910-1930
CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
At the turn of the century, Britain still had a significant role in world trade and politics,
however, only on the surface. This apparent security resulted from the fact that Britain was
still seen as the leader in industrial development, a significant exporter of manufactured
goods, and also, the banker of the world. The real pride about these achievements lay in the
fact that her leading role was managed, as opposed to several other nations where
militarism or totalitarianism united(?) the people, by individual effort and the moral stature
of the nation. Nevertheless, this power also provided the British citizens with “the luxury
of moral superiority”[2] which let itself be seen most evidently in the colonies.
By the turn of the century several signs indicated that the foundations of the Empire
were in fact faltering. Nationalism was beginning to rear its head in different regions such
as in South Africa, Egypt and of course in India. In the meantime, other international
powers were also gradually gaining significance. Not only America was expanding, but
Germany meant a more and more serious threat to British power as well. Socially, one of
the most significant changes turned out to be the appearance of the women’s movement,
which eventually provided both smaller families and new employment opportunities for
the female population. With the help of such debated figures as Mrs Pankhurst, the 1918
Representation of the People Act gave the vote to women as well, although the act
enfranchised only women over 30. These developments helped the emergence of feminist
writers and the appreciation of women writers, such as Virginia Woolf and Dorothy
CHAPTER 2 – THE MODERN BRITISH FICTION ON PAPER AND ON THE BIG SCREEN
37
Richardson. Nevertheless, the unprecedented violent riots of the suffragettes and the Ulster
crisis revealed a formidable social turmoil stirring below the safe surface.
With the help of new developments in transport, urbanization resulted in the change
of not only the landscape but also the industry and thus the society of Britain as a whole.
After 1910 there were more and more motorcars and buses running on the streets, allowing
workers from the outskirts of cities to find work. As Forster also noted, by the end of King
Edward’s reign the transition of the rural society to modern city living took place.
Of course, the event that resulted from these covert tensions and helped them to
come to the fore was the First World War. It was not only the terrifying losses among the
young officers, the ones the nation so depended on and took pride in, that came as a shock
but also the ideological change forced on the British nation after 1918. World War I
revealed the awry side of human nature to an extent not experienced before, and in the end,
the war turned out to be absolutely meaningless.
Of course, compared to the famine and ruin, the collapse of institutions and
civil strife, fascism and communism, and, in the arts, the avalanche of
Modernism, which were the aftermath of war in Europe, the economic
depression, political feebleness and cultural stagnation of Britain during the
inter-war years may seem a mild enough visitation. Yet in a way the removal
of the sanction of history was much more a blow to a society which, more than
any other European nation, had grown used to the comfortable idea of History
as Divine Providence for British civilization.[3]
The everyday and also spiritual horrors of the war experience are duly presented in the
poetry of the ‘War poets,’ Sigfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen or Isaac Rosenberg among
them. As D.H. Lawrence noted “It was in 1915 the old world ended. What I did through
individuals, the world has done through war.” The Great War was in fact modernity itself,
with all its destruction, doubts, horrors, disorientation, which shocked the people of Britain
and in fact, the whole of Europe. The slaughter, which cost the nation almost an entire
generation, along with the political uncertainty following it, signaled an enormous change
in history.
However, concerning the arts, the Edwardian era proved to be a fruitful one. As
Mellers writes, the period was
of astonishing artistic exuberance, producing a last great efflorescence of
traditional high culture, especially in music and literature, before the twentieth
century descended. It can be no accident that Ireland, the New Woman, rural
nostalgia, social criticism and imperial pretensions all figure so strongly in
Edwardian culture – there can be few other periods when the arts mirror so
faithfully the problems of the day.[4]
38
According to this note, the arts reflected the difficulties of the day, which themes (women,
i.e. feminism, nostalgia for rural past, i.e. heritage, Ireland, i.e. ‘the troubles’) were also
problems that were often being addressed later in the century. It is then no accident that
adaptations of the Edwardian novels became so popular in the 1980s and 1990s and play a
significant role even today. Nevertheless, the dissolution of the Empire was already
foreshadowed in the works of Joseph Conrad, like Lord Jim (1900), Heart of Darkness
(1902), or Nostromo (1904). These novels reveal that the imperialist quest is in fact much
more than an adventure; it is an expedition of the individual’s, or in this case, the nation’s
soul. E. M. Forster in his best and last novel, A Passage to India (1924) also puts his
characters through a spiritual and cultural experience that sheds light on the real nature of
the Empire. But we do not have to go as far as India or Congo to witness the deterioration
of the British spirit. Without the ideal of the Empire the British identity had to go through a
serious crisis, which included the Irish Question that queried the English Empire’s raison
d’étre as it were. Out of this struggle, however, grew a wonderful group of Irish writers
such as James Joyce, William Butler Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, and J.M. Synge, just to
name a few. Nevertheless, the prolonged macabre of the Empire provided that the proud
British tradition remained unbroken until 1914, and it also “helped guarantee the allegiance
of British artists to traditional forms at a time when artists from nations with a less
comfortable relation to history were turning to consciously modern means of expression.”[5]
Modernism came a little later to England, but it was turned into such an energetic literary
form that was difficult to take over later on.
In contrast to the deplorable circumstances of the lower classes, which were
strongly echoed in several films of the 1940s, the beginnings of the ‘heritage culture’ were
also showing as a reaction to industrialism. “The preservation of both the natural landscape
and the historic heritage of Britain began to be seen as a matter of public responsibility
rather than as an exclusively private concern”[6] This again was topped in the 1980s and 90s
by the emergence of the heritage industry and the increasing influence of the National
Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty (originally founded in 1895).
The period between 1910 and 1930 was then an extraordinarily fruitful one, which
depended partly on the social and political changes of the Empire, while the effect of the
Great War made these changes more present and encouraged the artists of the time to
materialize the phenomena of the age in their works from their very personal points of
view.
39
THE MODERN NOVEL AT THE BEGINNING OF THE CENTURY
Modernism and the modern novel found their forerunners, founders, and first prominent
figures much earlier than the second decade of the twentieth century. The works of the first
modern writers, like Joseph Conrad, Thomas Hardy, or Henry James made an enormous
impact upon the later generations. However, my dissertation concerns more the generation
following theirs: E.M. Forster, D.H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce. As
Malcolm Bradbury put it so well when talking about the achievements of the newly
developed modern writers: “The concept of the novel, the very language of fiction
changed, and it seemed that the experimental spirit that had been developing from the
1880s on was now fully confirmed.”[7] Let us now take a look at the initiators of this
experimental, new spirit.
The first decades of the twentieth century brought great changes not only in the
British society but in British arts, as well. In December 1910 the first Post-Impressionist
exhibition was opened in London which signaled the coming of a new era. The paintings of
Cézanne, Van Gogh, Matisse, or Picasso showed that a counter-movement to
Impressionism came to life that heralded a modern way of thinking, seeing, acting, and
also writing. As Virginia Woolf stated in Cambridge in 1924, “On or about December
1910 human nature changed.” This change was already foreshadowed in the works of
Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Jung, and also Freud. The new psychology and the new way of
looking at the world resulted in the notion that the modern artist was no longer a person in
the service of the community, but had to follow his own psyche, his own vision.
Writers, too, discovered that the representation of reality starts in the individual’s
head. Instead of recounting events in the traditional, naturalistic, chronological order, they
presented the characters’ thoughts as they really appeared, in a ‘stream of consciousness’
(the term was first used in connection to Dorothy Richardson’s work Pointed Roofs). This
change was bound to make modern art much more personal but also more abstract. As
Daniel R. Schwarz put it: “…the English novel from 1890 to 1930 made selfconsciousness and self-awareness its subject, and the streams of consciousness within the
soliloquy and interior monologue – both direct and indirect – became more prominent.”[8]
Thus the genre became more personal, not in the biographical sense but in the way the
authors demonstrated the thoughts and happenings through the minds of their characters;
the authors’ personal talent and wit came into the foreground. The modern writers,
40
especially after the Great War, did not set out to teach morals to their audiences but were
searching for morals and values themselves, and their writing technique was one way for
them to carry out this often desperate quest. Modernism with its fragmentation, distortion,
and at times devaluation of traditional forms was a perfect match of the historical
occurrences. In a war in which bodies were torn apart, buildings were demolished to an
extent never before seen, and established traditional values were called into question, the
‘uniform’ of modernism fitted very well.
One of the most famous intellectual groups of the early twentieth century was the
Bloomsbury group. This privileged party could list Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes,
E. M. Forster, and Lytton Strachey among its members. As Merrell notes, Bloomsbury as
“a hermetic society consciously segregated from mercantile London bears on the nature of
the art created in it.“[9] Intellectual, sophisticated works of art removed from the masses. In
fact, most of the prominent modernist writers of the age were outsiders: Joyce was not only
Irish, but after leaving Ireland and Britain he settled down in Paris and Trieste; T.S. Eliot
and Ezra Pound were Americans; Woolf was a woman; E.M. Forster a homosexual, while
D.H. Lawrence came from a working class background. As a result, not only the search for
values but also the theme of alienation and the search for meaningful relationships were
also common themes of the contemporary novels.
E.M. Forster can be seen as belonging to a more traditional group of novelists such
as Arnold Bennett and John Galsworthy writing about the condition of England. However,
although he wrote in a conventional style, he never forgot to be critical about his own time
and about his own people. His first great success, A Room with a View came out in 1908,
and the novel represents the quest of love and honesty of Lucy Honeychurch in a light,
entertaining style. Industrialism and capitalism were themes that had a great influence on
his presentation of the Wilcoxes in Howards End (1910) but he also shows how the oldworld philosophy of the Schlegels can find its way to the newly rich. As Margaret also
notes, it is after all the capitalists like the Wilcoxes who make it possible for the
intellectuals to stay at home and play with ideas. This upper middle-class life is
counterpoised by the struggle of the working-class Leornard Bast and his wife. The affair
of Mrs Bast and Mr Wilcox many years before brings light to the suppressive nature of
society which allows women to be treated as objects that can be thrown away, while an
adventure outside of marriage has no significant consequences for men. Very different
critical themes surface in his latest novel, A Passage to Inida (1924). The main character,
Miss Quested’s journey and her acquaintance with Dr Aziz consequently reveal the
41
prejudice of British colonizers towards indigenous Indians. Alone the reactions of the
British officials to Miss Quested’s desire to learn to know the natives shed light on the
superior attitude of the British in India, not to mention the tea party scene where the
natives are evidently discriminated against. As a contrast, the schoolmaster Mr. Fielding
and Mrs Moore show respect toward a culture in which they are basically only guests. His
latest published novel, Maurice (1971) was actually written around 1913 but came out
posthumously. This is the biographical work that talks honestly about homosexuality.
Although Forster was a closet homosexual and circulated his novel only among friends, he
dedicated his novel to a happier age. Suppression of personal feelings, desires, the bigotry
and cruelty of British society, the impossibility of honesty, and cross-class relationships are
all themes the book deals with in a personal tone.[10] As Walter Allen notes:
Forster’s villains are those who refuse to recognize, or betray, the holiness of
the heart’s affections. They are, generally, the emotionally immature; and in
Forster’s world they may be equated with that aspect of English upper middleclass values which can be summed up in the words public school and
established church. Against these values is set the symbol of a different way of
life.[11]
Lucy, Helen, Miss Quested, or Maurice are characters who dare to choose a more honest
yet more difficult path, a different way of life than that of the average British middle- or
upper middle class.
D.H. Lawrence found new values in breaking the moral rules of the time, declaring
that one has to be free to experience what life really is about. In each of his novels there is
one character that is in search of what Lawrence personally found the most important in
life: love, nature, freedom. Walter Allen formulated that Lawrence stands at the “opposite
pole of the creative impulse to Joyce; he is a great romantic poet who used the form of the
novel, short stories, verse, travel books, and essays to express his criticism of modern
civilization and his vision of the good life.”[12] His disillusionment with modern society
comes to the fore first in his biographical novel, Sons and Lovers (1913), then later on in
the stories of the Brangwen sisters, The Rainbow (1915) and Women in Love (1920),
although the pessimism of the latter has its roots in the Great War. His so-called obsession
with sexuality is best represented in his Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928). The novel’s
honesty about sexuality turned the book into Lawrence’s most controversial work,
officially released only decades after the first private publication. Beside the erotic content,
the work reveals also important symbols that are rooted in the contemporary cultural and
spiritual crisis of Britain: after serving in the Great War, Lord Chatterley comes home
42
paralyzed from the waist down. His impotence may be interpreted as the deplorable state
the British upper class and the upper middle class found themselves in after the war.
However, the working class Mellors is able to satisfy Lady Chatterley’s sexual needs, but
he also learns about the challenges of a spiritual bond developing from such a liaison. The
relationship between the body and the soul is a recurring theme in Lawrence’s work as we
can also detect in Women in Love, for instance.
Both Forster and Lawrence, though coming from absolutely different backgrounds,
tried to integrate the emerging working class and their problems into their novels as we can
see from the examples of Leonard Bast and his wife in Howards End, Alec Scudder in
Maurice, Mellors and the miners of Lawrence’s novels, for instance. This cannot be said of
Virginia Woolf. Her characters, though almost perfectly plausible, come from the uppermiddle-class intelligentsia. When her first really successful novel Mrs Dalloway appeared
in 1925, it was clear that after Dorothy Richardson another woman writer took up the
stream of consciousness technique. Her abandonment of traditional plotting, narration and
chronology, along with the concentration on the real self, i.e. the thoughts and sensations
of the characters as they experience the world, make her work outstandingly unique. She
introduces her characters from different points of view and the happenings of the stories,
which are usually few, are also presented through the thoughts of the individual characters.
This is true of the dinner party and the trip to the lighthouse in To the Lighthouse (1927),
and even more of The Waves (1931). Now Orlando (1928), wittily subtitled as A
Biography, stands out of her works in a way. “The longest and most charming love letter in
literature” coined by Nigel Nicolson, the son of Vita Sackville-West, is a unique work that
follows the main character through four centuries, while he changes his sex to female in
the middle of the book. The genius of Woolf reveals itself in the comments of the narrator
as she follows the literary style of the period in which her main character finds
himself/herself. Although the book may be considered comical, it presents many social
questions of the given periods, focusing mostly on feminist ideas. The effect of the war
also surfaces in her novels through the character of Septimus Smith for example, while the
fact that in The Waves Percival dies in India as his horse stumbles on an imperialist quest
may be interpreted as a symbol of the more and more feeble British Empire.
James Joyce had to wait, work, and fight several years until a British publisher was
willing to bring out his first collection of short stories, called Dubliners (1914). His next,
semi-biographical novel, The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) became
important more for its technique than for its personal content. Joyce’s literary alter ego,
43
Stephen Dedalus is presented in this Künstlerroman, and in the third person narrative we
learn how he becomes disillusioned with his Catholic and Irish background, and how he
develops into an artist who finally goes to Paris to look for self-realization. The personal
experiences are presented directly as they are on Stephen’s mind giving the novel an
absolutely subjective tone. Just as in Woolf’s works, the reader faces the idiosyncratic
mind instead of the objective recounting of events. In Ulysses (1922), obviously his
masterpiece, we see the hero, Leopold Bloom wondering around Dublin one day in 1904.
The whole work presents solely this particular day in Bloom’s life. Joyce introduces his
hero through his thoughts in their flowing flux, and thus, complemented with the genius
symbols, metaphors, linguistic creations, we get to know Bloom’s past as well as his
present concerns and personal sensations. In Finnegans Wake (1939) Joyce brings the
stream of consciousness technique to its wildest extremes and the “new techniques of
verbal ambiguity allow for the accumulation of simultaneous meanings at a new level of
complexity.”[13] Of course, the concentration on the minds of the characters may be seen as
a retreat from the bare happenings of the age that proved to be more shocking to the British
society than any historical event before. As Merrell put it, “the War diminished public
resistance to innovation and disaffection, and encouraged the modernists themselves to
carry their apocalyptic denunciation of society to extremes.”[14] Also,
Joyce and Lawrence can be said to have put an end to what F.R. Leavis was
later to call the Great Tradition of the English novel. The novel survived, of
course, but very much diminished and never with the same sense of
explanatory authority – and here too it is difficult not to see the hand of the
War.[15]
The old tradition of the British novel was then eclipsed by the modernist novel that proved
to be difficult to top by any new literary trend.
The adaptation of the above listed novels came relatively late, only around the
1980s and 1990s. One cause of the renaissance of these works in form of films may be
found in the fact, that just as the beginning of the century, the end of the century was also
characterized by a fight against the old (Victorian) values propagated by the Thatcher
government, while, at the same time, the longing for a more structured, spiritually
simplified age was also emerging. Nevertheless, heritage film[16] reveals a great deal about
the disabling effect of these traditional values to be viewed only nostalgically. Similar to
the first two decades, the last two (or even three) decades of the twentieth century turned
44
the focus again on the individual and his alienated state in society, which made the
adaptation of the modern novels timely.
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE BRITISH FILM
The history of the British film started with an extremely fruitful innovative pioneering
period between 1896 and 1906. Following the first screening 20 February 1896 in
Marlborough Hall London, the new medium spread quickly and films soon appeared in the
entertainment programs of the variety theaters and music halls. At the beginning, the first
pioneer group, called the Brighton School, produced so called actualities, i.e. short scenes
from everyday life or one-joke films such as The Big Swallow (1900) by James
Williamson. Another member of the group was George Albert Smith, to whom the British
owe the invention of editing. Another important figure of the time was Cecil Hepworth
who not only filmed the funeral of Queen Victoria in 1901 but shot two of the most famous
British silent films, Rescued by Rover (1905) and Comin’ Thro’ the Rye (1923). Hepworth
set up his film studio and produced on average three films a week, while he supported the
scenic photography style. This meant frontal staging in which the action was played out in
pantomimic gestures shot in single long-shot tableaux. Hepworth had no interest in
developing film language, nevertheless, Rescued by Rover is a perfect example of how the
story of a dog rescuing a baby from the hands of an old gipsy can be told without intertitles or serious editing. At the same time,
momentous changes were taking place in cinema, with more organized patterns
of production, renting of films, and exhibition – and an increase in production
values. This is the point at which the British input falters: the stage when
cinema begins to acquire genuinely national dimensions.[17]
After the success of the first filmmakers, British film failed to match the dynamism of
American cinema or to create an alternative to it. As a result Hollywood films started to
dominate the market in Britain as well. “No British film of this time made any significant
impact, nor was any British film-maker head-hunted by Hollywood. If Britons worked and
prospered there – Chaplin for instance – it was not because of any experience in their
native film industry.” [18] By 1927 the situation got so serious that the government decided
to introduce the Cinematograph Films Act or the Quota Act which provided that a certain
percentage of films shown in movie theaters must be made by British artists. Although the
act was successful in increasing the output of British film production, most of the movies,
also called ‘quota-quickies,’ were low budget productions, done in haste without any
45
serious attempt to make a quality film or to appeal to the international market. For this
reason many saw a greater threat in these productions than in American films. However,
the act indirectly encouraged the development of the two most significant British genres,
the comedy and crime stories. Sarah Street also notes, that “despite complaints that the
Films Act encouraged ‘quota quickies’… British films increased their share of the market
from 4.4 per cent in 1927 to 24 per cent by 1932.”[19] At the same time, this upheaval in the
industry led to the foundation of an infrastructure that would become significant in film
production before and during the Second World War.
1931-1945
The most important recent event of the age was of course the 1929 crash of Wall Street
which resulted in a stagnation of world trade. However, a few years later the new
industries in Britain were thriving. Cars, electrical products like refrigerators, washing
machines and the like found their market as the incomes slowly rose. Parallel to this the
demographical change towards smaller families meant less responsibility for women, while
the above mentioned electronic equipments made life much simpler and easier for the
average citizen. Thus women and British society in general had not only more money, but
also more time to spare for leisure activities such as going to the pictures, reading and
eventually writing novels or other literary works. Culture was opening up for everyone
especially after the cinema got under headway providing room for new ways of
interpretations and entertainment.
Concerning the arts, the Second World War brought about positive changes. After
the government realized how the arts could help keep up the morale in society, it founded
the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts, or CEMA in 1940. The council
was responsible to take theater, opera, and films to the little towns of England, and also to
organize exhibitions of modern artists in the country. As a result of full employment
people also had the money to enjoy these new opportunities, and thus a new audience was
created for the arts, the effect of which could be felt also after the war.
On the spiritual front an invisible process of secularization took place in which the
Christian Church lost its validity as the decisive force in setting up absolute values. The
individual was torn out of his assumed security provided by the guidelines existing before
the war. Parallel to this, a disappointment with left-wing politics and communism spread
46
among the intellectuals. The interest of writers, who were so dedicated to the leftist cause
before the war, dissipated by the end of the decade. One of the greatest causes of this
phenomenon was the experiences many writers made in the Spanish Civil War between
1936 and 1939. George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia (1938) and his later works like
Animal Farm (1945) reveal the tremendous historical change that resulted in a great
contrast between the two viewpoints of the same writer. From the supporter of the Left,
Orwell became an overtly anti-totalitarian writer. This, of course, besides the Spanish
experience, had to do with the effect of the Second World War and Stalin’s coming to
power which revealed the true nature of Russian communism as the iron curtain went
down. As a result of the disillusionment, other writers, like W.H. Auden or Christopher
Isherwood left England behind to start a new life in the United States. These spiritual and
political changes did not surface all that evidently at first, and one can state that “politically
and socially the twenties and thirties were the most conservative decades of the last
hundred years.”[20]
THE MODERN NOVEL AROUND WORLD WAR II
By the end of the 1930s an evident decline occurred in the literary achievement which
indicates that Modernism reached a zenith with Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and T.S.
Eliot. There was a need for a new way in literature and in art in general that was different
from high modernism achieved by the artist of the early twentieth century. As Jacques
Berthoud writes about the thirties, it was “a period during which the idea of art began to
lose the supremacy it had enjoyed for nearly forty years.”[21] The supremacy of the arts was
replaced rather by the idea of democratization. “Paperback publishing played an important
part in the wartime trend towards the democratization of culture. Penguin books helped
contemporary artists to find a new audience with such series as Penguin New Writing and
Penguin Modern Painters”[22]
However, it was also this decade, as seen above, that saw great stirrings in Europe,
and as Bradbury notes, several novels of the late 1920s “were already exploring the still
more terrible thought that the age lay entre deux guerres, between two world wars” while
the young novelists of the age were “writing of and in a shattered, historically hopeless,
morally damaged world.”[23] As the decade went on, Hitler and fascism grew more and
more popular and when Franco took over Spain, the European, and most importantly the
British left wing intellectuals made a desperate response to it. George Orwell was one of
47
the writers who fought for the leftist cause, and was not only stunned but also greatly
disappointed by the happenings in Spain as we can see in his first person account Homage
to Catalonia (1938). His anti-totalitarian views come to the fore in his most successful and
also internationally acclaimed novels, Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty Four
(1949). Bradbury summarizes his works as follows: “His persuasive, elaborate,
plainspeaking codes of resemblance were managed objects, but they constructed an
effective renewal of the realist and descriptive tradition itself.”[24]
Like Orwell who served in Burma as an imperial policeman from 1922 to 1927, as
recorded in his novel Burmese Days (1932), Evelyn Waugh also had experiences with far
away lands like British Guyana, Mexico, etc. which may have served, along with his
personal experience of marriage, as a basis for his novel A Handful of Dust published in
1934. Waugh reveals the birth of the novel as follows:
I had just written a short story about a man trapped in the jungle, ending his
days reading Dickens aloud. The idea came quite naturally from the experience
of visiting a lonely settler of that kind and reflecting how easily he could hold
me prisoner [...] eventually the thing grew into a study of other sorts of savages
at home and the civilized man's helpless plight among them.[25]
The tone of the book is rather bleak, so much so, that the American publisher required a
happy ending for the overseas edition. However, Waugh is mostly known for his merciless
satire with which he depicts the contemporary aristocracy and upper class in his earlier
works such as Decline and Fall (1928) or Vile Bodies (1930). As he grew older, and turned
more and more seriously toward Catholicism, and finally through the experiences of the
Second World War, his poignant satire became darker, his tone more serious as seen in
Brideshead Revisited (1945) or the Sword of Honour Trilogy (1952-61).
Satire and the comical representation of the pre-war upper class are also present in
the works of Britain’s probably best comic novelist, P.G. Wodehouse. The inhabitant of
Blandings Castle like Lord Emsworth, his sons George and Fred, his sister Lady Julia Fish
among others, along with the characters in his Jeeves series made many generations laugh
over and immerse in the trivialities and vanities of upper-class life. Another prominent
writer of a lighter genre, namely the crime story, emerged also in the 1920s and by the
1930s Agatha Christie’s characters Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple were beginning to be
world famous, which fame continued not only until the end of Christie’s writing career but
up until the present day. Her stories fascinated filmmakers and audiences ever since their
publications, thus the first film with a Christie novel as its base came out in 1928 under the
48
title The Passing of Mr Quinn. The classic Murder on the Orient Express (1984) was
followed by the Death on the Nile (with Sir Peter Ustinov) on the big screen. Since then,
and more importantly since the appearance of television, Christie’s stories have enjoyed
popularity especially through such series as Agatha Christie: Poirot with David Suchet as
the great detective (broadcast from 1989 to the present day). The novels and plays of
Wodehouse have also been turned into films ever since 1919, with a diverse set of actors in
the leading roles such Fred Astaire, David Niven, or Tom Wilkinson. However, since my
work is concerned with the more serious branch of the modern novel, let us now mention
the peculiarity of the George Orwell adaptations. The animated version of Animal Farm
was released in 1954, nine years after the publication of the book, in a time when the
USSR was the greatest established totalitarian power in Europe. Orwell’s novel Nineteen
Eighty Four was adapted as soon as 1956, only two years after Animal Farm. The
peculiarity of the adaptation is its timing: the same year the film appeared, harshly
criticizing the debilitating control of the totalitarian powers (the USSR), Hungary was
overrun by Russian tanks and the promising revolution of the Hungarian people was
cruelly crushed, leaving over 2500 Hungarians dead, and many tortured or driven away
afterwards. As already stressed in previous sections of the paper, such historical context is
always revealing when looking for the reasons behind the making of a particular
adaptation.
The film versions of Evelyn Waugh belong to the heritage film tradition, meaning
that they were mostly adapted in the period of the 1980s and 1990s, like A Handful of Dust
(1988), or the successful television series of Brideshead Revisited in 1981. Nevertheless,
interest in historical dramas continues and so Waugh’s earlier comedy Vile Bodies was
adapted as Bright Young Things by Stephen Fry in 2003, while the remake of Brideshead
came out as a big screen version in 2008 with Emma Thompson and Matthew Goode in the
leading roles. However, the contemporary filmmakers found the acute question of
totalitarianism more important and Waugh’s novels were not sought out for adaptation.
HITCHCOCK, ASQUITH AND KORDA AND THE FILMS AROUND WORLD WAR
II
In the 1930s, Britain witnessed the emergence of a few significant directors, Alfred
Hitchcock, the Master of Suspense among them. He was first employed as a writer, art
director and later title designer at Famous Player-Lasky’s London studio, and later on, after
49
Michael Balcon discovered him, at Gainsborough Pictures. He got his first directing job in
1925 with The Pleasure Garden, but his first success turned out to be The Lodger in 1926.
This film already shows the significant Hitchcock elements, such as the protagonist, in this
case Ivor Novello, whose innocence is in doubt, a romance filled with suspicion and
mistrust, fascination with blondes, and of course the famous cameos. The Lodger also
revealed the technical genius of the great director in the glass ceiling scene where the
lodger is seen from downstairs while walking up and down in his room. By the time
Hitchcock entered the sound era with his movie Blackmail (1929) he was already the best
paid British director. Nevertheless, it were the spy stories, like 39 Steps (1935) with Robert
Donat in the leading role, Sabotage (1936), or The Lady Vanishes (1938) that made him
into a director with international renown. He then decided to continue his career in the
USA and left for Hollywood in 1940.
A rival of Hitchcock, Anthony Asquith has been a less influential director but he is
still important from a historical point of view. Just like Hitchcock, who gathered his
knowledge through visits to Germany (Berlin, Munich) while also shooting in Italy, France
and Austria, Asquith also found it important to gain international experience. He spent six
months in Hollywood as a guest of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, two major
actors of the time, which had a great effect on the film he made after his return. From Ernst
Lubitsch he learned the basics of cinematography, editing, and montage and in making
Shooting Stars (1928), a story of a married couple of two movie stars struggling to
distinguish between reality and real life, all these experiences came to the surface.
However, the real turning point in his career came when he was allowed to adapt G.B.
Shaw’s Pygmalion (1938). The screenplay was written by the author himself, who received
an Academy Award for his contribution to the film in 1939, while David Lean worked as
the editor of the movie. The story was so inspiring that it was also made into a musical in
the United States by George Cukor under the title My Fair Lady (1964). Later in his career
Asquith, a now well established director, made two other Shaw adaptations, The Doctor’s
Dilemma (1959) and The Millionairess (1960), nevertheless, his masterpiece remains
Pygmalion.
A little more complex is the case of Alexander or Sándor Korda, a director and
producer of Hungarian background. He was already active in Hungary in the 1910s but
was forced to leave the country in 1920. After trying his fortune in Vienna, Paris and
Hollywood he settled down in England, where he founded his own studio London Film
Productions in 1932. He surrounded himself with young and talented actors such as
50
Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton, Viven Leigh, and he achieved his first international
success with The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933). This movie was not only a highlight in
Korda’s career but it was able to show the world a British film that became internationally
successful in spite of the competition with Hollywood. Charles Laughton won an Academy
Award for his role in the film, which was the first Oscar ever won by a British actor. Later
Korda became a very close friend to Winston Churchill for whom he also made
propaganda films. Among Alexander Korda’s greatest successes as a director and producer
we find The Four Feathers (1937) and The Thief of Bagdad (1940).
In the 1930s many British actors were tempted by the American industry and left
Britain to make their fortunes on the other side of the ocean. Laurence Olivier, Vivien
Leigh, Charles Laughton and later on Richard Burton all became famous in the United
States: while Vivien Leigh won two Academy Awards for her roles in Gone With the Wind
(1939) and A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Olivier won the Oscar with his most famous
Shakespeare adaptation, Hamlet (1948), and had been nominated for the award several
times. The draw of the American market was an obvious consequence of the unstable
home market. The financial crash of 1937 exposed the industry’s weak foundation and
company after company went into liquidation. Between 1925 and 1936, 640 production
companies had been registered: by 1937 only 20 were still operating.
Besides popular moviemaking, nevertheless, another trend of films emerged in the
1930s. The development of the documentary movement was initiated by John Grierson
who realized that this genre “could play a crucial role within society by providing an
effective medium of communication between the State and the public.”[26] He thus believed
that cinema was a form of publication which could be presented in a hundred different
ways for a hundred different audiences if one treated the actualities with creative talent.
Among the most significant films of the documentary movement we count Industrial
Britain (1931) by Grierson, Man of Aran (1934) by Robert J. Flaherty, or Night Mail
(1936) by Harry Watt and Basil Wright among many others. The Drifters (1929),
Grierson’s first film or rather “its combination of naturalistic images and formative editing
has influenced traditions of documentary film-making in Britain ever since.”[27] His films
were a mixture of social realism, actuality footage, creative editing which formed the base
of the later emergent New Wave film.
The 1940s also marked the first success of Michael Powell. His film 49th Parallel
(1941), with Leslie Howard and Laurence Olivier in the leading roles, is about the crew of
a sunken Nazi U-boat who try to cross the 49th parallel between Canada and the neutral
51
USA. The press criticized the film for being biased as the Nazis depicted in the movie were
not caricatures but intelligent soldiers with feelings, doubts, and original thoughts. Emeric
Pressburger received an Oscar for his script in 1943. The last forty years of British history
are presented in their next film, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), which
follows the fate and personal or moral struggles of the colonel in the Boer War, the Great
War, and after the illustration of the appeasement politics of the time, the Second World
War. In 1944 Powell worked again with Pressburger on the film A Canterbury Tale which
became one of their most famous films they directed together, but unfortunately, Powell’s
venture into psycho-thriller in Peeping Tom (1960) ended his career in Britain.
David Lean, who turned out to be one of the most significant members of the film
community over the next four decades, first worked as an editor before turning to directing
in the 1940s. After his early successes Lean directed A Brief Encounter (1945) which many
critics say has been the best romance ever made in British film history, although the film
did not enjoy the appreciation of the audience at the time. Lean explains the ambiguous
reception of the film in an interview:
We defied all the rules of box-office success. There were no big-star names.
There was an unhappy ending to the main love-story. The film was played in
unglamorous surroundings. And the three leading characters were approaching
middle-age. A few years ago this would have been box-office disaster, but this
wasn’t the case with Brief Encounter. The film did very well in this country in
what are known as the ‘better-class halls.’[28]
In 1946 and 1948 Lean made his most famous Dickens adaptations (Great Expectations
and Oliver Twist), which marked the beginning of his co-operation with one of the greatest
actors in Britain, Alec Guinness. Although these movies alone show the genius of David
Lean, he is still most renowned for his great epics: The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957),
Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Doctor Zhivago (1965) and in some respect A Passage to
India (1984).
1945-1959
The decades following the Second World War were dominated by the gradually increasing
tensions of the Cold War between the newly emergent superpowers, the USSR and the
United States. Though Britain was a heroic victor from the war’s point of view, in reality
52
the country was clearly reduced in status and size after the loss of the Indian colonies in
1947. This event declared the final decline of the British Empire. However, the real
intellectual effect of this as well as the facing of the Empire’s dark side, surfaced only later
on in the arts, through the works of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and Salman Rushdie in literature
or the ‘Raj revival’ films of the heritage film genre in the 1980s and 90s, for example. The
war left Britain also exhausted and bankrupt and the country could keep going only by the
help of American loans. The power then shifted over from Britain to the USA and the
Soviet Union who were now dominating also on the Continent.
Meanwhile the Labour Party gained overwhelming majority in Parliament. This
resulted in Labour’s attempt to make Britain a socially more acceptable place, including
the acts aiming at high taxation or the development of social services. As a result, living
standards rose obviously further in the 1950s. By the time the Conservative Harold
Macmillan led his party to victory in 1959, his famous slogan “You’ve never had it so
good!” became something like a catchphrase of the period, revealing that the tensions of
post-war Britain had eased and the new consumer society was coming into full swing.
Consumerism tried to fill in the gap that was created by the decline in spiritual
interest and in religion in general. The horror of the war and the concentration camps,
followed by the fear of nuclear war proved to be devastating from two aspects. On the one
hand, it revealed again that mankind as it is, is in fact evil (which we have known since the
beginning of human history) while, on the other hand, there was no God or omnipresent
good to turn to or hope for. The spiritual atmosphere of the period was that of craving for
new goals, new values, for an absolutely new way of life. Research in areas of
microbiology, genetic engineering, communication, space traveling, or computers brought
about new perspectives only Aldous Huxley or H.G. Wells could imagine a few decades
before. In a world without God, “the popularity of the catastrophe movie and of science
fiction reflected a widespread anxiety and a desire to explore, if obliquely, the problems of
responsibility and control which often form the subtext of the best science fiction.”[29] Also,
the slowly growing tension of the cold war gave inspiration to several novelists and also
filmmakers, and so the popular spy stories of Ian Fleming were born starting with Casino
Royale in 1953. This, as we know, gave birth to Britain’s most important film series, with
British secret agent James Bond as the main protagonist.
It is noteworthy from a cultural point of view that during the war a sort of cultural
renaissance developed in Britain. More books were written, more plays found audiences,
and more films were watched as cinema attendance peaked in 1946. “Yet although a
53
handful of major artists emerged, few commentators saw the period as one of outstanding
creative achievement.”[30] Nevertheless, as a result of these emerging tendencies, the Arts
Council was established in 1946 to provide governmental support to the fine arts in Great
Britain, becoming thus the heir of the previously formed CEMA mentioned before.
Alongside the Arts Council, the National Film Finance Corporation was founded in 1949
to promote British film. These bodies guaranteed that culture and entertainment did not
remain the privilege of the upper class or the bourgeoisie but were open to anyone.
Consequently, an evolving democratization of the arts took place not only by the ever so
feared and sometimes even loathed Americanization but also by the spread of radio and
television now available to the masses. Thus by the help of full employment, new technical
devices such as cars and washing machines, and mass communication the working class
profited greatly from the benefits of the new era. This, of course led many intellectuals,
especially F.R. Leavis, to worry for the future of high culture. In his view only high
standards of education and the moral quality of art could save British high culture. Shaw
also notes that “For [Richard] Hoggart, as for [F.R.] Leavis, art, especially literature, was
central to the cultural problem, and good art, whether ‘serious’ or ‘popular’, should
embody a moral sense.”[31]
The effect of the growing significance of the working class made itself felt in the
arts as well. While the mass media was, for the most part, aiming for naturalism or realism
instead of modernistic innovation, “three influences percolated through the written and
spoken word and into film: provincial realism, social criticism, often explicitly socialist,
and the non-naturalistic psychological exploration of the dynamics of personal
relationships.”[32] This psychological exploration allowed for the autonomous development
of form which stood at times above the significance of content, a direction typical not only
of post-war literature but also visual arts, architecture or music as well. These two
tendencies, the realistic and the non-naturalistic, were simultaneously present in the arts of
post-war Britain.
THE MODERN NOVEL: THE POST-WAR YEARS AND THE NEW WAVE
Interestingly enough, the war produced many new poets and writers. Much poetry was
written in the World War in trenches, hospitals, on battleships, where the constant tension
of waiting and the terrible experiences of the battlefield could be somewhat eased by such
literary work.
54
Although Graham Greene started writing and publishing already in the 1930s his
more seriously acclaimed novels appeared after World War II. Nevertheless, his war
experiences obviously emerge in his novel The Heart of the Matter (1948) set in a West
African colony where Greene worked for the British Intelligence during the war. As we
read in The Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Literature in English, Greene
“challenges and reshapes conventional concepts of virtue and heroism, also showing in this
novel the pride – even foolishness – as well as courage of trying to adhere to them at all in
an uncertain, unfaithful age.”[33] Here again it is detectable that the current social and
cultural, let alone spiritual crisis of the age had a great influence on the work of
contemporary writers. His short story The Third Man (1950) was the result of his work on
the film classic of the same title, directed by Carol Reed. The End of the Affair (1951) is
set in war-time London and presents some of the personal conflicts rooted in his Catholic
faith, while his next novel The Quiet American (1955) takes the reader to Vietnam during
the cold war. In later novels he also takes the reader to the most diverse places around the
world, such as Havana in Our Man in Havana (1958), to a leper colony of Congo in A
Burnt out Case (1961) or to Argentina in The Honorary Consul (1973) for instance. In his
novels “Corporate violence, very much the background to everyone’s experience of this
era, is ever-present.”[34] Along his career as a novelist Greene also worked as a journalist
and essayist, he wrote literary criticism, plays and short stories among others, and through
his seven decades of writing he had always been and still is appreciated by his readers.
“His appeal to a generally disillusioned age is also guaranteed by a continuing streak of
romanticism which shows a credible if compromised heroism surviving in graceless, fallen
words.”[35]
The 1950s turned out to be an amazingly productive period concerning the British
novel. The year 1954 has special significance as it celebrated the publication of three major
literary works: William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim, and Iris
Murdoch’s Under the Net. Golding’s novels are basically naturalistic fables about man’s
inhumanity and the evil forces that govern them from deep within. Lord of the Flies came
out partly under the influence of Golding’s experiences of World War II but the shadow of
the cold war and the testing of a British A-bomb also strengthened his gloomy view of
mankind reflected in the novel.[36] The book was immediately critically acclaimed and
started its writer on a successful career all the way to the late 1980s. His works Pincher
Martin (1956), later the apocalyptic Darkness Visible (1979), and the Booker Prize winner
Rites of Passage (1980) all deal with the question of original sin, man’s deplorable moral
55
state, and the presence of evil in one form or another. His lifetime achievement brought
him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983.
Iris Murdoch’s first novel, Under the Net, this philosophical work with surrealist
influences (Camus, Queneau, Beckett, Sartre) also appeared in 1954. The novel’s (anti)hero, Jake Donaghue, a writer, is set on a quest which does not only send him to a theater,
a film studio, to Paris, but at points puts Mister Mars the dog movie star into the center of
the action. Donaghue’s adventures result “finally in some form of revelation about
language and creativity, and his own relation to the vigour of the world.”[37] In later novels
Murdoch was dealing with abstract questions about the nature of good and evil, free will,
and sexuality as in the 1978 Booker Prize winner The Sea, the Sea, or later in Jackson’s
Dilemma (1995), however these topics are presented in a rather comic instead of tragic
tone. The fact that her novels are all philosophical yet narratively rampant prevents them
from being categorized in any movement of the second half of the century.
John Wain’s debut with Hurry on Down (1953) already indicates the coming of a
rebellious age, a row of angry heroes in search of their place in the egalitarian society. This
quest is illustrated in a geniusly comical way in Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim. Jim Dixon’s
odyssey in university life, his visit to the Welch’s, and his final lecture under the influence
of the tremendous amount of alcohol he needed to build up his courage, dissolves all the
mythical respect that used to begird university life. Amis then makes way for later criticalcomical writings about academic life like David Lodge’s Changing Places (1975) or Small
World (1984) and Malcolm Bradbury’s Eating People is Wrong (1959) and The History
Man (1975). From a historical point of view, nevertheless, the novel also shows the fact
that university life underwent significant changes as a consequence of the Labour
Government’s educational policies that came into practice in post-war Britain. Shaw notes
concerning the period, that
many of the working class also welcomed the consumer society, with its
greater rewards to compensate for work which for the majority continued to be
long, hard and dull; and none welcomed it more than the working-class youth
who found themselves for the first time with spare cash to spend.[38]
The opportunities to spend money, the new chances to rise on the social scale, along with
the dissolution of traditional morals, led to a rebellion that took on a unique form at this
point of literary history. Several younger poets, like Philip Larkin or Amis himself
determined to make a clear and explicit stand against modernism, internationalism, neoRomanticism and the exclusiveness of upper-middle class Bohemia. Look Back in Anger,
56
the 1956 play of John Osborne, served a very similar purpose with its main protagonist,
Jimmy Potter rebelling against the Establishment and all it stands for. The story of Jimmy
and in fact most of the characters in the Angry writers’ novels, reveal the paradox of the
age. In the 1950s working-class people were finally not excluded from education, gained
opportunities their fathers could never have dreamed of, and did not have to fear
unemployment. Nonetheless, instead of being content for ‘making it’ the lower class
individuals all felt alienated in the new society seemingly without social barriers. This kind
of dislocation is present in one of the most successful realist novels of the time, John
Braine’s Room at the Top (1957). The Angry Young Man Movement, which was, by the
way, a media coinage at first, saw the appearance of Alan Sillitoe’s Saturday Night and
Sunday Morning (1958), a story about the young factory worker, Arthur Seaton, and his
way of standing against the moral conventions of a hypocritical society. Seaton’s excessive
drinking, his violence and affair with the married woman Brenda, do not make him happy
or content. By his actions he draws attention to his alienation and loss of orientation in the
new post-war society. However, just like Joe Lampton in Room at the Top, he is also
considering marriage by the end of the novel revealing the individual’s disability to fight
off the limiting social norms. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1959) also
shows the individual’s struggle against the competitive society. Sillitoe’s hero is the longdistance runner Colin who is locked up in borstal after being caught robbing a bakery. At
the end of the story he deliberately loses the race against the local public school to
demonstrate his rebellion against the hypocritical leaders of the institution. Another
significant work of the era, also concentrating on the life of a sportsman, is David Storey’s
This Sporting Life (1960). The novel became famous, as most of the novels of the age, by
its filmic adaptation by Lindsay Anderson in 1963 with Richard Harris in the leading role.
Storey’s own experience as the son of a miner and as a rugby player for Leeds provided the
background to the novel. Stan Barstow’s A Kind of Loving (1960) came out the same year
and was also adapted rapidly to film by John Schlesinger in 1962. The thirst for reality was
then an urgent need of the period, however, as seen from the novels described at the
beginning of this section, not all the literary works were going in this direction. As
Bradbury wonderfully summarizes it:
One reason why realism flourished in the late Fifties was indeed that it became
a significant document for the making of new social records and the
understanding of new social attitudes. With its strengths came its weaknesses –
for, without a strong aesthetic spine, a powerful sense of history, or a real
social urgency, it quickly disintegrates into anecdote, documentation,
57
autobiography, as in many fictional works thereafter did. The best writers of
the Fifties would thus prove to be those who, once the new social and cultural
records had been begun, drove the form onward into aesthetic inquiry; in
consequence they would finally prove to be very doubtful realists.[39]
BRITISH FILM: THE POST-WAR YEARS AND THE NEW WAVE
As the distress of the war was slowly melting away, the light genre of the Ealing comedies
became more and more popular on the island. The success of Hue and Cry (1947) meant
only the beginning of a decade-long row of comedies, such as Passport to Pimlico (1949),
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) with Alec Guinness in eight leading roles in the same
film, The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) and The Ladykillers (1955), in which the famous
comedian Peter Sellers played one of his early but most beneficial roles. The significance
of this success story was the fact that the British film industry, as in every single period of
its history, had to decide “whether to seek to challenge Hollywood on its own ground, or to
play the ‘national’ card by embodying qualities of ‘Britishness.’”[40] Michael Balcon, head
of Ealing Studios from 1938 to 1959, decided on the latter course and did rightly so. The
films found great acclaim oversees especially because of their ‘typical British flair.’
Other important comedy series of the age included the Doctor-series (mostly with
Dirk Bogarde in the leading role), or the Carry-on series which reached their zenith in the
1960s. The Carry-on films used nearly the same cast in a number of movies and always
caricatured the contemporary hit films or popular genres, such as Carry on Constable
(1960, police comedy), Carry on Spying (1964, spy-film comedy), Carry on Cleo (1964,
historical film comedy) and Carry on Emmanuelle (1978, sex-film comedy). It was typical
of the series, and basically of the age, to use ambiguity and sexual references to address the
most delicate subjects only quietly referred to before.
The popularity of the BBC-series Monty Python’s Flying Circus also has its roots in
the comedy tradition of the post-war years. The Monty Python group (John Cleese, Terry
Gilliam, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Graham Chapman) continued to do away
with taboo subjects by creating absurd characters and putting them into most bizarre
situations. This biting satire and infantilism is also typical of the group’s first feature films,
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) or Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979).
In the post-war period, many talented British directors and artists continued to go to
Hollywood to try their fortunes. It is, however, less known that several directors went to
‘swinging London’ in the 1960s to pursue their creative careers there. Marwick also notes
that “as we move into the sixties, it becomes clear that British cinema was taking up a new
58
central role, not just living off, but developing and bringing together new sources of talent.
Early successes brought prestige; prestige brought American investment.”[41] Among the
new directors we find not only American names, but significant European directors as
well, such as Roman Polanski, François Truffaut, Michelangelo Antonioni (Blow-up
(1966)), from the Continent, and of course, Joseph Losey or Stanley Kubrick (2001: A
Space Odyssey (1968), A Clockwork Orange (1971), Barry Lyndon (1975)) from America.
A new group of directors appeared at the beginning of the 1950s, establishing the
basis for the Free Cinema movement which developed into the British New Wave in the
1960s. The most important members of the New Wave were Lindsay Anderson, Karel
Reisz, and Tony Richardson. Films such as Room at the Top (1959), Look Back in Anger
(1958), Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), The Loneliness of the Long Distance
Runner (1962), or This Sporting Life (1963) “reveal an anxiety about the demise of the
‘traditional’ working class, associated with work, community and an attachment to place,
in the face of consumerism, mass culture and suburbanization.”[42] These films are
adaptations of the contemporary angry writers, whose works proved to touch upon such
sensitive, acute themes that the audience could identify with and so they were adapted to
the big screen right away.
1960-1979
While the tension of the Cold War was still felt in Europe, a change in lifestyle was
becoming more and more visible in the 1960s. The new consumer society saw the rising of
the earnings, while the prices of consumer goods, including technological products or cars,
was measurably falling. The chief new markets of the age were created by the emergence
of the youth with liquid assets, and also “the working class, the provinces, racial minorities
and, in lesser degree, women. The new consumers were in a position to reject the canons
laid down by established authority, metropolitan, upper-class and old.”[43] This, as we will
see below, resulted in a series of new parliamentary acts and the so-called permissive
society was born. Social norms became liberal, religion lost its position even more than in
the preceding decades as secularism spread rapidly. However, the most important
development of the age was the emergence of sexual freedom. A milestone of the sexual
revolution, especially in a Britain, that had always been famous for its generally
conservative society, was the Lady Chatterley trial in 1960. Penguin Books was tried under
59
the Obscene Publications Act of 1959 claiming that the publication of D.H. Lawrence’s
novel (written in 1928) was a violation against the act. However, the jury found the novel
‘not guilty.’ This trial showed that the changing social moral values were forcing their way
through all areas of life and culture.
Pressures of the above mentioned social tendencies led to a series of Acts that had a
great effect on society and also marked the dissolution of British conservatism in a way.
The Abortion Act 1967 made abortion legal up until 28 weeks of pregnancy, which was
later limited to 24 weeks. Sexual Offenses Act 1967 changed the status of homosexuals by
a significant degree; as from this moment on homosexuals over 21 years of age were not
considered criminals anymore. Representation of the Nation Act 1969 reduced the age of
voters to 18 which reflects a new view of the new emerging youth culture. Although
political acts cannot change a whole society, “the reality of change was palpable in the
archaeology of everyday life, in attitudes, behaviour and artifacts.”[44] Victorian social
controls were to a great degree annihilated.
As already stressed above, the youth was now gaining more and more attention also
as a consumer group and as a problematic group as well as an exciting phenomenon. As we
can see in the works of the Angry writers, the youth at the beginning of the decade had
their own serious problems with social development and morals. The Education Act of
1944 was not able to bring down social barriers. Those who still made it to the higher strata
of society from the working class in the 1960s and 70s, often felt the same displacement
and alienation the works of the Angry writers had already expressed. The new workingclass occupants of the high-rise apartment buildings soon lost their pleasure over such
amenities as bathrooms, and their mood soon turned rather desperate as the buildings
became vandalized and the streets haunted by the new youth gangs.
For many, nevertheless, life eased by the middle of the 1960s and youth culture was
now in full swing. Rock’n’roll took the place of swing and the energetic dance replaced the
strictly limited ballroom dancing. New youth groups or gangs were formed, such as the
stylish Teddy Boys, who were not to be mixed with the Mods or the even harder Rockers.
The loose morals and sometimes violent clashes between these groups is duly illustrated in
Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange. By the seventies new trends appeared bringing
along new ideals and philosophies resulting in the emergence of such groups as the punks,
skinheads, as well as the Rastafarians and Rudies in the black cultural groups. The life of
young people was also peppered with the emergence of the new music groups such as The
Beatles or The Rolling Stones, which resulted in the appearance of hysterical fan groups to
60
whom fainting or screaming at concerts was part of the fun. The great rebellious generation
was largely campus-based, and the new ideas
flourished among the rapidly expanding student population which post-war
education policies and the ‘baby boom’ of the immediate post-war years had
produced. It was vociferous, and the demands it voiced amounted to a request
for the removal of all constraints, whether on sexual behaviour, social
behaviour, or in the choice of what to study and how to study it. Stunned
parents, teachers and other authority-figures had little time in which to
reconcile themselves to their young whose rejection of ‘bourgeois values’ was
signaled by the wearing of ragged jeans, ancient, tramp-like overcoats and
long, unkempt hair, who expected to sleep with whom they chose, to get up at
mid-day and keep whatever hours suited them, to play deafening music nonstop, to hitch all over the country to outdoor festivals of music which local
residents deplored, and most worrying, to experiment with drugs.[45]
An attempt to slow down or even stop this social change and increasing moral disparity
came first with the inauguration of Margaret Thatcher’s government in the 1980s.
Before Mrs Thatcher entered the scene of Britain’s politics, art in general was
available for the masses. In spite of the democratization of the arts, the so-called bourgeois
art still continued. Nevertheless, as a consequence of the trends in the arts of the previous
decades, form in music, literature, and also visual arts became increasingly unstable to the
degree of disappearing almost entirely, as in minimal art, for example. Form, or the
absence of form, was sometimes more important than the content. As we have seen above,
the emphasis on amusement, as television, rock music, or even drugs, took the place of the
profound experience and thus formlessness and constant restlessness in the search of
novelty mirrors the spiritual plight of the era.
THE MODERN NOVEL
The literature of the period can be seen as dominated by a negative attitude towards
humanism. Skepticism and the incredulity about the moral man made their marks on
literature, as in the novels of Golding, Burgess, and also Greene and Waugh. However,
after the solid consensus of post-war Britain, a new need for experiment and novelty was
felt not only in society but also in literature. The released inhibitions and a lesser demand
on traditional form created a new field that could be explored by novelists as well. The
road was open to make use of not only high culture but popular culture as well, and thus
“the novel took on a destabilized form.”[46] This is, I believe, best illustrated by B.S.
Johnson’s 1969 novel, The Unfortunates, a ‘book in a box’ about the narrator’s feelings
61
upon watching his close friend die of cancer. In this experimental novel only the first and
the last chapters are specified, the remaining sections can be read in an arbitrary order.
Johnson’s untraditional approach towards narrative was already revealed in his first novel
Travelling People (1963), where the influence of Joyce, Beckett or Sterne results in
fragmentation and breaks in continuity. After House Mother Normal (1971) came Christie
Malry’s Own Double Entry (1973) which again plays with the traditional narrative form in
a way that the published book consists of two columns: one for the external life of the
protagonist, and the other his honest reactions to it. Unfortunately, the lack of commercial
success and family problems led Johnson to commit suicide in 1973.
The 2007 Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing also experienced her breakthrough as a
writer in the 1960s. Her first novel, The Grass is Singing, was written in 1950 and evolves
around the life of Mary, a white Rhodesian woman, whose life turns depressing and lonely
after she marries the farmer, Dick Turner. Her mental state slowly deteriorates and before
going on a vacation with her husband to try to make a new start, she is killed by their black
house servant, Moses. The book found immediate success both in the United Kingdom and
oversees, partly for Lessing’s abstract symbolism but also for her depiction of the white
man’s fear of the African people. Nevertheless, her greatest success remains The Golden
Notebook (1962). Through the life of Anna Wulf, who keeps notes in her four notebooks,
the reader gets to know the three major forces of the era people had to deal with:
communism, feminism and psychoanalysis. Fragmentation and the lack of possibility to
represent the truth is illustrated by her various ways of narration, such as memoirs, parody,
political essay or daily diary entries, introducing her life as a mother, writer, communist,
lover, or a patient of the psychoanalyst. Lessing actually intermitted her Children of
Violence quintet to write The Golden Notebook, however, she finished the sequel of
Martha Quest (1952), A Proper Marriage (1954), and A Ripple in the Storm (1958) with
Landlocked (1964) and The Four Gated City (1969). In the late 1970s she started her
science fiction Canopus sequence, following two visionary futuristic works (Briefing for a
Descent into Hell in 1971 and The Memoirs of a Survivor in 1975), and she claims these
works to be her best ones.
The same year The Golden Notebook received appraisal from the critics, Anthony
Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange appeared which turned out to be one of the most successful
British novels of the period. Burgess’ first novels, also known as The Malayan Trilogy
(1964), were written under the influence of his career as an education officer in the
Colonial Service in Malaya and Borneo. After the doctors diagnosed him with an
62
untreatable disease, and gave him about one year to live, he started to write with amazing
speed to provide a living for his wife in the form of royalties. His novels The Right to an
Answer (1960), The Doctor is Sick (1960), The Worm and the Ring (1961), and Devil of a
State (1961) were all written under these circumstances. His comic novels about the
middle-aged Mr Enderby (Inside Mr Enderby (1963), Enderby Outside (1968), The
Clockwork Testament (1974), Enderby’s Dark Lady (1984)) were also very popular with
the readers and critics as well. However, he is mostly remembered for A Clockwork
Orange, partly because the novel created great controversy after its cinematic adaptation
by Stanley Kubrick in 1971.
[47]
His later works include a satire of the Cold War, partly
inspired by his trip to the USSR with his wife (Honey for the Bears (1963)); Abba, Abba
(1977) introduces the reader to the last phase in the life of John Keats; The Kingdom of the
Wicked (1985) is set after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, and describes the
development of early Christianity in the Roman Empire; and his last, and also for many the
best novel of Burgess, A Dead Man in Deptford (1993).
The immediate success of The Collector in 1963 provided John Fowles the
opportunity to devote himself entirely to writing. The book is about the butterfly collector
Frederick Clegg who, as a result of his diffidence and lack of social skill is unable to build
up contact with the art student Miranda. Instead he decides to kidnap her and thus add her
to his collection of beauties. Miranda, (the accordance of the name with Shakespeare’s
Miranda in The Tempest is not accidental!) in her captivity, keeps a diary reflecting her life
and ideas about sexuality, art, and God, and after several attempts to escape, she dies,
probably of pneumonia. In the third part of the novel Clegg decides not to mourn over the
loss of Miranda but to kidnap another young girl. This novel was followed by The Magus
in 1966, however, from a literary point of view, his masterpiece remains The French
Lieutenant’s Woman (1969).
[48]
This novel is “an endeavour by a distinguished author to
recover, examine and question the value of the Victorian novel for his own day, while
seeing his own time in the.”[49] After writing The Ebony Tower he returned to
contemporary themes in Daniel Martin, released in 1977. In this novel Fowles again
creates a platform for discussions about aesthetics, imperialism, cinema, and the contrasts
between the US and Great Britain by the exploration of his main character and his
discussions with a dying friend and other relatives. His career as a novelist ended in 1985
with The Maggot, but he remained socially and politically active in Lyme Regis, the town
that served as a background to his most remembered work, The French Lieutenant’s
Woman.
63
Although some despise the fact that by the creation of the Booker-McConnell Prize,
or in short Booker Prize, in 1968 the art of novel joined the commercial trotters of the age,
the award, given each year for the best full-length novel in English, drew attention to many
new discoveries of the age.[50] V.S. Naipaul, Iris Murdoch, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Salman
Rushdie, Ben Okri, or Kazuo Ishiguro have all been awarded this prize, along with more
experienced writers such as William Golding and Kingsley Amis, for example. As a
consequence of the prize, the novel went through a revival among the publishers and the
reading public.
A different type of contemporary novel that would not appear on the Booker Prize
short list but reflects the increasing tensions of the Cold War is the spy thriller that gained
more and more significance in the 1960s. Len Deighton’s story The IPCRESS File (1962)
or John Le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1963) naturally painted a bleaker
picture of spy life than the novels of Ian Fleming. However, Le Carré’s novels are known
for their depiction of the moral condition of the nation on such a high literary level that lets
him be acclaimed as the heir of Graham Greene or John Buchan. On the other side of the
coin we find Ian Fleming with his hero, James Bond. His luxurious life, beautiful women
and martinis, and, naturally, his sense of British humor have become well-known signifiers
of British culture. Dr No, the first James Bond film came to the movies in 1962 and,
although Fleming started to publish his James Bond spy thrillers with the book Casino
Royale in 1953, his international fame can be attributed partly to the film adaptations of his
novels. It is, at the same time, intriguing from a literary point of view that Kingsley Amis
was also connected to the works of Fleming by way of critical writings on James Bond,
like his The James Bond Dossier in 1965 or the farcical The Book of Bond, or Every Man
His Own 007 the same year. As the popularity of the series was increasing, different
writers were commissioned to continue Fleming’s legacy, John Gardner, Charlie Higson
(writing about the young teenager Bond), Raymond Benson among them.
It is peculiar to see that the novels of the 1960s and 70s rarely found their ways to
the cinema. Johnson’s Christie Malry’s Own Double Entry was first made into a film in
2000, while Lessing’s The Grass is Singing was adapted in Sweden in 1981. The same
year Memoirs of a Survivor came out with Julie Christie in the leading role but other
novels by her remain un-adapted. Part of this phenomenon may be the fact that
experimental or philosophical novels do not present themselves useful for adaptation. Also,
the main group of British society that went to the movies was the youth who were more
interested in new ways of experience, horror, or spy thriller, as the success of the film
64
version of Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, or William Wyler’s movie The Collector, or
also the Ian Fleming adaptations indicate.
BRITISH FILM FROM THE SWINGIN’ SIXTIES ON
In the 1970s a change occurred in cinema-going habits. Going to the pictures was no more
the entertainment of families or of the older generations but of the youth. As was often true
during British cinema history, American films dominated the market again, and British
film needed to compete on equal terms with Hollywood blockbusters. One means to lure
the new viewers to the theaters was to go back to a genre that was born in 1817, i.e. the
horror tradition. Ever since Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein appeared in 1818, people have
been interested in the ghoulish. After the success of the American Frankenstein film with
Boris Karloff in 1931, British directors discovered the need for this sort of entertainment.
By the 1960s a whole series of Frankenstein films were born, among them The Curse of
Frankenstein (1957), The Evil of Frankenstein (1964) or The Horror of Frankenstein
(1970). At the same time, this series also created its own ‘brother,’ namely the Dracula
cycle. After Bela Lugosi’s Dracula (1931), a British Dracula (1958) movie also appeared,
continuing with Dracula Has Risen From the Graves (1968), Scars of Dracula (1970), The
Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973), which all belong to the horror tradition of Britain that
have had a significant influence on the international horror genre.
Although agent films emerged relatively early in British film history and became
regular between 1934-38 (consider Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934),
The 39 steps, Secret Agent (1936), or The Lady Vanishes) it was the Cold War that became
the perfect background for the clear agent genre to appear. When we talk about the James
Bond movies, we are referring to the most successful British film-series worldwide. The
stories for the cycle were written by Ian Fleming, and after the success of the first Bond
film, Dr No (1962), Sean Connery played the leading role another five times. After him the
honor was given over to Roger Moore in Live and Let Die (1973), and he played in six
Bond movies altogether. He was briefly followed by Timothy Dalton, and then by Pierce
Brosnan, who has starred in four movies since 1995. The newest episodes, Casino Royale
and Quantum of Solace, were released in 2006 and 2008 with Daniel Craig in the leading
role, however, the change to a new actor and the different style of the new directors leave
much space for development. In the future it will be interesting to see, whether the new
65
action hero image of James Bond will be able to turn back to its light, typically British,
comic style of the previous decades.
England has long been known for its musical traditions which first gained
popularity in the 1960s, when the American Richard Lester came to Britain to direct his
famous Beatles films. Although London was then the center of pop-culture, everybody was
struck by the success of The Beatles. Lester’s first film A Hard Day’s Night (1964) shows
one day of the band but instead of making it a musical documentary, he brings comic
scenes, limos, hotels, women, a hilarious press conference and, of course, a concert into the
film. Lester set out to make another movie with the band, but after completing Help!
(1965) he abandoned the music film genre. The Beatles cartoon Yellow Submarine (1968)
and the concert film Let It Be (1970) were less successful and marked the decline of the
band. However, the tradition of music film had been carried on and Ken Russel’s Tommy
(1975), an innovative rock movie with theatrical choreography, gained serious
acknowledgement. His literary adaptation of D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love (1969) was
also commercially successful and Glenda Jackson’s performance brought the film an
Academy Award.[51]
It is important to stress, nonetheless, that all these movies that appeared in the
1970s, i.e. horror film, agent movies, or the musicals, were rooted in some earlier
cinematic tradition and an original trend was less detectable in the decade. Marwick also
notes that “it was true that while most of the characteristic films of the sixties had, despite
their stylistic traditionalism, achieved considerable reputations abroad, British films of the
1970s were less widely recognized.”[52]
1979-1990
When Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979, probably no one suspected that
the political system introduced by her government would be so significantly different that
retrospectively it would receive the name ‘Thatcherism.’ The basic idea of Thatcherism
was to shift the balance from public funding to business sponsorship and put an end to the
so-called Nanny state that protects and regulates the economy with different interventions
when necessary. The pejorative use of the phrase welfare state started by the Thatcher
government ended the age of consensus which was laid upon the foundations of unity and
solidarity ever since the end of the war. Margaret Thatcher herself claimed that she saw no
66
future for the consensus politics as she was a politician of convictions without
compromises. The new ‘enterprise culture’ was born. What the government could not do
was done by the help of the business sector in return for advertisement. Bradbury
summarizes the cultural development of the last decades as follows: “the Fifties had
largely read culture with a moral vocabulary, the Sixties with a sociological one, the
Seventies with the language of personal consciousness, the Eighties quickly introduced a
new discourse founded on myths of money.”[53]
The gap between rich and poor was widening in the 1980s. Also, the emergent
yuppie culture, i.e. the group of young urban professionals indicated that many who
followed the individualist politics of the Tory government could make it to the top. They
were the beneficiary of the newly built motorways, the burgeoning service industries, and
the new shopping malls. However, their depiction in movies like High Hopes (1988) for
instance, is far from favorable. The frustrations of the two major parties and also that of the
people resulted in a polarization in which the Tories moved more to the right while Labour
moved to the left. Indirectly, this is also apparent in the fact that Thatcher set out to reduce
the power of the Trade Unions which led to the 1984-5 miner’s strike, the violence of
which on both sides greatly shocked the British people.
The Victorian values of self-help, moral virtue and public duty were re-introduced
to stress the responsibility of the individual over that of the state. Prime Minister Thatcher
also laid great emphasis on the traditional gender roles, and encouraged women to stay at
home and take care of the children instead of pursuing an individual career. Coming from a
woman of the highest ambition, this encouragement came through rather paradoxically.
Also, although the government tried to discourage divorce and abortion, statistics found a
rise not only in these areas but also in crime rates, drug usage, and urban violence in spite
of the new ‘law and order’ policy that was called to life to counter these trends. The
number of single mothers also rose revealing that traditional morals in general were
declining.
Those on the right saw the relaxed standards of the permissive society and the
influence of violence in entertainment on television as the most likely causes of
the situation; those on the left pointed to long-term unemployment, urban
decay, the impoverished education system, and the frustration and alienation
caused among the poor by the contrast between their situation and the affluent
lifestyle portrayed in television soap operas and commercials. All agreed that
increased usage of alcohol and drugs also played a significant part.[54]
67
Another factor behind these tendencies could be the spiritual vacuum that has been more
and more characteristic of the society since the Second World War. Secular humanism’s
attempt to take over the role of the church had proved to be more or less successful. “At its
best it had produced a more tolerant and caring society, and brought about far-reaching and
beneficial changes in relationships between the sexes and within the family.”[55] These
changes proved that the old Victorian values could not be re-introduced into a society that
had just freed itself from their binding grip. The newly emergent problems of
unemployment, loss of identity, search of sexual identity, or the black question, all surface
in the works of the period, in films as well as in literature.
Mrs Thatcher’s politics concerned the arts as well as any other branch of the
economy. As a result of this new policy (and maybe her confessed dislike of arts,
especially films)
the Government’s own funding of the Arts Council was in 1982 found by an
all-parliamentary select committee to be not just gravely inadequate, but
irresponsibly inadequate. On the arts, as on health care, Britain was spending
less per head of population than most of its European neighbours.[56]
There are many other phenomena in the politics of the 1980s that could be considered and
dealt with in this section for having a significant affect on the arts in general but for lack of
space let me here refer only to the basic decisions made in that period concerning the film
industry. I have already mentioned the Cinematography Films Act of 1927 and how it
saved the industry in the long run. There were many changes in the Quota Act in the
following decades and finally from 1 January 1983 the government suspended the quota all
together, forcing the film industry to become more and more involved in the ‘enterprise
culture’ that was so propagated by the Thatcher government. The abolition of the Eady
Levy and the privatization of the National Film Finance Corporation were other factors
that led to the point where private investors had to take over to provide that the production
could be carried on. These newly financed projects were put together on an "irregular onoff basis. Thus, no less than 342 production companies were involved in film production
during the decade and the majority of these - 250 - were involved in only one film."[57]
Although these actions may be viewed as un-supportive, the cuts Margaret Thatcher's
government effectuated in the film industry proved to be beneficial for the cinema later on.
A new generation of talented and adventurous directors emerged who had had
opportunities to experiment before turning to film. For example, Derek Jarman and Peter
Greenaway had discovered painting, Mike Leigh and Ken Loach came from television, and
68
Richard Eyre from the theater. In want of support, small film producers, the so-called
‘Independents’ organized themselves during the 1970s, and managed to create new ways
of funding films especially through the film department of Channel 4. Among these
emerging independent companies was also the Merchant Ivory Productions Company,
which proved to be one of the most decisive factors of the British market over the
following two decades. There were of course many who suffered from the difficult
conditions set up in the 1980s (rising inflation, reduction of public expenditure,
unemployment, etc.) which problems appear in the social dramas, realist films, but also
under the surface of the so-called heritage films of the age.
Mrs Thatcher stayed in power until 1990 and even then she did not resign because
of the opposition or the will of the people, but because her own party did not find her
suitable anymore. After the fall of communism all around Europe, and the expanding idea
of the European Community, the time of a Prime Minister who tried to ignore not only the
multi-culturalism of her own state but also the necessity to open toward a greater
community, was obviously up. Her successor, John Major kept his post until 1997, when
Tony Blair’s Labour Government took over the leadership of Britain, signaling the
beginning of a new era yet again.
THE BRITISH NOVEL UNDER MARGARET THATCHER
The novel written between 1979 and the present can be best described as fiction written in
English by novelists of diverse nationality. The great names of the period, including
Salman Rushdie, Ben Okri, or Kazuo Ishiguro, have Indian-British, Nigerian, AngloJapanese background respectively. However, their works contribute to the great British
tradition and reveal a great deal not only about the author but the diversity of the nation as
well. Whether Mrs Thatcher liked it or not, hers was a multinational people resulting from
the great colonial past of her country. Instead of the thinning of English culture one can
witness the enrichment of it in the last two or three decades. Marwick quotes Blake
Morrison who commented on the condition of the novel in the 1980s that only by looking
at the shortlist of the Booker Prize one can tell that there is a diversity in works never seen
before. “a Canadian, an Irishman, an Anglo-Japanese, a Scot, an English Rose and a
cosmopolitan Sybille; three men, three women; two novels from independent houses, four
from independent-conglomerates; an age-span from 35 to 78”[58]
69
Before enumerating the new discoveries of the age, however, let me shortly make a
note on more experienced novelists who were active in this period. One such writer is
David Lodge. As I have already indicated previously, the tradition of the university or
academic novel dates back to the great success of Amis’ Lucky Jim in 1954. However, one
of the best examples of the genre, Small World was written by Lodge in 1984. The book
follows its protagonist Persse McGarrigle in his quest to win the love of a fellow colleague,
Angelica Pabst whom he got to know at a conference. The story revolves around the
international conferences to which McGarrigle travels in order to win his lady in a very
Holy Grail-like story. The comic romance was followed by Nice Work (1988), a
commentary on Thatcher’s Britain from a post-feminist point of view, mixing the
academic novel with the genre of the Victorian industrial novel. As Robyn Penrose, in the
frames a government initiative for academics, follows the factory owner Vic Wilcox
around in his day, she has to face serious questions about her own leftist views, while
romanticism enters Wilcox’s life as a result of this ‘shadow scheme.’ Lodge’s last novel to
fit in the row campus novels is Think… published in 2001.
Traditional novelists from the older generation include Kingsley Amis who, after
writing Jake’s Thing (1978) and Stanley and the Women (1984), won the Booker Prize
with his novel The Old Devils (1986). His son, Martin Amis turned out to be one of the
best writers of Britain under Thatcher, with his novels Money (1984), London Fields
(1989) or Time’s Arrow: Or the Nature of the Offence (1991).
One of the great discoveries of the eighties was the Indian born Salman Rushdie.
His book, Midnight’s Children (1981), associated with Latin American magic realism, is
set in India in the time of the county’s decolonization. The novel includes not only
commentaries on political life but satirizes current Indian historical events through its
narrator, Saleem Sinai, who is one of the 1001 children born with magical powers on the
night when India declared its independence in August 1947. Magic realism and the
personal tone of Saleem allow the author to introduce the reader to the political changes,
the confused pluralism, or even to the sexual development in the country at the time.
“Rushdie virtually erases the thin line between documentary realism, journalistic analysis
and fable.”
[59]
The novel established Rushdie as an influential author of the 1980s and
after. His next two novels, Shame (1983) and Satanic Verses (1988) were not only even
more ambitious but the result of the later brought about the death of several people after
the Muslim scholar Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini found the references to Muhammad
blasphemous and ordered all good Muslims to kill Rushdie and those involved in the
70
publication of the book. After coming out of almost ten years of hiding, Rushdie has not
been injured and has brought out several novels since, The Moor’s Last Sigh (1995), Fury
(2001), and Shalimar the Clown (2005) among them.
Ben Okri, a writer from Nigeria published his first novel, Flowers and Shadows in
1980, which brought him not only international fame but established him as one of
Africa’s finest writers. His most popular work remains The Famished Road, a story of a
‘spirit child’ who stays on Earth in order not to make his mother sad, was awarded the
Booker Prize in 1991. In this work Okri uses magic realism to show the “imagination’s
power of struggle against fate and death.”[60] Also associated with the tradition of magic
realism is Angela Carter with her novels The Magic Toyshop, The Infernal Desire
Machines of Dr Hoffman (1972), and with the short story collection The Bloody Chamber
(1979). This collection also includes The Company of Wolves which served as the basis for
Neil Jordan’s film of the same title in 1984.
Entirely different from this tradition is the work of Kazuo Ishiguro, a Japanese-born
British novelist. Although he was brought to England by his parents at the age of six and
never visited Japan until 1989, his stories bear the obvious marks of his traditional
background. In his first novel, A Pale View of Hill (1982) Ishiguro introduces the Japanese
widow, Etsuko, who lives in England but longs for the Nagasaki under construction after
the Second World War. While she is talking to her younger daughter Niki, we learn about
the family history, the suicide of the elder daughter, and the loneliness of Etsuko in modern
Western society. Fame, however, came to Ishiguro with the success of his second novel
The Remains of the Day, which won the Booker Prize in 1989. Although the story seems to
be a typical English one, the restraint and incapability in Stevens’ personal life reflects
indirectly a kind of Japanese moral code.[61] His later novels take Ishiguro’s characters
back to China (When We Were Orphans, 2000) and into a futuristic, dystopian Britain
where people are cloned to give up their organs for transplantation (Never Let Me Go,
2005). Other works by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, V.S. Naipaul, or Timothy Mo reveal that the
novel became a powerful way of expression of new life in the post-colonial world. As
Bradbury notes, the most intriguing novels of the age “stood somewhere between anxious
return to history and the fictional tradition and what Martin Amis called ‘postmodern
trickiness’ – the quality, he thought that most distinguished his and his generation’s work
from that of his father.”[62]
71
MOVIES IN THE 1980S AND 1990S
As already noted above, the new policies of the Thatcher government resulted in a
significant restructuring of the British film production. Many films of the age reflected a
strong opposition to Thatcher’s entrepreneurist policies. The most direct depiction of
England of the 1980s and 90s comes from the social realist directors of the age, Mike
Leigh and Ken Loach. Leigh’s High Hopes, Loach’s Riff-Raff (1991) and Raining Stones
(1993) show the struggle of the small people under the circumstances created (or unsolved)
by the new government. The unemployed Bob in Raining Stones, for example, is forced to
go into all sorts of illegal and dangerous business in order to be able to buy his daughter a
first communion dress. This single story reveals the everyday hardships families, and
especially men, had to go through to be able to keep their families out of debt while
fighting for their own dignity and self-respect. The representation of the consequences of
unemployment continued in the 1990s as well. This was the time when Britain’s greatest
mines were closed down and many men found themselves on the street feeling useless and
hopeless. The problem is duly depicted in Brassed off! (1996),or in the serious comedy The
Full Monty (1997) which turned out to be one of the most successful British films of the
decade.
Besides realism, a strong art cinema had developed with Derek Jarman and Peter
Greenaway as leading directors. Although Greenaway started to work already in the 1970s,
his real successes came in the 80s with such films as The Draughtsman's Contract (1982),
A Zed & Two Noughts (1985), The Belly of an Architect (1987), Drowning by Numbers
(1988), and his most controversial film, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989).
His works typically mix structuralism, formalism and classicism and contrasts it with
Baroque or Romantic compositions as in the Draughtsman’s Contract. Derek Jarman, on
the other hand, tried to emphasize another controversial issue to the British film market:
the role of homosexuals in world history, in such films as Sebastiane (1976), Caravaggio
(1986), or Edward II (1991). His own struggles with the AIDS disease are presented in his
very last film Blue (1993), which consists of a single shot of saturated blue color filling the
screen while sections of his personal diary revealing his own vision of life are read out.
Margaret Thatcher’s idea of giving back the nation its old dignity, its homogeneity,
gave rise to other genres to show the anachronism of these ambitions. Britain was not at all
homogeneous; it was and has been a multicultural country which had exploited and
benefited from its former colonies. Black film, i.e. movies about Asian, Pakistani, or gay
72
people, tries to show this heterogeneity through such movies as Stephen Frears’ My
Beautiful Laundrette (1985) which turned out to be one of the most successful films of the
1980s. The film tells the story of Omar, a Pakistani young man and his developing
friendship (and homosexual relationship) with the racist Johnny, played by Daniel DayLewis. Additionally, the tensions within the Pakistani community, the crisis of
traditionalism in the face of the new entrepreneurism represented by Omar’s cousin, Salim
are all present in the film. Similar topics come up in Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987), or
later on, in Bhaji on the Beach (1992), and in a hilariously comic way, in Damien
O’Donnell’s East is East (1999).
From my dissertation’s point of view, however, the genre of heritage film seems to
be the most important development of the age: four out of the seven analyzed adaptations
in this work fall into this category. Hence I will deal with this genre in a little bit more
detail than those preceding it. In the 1980s, the first sign of the British film renaissance
appeared to be Hugh Hudson's Chariots of Fire, which won four Academy Awards in
1982. The screenplay writer Colin Welland was so enthusiastic at the Oscars that he stated
"You may have started something: The British are coming!"[63] This statement became the
motto of the 1980s film-renaissance. Chariots of Fire was followed by a number of quality
motion pictures that were first coined ‘heritage film’ by Andrew Higson in his essay Representing the National Past which he first published in 1993.[64] At the beginning the term
was used for a narrower group of quality historical films, including Chariots of Fire, Heat
and Dust (James Ivory, 1984), Another Country (Marek Kanievska, 1984), A Passage to
India (David Lean, 1984), A Room With a View (James Ivory, 1986), Maurice (James
Ivory, 1987), Howards End (James Ivory, 1992), or The Remains of the Day (James Ivory,
1993).[65] If we look at the content of these films we may conclude that they present stories
from the English past before World War II and are adapted from canonical British literary
works. Through the portrayal of the life of the upper and upper middle classes these films
usually express some sort of nostalgia for the reinvented or even invented national past,
mostly in the period between 1880 and 1940. As the heritage debate had been developing
the term had come to be broader and broader and by the time Higson published his book
English Heritage, English Cinema in 2000, he already included feminist films, like Sally
Potter's Orlando, or Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth, along with Shakespeare adaptations in this
particular group of films.[66] Let me here list a few characteristics of heritage film,
according to stylistic and thematic features that were first laid down by Andrew Higson:
-
the display of history as spectacle via a pictorialist style
73
the primacy of mise-en-scène over narrative
a fascination with upper-class life mostly at the beginning of the 20th century
the use of classic literature as source texts, especially E.M. Forster at the
beginning, then Jane Austen, Henry James, or Thomas Hardy, etc.
a consistent use of particular actors, including Helena Bonham Carter, James
Wilby, or Hugh Grant as young discoveries at that time, and Maggie Smith, Judy
Dench, or Anthony Hopkins as well established theatrical actors
most of the films have an English setting or deal with English citizens
traveling abroad
relatively low-budget productions, where more emphasis is laid on
authorship, craft, and artistic values
and last, but not least, the political background that gave rise to these works
was, of course, Thatcherism.
Once we identified heritage films, we can divide them into five different categories
(excluding Shakespeare adaptations): adaptations from works of classic literature;[67]
costume dramas adapted from modern literary works or written for screen, set in the late
Victorian, Edwardian and inter-war years;[68] the ‘Raj’ revival, i.e. films set in colonial
India;[69] historical dramas;[70] and post-heritage films.[71]
Heritage film is said to be symptomatic of middle-class denial of present-day social
conflicts, some sort of conservative celebration of the values and lifestyles of the
privileged classes. This denial reinvented an England that no longer existed as something
fondly remembered and desirable.[72] Yet, these films obviously tried to exercise criticism
through irony and social critique, which were evident also in the source novels. As Andrew
Higson notes, heritage films came to life to satirize
the pretentious and superficial, and especially those who are overtly concerned
with keeping up appearances rather than acting according to the passions of the
heart. The films however construct such a delightfully glossy visual surface
that the ironic perspective and the narrative of social criticism diminish in their
appeal for the spectator.[73]
John Hill also criticizes in heritage films that "the balance between narrative and spectacle
shifts in favour of 'spectacle'"[74] which results in the spectators' admiration of what they
see rather than the deeper strata of each story. Although Higson and Hill are right in their
comments that these films are so pictorial that they might take away the cutting edge of
criticism present in the original novels, I would still argue that in films such as Maurice, or
Howards End, or even A Passage to India the struggles of those on the periphery (i.e.
homosexuals, people involved in trans-class or cross-cultural relationships, etc.) are duly
emphasized. The narrow-mindedness of the English spending their holiday in Italy in a
Room with a View, or those ruling over India in a Heat and Dust is also well illustrated and
74
these films demonstrate how afraid the English were of everything that was new, that had
to do with (the other) sex or the other race. Thus the tension between the old and new
Englishness is very much present in these films and it makes them different from the
traditional costume dramas. These movies, in my view, cannot be considered to be easily
digestible period pieces because of the fine social criticism hidden in them. Additionally,
as John Hill rightly notes,
it is, of course, the case that fiction films, unlike museums, do not have any
particular mission to inform and educate about the past and therefore the
suspicion of display and visualization which is apparent in writing on heritage
culture may, in the case of films be misplaced.[75]
Although the overwhelming success of heritage film has passed, the genre still lingers on
through such films as Pride & Prejudice (2005), Brideshead Revisited (2008), or the
children heritage films (including the Harry Potter or Narnia series, as well as movies like
Nanny McPhee (2005), for instance.)[76]
By the help of this short overview of cultural, literary and cinema history of the
twentieth century, I aim to create a background that promotes the understanding of the
following case studies. I believe, as before stated, that the contemporary cultural changes
have a great effect on the adaptation of different works, and the current mood of society is
decisive in what comes to the big screen and what does not. Although I have tried to be
exhaustive concerning the individual case studies, the background knowledge recited in
this chapter may provide even more insight into the following adaptations.
[1]
Jacques Berthoud, “Literature and Drama,” The Cambridge Cultural History: Early 20th Century Britain,
ed. Boris Ford (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992) 55.
[2]
Wilfrid Mellers and Rupert Hildyard, “The Cultural and Social Setting,” The Cambridge Cultural History:
Early 20th Century Britain, ed. Boris Ford, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992) 5.
[3]
Mellers 19.
[4]
Mellers 8.
[5]
Mellers 13-14.
[6]
Mellers 17.
[7]
Malcolm Bradbury, The Modern British Novel (London: Secker & Warbug, 1993) 142.
[8]
Daniel R. Schwarz, The Transformation of the English Novel, 1890-1930 (Macmillan Press: London,
1989) 9.
[9]
Mellers 38.
[10]
For more detail about the novel please see Chapter 3.
[11]
Walter Allen, The English Novel (Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1960) 335.
75
[12]
Allen 357.
Harry Blamires, A Short History of English Literature (London: Routledge, 1984) 399.
[14]
Mellers 26.
[15]
Mellers 25.
[16]
For more detail, please see the last section of this chapter that deals with the happenings, literary and
cinematic trends of the period between 1979 and 1990.
[17]
Charles Barr, „Before Blackmail: Silent British Cinema,” The British Cinema Book, ed. Robert Murphy
(London: British Film Institute, 2001) 14.
[18]
Barr 11.
[19]
Sarah Street, ’British Film and the National Interest, 1927-39,’ The British Cinema Book, ed. Robert
Murphy (London: British Film Institute, 2001) 29.
[20]
Mellers 41.
[21]
Berthoud 99.
[22]
Roy Shaw and Gwen Shaw, ‘The Cultural and Social Setting,’ Modern Britain: The Cambridge Cultural
History, ed. Boris Ford (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992) 6.
[23]
Bradbury 204.
[24]
Bradbury 224.
[25]
Donat Gallagher, ed., The Essays, Articles, and Reviews of Evelyn Waugh (London: Methuen, 1983) 303.
[26]
Ian Aitken, ’The British Documentary Film Movement,’ The British Cinema Book, ed. Robert Murphy
(London: British Film Institute, 2001) 60.
[27]
Aitken 60.
[28]
David Lean, ’Brief Encounter,’ Penguin Film Review, 1947, no.4., 31.
[29]
Shaw 4.
[30]
Shaw 3.
[31]
Shaw 10.
[32]
Arthur Marwick, Culture in Britain since 1945 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991) 75.
[33]
Jenny Stringer, ed., The Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Literature in English (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1996) 293.
[34]
Marwick 21.
[35]
Stringer 266.
[36]
For more detail please see chapter 5.
[37]
Bardbury 329.
[38]
Shaw 20.
[39]
Bradbury 326.
[40]
Tim Pulleine, ’A Song and Dance at the Local: Thoughts on Ealing,’ The British Cinema Book, ed.
Robert Murphy (London: British Film Institute, 2001) 79.
[41]
Marwick 75.
[42]
John Hill, ’From New Wave to Brit-Grit,’ British Cinema, Past and Present, eds. Justine Ashby and
Andrew Higson (London: Routledge, 2000) 251-52.
[43]
Marwick 68.
[44]
Marwick 71.
[45]
Shaw 22.
[46]
Bradbury 344.
[47]
For more detail please turn to Chapter 7.
[48]
Form more detail please turn to Chapter 8.
[49]
Bradbury 358.
[50]
Since 2002 the offical name of the prize is Man Booker Prize.
[51]
The loosening moral standards and censorship can be detected in the fact that Women in Love was one of
the first movies to show male genitals in the wrestling scene, while only nine years before Lawrence’s Lady
Chatterley’s Lover was the subject of an obscenity trial.
[52]
Marwick 82.
[53]
Bradbury 395-6.
[54]
Shaw 42.
[55]
Shaw 43.
[56]
Shaw 31.
[57]
John Hill, British Film in the 1980s (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1999) 49.
[58]
Marcwick 173.
[59]
Stringer 448.
[60]
Bradbury 426.
[61]
For more detail please see Chapter 9.
[13]
76
[62]
Bradbury 406.
Jörg Helbig, Geschichte des Britischen Films (Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler Verlag, 1999) 266.
[64]
Andrew Higson, ’Re-presenting the National Past: Nostalgia and Pastiche in the Heritage Film,’ Fires
Were Started: British Cinema and Thatcherism, ed. Lester Friedman (Minnepolis: University of Minneapolis,
1993) 109-29.
[65]
It is worth noting that as can be well detected from this short list, most of the quality movies of the time
were made by the Merchant Ivory Productions Company.
[66]
I for myself view heritage film in its narrower sense for the sole reason that I believe once we start to
include every kind of film that reflects some aspect of Britain's past, we will have to include almost every
single film made in the course of British film history. Thus I will turn to the early definition Higson first gave
and will analyze the films I have chosen according to those ‘original’ guidelines.
[67]
A Room With a View (James Ivory, 1987), Maurice (James Ivory, 1987), A Handful of Dust (Charles
Sturridge, 1991), Howards End (James Ivory, 1991), Where Angels Fear to Tread (Charles Sturridge, 1991),
Sense and Sensibility (Ang Lee, 1996), Golden Bowl (James Ivory, 2000), etc.
[68]
Chariots of Fire (Hugh Hudson, 1981), Another Country (marek Kanievska, 1984), The Remains of the
Day (James Ivory, 1993), Shadowlands (Richard Attenborough, 1993), etc.
[69]
Gandhi (Richard Attenborough, 1982), Heat and Dust (James Ivory, 1982), A Passage to India (David
Lean, 1984), The Deceivers (Nicholas Meyer, 1988), etc.
[70]
The Madness of King George (Nicholas Hytner, 1995), Mrs Brown (John Madden, 1997), Wilde (Brian
Gilbert, 1997), etc.
[71]
Orlando (Sally Potter, 1992), The Wings of the Dove (Ian Softley, 1997), Mrs Dalloway (Marleen Gorris,
1997), Elizabeth (Shekhar Kapur, 1998), etc.
[72]
Andrew Higson, English Heritage, English Cinema (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) 12.
[73]
Higson 81.
[74]
Hill 81.
[75]
Hill 76.
[76]
Eszter J.K. Torma, ’The Present and Future of Heritage Film,’ 6th International Conference of PhD
Students, 12-18 August, 2007 (Miskolc: University of Miskolc, 2007) 269-274.
[63]
77
78
CHAPTER 3
MAURICE
The executor of E.M. Forster allowed his most personal novel Maurice to be published in
1971, almost sixty years after the birth of the book. Many consider this work a flawed one,
yet Ismail Merchant and James Ivory, commonly known as Merchant Ivory Productions
(MIP), decided to turn the novel into a film in 1987. The resulting adaptation stays very
close to the original story which is typical of most MIP adaptations, just like their first
commercially successful E.M. Forster adaptation, Room With a View in 1985.
REASONS BEHIND MAKING THE FILM
After the success of A Room With a View James Ivory decided to re-read all E.M. Forster
novels to pick another one for adaptation. The reason for choosing Forster was partly
financial. Most of the heritage and thus MIP films are low-budget productions, shot on
location, lacking monumental crowded scenes, or special effects, yet they are all highly
enjoyable and interesting. Also, after achieving such a success, Ivory and Merchant could
be sure that a quality costume drama would sell very well, not only on the British market
but also internationally.
Furthermore, it is significant to note that Ivory, a gay filmmaker and the lifetime
partner of Merchant himself, found the project exceedingly relevant in the 1980s. People
were just discovering the possibilities of a free gay life when the AIDS epidemic broke out.
This has, of course, hindered them ever since to live a “carefree” homosexual life, not to
mention the fact that although homosexuality became legal in England in 1967, gay people
still find it hard to lead a full life in a conservative society. As Ivory observed in an
interview,[1] homosexual people still have to ask themselves the question: How am I going
to live my life in an honest way? Thus the subject matter of Maurice was still so vital and
critical in the 1980s that it could make the foundation of a heritage film. When MIP asked
for Maurice from Forster’s executor at King’s College “they were also hesitant, calling
Maurice a flawed work, and probably nervous at the prospect of what might be done with
such a story.”[2] Yet the way Ivory adapted it the executor could not pick at anything, since
the film remained very close to the original novel in every respect if not improved it.
Robert Emmet Long refers to this in his long interview with Ivory:
CHAPTER 3 – MAURICE
79
Long: It was said when Maurice was published posthumously that it was a thin
book, and perhaps even an embarrassment compared to Forster’s other works,
and a number of reviewers also said that your movie version of Maurice was
better than the book. What did you think about that?
Ivory: I’m no critic of novels. But if a great author like Forster writes a book
that isn’t, say, up to his masterpieces, it is still sure to be interesting in all sorts
of ways and perhaps lend itself very well to being filmed. Perhaps the film will
strengthen what was only passing good in a flawed novel; or what was not so
very good may not be taken up in the filmed version, or will end up being
camouflaged somehow.[3]
The topic Ivory brings up here takes us back to the adaptation debate mapped out in
Chapter 1. He does not let himself be driven by Long’s bias argument about the film being
better, but states that in adaptation the filmmakers have the possibility to adapt a given
novel to cinematic purposes. As we will see, there are things in Maurice which Ivory
altered or even invented. The most striking camouflaged part of the film is the motivation
of Clive’s transition from a homosexual to a “normal” man, which I mean to deal with in
greater detail later on in this chapter.
The success of the film depended also very much on the script which was written
this time not by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, as she was working on a novel at the time, but by
Kit Hesketh-Harvey. Since he was also a Cambridge student he had a very deep overview
of what Maurice’s life could have been there. With the help of Ivory, he created a script
that echoes the sufferings and the development of the hero as we find them in the novel.
Although the book is considered to be short, several details and scenes had to be omitted to
fit the length requirements of a feature film. Still, many criticize the picture as being
overlong despite the fact that there are numerous scenes that needed to be deleted at the
final cut. Nevertheless, these can be found on the special edition DVD version of the film,
and I will make use of them in my analysis. This way, the analysis below of Maurice
differs from other analyses in this dissertation, as it draws just as much on the deleted parts
of the film as on the final cut. This usage of the extras found on the DVD is a perfect
example of how paratextuality can help the analysis of a given adaptation.[4]
WHAT MAKES MAURICE A TYPICAL HERITAGE FILM?
In the paragraphs above I confidently stated that Maurice was a film of the heritage
tradition. It becomes thus necessary to analyze the typical characteristics that make this
MIP film a typical heritage film. As already mentioned in Chapter 2 these films, in the
narrower sense, are costume dramas made in the 1980s and 1990s, while their plot usually
80
takes place at the beginning of the 20th century. This is absolutely true of Maurice as it was
made in 1987 and is set in the late 1800s and early 1910s. This, of course, means that the
actors are wearing authentic period dresses, and the mise-en-scène is set according to the
fashions of the time as in most heritage films. The Academy Award nomination Maurice
received in 1987 also demonstrates that the filmmakers laid great emphasis on period
detail: the film was nominated for best costume design but, after all, James Acheson won
the Oscar with The Last Emperor that year.
In these films one can find a typical set of actors, such as James Wilby, Helena
Bonham-Carter, or Anthony Hopkins to name only a few. In the case of Maurice we see
that Ivory employed James Wilby as the main character, who later became one of the most
popular heritage actors. Clive Durham is played by Hugh Grant who was, just like Wilby, a
relatively unknown, young stage actor at the time and became famous partly through the
film Maurice. One ought to mention that Grant and Wilby received a tied award for Best
Actor at the Venice Film Festival which definitely helped them in acquiring a reputation.
After his discovery, Hugh Grant took on a role in MIP’s Remains of the Day (1993) and
later on in Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility (1995), both counting as significant members
of the heritage group. It is very typical of heritage film directors to encourage young actors
to play not only in theater but also in films, and thus provide them the opportunity of a
longer cinematic career. Another good example of this phenomenon is Helena BonhamCarter who was discovered by her depiction of Lucy in MIP’s A Room With a View, and
who also plays a cameo in Maurice: she is one of the guests at Clive’s cricket match.
Heritage films tend to not concentrate on the events so much as on the development
of characters, moods, and social criticism. As Andrew Higson writes “The extent to which
these costume dramas of the 1980s and 1990s function as character studies rather than
more action-oriented films can be seen in the number of films whose titles delineate
characters rather than actions or events.”[5] This is exactly the case with Maurice. Already
the title tells the viewer that the film is presumably going to tell the story of a person and
his development. One cannot expect too much action from such a title, although there are
other movies in film history that have names as their titles and are still action-based films,
e.g. Spartacus, Ben Hur, etc.
In Chapter 2 I have already stated that the majority of heritage films contain severe
or sometimes milder social criticism that may be hidden behind the spectacular setting.
Those who do not see behind the curtains usually say that these movies belong to the
category of light entertainment, although I strongly argue that they contain so much social
81
criticism that they also deserve the attention of scholars for deeper analysis. As we will see
in greater detail in this chapter, Maurice practices harsh criticism on the British society for
not accepting “human nature” – i.e. the fact that there are homosexual people – but also for
intervening into students’ lives, oppressing women, etc.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE NOVEL AND THE FILM
Although the novel came out posthumously in 1971, some consider it to be “The first
masterpiece of the early gay liberation movement”[6] and state that “Maurice occupies an
honored place in the gay literary heritage.”[7] Thus the novel, as well as the film, seems to
be more important from the point of view of the gay movement than from the literary or
the heritage tradition. By the time of the book’s publication other novels appeared with
homosexual subjects, such as Finistére from Fritz Peter (1951), James Baldwin’s
Giovanni’s Room (1956), or Gore Vidal’s The City and the Pillar (1948). Maurice was
thus denigrated by reviewers and critics, who read it rather as a sentimental apology for
homosexuality. But the novel is not an apology at all. Rather, “it is a convincing and
affecting account of an ordinary young man's groping toward wholeness in a society that
makes such growth very difficult.”[8] Yet, regardless of social obstacles Maurice is ready to
give up everything for his lover, and instead of living as a homosexual in the closet, he
frees himself from this burden.
The novel, although positive in its outcome, does not represent the life of the author
as it was. Forster dedicates his novel to a “Happier Year” instead, which means he is aware
of the fact that the ending he gave his story cannot be realized in his own time. He
circulates his novel among his friends alternately, rewrites it, and later on he is encouraged
to add an epilogue to the story. In this epilogue Kitty meets two woodcutters, who give her
news about Maurice and Alec, but Forster decided to cut this part out for several reasons.
One of these was that the novel played around 1912, thus a few years later would have
already been the time of the Great War which he did not mean to bring into the story. The
other reason, I believe, was that he wanted to finish his book with a touch of mystery.
Nobody really knows what happens to Maurice and Alec but it is certain that they have
decided to give up everything for each other. There is little more they could have done for
each other.
Since the novel was published only after his death, we can deduce that Forster did
not contribute much to the struggles of gay society. He did not dare to risk his own position
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in the world and he was only hoping that some time in the future the day would come when
homosexual men did not have to give up all their life and social being to enjoy a valuable
relationship. As Higson notes, Forster “argues for a liberal-humanist refashioning of
Englishness, rather than a simple assumption of an already formed national identity.”[9] In
this liberal-humanist England gay men would not be prosecuted and humiliated but could
live just like any other person within society. Of course, Forster could be even more
optimistic about the future of gay people because he was not aware of the dangers and
consequences of AIDS at that time. It is thus a good question what kind of a happy ending
Forster would have given his book should he have written in it or re-written it in the 1980s.
This question remains unanswered.
It is also worth noting that, although movies about gay men were relatively new to
the British market in the 1980s, there were significant pictures made in the period. One
only needs to think about the films of Derek Jarman or the success of My Beautiful
Laundrette by Stephen Frears, with its numerous award nominations in 1985.
Consequently Maurice in its subject matter was not considered a pioneer, so it had to show
an alternative to gay films made before. Higson notes that some see the movie “as
articulating at the level of film text the new agendas about gender and sexuality which
have been noted at plot and theme level,”[10] proving that Maurice was fit to join the new
agenda of the day. According to Ivory, the special flavor of the film lies not only in its
period setting and its subject but also that it was not apologetic about homosexuality. It
dared to have a happy ending. It was honest and optimistic about homosexuality and the
place of gay men in society. Thus the significance of the film lies not only in it being a
beautiful costume drama but in the fact that it tried to help and fill a hole in the British film
market.
If we take a closer look at the heritage film tradition, we can detect that although it
is considered to be a women’s genre, there is a strong branch of it that deals with
homosexuals. To this branch belong, for example, Another Country, Maurice, Edward II,
or Carrington. Maurice differs from these films in the sense that it has a happy ending.
This is a very important aspect of the movie, because at the time it was not characteristic of
heritage films about gay people to end happily. One only has to think about Another
Country (1984) where a young student hangs himself after one of his teachers finds out
about his homosexual desires, and instead of facing expelling and his parents disapproval,
he commits suicide. The main character, Guy Bennett does not get promoted at college
because of his homosexuality. He then, instead of turning into a happy homosexual man
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with a true partner, turns against his country and becomes a Russian spy. We can also
consider the movie Wilde made in 1997, more than ten years after Maurice, depicting the
obsession of the great author with his love, Bosie, and the consequences of their
relationship. This story is also alluded to in Maurice as Maurice uses the expression “the
Oscar Wilde sort” when referring to himself in the course of the film. And in Maurice we
see Lord Risley as an unhappy victim of Edwardian society. He is sentenced to several
months of hard labor just like Wilde had been.
However, by retaining the happy ending of the original novel, Ivory decided to
bring a positive message along with a deeper judgment to the spectators. His heritage film
might look beautiful, yet it contains very harsh criticism on those who do not dare to
sympathize with Maurice. Higson notes that “in Maurice, the nostalgic image of a perfect
national past is deliberately set up, only to be destroyed by uncovering its shortcomings,
especially its systematic exploitation and abuse of gay men.”[11] This injustice is best
illustrated by the example of Lord Risley, and also of the reverse example of Clive. As he
is not prepared to live as a homosexual, he is represented as ridiculous as opposed to
Risley for whom we feel compassion. Not only does Clive’s look change to very bourgeois
but he also acts in an absurd way in scene 40 where he talks about the joys of marriage. He
bursts in Maurice’s room and starts to congratulate him on having a girl “up his sleeves”
without even asking him if it was true. “(laughs) Oh, Maurice, I am glad. Well, it’s the
greatest thing on Earth, perhaps the only one. Anne guessed as much. Aren’t women
extraordinary? Ah, Maurice, that’s what I’ve always wished for you.” Everybody, even
Clive, is aware that it is not the only thing, and it is not what he always wished for him.
There were other times. Clive still denies his past thoughts in a way, and by kissing
Maurice’s hand he makes it obvious that he too knows it used to be different. If he really
were free of his feelings about homosexuality he would not forbid Maurice to mention it
ever again, even when they are tête-à-têtes.
Once we brought up the question of homosexuality, it is significant to note that in
most of the heritage films dealing with gay men or other controversial issues, we see that a
strong father figure is missing from the story. Maurice’s and Clive’s fathers are both dead,
we only see Wilde’s mother as she encourages her son in whatever he is doing, and in
Another Country, we witness the career of a “mama’s boy”. (This argument could lead us
into a deeper psychoanalytic discourse about the boys’ sexuality, which I mean to avoid
now.) Also, it is essential to mark that in the book Maurice we read several references to
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the main character’s father who was assumedly also gay. He still married but the fact that
he used to be homosexual seems to be suspected by his son. We read
…he [Maurice] could not see the vast curve of his life, still less the ghost of his
father sitting opposite. Mr. Hall senior had had supported society and moved
without a crisis from illicit to licit love. Now, looking across at his son, he is
touched with envy, the only pain that survives in the world of shades. For he
sees the flesh educating the spirit, as his has never been educated, and
developing the sluggish heart and the slack mind against their will.[12],[13]
This aspect of Maurice’s personal life is not mentioned in the film. We hear the only
reference to his father in scene 8 where, under the influence of Clive, Maurice refuses to go
to church. We witness his quarrel with his mother:
Mrs. Hall
Maurice
Mrs.Hall
Kitty
I just don’t understand. Your father always went to church.
I can’t help it mother. I’m made that way, it’s no use arguing… Besides, I’m
not my father.
What a thing to say!
But he isn’t, really.
And as we saw above, he differs from his father not only in church-going but in his chosen
course of sexuality.
By taking a closer look at the reactions to the movie, we can once more observe
that it is not the literary scholars or the most important reviewers who react to it the most
ethusiastically, but the homosexual public. In the interview on the special edition DVD
Wilby and Graves tell that they got countless letters from homosexual people thanking
them for the film. They talked about the pain and torment they had to go through by not
being able to express their true nature, living as homosexuals in the closet. Ivory also
confesses in the interview that in his opinion, the greatest significance of the film was that
it happened to be the first unapologetic homosexual movie of the time. Also, since the
AIDS crisis was getting worse and worse critics did not dare to attack the film too harshly
for its being about gay men, made by gay men. To those who were suffering under the
pressure of society or from the fear of being infected by the new epidemic, the film and its
optimistic ending meant an enormous encouragement.
CROSSING SEXUAL BOUNDARIES
The crossing of sexual boundaries also appears in other Forster novels. In Room With a
View we only witness the innocent kiss of George and Lucy, but in Howards End we see
the consequences of sexuality outside of marriage: Helen needs to travel in order to hide
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her pregnancy which she conceals even from her sister. Although illegitimate children
were despised and often humiliated at the time, homosexuals had to face even more severe
punishment. I believe there have been ample examples provided above about how
dangerous homosexuality was at the beginning of the last century. Thus I mean to quote
here only one more aspect of Maurice’s hardships from the novel. Gay men were not only
considered criminal, some even looked upon them as lunatics. This comes to the surface in
the book in a short dialogue between Maurice and Dr. Jowitt: “’I say, in your rounds here,
do you come across unspeakables of the Oscar Wilde sort?’ But Jowitt replied, ‘No, that’s
in the asylum work, thank God.’”[14] Due to the fact that the dangers of homosexuality are
represented solely by the Risley affair in the film, the character of Dr. Jowitt does not even
appear in the movie. Yet these little remarks Maurice has collected throughout the years
demonstrate what a daring decision it was for him to choose Alec.
Sexuality is also presented in the film as early as the first segment. We see Maurice
as a young boy on a school outing to the beach. Mr. Ducie wants to talk to him as a father
would with his son, and informs him in a most amusing, and for the boy, confusing way,
about the sacred mystery of sex. He even makes drawings into the sand, making Maurice
aware of something he is not mature enough to understand in this way. Thus the whole
film and indeed the novel start out with a strong emphasis on sexuality. This first scene is
also socially illuminating inasmuch as it reveals that such matters were not allowed to be
alluded to between men and women or even among people belonging to the same sex. Mr.
Ducie says emphatically: “You must never ever mention this to your mother, or … or
indeed to any lady, and if at your next school the fellows mention it, just shut them up. Tell
‘em you know.” No wonder Maurice is not able to cope with his own sexuality when he
cannot even mention such topics to anyone. As the consequence of the above attitude,
Anne also gets frightened when Clive first comes to her to make love. She has never heard
about these things before, which has a great affect on her marriage, as will be elaborated
later in this chapter.
Although I mean to discuss the humorous side of the film later on, let me add here a
short note. Ivory had a very difficult job to present a world in which sexuality is of major
importance, yet nobody is willing to talk about it. This comes out in the novel clearly,
since the reader is faced with the inner pensiveness of Maurice on almost every single
page, from childhood on. But by making Mr. Ducie so self-conscious about this matter the
viewer is forced to realize that even grown up men were not able to say such words as, for
example, penis. Mr. Ducie says instead: “That, that… that thing there… Now, that will
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develop and grow larger” referring to his drawing of a penis in the sand. Through this
scene the viewer can thus understand how painful it might have been for people to talk
about their biological nature at the time.
Another delicate issue one was to avoid in Edwardian England and also in period
films is nudity. Yet, it is already present in MIP’s Room With a View, and one can find it
in such costume dramas as The Wings of the Dove, or Gothic. Nudity is thus not so far
from heritage film at all. These movies try to show the strictness and shortcomings of
British society and make use of the nude scenes to support their point. With the help of
nudity they reveal two things: on the one hand, the narrow-minded British society of the
late 19th and early 20th century is not willing to take part in such fun as, for example,
running around a lake naked with friends while simply enjoying the playfulness of the
situation[15]; and on the other hand, the hypocrisy of social judgment, as there were people
who took pleasure in such activities but they were required to deny it. In Ivory’s film, there
are only two scenes in which we see naked men. In scene 30 Maurice is sitting on the
bench after boxing and observes the young men who are fooling around dousing cold water
on each other. On first seeing them he seems to share their pleasure in the game but then
his face is overshadowed by the knowledge that he lost Clive and his love forever. He has
no one he could play around with like that. Additionally, in scene 54 Maurice and Alec lie
naked in the hotel room; later on Alec stands up to get dressed. The way Rupert Graves
moves around in the room naked reflects his lack of shyness, his intimacy with Maurice. I
would like to note here that both the boys he teaches boxing to and Alec belong to the
working class. This might suggest that it is only the lower classes that are able not to deny
but to take pleasure in their body without any feeling of shame.
Although nudity cannot be seen in the film in other segments, there is a deleted
scene in which Maurice is shown naked on the evening of Clive’s departure, before his
affair with Alec. After being hurt by Clive’s malicious talk, Maurice decides to go to bed.
As he is getting undressed he sees himself in the mirror and as Forster writes, he thinks “’A
mercy I’m fit.’ He saw a well trained serviceable body and a face that contradicted it no
longer. Virility had harmonized them and shaded either with dark hair.”[16] In the deleted
scene we see Wilby as his face turns astounded on looking at his own body. He comes
nearer to the mirror and it is obvious that he finds delight in his own image. The whole
scene builds up to a very good example of how one can film the inner thoughts of a
character about whom the reader finds all sorts of information in the novel but the
spectator can only see. As will be elaborated later, his delight in his own body is an
87
obvious sign of Maurice being more a physical being than a spiritual one, as opposed to
Clive whom we do not see naked in the film. He keeps a safe distance from his own and
also Maurice’s body and never treats them as objects of adoration.
Once we have taken a closer look at the sexual boundaries between men, we must
also mention that there were boundaries between men and women, as well. In this respect
one of the most revealing parts of the book is when we learn about the sexual life of Anne
and Clive. We read that
Despite her [Anne’s] elaborate education, no one had told her about sex. Clive
was as considerate as possible, but he scared her terribly, and left feeling she
hated him. She did not. She welcomed him on future nights. But it was always
without a word. They united in a world that bore no reference to the daily.[17]
We thus learn that intimacy was unknown to them in a way we know it today. There was
no relaxing together afterwards, talking about old dreams, future plans, or simply enjoying
each other’s presence. They made what nature “forced” them to do and that was all. They
did not take time to explore the depths of sexuality, and as we ascertain, they never even
saw each other naked. No wonder Clive found sex “unimaginative.” For him it was the
most private of things, and he thought “Between men it is inexcusable, between man and
woman it may be practiced since nature and society approve, but never discussed nor
vaunted.”[18] The reasons behind his discretion may be his own former homosexual feelings
he did not want to remember, or even his shyness about his immaturity in this particular
field. At the same time, since Anne was never educated about sex, she had no ground to
compare him with any other men. Thus his shyness becomes unnecessary.
This delicate subject cannot be “talked about” in the film for the whole idea behind
their relatively frigid sexual life is that Clive and Anne do not converse about it, never
even allude to it. Thus the director had to find a way to show the viewers that these people
are not all that comfortable around each other in bed. Ivory made a perfect decision when
he inserted scene 41. Here we see Clive as he comes to their bedroom after kissing
Maurice’s hand, asking him not to mention their past again. Afterwards Clive starts
undressing in their bedroom, thinking Anne is already asleep, but she wakes up and calls
his name. Since he does not answer she looks towards him and sees him naked from below.
She turns away shocked, closes her eyes tight but then peeks again. This little scene reveals
much about their intimacy. Here is a wife who dares only to peek after her husband when
he is naked and even then, we can see the shock of indecency on her face.
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Heritage films consequently tend to reveal the limitations of Victorian and
Edwardian society. To these limitations belong the incapability of accepting “otherness,”
and also the exaggerated coyness that ruled not only among different members of the
society but also between husband and wife. At the same time, when criticizing the British
society of the past, we must also glance at the then existing class boundaries.
CROSSING CLASS BOUNDARIES
In Forster’s novels the idea of crossing class boundaries always gains a central position in
the plot. He believed in a more even, class-free society, and as one website notes, “Perhaps
because of his erotic preference for working-class men, Forster was also deeply affected by
the belief that homosexuality could serve a positive social function by helping to bridge the
barriers that separate the classes.”[19] This is the reason why the love affair and deep
companionship between Alec and Maurice came to represent the happy ending. Their
relationship has always been the starting point of much criticism mainly questioning the
duration of such a bond. But let me take a look at the deep friendship between Clive and
Maurice first, for it also contains some issues about cross-class relationships.
The bond between Maurice and Clive already raises the question of class and its
boundaries. We learn that Maurice is an upper-middle class boy with no distinctive
features, who imagines his career as a stock-broker, which trade he learned from his father.
As opposed to him, Clive belongs to the gentry and comes from a family of lawyers and
squires. It is revealed later that the Durham family is not an old family after all, at the same
time, they have held land already for four generations, and it is the only gentry family in
the parish. Clive is therefore a very respectable man in the eyes of those around him. It is
thus important to see that Maurice’s bourgeois family is very much lower than the
Durhams so the idea of cross-cultural relationship is present already in the first part of the
book. I found this important to emphasize because most of the critics of the book seem to
discuss whether a working-class boy had a chance to have a long-term relationship with
some one from the bourgeoisie, forgetting that Maurice and Clive would also have had
class-bound difficulties even if not so striking. As Forster describes them through the eyes
of Mr. Cornwallis, they were men of different characters and tastes yet intimate, and
nobody could be certain how long such a friendship was going to last.
The conflict of the different classes is well illustrated at Maurice’s arrival to Penge
or Pendersleigh, as it is called in the film. Clive’s mother accepts him a little suspiciously
89
and when it is time to show Mr. Hall to his room she passes him on the Miss Durham,
Clive’s sister, who passes him on to the butler. This rude behavior expresses that they do
not consider Maurice an important gentleman who would deserve any sort of special
attention. Although the above described situation is not as contrasted in the film as in the
novel, Mrs. Durham’s repulsion of the lower classes is duly illustrated in scene 14. Here
we witness Clive introducing Maurice to his mother for the first time. The exquisite acting
of Judy Parfitt brings out the tenseness of the situation, as she looks at Maurice with
obvious contempt and suspicion. She communicates to him that it is a great honor that the
Durham family takes him in and allows him to stay in their cottage. In this situation she
obviously prefers the company of her lady friend who arrived by the same carriage as
Maurice. Later on, in scene 15, Mrs. Durham is much friendlier to Maurice than before,
probably because she also wants to get some information out of Maurice about Clive. All
in all, the Durham family came to be good friends with the Hall family later, and the
friendship of the two mothers proved to be more lasting than that of the boys.
After losing Clive the idea of settling for a lower-class boy or man seems horrible
to Maurice at first. He realizes this after the episode with Dickie and his attention toward a
young man in the settlements. On thinking about it he finds that “The feeling that can
impel a gentleman towards a person of lower class stands self-condemned.”[20] But later
on, as Maurice’s personality develops on its own, he changes his mind without even
noticing it. He realizes that the friendship he has always been longing for is more important
than the class or the society he is living in. The upper-middle class Maurice falls in love
with the working-class Alec. According to most critics of the film the most annoying idea
in the movie is that Maurice and Alec believe in a relationship that stands solely on
physical grounds. They do not really have anything to say to each other except what they
can share about their sexual/homosexual feelings. This statement is only partly true. On
awaking in the hotel Alec opens up to Maurice and tells him about the humiliation he
suffered at Pendersleigh not only from Clive’s mother but also from Maurice himself. It is
indeed true that we hardly find any sort of philosophizing passing between the two other
than this. But as Maurice is a physical being, someone who is rather slow mentally, he
needs nothing and nobody else than a friend who is ready to give his life for him. This is
exactly what he finds in Alec. I believe a more interesting question would be what Alec
finds in Maurice and why he picks him but that must remain part of future analysis.
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SOCIAL CRITICISM
As Maurice is mostly about the self-discovery of its title character, it is important to see
that the novel also explores the impact of self-awareness on social attitudes. In the novel
we meet Maurice when he has already been assimilated into the English school system and
is required to understand the sexual drawings and the mystery behind them cool-headedly.
By then he already knows that if he wants to survive away from his family, he needs to be
acrid. At the same time “He did not enjoy being cruel and rude. It was against his nature.
But it was necessary at school.”[21] The same refers later to his family. We read several
hints about his sisters’ feelings towards him. They clearly dislike him for being a tyrant
and treating them in a formidable way. But as he needed to be rude at school to protect
himself, it is imperative for him to be cruel to his family in order to veil his own inclination
society objects to. If he shows vulnerability or any kind of intimacy, he must then be
honest about his troubles and sexuality. He cannot afford that lest he wants to lose his
position in his family and in society. At this point, i.e. before meeting Alec, he is not ready
to take this step. The rude aspect of Maurice comes out mostly through his relationship to
his sisters in the film, which will be dealt with later in this chapter.
To be heartless and hard at school refers also to university. The harshness of the
scholarly atmosphere does not allow any kind of weakness and goes against anything that
does not fit the rules, especially homosexuality. This is best illustrated through Clive’s
reaction to Maurice’s apology. Once faced with the fact that his lover is not ready to
receive his affection, Clive falls into a great depression. He can hardly sleep and comes
close to a nervous breakdown as it happened to him when he was sixteen, and will happen
to him later on. But at this point Maurice comes to his room to tell him that he thought
twice about his feelings toward him. Clive then tries to silence him in order to prevent him
from saying something that has very serious consequences. We read “I’m thankful it’s into
your hands I fell. Most men would have reported me to the dean or the police.”[22] This
single sentence reflects what fear gay men had to live in at that time. Society would not
accept their “nature,” as we hear from the lips of Lasker-Jones: “England has always been
disinclined to accept human nature.”[23] In the film, this social criticism is represented not
only through the words of Clive and the hypnotist, which are faithfully adapted to the
dialogue, but mostly through the example of Lord Risley. When he tries to kiss a soldier
out on the street he is reported to the police right away. As a consequence, he is sentenced
to six months imprisonment with hard labor.
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Another interesting conflict that brings much to Forster’s social criticism is when
Maurice is sent down for skipping Mr. Cornwallis’ class along with Clive. What first
struck me was that Clive did not get punished at all just because he was the best classical
scholar of the year. Maurice, on the other hand, found himself in the role of the scapegoat.
This, of course, was not only because of his disrespect he showed towards the Dean but
because the dons “felt it right to spoil a love affair when they could.”[24] Not apologizing to
the Dean was very stupid of Maurice but he was right in thinking that if a woman had been
in the car, Dr. Barry probably would not have given him such a scolding as he did. Thus
we see that the dons of Cambridge took the liberty to intrude into the students’ affairs and
private life. They also did that with a certain amount of prejudice or injustice. This aspect
of social criticism is not represented in the film as deeply as in the book. Nonetheless,
Clive is not punished here either, and we still hear Maurice complain to Clive when
climbing on the train in scene 12 “If there were a girl in that sidecar, Cornwallis would
never have kicked up a stick… Everyone cuts lectures. I’ve done nothing wrong.”
As already mentioned, Forster was not keen on keeping up the old, well founded
national pride, thus in his novels he reveals the dark side of British society and what it is
partly based on, i.e. the honor of the English gentleman. He does this in a most sensitive
way, by only cynically referring to the awkward nature of English society. One such
example in the book is when Maurice faces himself in a glass after the incident with
Dickie.
While paying three guineas he caught sight of himself in the glass behind the
counter. What a solid young citizen he looked – quiet, honourable, prosperous
without vulgarity. On such does England rely. Was it conceivable that on
Sunday last he had nearly assaulted a boy?[25]
Society was proud of its strong young gentlemen, and to keep up its comfortable view it
was willing to ignore such facts that there were people even among the most respectable
who were homosexuals. If we consider that the fathers went to the same schools and had
very similar experiences as their sons, this attitude becomes even more preposterous. This
is very clearly expressed in the film Another Country where we learn that the fathers knew
and still they pretended as if nothing had happened in their school years.
Since sooner or later most members of his society start to think about
homosexuality as being something “sick,” Maurice tries to find a way out of it. He is
lonelier than ever and sees his own deplorable future in the abominable man who makes
advances to him on the train. He detests this person and simply wants to be cured to finally
92
end his sufferings and fears. His desire to become normal, or at least to see some hope of
redemption from his loneliness, leads him to Dr. Barry. When he confesses that he is of the
Oscar Wilde sort, the only answer the doctor can give is that it is “rubbish”. But the key
sentence in this dialogue, I believe, is to be found in Maurice’s answer: “It’s not rubbish to
me, but my life.”[26] This sentence leads to the severe criticism Forster hid in the scene, i.e.
society does not have means to help the individual in his most important personal conflicts.
Society is ready to give such ideological answers as homosexuality is only an evil
hallucination, a temptation from the devil, while it fails to try and understand the individual
in his own sorrows. The person who does not confirm entirely to the norms of the crowd is
eventually lost and left alone. Maurice is doomed to loneliness if not for Alec.
REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN THE FILM
As Forster puts it “The idea of women was as remote to them [Maurice and Clive] as
horses and cats.”[27] This is partly the reason why women are represented only as minor
characters in the novel as well as in the film. This is, of course, understandable in the case
of a film about gay men, but the fact that most of the women are shown as shallow and
sometimes arrogant is not so. Especially if we consider that E.M. Forster had the privilege
of knowing such women as Virginia Woolf, Vita Sackville-West, or Vanessa Stephen, not
to mention how much Forster respected and loved his mother, Lily. However, the lack of
depth in women only supports the assumption that Forster used his works to criticize the
social order and atmosphere he lived in. In such a suppressed state women had little
perspective.
The most important female characters in the story are Mrs. Hall, Ada and Kitty,
Mrs. Durham and Pippa, and Miss Gladice Olcott. Mrs. Hall, Maurice’s mother is
powerless against the changes occurring in his son. This becomes obvious in the scene
quoted above when they argue about Maurice not willing to go to church. Even her own
daughters laugh at her anger and attitude. Another example of her lacking any device to
influence her son is that she does not have the courage to scold Maurice after he is sent
down from Cambridge. She asks Dr. Barry instead, as she is too weak to take the
responsibility for her son. After the conversation with Dr. Barry “his mother met him,
looking ashamed herself; she felt, as he did, that she ought to have done her own
scolding.”[28] As these are emotions provided to the reader by the author or narrator, the
makers of the film had to use some sort of different expression to show Mrs. Hall’s feeble-
93
mindedness. Thus in the movie the scolding takes place not at the Barry’s but at the Halls’.
We see Mrs. Hall with Kitty standing outside the door, eavesdropping, which position
makes her character seem even more ridiculous when Maurice discovers them. On top of
this, after trying to calm her mother, Kitty starts to pass remarks on Maurice’s behavior,
which reveals that the kind of a relationship brother and sister might have is far from being
ideal.
Kitty
Maurice
Kitty
Maurice
Kitty
Mama, do stop crying. It’ll only make him think he’s important. He’ll write to
the dean as soon as nobody wants him to.
Kitty, I won’t.
I don’t see why you shouldn’t.
Little girls don’t see a great deal.
I see a great deal more than some little boys who think they’re little men.
The above scene brings us to Maurice’s sisters and his relationship to them. At the
beginning of the novel Kitty and Ada are represented as being more or less simple-minded
and even more so in the film. Ada is left at home when the two families, the Halls and the
Durhams, meet first because she is declared to be too silly for such a visit. At the same
time, Ada becomes more and more mature in the end. We get to know that she likes Clive
who eventually also starts to pay attention to her on his return from Greece. It is even more
heartbreaking to read how Maurice accuses her of forcing herself on Clive and spoiling
their friendship. Still, through these experiences she becomes wiser, she keeps a distance
from Maurice in the future, and finally marries Maurice’s old friend, Chapman.
Kitty is represented as the shallowest young lady in the novel. This is also
emphasized by the fact that Clive “had always cared for Kitty the least,”[29] whereas he
goes as far as to court Ada. One of the funniest scenes in the book, and also in the film, is
when Ada and Kitty bind Clive with bandages, for this is what they have been learning on
the advice of Dr. Barry. This is actually all the knowledge and education they officially
receive, which may, on the other hand seem a harsh criticism on society for allowing
women so little. We have to note, that in the film Kitty is cheekier than Ada as was proved
above by her remarks to Maurice after the scolding. There is also a scene in which Kitty
received the lines Ada said to Maurice in the book. Here she argues that “Nurses are not
nice. No nice girl would be a nurse. If they are, you may be sure they do not come from
nice homes, or they would stop at home.”[30] Although this scene did not get to be part of
the film, the fact that in the screenplay these lines are given to Kitty shows that she was to
be presented livelier if simpler than Ada, who only sits stunned on the sofa. Since there
was nobody else on whom he could take out his disappointment and despair Maurice turns
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against the most vulnerable in his environment. And here we learn that “At the bottom of
their hearts they [his sisters] disliked him entirely.”[31] This contempt can only be shown by
the actresses’ gestures in the film, which come out perfectly. At the same time, the fact that
these remarks got deleted, despite the fact that they reveal much about the siblings’
relationship, brings us back to the conflict of adaptation. What are the most important
factors of the story, what is vital from the point of view of the hero’s development? Indeed,
the filmmakers wanted to concentrate mostly on the homosexual aspect of the story and not
on Maurice’s cruelness in his family. As a consequence other characteristics are sacrificed
due to length restriction.
A good example of the British ladies’ arrogance is Mrs. Durham. As already
mentioned above she does not hide her attitude toward people whom she considers to be
inferior to her in the social strata, even if this particular person is the best friend of her only
son. Another scene that illustrates her arrogance is when she asks Alec to send her letter to
Mrs. Hall in scene 18. The effect of this little incident is emphasized when Alec tells
Maurice about it in the hotel room after they make love. Here he says,
Scudder do this, Scudder do that!’ The old lady, she says ‘Would you most
kindly of your goodness post this for me? … What’s your name?’ What’s your
name! Every day for eighteen months I went up to that front porch for orders,
and the old bitch don’t even know my name. I said to her ‘What’s yer name?
Fuck yer name!’ (laughs) I nearly did, too. I wish I had.
This short monologue reveals not only how Scudder was treated by the arrogant Durham
family, but also the fact that he came as close to Maurice as to show him his own
vulnerability. This is their first step towards real intimacy.
There is one more significant female character in the novel we need to mention and
that is Miss Gladice Olcott. In his attempt to develop a heterosexual relationship, Maurice
starts to play compliments to Miss Olcott who eventually gets annoyed with him and his
advances. There is again a deleted scene in the film in which it is Gladice who wants to
kiss Maurice and not vice versa. Here she tries to lean to him and kiss him but on seeing
that he is not responding, she becomes enormously embarrassed and leaves the room. This
scene was again omitted from the final version of the film for length restrictions. It is still a
typical example of the compromises the filmmakers have to make when they want to be
true to the meaning of the original novel. Here, by letting Gladice take the initiative and
Maurice not responding, it became for her absolutely necessary to leave according to the
standards of the time. If the scriptwriter had kept the original story, namely that Maurice
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touched her hand and Gladice got horrified, for “It was a corpse’s,”[32] her feelings would
have been hard to transfer to the screen. Nobody would understand why she gets so upset
just because he touches her hand. But by making Miss Olcott take the initiative ample
motivation is provided for her to leave the room without further explanation. Unfortunately
her character appears only in segment 18 where we see her first having breakfast at the
Halls and then as Clive’s and Maurice’s guest at a restaurant.
Although I have now elaborated on the different women characters of the film, it is
important to emphasize again, that the story is mostly driven by Maurice’s development
and love life. Women play only minor parts in the story. This was also noticed by Robert
Emmet Long but from a different point of view. In his book James Ivory in Conversation
he asks the director:
Long: Maurice is a film concerned largely with men, women being more in the
background or off to the side. I liked Helena Michell as Maurice’ sister Ada,
and Billie Whitelaw as his mother, but they have very small parts. I was
puzzled that Billie Whitelaw, who is after all a celebrated actress, would have
taken such a small role. Did you perhaps have to cut some scenes in which she
appeared?
Ivory: I think one or two were dropped from the flashback section of the film
we later cut out. But she’s a strong presence in the film. You talk about
celebrated actresses taking small roles – or hesitating over taking them. But my
experience has always been that actors, or actresses, want to work, to be seen,
once they are no longer young.[33]
It is, at the same time, important to note that without outstanding actresses the reduced role
of women could not have reflected the relationship and tension between Maurice and the
women around him. Thus it was imperative to apply talented actresses even for such short
roles.
HUMOR
It is always emphasized in the case of Room With a View how much humor and charm
Forster and MIP embedded in the story. Although a lot more serious in its subject, the film
Maurice does not lack humor either. Already at the beginning we become a victim of a
great farce in the film, namely that Mr. Ducie is played by Simon Callow. Those who
follow the course of British film and actors are probably aware that Callow is one of the
most famous gay actors in the country. Thus the fact that he talks about sexuality as the
sacred mystery between man and his wife in a movie about gay men becomes, in a way,
absurd. Also, the way he later runs back to try and scratch out the drawings he made in the
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sand seems more than funny. In the book this scene turns rather serious when we read
Maurice saying to himself “Liar, coward, he’s told me nothing…”[34] Thus the whole
experience turns into something bitter instead of enlightening.
In the same scene Mr. Ducie invites Maurice and his future wife to tea not
assuming that he indeed will meet him about ten years later. When Maurice goes to the
British Museum with Alec Mr. Ducie recognizes him but Maurice denies his name and
says he is called Scudder. The paradox in the situation is that Maurice and Mr. Ducie do
indeed meet each other with their partners on their side, but in the teacher’s case it is a
woman, in Maurice’s case it is a man. Thus the whole event becomes grotesque.
One little detail in scene 5 shows how creative directing can bring character and
also humor to an earnest situation. When we, as viewers enter the translation class of Mr.
Cornwallis, we first see the feet of the students sitting next to each other on the sofa. The
camera then ascends from below revealing the moving feet of the students except
Maurice’s. He is so touched by the topic of the translation, namely the love and affection
between Greek men, that he only stares into the void and seems to be lost in his own
feelings.
We find another such example in scene18 where Mrs. Durham hands the letter to
Alec. He takes the letter, looks at it and then takes a cookie from the little table beside him.
This single motion stresses Alec’s attitude towards a woman and a household where the
lords do not even remember his name. He does not behave inferior to them which will
come out later on in his relationship with Maurice. He knows what he is worth and he
helps himself to a cookie after being offended by the lady of the house. These examples
reveal how adaptation can add a little lightness to the story without changing essential
elements of the original novel.
PHYSICAL VS. INTELLECTUAL
If we take a look at the adjectives by which Maurice is described, we must realize that he is
by no means a man of thoughts. In school he is mediocre, average. In his conversations
with others, especially with Clive, he is found slow. He is also lazy but that is mostly
mentally. He goes through his daily routine with diligence, however, he does not take the
trouble, or does not have the ability to think, to contemplate about the happenings around
and in him. This spiritual characteristic becomes even more significant in the light of his
later decision of “going physical” with Alec. Unlike Clive, Maurice is not the type of man
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who is satisfied by mere thoughts; he is more “flesh and blood” than spirit and thought. It
is curious to see that through the development of his thinking he becomes more and more
aware of his fleshiness instead of becoming more spiritual or intellectual. The mental
change we witness in the novel is reflected in the film very much by his gestures and
movements. If we take, for instance, scene 3 we find that while playing music Maurice’s
movement is cragged and rough which leads him to play the instrument in a nearly
ridiculous way. It is Clive who then comes to show him how one can play the pianola in a
way that is enjoyable. The fragile Hugh Grant gives a great contrast to the hulky Wilby in
this scene. It then becomes more intriguing how Maurice’s gestures change as his character
develops in the film. His conversion to a physical yet sound personality is best described in
the last scene of the film where he comes to visit Clive for the last time in his life. The way
he walks, talks, or smokes his cigarette reveals that he became looser in his gestures, but
assured in his manner. As his spirit was educated by Clive’s spirit, he now discovered how
Alec’s and his own flesh can complete his education. He changed from “conventionality to
heroism,” as Wilby noted in an interview, and this refinement is reflected in his attitude
toward Clive. Note the following conversation:
Clive
Maurice
Clive
Maurice
Clive
Maurice
Clive
Maurice
Clive
Maurice
Clive
Maurice
Clive
Maurice
Clive
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Very well, I’m at your service. My advice to you is to sleep here tonight and
ask Anne in the morning. Where a woman is in question it’s always better to
ask another woman. Particularly if she has Anne’s almost uncanny insight.
I’m not here to see Anne, or you Clive, I’ve an announcement for you. … I’m
in love with Alec Scudder.
What a grotesque announcement.
Most grotesque, but I thought I ought to tell you.
Maurice… Maurice we did everything we could when you and I trashed out
the subject.
When you brought yourself to kiss my hand.
Don’t allude to that. … Oh, dear. … I’m more sorry for you than I can
possibly say. And I do, do beg you to resist the return of this obsession.
I don’t need advice. I’m flesh and blood Clive if you’ll condescend to such
low things. … I shared with Alec.
You mean… you shared what?
Everything. Alec slept with me in the Russet Room when you and Anne were
away. … Also in town.
The sole excuse for any relationship between two men is that it remain purely
platonic. Surely we agreed to that.
I don’t know. I’ve come to tell you what I did.
Well, Alec Scudder is in point of fact no longer in my service. In fact, he is no
longer in England. He sailed for Buenos Aires this very day.
He didn’t. He sacrificed his career for my sake. Without a guarantee. I don’t
know whether that’s platonic enough or not, but that’s what he did.
Scudder missed his boat? Maurice, you’re going mad. May I ask if you intend
to pursue…
Maurice
No, no you may not ask. I tell you everything up to this minute, not a word
beyond.
This is where his independent and honest life begins, but this life is forced to disappear
into the darkness of the woods.
Clive, on the other hand, is all intellectual. He is the true personification of elitist
homosexuality that finds no excuse for physical relationship between men. As Forster
describes him, he knew about his inclination already in his early childhood and was ready
to accept it.[35] He even looked after it and tried to digest the whole conflict by consulting
different books he got hold of. Thus he started with the Bible which was, obviously,
condemning this sort of relationship, although Clive tried to cling unto the friendship of
David and Jonathan. As it is described in the Bible “the soul of Jonathan was knit with the
soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.”[36] This bond was stronger and
sweeter than the love of women, still it was not a homosexual relationship. Clive read
Plato’s Symposium and Pheado later and understood that there are and always have been
people who lived this way, and that he is one of them. This is all the more important if we
consider that English and indeed Western civilization is based not only on the Bible but
also on the teachings of the Athenian society. By ignoring the more delicate issues of
Hellenic philosophy, England ignored a part of its own foundation. However, Clive accepts
his inclination but he still cannot break away from his bookish Hellenism to turn his
affections into a physical as well as spiritual relationship with Maurice.
Forster also describes Clive as being clever, tranquil, an orderly brain, able to shake
out falsities (as opposed to Maurice who is nothing but falsities at the beginning). Forster
thus emphasizes his mental qualities, while stressing that he is physically weaker than
Maurice and loves to be thrown around by strong men. He is then physically inferior yet
mentally superior to Maurice. Following from the above, we can state that Maurice never
finds the way to free himself from his mentally inferior situation to Clive. He even states at
one point – as Clive tries to convince him to give up the idea of the Trinity and the
Redemption – that “I always knew I was stupid, it’s no news. The Risley set are more your
sort, and you had better talk to them.”[37] This inferiority and the distribution of physical
and mental strength are perfectly expressed by scene 5 in Ivory’s film. We find ourselves
after the Greek translation class of Mr. Cornwallis, who ordered his young students to
“Omit a reference to the unspeakable vice of the Greeks.” Durham and Risley are utterly
outraged about the hypocrisy Cornwallis practiced at the class. They sit at the front end of
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the boat, philosophizing, lying in the sun, and Maurice is there listening to them while
tossing the boat on. While Risley and Clive are leading a spiritual conversation, Maurice is
partly concentrating on the more materialistic reality of the situation and does the physical
work. Again, this episode emphasizes his physical and the others’ intellectual superiority.
It is, at the same time, important to add that Clive also tries to find and develop
intimacy in his relationship with Maurice. As it is revealed by the special edition DVD of
the film, Ivory did shoot the part of the novel which shows that the night before leaving for
Greece Clive climbs into Maurice’s bed to seek warmth, sympathy, and love. On finding
himself disappointed, he goes back to his own bed. This scene, according to Ivory, would
not have fitted the picture that the audience might have had about Clive being only platonic
in his homosexuality and would thus have only confused them. Nevertheless, this scene
points to two significant ideas. One is that Clive is not ready to be involved in a physical
relationship and the other is that he has by this time turned straight. Since the motivation
behind Clive’s transition is laid mainly on the Risley scandal, Ivory decided to delete this
scene, in order not to confuse his audience.
MAJOR CARDINAL FUNCTIONS
After taking a look at the major themes of the book and the film, I would now like to turn
to a more detailed analysis of the adaptation. This starts with the listing of the major
cardinal functions which are the following in E.M. Forster’s Maurice:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
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School outing where Mr. Ducie tells Maurice about the sacred mystery of sex
Maurice at Surrington school dreaming about a friend
Maurice’s first year at Cambridge; at a dinner at Dr. Cornwallis he gets to
know
Lord Risley
Maurice takes the initiative and goes to Risley’s room to look for him and
meets Clive instead
Their developing friendship
Holiday and rows at home about Christianity and communion
Back in Cambridge Clive tells Maurice he loves him which he refuses at first
After three weeks of agony Maurice tries to express his love toward Clive and
later on climbs into his room through the window to kiss him
Maurice and Clive go to have a picnic and disregard the dean;
Maurice gets suspension
Maurice’s first visit to Penge and his wonderful time with Clive there
Traveling together
Their families get to know each other
Clive breaks down after his bar exams
Clive goes to Greece alone
Clive returns from Greece and tells Maurice he has changed thus they need to
√
*
√
*
end their relationship
Maurice goes into a lonely routine of work
Maurice’s grandfather’s cosmogony and his death
Clive gets engaged
Maurice’s advances toward Dickie
Incident with elderly man on the train
Maurice visits doctor Barry
Maurice’s visit to Penge where he gets to know Scudder, the under-gamekeeper
Maurice’s visit to Lasker Jones
Maurice goes back to Penge where he sleeps with Scudder
After the cricket match Maurice fears breakdown and goes back to London
Scudder sends him a telegram
Maurice’s second, unfruitful visit to Lasker Jones
Maurice and Scudder in the British Museum
Maurice and Scudder sleep together in a hotel room
Maurice goes to see Alec off to Argentina but he misses his ship for Maurice’s
sake
32 Maurice finds Scudder in the boathouse in Penge
33 Maurice’s goodbye to Clive
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
*
√
√
As mentioned before, Maurice is more like a self-exploration than an actionmotivated story. That is why the list of cardinal functions is relatively short. At the same
time, by removing any item of the list, the motivations would be lost and so the story
would become confusing. Let us now see how MIP solved the transfer of these functions.
Out of the above listed cardinal functions there are only four functions that were not
adapted to film, namely cardinal function 2, 12, 18, and 20. Maurice’s time in school does
not seem to be all that interesting from the point of view of the film. In the novel we
simply learn that he was a mediocre student without any outstanding achievement. Forster
also alludes to his subconscious homosexuality, but this aspect of his character does not
surface and so it does not seem important from the film’s point of view. James Wilby’s
sensitive acting makes it clear enough that there is more between Maurice and Clive than
developing friendship which presumes a potential homosexual relationship. There is, at the
same time, reference to Maurice’s dream about a friend who would die for him, who would
be willing to sacrifice everything for his sake in this section of the book. In the film
Maurice’s desire for a friend is mentioned only shortly when, after making love to Alec, he
lies with him in bed in Pendersleigh, and he asks him “Alec, did you ever dream you had a
friend, someone to last your life?” On hearing this we assume that Maurice has been
dreaming (in the physical and also the symbolic way) about such a friend. The presence of
Alec and Maurice’s mentioning of the dream also suggest that he believes to have found
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such a friend in Alex. Also, the sudden cut to Simcox bringing up breakfast leaves the
question unanswered thus emphasizes the significance of it.
As cardinal function 12 suggests, Maurice and Clive spent much time together even
after Cambridge. In the following two years they were accepted in society as any other
man; they traveled to Italy together and “had as much happiness as men under that star can
expect.”[38] This traveling and happiness is mediated in the film by the dinner party scene in
Pendersleigh Park, when Maurice visits Clive for the first time. Here Maurice is seated
beside Mrs. Durham who catechizes him about the plans of her own son, and asks him to
convince Clive to travel to America or the colonies instead of Greece. Maurice replies that
Clive speaks of traveling and wants Maurice to go with him. Clive’s mother is happy to
hear that Maurice would prefer America himself. Nonetheless, the situation reveals that the
two friends have not traveled yet, although they intend to go abroad together in the future.
For the sake of the adaptation, Clive and Maurice’s developing friendship, along with their
traveling, had to be reduced to this conversation and to their loving, longing looks in the
movie.
Also, in the film we only learn about the fact that the two families got to know each
other, as also indicated in cardinal function 13, by a voice-over of Mrs. Durham as she is
writing a letter to Mrs. Hall. From the tone of the letter we may assume that they became
very much intimate throughout the past years.[39] This relationship will be of significance
later, as it is through the letter of Mrs. Durham to Mrs. Hall that Maurice first hears about
Clive’s engagement.
Maurice’s grandfather is entirely cut out of the film although his story takes up the
whole of Chapter 27, however short it may be. Of course, his idea about God living in the
sun and the souls of the blessed around him might have seemed even more ridiculous in the
film than it is in the book. But this scene brings a turning point in Maurice’s life. His
grandfather’s death provides him a chance to face death. He feels the look of Death for a
minute, but death “then turned away, and left him to ‘play the game’.”[40] This look
initiated a change in him that resulted in acquiring new habits, good deeds in order to
survive. Since these changes take place deep in a character’s heart and soul they cannot be
put to film except by making dramatic monologues or dialogues from it. However
important this part is in the development of Maurice’s character, MIP decided to leave it
out and they did so rightly.
Other than these details, we can only find two other instances where cardinal
functions are only partly adapted to screen. On the one hand, we read in cardinal function 8
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that Maurice and Clive suffered for weeks before Maurice convinced himself to go to Clive
and apologize to him. These three weeks are described as agony in both of their lives.
However, in the film it seems as if though Maurice went to Clive the same night he
confessed his love to Maurice. He tries to express his love for Clive who is not willing to
accept it, and later he returns through the window to kiss him. With the help of editing,
these scenes seem to happen on the same day whereas in the book it takes Maurice a long
time to figure out what he really feels and to realize how much he loves Clive. On the other
hand, we read in cardinal function 20 that after hearing about Clive’s engagement Maurice
makes advances towards Dickie, Dr. Barry’s nephew. Although this scene is not included
in the last version of the film, director James Ivory admits that they shot the whole episode
with Dickie but were forced to cut it out, which Ivory greatly regrets.[41] This little episode
is only significant in the book if we consider that through it Maurice realizes that he wants
more than platonic love. He needs the body; he knows now that he is “flesh and blood”
unlike Clive who is more of a theoretical person.
CHARACTER FUNCTIONS
All the main characters and also their functions remain mostly intact in the film. Maurice
and Clive love each other, Clive is intellectual, Maurice is more physical, Alec comes as a
savior to Maurice, etc. Nevertheless, I have already mentioned the changes made in Ada’s
and Kitty’s role. One also needs to note that there is a very important character whose role
is greatly extended in the movie and that is Lord Risley. As listed before, Dickie’s part got
deleted in the final version of the film and Miss Olcott’s role is also reduced to an
appearance at a dinner party in scene 18. All in all, these changes do not influence the
logical or emotional flow of the story, and so the basic structure of Maurice is still
sustained.[42]
MOTIVATION BEHIND CLIVE’S TRANSITION: ADDED PARTS
The starkest criticism one reads about Forster’s Maurice points to Clive and his motivation
for changing his sexual taste. Critics argue that there is no deeper motivation provided in
the book for such a change. In fact, we read “There had been no warning – just a blind
alteration of the life spirit, just an announcement. ‘You who loved men, will henceforward
love women. Understand or not, it’s the same to me.’”[43] The reader first learns about his
change through a note he writes to Maurice from Greece. It reads “Against my will I have
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become normal. I cannot help it.”[44] Then, as in a flashback, Forster reveals to us that
Clive’s change started earlier. First he felt that his love for Maurice passed and even the
thought of him and their relationship became revolting to him. Later when he broke down
at the Halls’ he realized he enjoyed how the nurse was ordering him about. Then, there is a
longer section dealing with Clive’s thoughts at the time, as he is discovering that he
actually likes women, enjoys their attention, basks in their glances. This is all the more
new to him as men never dared to answer his looks before. I believe, at the same time, that
his breakdown also had much to do with social pressure. After Cambridge and while
studying for his bar exams, he becomes desperate about his homosexuality because he
knows it can ruin his whole future. His mother wants to marry him off all the time, and
most probably the people he socializes with more and more are also married, have a settled
life, and may even pass wondering looks at him for not being married. The pressure of
society has already started to work in him by the time he breaks down at Maurice’s. Then
comes his experience with the nurse after which he goes to Greece alone and has the
opportunity to think over everything. This, of course, all passes off in Clive’s mind and is
thus not visible to any other person in the novel, and even less in the film.
It is also important to note that there are several hints in the book which reveal that
Clive might not remain a devoted homosexual all his life. First of all, it is clear to him all
the way through that if someone finds out about his love for men, he will be reported to the
dean or the police. This, of course, would ruin his whole career at Cambridge and in
politics, as well. Also, at one point he has a conversation with Maurice while riding in
Penge, telling his friend that the most difficult thing for him will be to provide his family
and his estate with children. It is obvious in this scene that Clive does not even
contemplate turning the idea down, he is well aware of the fact that he will have to have
heirs. Thus it becomes clear that his social standing requires Clive to give up his own
being, to become a “normal” citizen in order to be able to do something for those around
him.[45]
Another hint to his conversion can be seen in the evening before he goes to Greece.
He is much irritated by Maurice. It is obvious that Maurice’s slowness, his compassion, his
never failing care for him disgusts him. He shows the symptoms of a disillusioned lover
who now sees the shortcomings of his partner as if under a magnifying glass, and thus he
cannot be kind anymore. “He would make slightly malicious remarks, and use his intimate
knowledge to wound.”[46] Again, there is a deleted scene in the film in which this
disillusionment is acted out by Hugh Grant in a superb way. The night before leaving for
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Greece Clive reveals his torturing thoughts. He is considering the fact that if there is Hell
he and Maurice might end up there instead of lying peacefully in their graves. But as
always, Maurice is not able to follow his reasoning so Clive starts to mock him. “Well
then, what did you care about in me?...Let’s hear!... Is it my beauty?... These somewhat
faded charms. Hair’s falling out, are you aware?” But this mocking sounds more like self
irony as he knows that his old self is getting thinner and thinner. The reason why Ivory let
this scene be cut from the final version of the film is that the inserted part with Lord
Risley’s scandal provides ample motivation for Clive to change his mind, as we will see
later on.
At the same time, as the above examples taken form the novel show, there is
motivation enough given to Clive’s change and this transition does not come as abruptly as
many critics claim. Nonetheless, most of these changes go on in Clive’s head so Maurice is
not aware of them. Proceeding from this fact it follows that the filmmakers had to come up
with some obvious, visible motivation that is also strong enough for a character to credibly
change his sexuality. This is when the scandal of Lord Risley was created. It is worth
noting that outside of Cambridge Risley appears only once more in the novel: Maurice
meets him at a Tchaikovsky concert, after which the Viscount informs him that the great
composer was gay. This urges Maurice to read Tchaikovsky’s biography which tells how
the composer turned to Bob, his own nephew and experienced some sort of a resurrection.
Maurice needed this encouragement to be free from the idea of marriage Dr. Barry forced
into his head. In any case, this is the last occasion Risley appears in the book, and he does
not seem to be thinking about changing his sexuality or being prosecuted by the police for
being homosexual. Nevertheless, in the film we see him in a bar where he tries to solicit a
soldier. He is then arrested and tried just like Oscar Wilde. He calls Clive to help him and
testify in his favor but he refuses as any contact with the viscount may cause damage to his
own career. The following conversation passes between them:
Risley:
Clive:
Risley:
Clive:
I’m told that if I plea guilty the publicity can be kept to a minimum. What am I
to do?
You must understand. If I were to give you a testimony that would make me a
sitting duck to any prosecution.
Yes, I see that. I realize that it might compromise your position to be seen to be
associated with me. I quite understand that. Good night, Clive.
Bye.
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When an English gentleman is not willing to stand for his friend it means that he is in great
trouble. Clive knows that he is risking his career and whole social being if he lets himself
be associated with a gay man. Risley is left alone and sentenced to six months of hard
labor. At least this is what we see in the film. Among the deleted scenes, though, we can
see that in the original script Lord Risley even commits suicide to escape his shame and
ruin. This is the news both Maurice and Clive read in the newspaper and which has a
devastating effect on Clive. He is too weak to keep his queerness to himself when there are
such threats awaiting him. Especially that he believes only in platonic love between men.
He chooses to be “normal” instead. This turn is, on the other hand, not only a fictitious
change; he really does become a conventional English gentleman with a country estate,
with domestic and social responsibilities. He is forever lost for Maurice. Nevertheless, in
Risley’s case the real turning point was when he decided to pursue the physical side of his
inclination and so he wanted to kiss and touch a soldier on the street. It becomes thus clear
that it is Risley’s downfall that gives motivation for Clive to change his whole attitude
towards his own sexuality. If these scenes were not inserted into the film, the change of
Clive Durham would have been absolutely incomprehensible.
SEGMENTATION AND CAMERAWORK
It is needless to emphasize once again that heritage films are not action oriented. Still, this
characteristic serves as the base of the camerawork. Higson also notes this feature as being
typical of heritage films when he writes: “The decoupage and the camerawork tend
towards the languid. There is a preference for long takes and deep staging, for instance,
and for long and medium shots, rather than for close-ups and rapid or dramatic cutting.”[47]
In almost every single segment there is an establishing shot of a house, country estate,
university building, or the like that slowly take the viewer to the next segment. Here it is
most important to mention the establishing shots of segment 8, which reveal Cambridge at
its best to the audience. Mighty buildings, green lawn, powerful architecture is displayed
suggesting both wisdom and knowledge but also some sort of imprisonment. At this
moment there is a cut to Clive’s face in a close-up as he is sitting by Maurice’s feet in his
room. In the light of the establishing shots the next scene, where Clive and Maurice start to
caress and hug each other, seems even more contrasting to the traditional, honorable
atmosphere suggested by the establishing shots. MIP uses these pictures to emphasize their
point: British society if full of secrets and suppressed emotions.
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There are 872 end-of-sequence editing units in Maurice out of which we find 864
cuts, 3 dissolves and 5 fade- outs. This rate suggests that the film flows in a slower pace
that leaves time for more discussion and contemplation than action. There are even a few
scenes where the intimate relationship between characters is emphasized by lengthy takes.
One such example can be found in segment 3 where we encounter Maurice and Clive as
they play the pianola. This scene of 1’33 minutes is filmed in one piece, allowing the
director to show the slow but friendly flow of time in a college room and the developing
sympathy between Maurice and Clive. Another memorable example for a long take
reveals, interestingly enough, the deepening intimacy between Maurice and Alec. This take
can be found in segment 57 and lasts 2’43 minutes. We find the two main characters in the
hotel room where they just have made love, and Alec is talking about his humiliations he
suffered at the Durhams’. The first cut comes only as he is starting to get dressed and so it
breaks the intimate atmosphere. Through these few examples I have tried to illustrate how
in heritage films the editing and the camerawork support the meaning.
MISE-EN-SCÈNE
At first sight we notice that Maurice seems to be a darker film than, for example, its
predecessor, Room With a View. Instead of sunny Tuscan landscapes we have interior shots
in Cambridge and country houses with dark wooden paneling. The men walking around on
the screen are wearing black or dark frocks and suits. When Maurice and Clive are out
riding, the weather is rainy and misty and the sun does not break through. There is only
one scene where the sun comes out and that is the day of the cricket game. I believe the
weather is very much connected to the mood of the characters living in it. When Clive and
Maurice ride out, Clive starts to talk about his responsibility towards his family and estate
by presenting children. Although it is only their riding and hugging that is included in the
film, the fact that Simcox rides by on his bicycle and sees them caressing each other brings
a sinister tone into the scene. This shadow over their love is represented by the cloudy
weather. But by the time we arrive at the day of the cricket, Maurice has every reason to be
jolly. He finally found a friend he had been longing for and the sunshine that almost blinds
them is the direct reflection of his heart’s joy. Yet, when Alec visits Maurice in London to
blackmail him, quarrel with him, and to later beg him to “share with him” one last time
before his trip to Argentina, the rain is pouring again, as if it were to reflect the feelings of
the characters.
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One should also not forget such important signifiers as a moustache, however
insignificant it may seem at first. It carries a very important message in the film; it
represents adulthood and assimilation. We first see Maurice with a moustache in the 1911
scene. The camera first follows the curve of a telegram as if it were a snake, then it zooms
out and reveals Maurice in his working circumstances. He is out of college and has been
working as a stock broker, which indicates he has grown up and gained a footing in
business. At the same time, it is exactly in this segment that we hear Clive utter that he
finds Maurice’s moustache revolting. The two lovers are already drawing away from each
other as the moustache and Risley’s trial in the following scenes also affirm. Nonetheless,
at one point Clive grows a moustache as well. Unlike Maurice who shaves his moustache
after their breaking up, Clive grows his right after it. We first see his new image when he
calls Maurice on the phone to make him acquainted with Anne. Not only does he have a
moustache but his hair is also plastered down. These two signifiers might suggest the
limitations he brought onto himself. He became a philistine, one whom he so ardently
criticized before in the boat in scene 5.
A short note must also be made on another typical heritage film characteristic. It is
said that meals are very often presented in a splendorous way in this cinematic genre. This
is indeed true of Maurice as we can find detailed shots of meals and accessories in the film.
One simply needs to consider scene 10 where the dons of Cambridge come in to the
dining-hall and all the students stand up. When they are finally seated, the prayer is read
out before they start their supper and we get a dazzling view of what a meal looked like in
those times in college. Nothing like our cafeteria dinners. Yet, beside the dark-suited
students of Cambridge, Ivory also presents the splendid dinners at the different households
and restaurants. We witness dinner at Pendersleigh, and several meals at the Hall’s. In
these scenes the knowing spectator delights in the silverware, the porcelain, and all other
accessories people at that time used to take into their hands.
As we will see in Chapter 8 of this dissertation, mirrors can play a very significant
role not only in novels but also in films. They may symbolize contemplation or an entrance
to another world but they may also help the work of the director and photographer. In the
case of Maurice, I believe, mirrors are less symbolic than practical. There are two
instances that are worth mentioning. In segment 54 we see Maurice sitting naked on the
bed in the hotel while Alec is getting dressed. By putting the mirror on the wall, Ivory
made it possible to put both characters into the frame without applying an unnecessary
wide angle in which the characters would have been lost. Also, the fact that Maurice’s
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profile is framed in the mirror signifies how separated he is from the rest of the world, and
in this case also from Alec, who is not yet ready to sacrifice his life for his love. The other
example is very similar to this one, as in segment 58 it is Anne’s face we see in the mirror.
Here we already know something she is not aware of, namely that Maurice has left forever.
Clive is closing the shutters – forcing his love and friendship for Maurice out of his life, as
well – while Anne is looking at him anxiously. This we only see from the mirror that
separates them and by standing with his back to her, Clive closes his wife out from his past
he is about to say goodbye to. As the music also emphasizes, this moment is an utterly sad
one in Clive’s life and reveals that his change did not wipe out the past he went through
with Maurice. Anne becomes only an image framed in the mirror, part of an artificial life.
She is an outsider who does not know Clive’s real self. Here we can see how props and
camerawork can give different meanings to a given segment.
DIALOGUES
It is stunning how much of the dialogue of the film follows the dialogues in the novel. One
only has to look for the above quoted scenes in the book and he will find that they had
been transferred almost word by word to the movie. There is, however an aspect of
adaptation that I mean to mention here. As already stated above, it is utterly difficult to
show inner thoughts in the film and so the director either depends on the gestures of the
actor, or may have to write a dialogue or monologue to the part in question. In Maurice’s
case the reader often faces the remarks of the narrator who mysteriously refers to
Maurice’s homosexuality and indeed to his whole consciousness as something
overshadowed by mountains. He needs to strive to climb over the mountains in order to be
a full person. We read in Chapter 6, right after he gets to know Risley, that
He was not attracted to the man in the sense that he wanted him for a friend,
but he did feel he might help him – how, he didn’t formulate. It was all very
obscure, for the mountains still overshadowed Maurice. Risley, surely capering
on the summit, might stretch him a helping hand.[48]
And let us now see how Ivory and Hesketh-Harvey transformed this narration into a
dialogue which takes place in the dean’s quarters. Here, Risley criticizes the dean in a
mocking way to which Maurice reacts:
Maurice
Risley
I think if a man has ideas like that he should have the courtesy to keep it to
himself.
No, no, no, on the contrary. One must talk, talk, talk. It’s only by talking that
we shall caper upon the summit. Otherwise the mountains will overshadow us.
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I’m sure, Hall, you would agree.
By adapting the narration in this way, the viewer faces the fact that Risley alludes to
something one should not say out loud, but that he also sees this particular something
hidden in Maurice. That is why he goes after him and invites him to his club later and thus
shows him his willingness to “stretch him a helping hand.” This example, along with the
others in this chapter, may prove that the filmmakers endeavored to keep the dialogues as
close to the original text as possible. Wherever they did change the dialogue, they did it to
convey the deeper meanings of the story which do not get to be expressed directly in the
novel.
MUSIC
Besides Richard Robbins’ original score we hear Tchaikovsky in the pianola scene, and we
also discover Gregorio Allegri’s Miserer Psalm 51 in segment 8 as Clive is sitting at
Maurice’s feet. The mixing of the scene with this choir piece emphasizes, on the one hand,
the spiritual experience the two men encounter together and, on the other hand, it seems to
sanctify homosexual love. Also, when Maurice sneaks out of the chapel while the choir is
singing, he reasserts his growing disrespect for religion and faith and also his growing
interest and love for Clive.
Let us now turn to the original score of the movie. Richard Robbins, the composer,
stated[49] he really enjoyed that he finally had the opportunity to work with a big orchestra
on a soundtrack, and he made perfect use of it. His music was so inspired that he even won
the Golden Osella Award at the Venice Film Festival in 1987. What makes the music so
peculiar is the perfect mix of sadness, excited expectation, and some sort of danger. Let us
simply take one example to show how well Robbins found the perfect music for different
moods. In the scene when Maurice is tossing and turning in his bed having a nightmare
right before Alec comes into his room through the window, we see his dreams in a
montage. Lasker Jones is shown waving his hand and meanwhile a boat flows into the
picture with Maurice and an unknown woman, presumably Edna May in it. Here the music
is not slumberous but full of action to make the viewer feel the horror Maurice feels on
seeing himself with a woman. Also, it is important to note that the symbolic boat has
Maurice and Edna lying in white dresses, indicating innocence but also sterility. Later on
we see how Maurice is trying to bail the boat out, signifying his failing attempt to make
himself love and marry a woman. After this the music turns sinister and, as in a thriller, we
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see Alec approaching on the ladder and later in the window. At first, the viewer does not
know what Alec may want from Maurice and the music supports the anxiety that must rule
in him on seeing the under-gamekeeper in his room. But we must not forget that what they
are to do in the bedroom was considered criminal at the time. That is why Robbins’ music
is not a romantic one but an excited, sinister melody that fits the mood of the scene.
On occasions when the story turns melancholic, Robbins inserts a slower but still
undulating melody which occurs over and over again. We hear it for the last time in scene
58. The moment Maurice’s former Cambridge image appears calling on Clive, the music
turns even dramatic. This suggests that Clive is not perfectly happy after all, and it is more
than difficult to him to let Maurice go his own way. Robbins’ music is simply tailored
perfectly to the different moods and emotions of the film.
A SHORT NOTE ON THE ENDING
As many critics are not satisfied with the ending and tend to guess what could happen
afterwards, let me finish this chapter by quoting James Ivory and his ideas on this
particular subject:
My idea is that it might have gone like this: the film ends a year or two before
World War I breaks out. Clive, by this time a young father and with a budding
political career, volunteers when hostilities begin in 1914, becomes an officer,
and is sent to France, where he is killed. Maurice, also officer class, decides to
become a conscientious objector instead. But Alec Scudder, full of patriotism,
enlists and in time also is sent to the trenches to fight the “Hun.” Maurice then
has an about-face and, perhaps shamed by Alec’s decision, goes into the army,
too – not, however, as an officer but as an enlisted man, in order to share
Alec’s trench life. The pair of lovers survive and eventually return to
England.[50]
This idea of a happy ending expresses the same hope of a happier age for which Forster
wrote his novel. It is interesting that more than seventy years after its birth, Maurice was
powerful enough to inspire a lively cinematic adaptation. This was made possible by the
fact that the situation of homosexuals had not changed as radically as Forster or Ivory
would have wished. But this might have a greater cause…
[1]
Maurice - Special Features DVD.
Robert Emmet Long, James Ivory in Conversation (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005)
211.
[3]
Long 216.
[4]
On paratextuality see Chapter 1 or Gérard Gennette’s Palimpseste.
[2]
111
[5]
Andrew Higson, English Heritage, English Cinema (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) 25.
http://www.glbtq.com/literature/ forster_em,4.html
[7]
http://www.glbtq.com/literature/ forster_em,5.html
[8]
http://www.glbtq.com/literature/forster_em,3.html
[9]
Higson 80.
[10]
Ginette Vincendeau ed., Film/Literature/Heritage (London: British Film Institute, 2001), xxi.
[11]
Higson 83.
[12]
E.M. Forster, Maurice (London: Penguin Books, 1972) 133.
[13]
See also page 188.
[14]
Forster 136.
[15]
See A Room with a View.
[16]
Forster 103.
[17]
Forster 144.
[18]
Forster 144.
[19]
http://www.glbtq.com/literature/ forster_em.html
[20]
Forster 132.
[21]
Forster 31.
[22]
Forster 62.
[23]
Forster 185.
[24]
Forster 75.
[25]
Forster 135.
[26]
Forster 139.
[27]
Forster 92.
[28]
Forster 80.
[29]
Forster 108.
[30]
Forster 98.
[31]
Forster 98.
[32]
Forster 53.
[33]
Long 216.
[34]
Forster 21.
[35]
Forster 43.
[36]
1 Samuel 18
[37]
Forster 49.
[38]
Forster 91.
[39]
The exchanging of letters mediated in the film by a voice-over is yet another characteristic of heritage
films that has not been mentioned yet.
[40]
Forster 124.
[41]
Adrian Ross Magenty, who played Dickie, was only sixteen at the time and Ivory was happy to be able to
cast him as Toby Schlaegel five years later in Howards End.
[42]
Although not a character, the name of Clive’s estate, Penge is changed to Pendersleigh in the film.
[43]
Forster 106.
[44]
Forster 104.
[45]
Again, this scene can only be found as a deleted scene on the Special Features DVD of the film.
[46]
Forster 100.
[47]
Higson 38.
[48]
Forster 36.
[49]
Special Features DVD
[50]
Long 217.
[6]
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CHAPTER 4
ORLANDO
Not many of the stories among my case studies belong to a category of novels that were
“born to be adapted”. This is as true of Orlando as of The French Lieutenant’s Woman or
of The Clockwork Orange. Although the story of Orlando has a straightforward linear plot,
the fact that it covers four centuries, includes a change of sex and many commentaries and
puns of the “biographer” proves that whoever decides to make its adaptation to film must
not only have great courage but also creative talent. This is absolutely true of Sally Potter
who adapted Virginia Woolf’s novel to film in 1992. Potter said in an interview that before
she started to work on the film:
[she] did endless skeleton diagrammatic plots, all to find the guiding principle
and then reconstruct the story from the inside out. I also went back to research
Woolf’s sources. And then, finally, I put the book away entirely for at least the
last year of writing and treated the script as something in its own right, as if the
book had never existed.[1]
Thus Sally Potter’s screenplay of the film, an inspiration based upon Woolf’s work, was
created.
VIRGINIA WOOLF AND HER STYLE
Woolf’s novel, Orlando was first published in 1928, i.e. 43 years before Forster’s Maurice,
although it was actually written about 14 years later. Since Orlando is a mock biography of
its hero and, unlike Maurice, not a daring work about the struggles of gay men or lesbian
women, the book became a success, despite the fact that Woolf deals with crucial gender
issues in a peculiar way.
As Virginia Woolf was one of the prominent writers of the modern novel along
with D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce, etc., in her works she also presents the search for values
in the changed social surroundings of the early twentieth century. In Mrs. Dalloway for
example, she elaborates on the topics of real love, friendship, or even lesbianism between
Clarissa and her friend Sally. Since the topic of homosexuality was still very disturbing at
the time (one only has to think of the infamous law suit against Radclyffe Hall because of
his novel Well of Loneliness in 1928) authors needed courage to write about this subject;
Woolf had both the courage and the talent to do it in such an “innocent” way that no one
could blame her of being amoral. Although there is, of course, ambiguity in the story of
CHAPTER 4 – ORLANDO
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Orlando and such topics as androgyny or bisexuality are not hidden, the novel is written in
such a convincing and sweet way that nobody wanted to sue Virginia Woolf because of it.
Here we find a parallel between Woolf and Potter, as the director also needed some
courage to address such issues as androgyny or lesbianism while adapting a “classic novel”
which, we all know, has the air of something sacred. Potter broke old values and traditions
in the genre of classic adaptation, just like Woolf did with her new kind of biography. Both
women shared courage and talent that was inevitable in achieving their goals.
A CONNECTION MADE – WOOLF AND POTTER
Woolf chose the genre of biography as the foundation of her novel probably because of her
father’s, Sir Leslie Stephen’s influence, who was the first editor of the Dictionary of
National Biography. However, this time Virginia Woolf wanted to create something
unusual and invented a mock-biography that came to be one of the least factual yet most
entertaining biographies ever written. The book was not very successful at the beginning,
probably because not many people knew that a new kind of biography had been born. As
Merry M. Pawlowski writes in the introduction of the Wordsworth Classic edition of
Orlando,
the novel provides a fantasy of events counterpointed by a rather conventional
biographical style in which Orlando is characterized by history, house, physical
appearance, social life and personality. Woolf’s use of an obtrusive narrator –
her alter ego? – calls the real, the substantial, the factual into question.”[2]
Because of this unique style the book became after all the best selling novel of the Hogarth
Press in about a week.
Nevertheless, it is exactly this mocking, yet poetical style, and the intertextuality
that make the novel a very difficult or even impossible case for adaptation,[3] since many of
its jokes are based on puns as Woolf is playing with words, gets lost in them, and then
drags the reader back to the implied reality. The person of the biographer can be looked
upon as the central narrator of the story, who plays around with ideas, holds back
information, makes remarks on people and on happenings, which method creates such an
intimate style that cannot be transferred into film. There are theater plays in which the
problem of such narrators is solved by the insertion of a story-teller into the play who then
comments the happenings with asides and monologues. Potter decided to avoid such
insertion and used the hero’s witty asides instead. There are 17 asides all together in the
film (all made by Tilda Swinton) that are devoted to create a similar kind of intimacy the
114
narrator generates in the novel. This shows that Potter tried to create in cinematic terms the
same effect the novel has on the reader.
Each critic of Virginia Woolf considers Orlando different from her other works.
She decided to write this “biography” when she made her acquaintance with Vita
Sackville-West who became a close friend of hers. This meant also the only affair with a
woman in Woolf’s life that was more than spiritual. Among her other lady friends we find
Madge Vaughan whose character served for Sally Seton in Mrs. Dalloway, Violet
Dickinson, and Ethel Smyth, a well-known composer of the time. Yet none of these
relationships were as crucial in Woolf’s life as her love for Vita, to whom she dedicated
Orlando. The ironic style, the heavy criticism, and the wit of the novel all make this work
unique in Woolf’s repertoire, yet it fits in perfectly well with her style and convictions as a
modern writer. The language of the novel is extremely complicated, full of quotes,
paraphrases, word plays based on the works of other authors, which, along with the
unusual plot, make the novel’s adaptation to film considerably difficult, as already pointed
out. Woolf also uses the stream-of-consciousness technique in a unique way, i.e. the
soliloquies come mostly from the “biographer”, not from Orlando him/herself. Thus the
story is many times interrupted by the remarks of the narrator, and the reader is, as Kelly
Tetterton put it “constantly aware of the poetic quality in the language Woolf uses,
something she uses to express the slow flow of time in the life of one who seems to be
immortal”[4]. This way the interruptions do not make the story bumpy but rather wittier and
more unique. At the same time, such comments are difficult to put to screen. As Potter
notes in an interview with Walter Donohue: “The book has a live, visual quality to it –
which was affirmed in Woolf’s diaries, where she said that what she was attempting with
Orlando, unlike her other books, was an ‘exteriorisation of consciousness’”[5] In order to
express the exteriorized revelations of the book, a director may decide to create voiceovers from them or may be forced to lean on her actors to communicate the meaning of the
written comment. Using the voice-over as many times as we meet the interruptions in the
book would have resulted in abruptness so Potter decided to use simply the plot of the
story.[6] She confesses: “What I had to find was a live, cinematic form, which meant being
ruthless to the novel. In other words, I learnt that you have to be cruel to the novel in order
to be kind to the film.”[7] This way Woolf’s style that flows from her little remarks as a
narrator is lost yet it is replaced by Potter’s style as a director.
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SALLY POTTER AND FILM
Sally Potter as a dancer and choreographer performed solo shows and worked at different
theaters and galleries before her more significant films came out. She is counted among the
artists of the art cinema movement, more specifically of the experimental cinema along
with Peter Greenaway and Derek Jarman. Both of these directors started their careers as
painters and later on Greenaway was the first to turn to films; he became an editor. The
influence of Greenaway and Jarman, i.e. their experimenting with different ways of
expression in film and their involvement in other art forms (painting or theater) make
Potter also one of the experimental directors. Her background as a dancer, musician, and
choreographer (all of which are reflected in Orlando) made it possible for her to create a
movie that is different from other costume dramas made in the same period. Although she
and her team were very keen on re-creating the atmosphere and the costumes of the
centuries Orlando lived through, the message of the film is far from being simply about
heritage. As it will be elaborated later on, Englishness (and its criticism) does not play such
a major role in the film as, for example, in Chariots of Fire, A Room With a View, or even
in The Remains of the Day.
Potter is often noted for her feminist sensitivity which makes her just the suitable
person to adapt a novel with a crucial feminist idea as its basis. Already her first feature
film, The Gold Diggers (1983) starred only women and was “suggestive of the idea that
film stars (particularly women) are commodities, commodities which are vulnerable to all
the uncertainties and vagaries of the Hollywood system”[8]. Thus her first feature film
already shows her engagement with issues that concern women. However, The Gold
Diggers did not turn out to be a big success and so Potter needed a longer break to start to
work on her next motion picture. When talking about her films, it is worth noting, that
although in Thriller (1979) and also in The Gold Diggers the female protagonists go on
together in the end of the film, suggesting possibly a lesbian relationship, in Orlando Potter
did not make use of several scenes from the novel that could have served her purpose to
emphasize androgyny or feminism (for example, the scene with Nell, or the Archduchess
Harriet, etc.). In Orlando she wanted to highlight more the theme of class struggle, the
oppressive nature of patrimony, and the inheritance of land as a critique on capitalism,
which already appeared in The Gold Diggers.
Potter had planned the project of Orlando for a long time before she had the
support and the team together to actually make the film. The movie thus involved British,
116
Dutch, Russian, French, and Italian professionals who worked on a quintessentially British
story. However, as aforesaid, the national message was not as directly emphasized in this
feature as in heritage films of the period. When asked about her reasons for making the
film, Potter named several motifs that kept her interest in the production. One of such
reasons is that she felt the story plays with the same idea she believes in, i.e. deep down it
is only conditioning that separates the sexes. This notion is more extensively elaborated on
in Virginia Woolf’s novel where the author shows through the thoughts of Orlando how
his/her conditioning influences his/her actions and how Orlando struggles to keep her own
identity. For example, as she is traveling on the Enamoured Lady back to London, she
realizes that “women are not (judging by my own short experience of the sex) obedient,
chaste, scented, and exquisitely appareled by nature,”[9] but are made to be by the rules of
the society they live in. As the “biographer” later continues
in every human being a vacillation from one sex to the other takes place, and
often it is only the clothes that keep the male or the female likeness, while
underneath the sex is the very opposite of what it is above.[10]
This statement is well illustrated in the last scene of the movie where Orlando sits under
the oak tree in clothes that emphasize more her androgyny than her femininity. It is thus
clear that she does not have to be either a woman or a man, as it is emphasized by the angel
(Jimmy Sommerville) singing above her head: “At last to be free of the past and of the
future that beckons me. I am coming, I am coming, here I am, neither a woman, nor a
man.” S/he is simply Orlando sitting on the field by the oak tree. She does not own her
house or in fact anything that would make her privileged anymore, yet she is happy with
her daughter who plays with a video camera in the field. According to Susan Gerhard this
suggests that she managed to let go of property and of control for she has no power over
the point of view of her own child[11]. She is completely free. Note also, that it is only
through the little girl’s camera that we see the angel, suggesting that only by a new
viewpoint will we be able to discover the deeper strata of the world or even a kind of
heaven.
Another theme in the novel that inspired Potter is eternal or unnaturally long life. In
an interview that is reported in Max Hoffman’s review of Orlando she said that this was
important for her “because of the twin plagues of AIDS and nuclear annihilation that we
live under. After losing so many friends to AIDS and seeing the staggering loss of their
voices, this film had to be made.”[12] One of these friends was Derek Jarman who was
already dying of AIDS in 1992, and passed away only two years after the release of
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Orlando. The fact that Potter cast Jarman’s muse, Tilda Swinton as Orlando might then be
looked upon retrospectively as a tribute to him. Nonetheless, Swinton played in seven of
Jarman’s films, among them Caravaggio, The Last of England, and Edward II and this
achievement made her perfectly fit for such a difficult role as Orlando. As it follows from
the above, Potter is much in debt to her filmmaker friends and indeed, she is said to be
“more in common with the structuralist filmmakers of her time like Peter Greenaway (…)
than with Virginia Woolf.”[13] This statement is supported by the fact that Ben Van Os and
Jan Roelfs, who worked as art designers in many Greenaway movies, also participated in
the making of this film. Keeping this in mind we can state that Potter did not want to adapt
Woolf’s novel word-by-word as much as she wanted to be true to the meaning of the
original work, if that is possible in any way, while creating her own modern, feminist
statement independent of the novel. The movie is in fact based on Woolf’s work, but at the
same time, it reflects the director’s own style. Potter is interested in the deconstruction of
classical narrative and Virginia Woolf’s novel proved to be the perfect basis for this sort of
adaptation, since it is in no way a typical narrative novel. It is woven through and through
with the ideas and philosophy of the “biographer” and also of Orlando himself, breaking
the line of the story again and again. However, the stream-of-consciousness technique
gives a natural flow to the plot and illustrates perfectly well the character of Orlando, the
poet who is balancing between society and loneliness, manhood and womanhood, love and
vocation, just the themes for Potter. The different phases of the protagonist’s struggle are
well illustrated in the seven chapters of the film: Death, Love, Poetry, Politics, Society,
Sex and Birth, although these titles do not perfectly follow the segmentation of the novel.
While the titles Potter gave to each segment stand for the themes that the different chapters
of the book concentrate on, the film for instance, fails to look to Orlando mainly as an
artist, a poet, while this aspect of him is duly emphasized all the way through in the novel.
The theme of poetry and the process of writing are almost always present in the novel, and
they give it a natural thread that binds the different parts together along with Orlando’s
character. In the same way, Tilda Swinton’s performance connects the film’s scenes and
different sequences perfectly well, and her airy presence provides the continuity to the film
that one can detect in the novel as well. Swinton is present in every single scene and she is
able to engage the gaze of the spectator.
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HERITAGE OR POST-HERITAGE?
Maggie Humm writes in her book Feminism and Film: “Orlando the film mixes intertexts
of dance, a child’s video, ‘great’ literature and Orlando the novel is similarly multigeneric
with a wealth of poetry, letters, masque and biography. This explicit decentering of
historical/narrative authority is postmodern.”[14] This statement helps to dissolve every
suspicion about Orlando being a post-heritage film which is a new category created by
Claire Monk in 1995[15]. But before going into details about the four-letter-word post in
front of the heritage tag, let me first say a few words about the basic heritage features of
the film.
Sally Potter made her film in 1992 which falls exactly into the heritage period of
film making, i.e. the 1980s and 90s. The heritage signifier fits all the more that this is a
period piece with authentic costumes. Now, if we consider the time scan of the novel’s plot
we might state that it is a simple costume drama. But then we also need to realize that the
story is set not only in the early 20th century (typically heritage) but starts as early as the
16th century: it takes up four hundred years. Nevertheless, the film is made from a classic
novel by Virginia Woolf. This, along with the above mentioned facts, suggest that the film,
indeed, belongs to the heritage tradition.
As I have already emphasized in Chapter 2, heritage films always try to
communicate some sort of a social criticism that is hidden within the spectacular view and
pastiche. Orlando is not an exception of this aspect as it contains feminist criticism, and
also criticism on English manners and the country’s habit of “collecting countries”. In
addition, two minor heritage characteristics are also true of Orlando: we hear letters and
literary works read out and we find several representations of meals in the movie (dinner
for Queen Elizabeth, meal on the frozen Thames, Nick Green’s meal at Orlando’s, etc).
Following from the above, it is easy to see that Orlando can in fact be categorized
into the heritage tradition, but what is even more interesting from my point of view, is
which features make it a post-heritage film. As mentioned above, the time period of the
story is already unconventional and thus problematic, as it stretches over 400 years. Instead
of being set in the late 19th early 20th century the film opens with he, Orlando reading in
the field, under the oak tree in the Elizabethan era and ends with her, Orlando going back
to the same tree in the 1990s. Orlando is also unconventional in its topic as, instead of
showing the class and love struggles of the protagonists, it deals with androgyny and
immortality. Nevertheless, the class struggle gives one of the strongest overtones in the
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story since the loss of Orlando’s estate is a recurring issue both in the book and in the film.
Feminism and a more liberal thinking about gender can very well be found in other
heritage films, but androgyny or the transformation of the sex while remaining the same
person is far from these rather conservative films.
Instead of showing the English in such foreign countries as Greece or Italy, Orlando
is sent to Turkey. He does not take the opportunity to adore the Italian renaissance art or
the beauties of Athens but turns into an “eastern man”, puts his wig into a dusty case and
enjoys the friendship of the Khan while relaxing in the baths of Turkey. He is a person who
does not stand out of his environment as a British citizen bringing culture to the more
primitive masses as does Charlotte in Room With a View, for example, but tries to build a
valuable relationship between the two countries. He only takes out his wig and his English
clothing when the Archduke arrives and wants to present him the Order of the Bath.
(Ironically enough, Orlando’s transition into an eastern man is emphasized by his taking a
bath.) And even then, right before receiving the honor from the Archduke, the war
interrupts the ceremony and Orlando soon transforms into a woman.
It is said of heritage films that they use a certain set of actors who are known for
their theatrical achievements. In the case of Orlando Potter decided to cast actually
atypical heritage actors, such as Tilda Swinton who belongs to the avant-garde movement
and as mentioned above, had been cast in several films of Derek Jarman before taking the
role of Orlando. (It is interesting to note that after her work with Jarman she has been
working more and more in less experimental or even conventional films, such as Vanilla
Sky (2001), Adaptation (2002), or the latest adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia
(2005).) There is only one actor in Orlando who could be categorized as a heritage or a
more traditional actor, and that is John Wood who also played in Shadowlands (1993), The
Madness of King George (1994, which is again, considered to be a post-heritage film),
Jane Eyre (1996) and An Ideal Husband (1999). Quentin Crisp, on the other hand, is the
least conventional of all the actors in the crew. The famous (or infamous), self-confessed
homosexual plays Queen Elizabeth in the film. The awkwardness of his role becomes even
more sparkling in scene 5 where the Queen calls Orlando to lie on her bed and one
suddenly realizes that a man is playing the woman’s part whereas a woman a man’s part.
This scene offers a double twist that is not typical of heritage films but a good example of
how a new idea can make up for many of the novel’s witticism that cannot be put on the
screen.
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Transgender, cross-dressing, and the implied lesbianism that can be found in the
novel bring us to another post-modern characteristic, i.e. absolute sexual freedom. In this
story one does not find religious restraints or social restrictions the main character would
really suffer from as in many heritage films (consider Maurice, Howards End, or Chariots
of Fire). The whole story is based, instead, on the idea that if one is free in his/her spirit
one is not bound by such issues as losing his/her estate or marrying before sleeping with
someone. One only has to think about the many adventures of Orlando as a flirtatious man
at court, or her venturing out dressed as a man and picking up a mistress dressed as a man,
which contents are omitted from the film. So, the main character does not fear death,
sexual diseases, or unwanted pregnancy in either the novel or the film. There is no danger
of him/her dying or even getting old, which is all the more interesting as the idea of
immortality was put to film in a time when the AIDS epidemic was becoming more and
more serious. In this way the film has a very actual message for the contemporary
audience.
If we take a closer look at the camera work, we realize that instead of the slow
movements and long or medium shots typical of heritage films, Rodionov often uses closeups. These are mostly of the title character to emphasize his/her emotions and reactions.
Another such method is Potter’s insertion of the famous asides into the movie. As she
notes “We were trying to weave a golden thread between Orlando and the audience
through the lens of the camera. (…) It would create a connection that made Orlando’s
journey also the audience’s journey.”[16] Again, this feature is absolutely atypical of
heritage films which try to keep a distance between the audience and the story forcing the
spectator to gaze from afar, from the future back into the glorious past. In the case of
Orlando the audience is invited into the story. Orlando looks into the camera, i.e. into the
eyes of the spectator 17 times throughout the film. These asides take place at crucial
moments in Orlando’s life (when we get to know him, when he is granted the house, on
deciding to break up with Euphrozine, on turning to poetry, on meeting Shelmerdine, at the
very end, etc.) as if s/he were asking us to be witnesses, to feel for him/her, or whether we
have realized what a particular happening means in view of his/her life we have just
witnessed before. The asides create the thread between the audience and Orlando. Other
experimental elements can be found also in the setting, of course. One only has to think of
the tea cup-shaped shrubs in scene 31; or of scene 6 where we see Orlando standing in
front of his parents’ painting when Eurphrosyne joins him: they then turn around together
in an artistic, dance-like way, symbolizing their engagement. The costume design which is,
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one has to note, marvelous throughout the movie, has also a different function in certain
scenes than in normal heritage films where they simply try to represent the fashions of the
time. In scene 25 and 26 we see how Orlando (already a woman) is being dressed and how
she is moving around in her house in the enormous dress. The way she tries to pass by the
maid without knocking over the chairs and tables around her reveals how impractical the
dresses in the 18th century must have been. This is only emphasized when she sits down at
the Countess’ drawing-room and her skirt occupies the whole of the sofa.
The last post-heritage feature I mean to mention is also found in scene 25. Here we
witness how Mr. Swift complains of his gout in his leg and how ruthless Mr. Pope and Mr.
Addison are towards the Archduke. They ridicule him for preferring science above poetry
to which the Countess later only says “They are all words and no breeding, Archduke. But
so amusing.” This scene reveals how hideous the respected poets and wits of the time
could have been in real life. Thus the whole scene becomes a farce at the spectator’s
expense as we are all apt to respect the great English poets and authors no matter what they
were in real life. Of course, we may state we like them for their works and not for their
characters.
Following from the above listed characteristics it is now obvious that in the case of
Orlando we are dealing with an unconventional, that is, post-heritage film.
FEMINISM
An important theme that can be found in both heritage and post-heritage films is feminism.
Besides homosexuality or lesbianism, this was also a sensitive issue of the time of Woolf
and also of Potter. Woolf does not deal with the subject explicitly but makes enough
references to the fact that women are equal to men. “Same person, only a different sex,”
says Orlando after he became a she, and we really are to see that he does not change much
just because of her different sex. He was not more just because he was a man, and she can
explore just as much as a man in the body of a woman. The notion of feminism was
especially important to Woolf because of her friend, Vita Sackville-West whom she met in
1922. Virginia Woolf was very much touched by the fact that Vita had lost her family
estate to her uncle after her father died in 1928, just because she was a woman and women
in that time were not allowed to inherit property. Thus the estate of Knole became the
center of Orlando’s story and the characters who take part in his/her life came to be the
friends and relatives of Vita Sackville-West. Sasha, for instance, stands for Violet Trefusis,
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a woman Vita had her first lesbian love-affair with. The transvestite Archduke Harry is the
representation of Lord Lascelles, who once proposed marriage to Sackville-West, whereas
Shelmerdine is to be seen as her real husband, Harold Nicolson. With the help of these
biographical characters Woolf set out to present what life could be if one were free to come
around the distress of a patriarchal society.
The first obvious sign of feminism, however, can be found already at the beginning
of the book, and in scene 11 in the film: Orlando asks Sasha to elope with him and stay
with him. He says:
Orlando
Sasha
Orlando
Sasha
Orlando
Sasha
Orlando
Sasha, I cannot think of a life without you. Stay with me, don’t ever go.
But it’s impossible.
But why?
Because when ice breaks we must go.
But we’re linked. Our destinies are linked. You’re mine.
Why?
Because I adore you. … Meet me at midnight at London Bridge. We’ll fly
our ways as free as birds. Lots of air, very fresh. There, it’s decided.
This short dialogue reflects the male attitude towards women who have to follow
not their own but their lover’s desire. It is decided by Orlando and not by them both. In this
scene Sasha proves to be more independent than any other girl around Orlando. Although
she lets him believe (or so we assume) that she will elope with him, she does not appear at
the given place and time. At this moment the ice breaks and the Great Frost is over.
Orlando then must remember what Sasha told him before, namely that she has to leave
when the frost is over. Orlando calls the freedom of a woman the “treachery of women”.
Nevertheless, when he as a she gets into the same situation, she also refuses. This we see in
scene 27 where the Archduke proposes to her on seeing that she is about lose her estate.
What makes the story so marvelous is that Woolf avoided creating an infallible, moral
character. Instead, in this scene she makes Orlando act as any other young man of his time
would have. But Woolf also lets him learn the lesson by enabling him to experience the
same situation from a woman’s point of view. S/he understands what freedom really
means. That is why she would not marry the Archduke, and this also explains why she is
able to let Shelmerdine go. On the other hand, the two proposal scenes show that men have
not changed throughout the centuries. Both in the 16th and 17th, let alone the 18th century,
they considered women as properties or commodities as Street put it in a quote above.
In Turkey we find Orlando in the company of the Khan drinking to each other’s
health in the desert. All goes according to the customs until the Khan suggests they should
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drink to the health of women. Then Orlando says: “They’re different to us fellows...” But
upon trying to list the manly virtues he only finds two things worth mentioning: loyalty
and courage. Even these virtues are abandoned when Orlando has to prove in war that he
really is a man. He cannot stay loyal to his friend and withdraws to his room without any
sign of courage. He falls asleep and awakes as a woman. He did not find any more
possibility to develop as a man, which again can be seen as a hidden feminist meaning in
the story.
Of course the strongest, or rather most obvious feminist criticism is
mediated through the wits of the 18th century. Without commenting much on their
observations, let me now quote one of the wittiest dialogues of the film:
Swift
Pope
Addison
Pope
Addison
Pope
Orlando
Pope
Addison,
Swift
Pope
Orlando
Pope
Women have no desires, only affectations.
Indeed, women are but children of larger growth.
Ah – but I consider woman as a beautiful, romantic animal that should be
adorned with furs and feathers, pearls and diamonds.
That is, apart from my wife, who will insist on attempting to learn Greek,
which is so very unbecoming that I can hardly even tolerate her company at
the breakfast table. Why do they do it?
Oh, every woman is at best a contradiction. And frankly, most women have no
character at all.
Present company excepted, of course.
(…)
Madam, I feel only the highest regard and purest respect for females.
I see no evidence of that sentiment in your conversation.
Conversation is a place where one plays with ideas, dear lady, though one
forges them quite alone.
Oh, quite, quite.
You see – the intellect is a solitary place and therefore quite unsuitable a
terrain for females who must discover their natures through the guidance of a
father or husband.
And if she has neither?
Then, however charming she may be, my dear lady, she is lost.
That is exactly why it is imperative for Orlando to escape to the next century where she
may find a husband.
On account of the feminist theme other related subjects are also brought up in the
story. One of them is the idea of transvestitism. This is reflected in Woolf’s story most
obviously by the character of the Archduke about whom we read:
The Archduchess (but she must in the future be known as the Archduke) told
his story – that he was a man and always had been one; that he had seen a
portrait of Orlando and fallen hopelessly in love with him; that to compass his
ends, he had dressed as a woman and lodged at the Baker’s shop; that he was
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desolated when he fled to Turkey; that he had heard of her change and hastened
to offer his services (…) For him, said the Archduke Harry, she was and would
ever be the Pink, the Pearl, the Perfection of her sex.[17]
In the film, however, this wonderfully funny meaning is lost (save for the last sentence of
the quote as we will see later) for the Archduke is played by John Wood all the way
through without any sign of him being dressed as a woman. Nevertheless, cross-dressing
appears more than once in the novel and also in the film. Here we see Quentin Crisp
dressed as Queen Elizabeth, the significance of which has been stated above. Later we
witness Shakespeare’s Othello on stage as it is played on the frozen Thames. Here we
realize that the already dead Desdemona is played by a man which is absolutely in
accordance with the customs of the time. This, of course, also points to the fact that crossdressing and thus the idea of transvestitism is not the diverted invention of our time but has
a longer history and background. It is at the same time significant that in Woolf”s novel
Orlando also uses the trick of cross-dressing. After becoming a woman, she dresses up as a
man and goes out on the street:
Now she opened a cupboard in which hung still many of the clothes she had
worn as a young man of fashion, and from among them she chose a black
velvet suit richly trimmed with Venetian lace. It was a little out of fashion,
indeed, but it fitted her to perfection and dressed in it she looked the very
figure of a noble Lord. (…) Through this silver glaze the young woman looked
up at him (for a man he was to her) appealing, hoping, trembling, fearing. She
rose; she accepted his arm. For – need we stress the point? – she was of the
tribe which nightly burnishes their wares, and sets them in order on the
common counter to wait the highest bidder.[18]
In one word, the whole scene has a kind of lesbian game to it, as Orlando the woman,
dressed as a man takes a prostitute on his/her arm. She even waits until the obviously
indigent Nell puts new clothes on as she would do for a man to amuse him. It is only then
that “Orlando could stand it no longer. In the strangest torment of anger, merriment, and
pity she flung off all disguise and admitted herself a woman.”[19] Nell only laughs at this
and they start talking over a cup of punch. The use of the situation is twofold. On the one
hand it reveals the discreditable situation of lower class women of the time, whom Virginia
Woolf always wanted to help, and, on the other hand, it serves as a lesbian joke in the story
that must have pleased Vita. In any case, Potter saw these scenes as unnecessary from her
point of view and omitted the character of Nell, and more importantly, Orlando’s cross
dressing from the film entirely.
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By the end of the story Orlando does not need clothes to match or hide her sex; she
loses most of the signs of her sexuality and becomes in a way asexual. In the final voiceover the spectator hears what he also sees on the screen: “She is tall and slim with a
slightly androgynous appearance that many females of the time aspire to. (…) She’s lived
for four hundred years and hardly aged a day. And because this is England, everyone
pretends not to notice.” A spicy last remark.
The very final sign of the director’s feminism is the fact that she changed the sex of
Orlando’s son to a daughter. In the original story we hear that she can keep her estate if she
brings forth a male heir. Otherwise she loses everything. By giving Orlando a son, Woolf
made it possible for Vita to keep her estate at least in the novel. However, by changing the
sex of the child Potter emphasizes her modern message: freedom from estate, sex, and all
material bonds in order to be free to develop one’s own self regardless of any of the above
limitations. Potter thus justifies all the homosexuals, lesbians, queers, or other persons
whom society labels pervert without knowing the person behind the label.
FILM AND NOVEL
Although the story of Orlando stretches through four centuries the plot is relatively easy to
follow. Since Virginia Woolf based her story loosely on the life of Vita Sackville-West the
“biographer” (the commentator of the story) noted down only so many details that would
make up the life of a normal person who lived a busy life. The remaining time, circa three
hundred years are filled with the biographer’s comments or with secrets he cannot give
away but only alludes to. At the same time, Sally Potter must have found the story long
enough, and not only did she avoid adding anything to the plot but she selected only the
major events from it, not including scenes that might have served Woolf’s feminist
purposes but not Potter’s own. For example, although it is mentioned several times in the
novel that Orlando could relate to both sexes equally and that he/she was sexually very
much active, had several relationships and lovers, Potter only mentions three of these
adventures: Euphrosyne, his fiancée, Sasha, his love, and Shelmerdine, her American
lover. As it will be illustrated through the major cardinal functions of the novel, the
original story is a little more complicated than the film. As Berardinelli notes in his review
of the film in 1993,
Orlando [the film] is thin on story but thick on elegance and style… Writer
Sally Potter, adapting from Virginia Woolf’s novel, takes the approach that the
narrative is essentially irrelevant. Its purpose is to allow explorations of
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Orlando as he/she develops over the years and of the ever-changing attitudes of
society.[20]
Although most critics stress how faithful Potter’s adaptation is to Woolf’s work, I was very
much surprised how many cardinal functions of the novel she did not include in her film.
She still succeeded in creating the same atmosphere that one feels while reading the novel,
except for the last scene, where Woolf originally takes us to her present, i.e. 1928, as
opposed to Potter who shows the early 1990s. At the same time, this again shows that
Potter tried to be faithful to the mood that Woolf suggested: for the contemporary readers
of Orlando, 1928 was the modern time, the present, which for the viewers of Potter’s film
are the 1990s.
In the following part of my essay I would like to list the major cardinal functions of
the book in order to present a basis for a more systematic analysis of the film. The major
cardinal functions of Virginia Woolf’s novel that Potter selected from are listed below.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Introducing Orlando first in his room then under the oak tree
The arrival of Queen Elizabeth, to whom he holds a bowl of rosy water
The Queen grants him everything as he becomes the son of her old age
Orlando at court, flirting, going to pubs, listening to old adventure stories
Listing and description of his loves and her fiancée at the court of King James
Orlando meets Sasha during the Great Frost
Love affair with Sasha, plans for the future that end in despair when Sasha leaves him
at the end of the Great Frost: “the treachery of women”
8. The first long sleep
9. Orlando turns to and lives for poetry
10. Nicholas Green visits him and stays for six weeks while he manages to wring a pension
from Orlando. Then he goes home to his family and writes a ridiculing pamphlet about
Orlando
11. After the shock caused by Green’s pamphlet Orlando burns all his written works and
meditates over life, love, friendship, literature, etc. for many years
12. He discovers and renovates his estate and turns to society, gives parties, yet he cannot
resist the urge of writing
13. While he is writing the Archduchess Harriett sneaks in to his yard and pursues him
with her love
14. Orlando escapes from her to Constantinople where he performs all the customary
exercises of an ambassador
15. He is given the Dukedom upon which Orlando organizes a magnificent party with
many guests. A riot breaks out
16. Orlando goes back to his room and the next afternoon he is found sound asleep; a paper
is discovered on his desk telling that he is married to Rosina Pepita, the dancer
17. On the seventh day of his sleep the Turks turn against the Sultan and kill almost all
foreigners except for Orlando who was thought to be already dead
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18. The three sisters of Purity, Chastity, and Modesty come and are driven away by Truth
upon which Orlando turns into a woman
19. Orlando joins the gypsies but gradually the desire to write creeps back into her heart
20. Orlando goes back to England on the Enamoured Lady. On her arrival charges are set
against her and there is a danger of losing all her property
21. She starts to write again when the Archduchess appears; after a few minutes she
reveals that she is a man. He courts Lady Orlando who starts to play the Fly Loo game
with him upon which he gets offended and leaves her
22. She realizes that she needs ‘life and a lover’
23. Orlando goes to the salon of Lady R. where she is looking for the wits of England but
only finds dull Englishmen. On her departure she meets Mr. Pope and invites him to go
home with her.
24. She supports the poets and wits of her age (Swift, Pope, Addison)
25. Orlando goes out at night and meets Nell, the young prostitute
26. Orlando in the Victorian age: all are getting married when she meets Shelmerdine
whom she later marries. The lawsuit against her comes to an end.
27. She finishes The Oak Tree and accidentally meets Nicholas Green, who takes her great
work to have it published. She wins prizes with it.
28. Her son is born
29. Wandering around London in her own car in 1928
30. Orlando goes back to the oak tree and gives the book back to the tree
In the list above I tried to enumerate all the events that seem to me of major importance in
the plot. They together make up a story that has a deeper meaning, a message, or social
criticism Virginia Woolf found important to write about. One could, for instance, remove
(25) and the flow of the story would not seem crooked, yet, the hint of bisexuality would
be lost, for it is in this part of the novel where Virginia Woolf states that Orlando “enjoyed
the love of both sexes equally.”[21]
The same way in (13) and (14) the love of the Archduchess is of major importance
because her pursuit of Orlando makes him leave the country. Because of her obsessive
visits he decides to go to Turkey as an ambassador. The character of the Archduchess
becomes even more important later on when she arrives and reveals himself to be a
transvestite who only pretended to be a woman for Orlando’s sake. Here again, Virginia
Woolf stressed the importance (or insignificance?) of certain characters` sex. The
Archduchess/Archduke was ready to do anything only to win Orlando, and even his/her
gender could not stand in the way. This leads us back to the relationship between Woolf
and Sackville-West (although that was a lesbian relationship and neither of them attempted
to hide their sexes).
Events like (19) are only important because they explain first of all, why Orlando
goes back to England, and they also emphasize how important writing was for him/her.
She finally realizes that her culture is absolutely different from the gypsies` and that
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provides her a motive to go home while it also helps her find the way back to her real
person as a poet. Such motivation is absent from the film, where we simply accept that
Orlando turned into a woman and is taken home through the desert.
Since the end of the novel is more like a collection of impressions of the new,
modern city it is difficult to state which of these actions are decisive in the plot of the
novel. (28) is a vital point because bearing a son makes it possible for Orlando to keep her
estate. In (29) and (30) one has to be a little bit vague when explaining the story line: it is
like a post-impressionist painting. Colors merge with colors, no contours are to be seen,
moods are mediated, and yet the whole picture makes sense as it is. Just as one can see that
a church or a bridge is displayed on a painting even when the image is blurred, the same
way one understands that Orlando goes into the shop Marshall & Snelgrove`s and buys bed
linen, yet the whole experience is full of changing moods, memories, feelings, and
interestingly enough, scents (mentioned five times on three pages). Like a postimpressionist or even surrealist painting. The modern city she lives in now does not have
time for pondering over the meaning of life or love, or writing poems for years. It has a fast
rhythm and it makes the people living in it nervous and stressful. Even Orlando, as she is
driving around, gets in a way aggressive as it is to be seen in her remarks: “Why don’t you
look where you’re going to?… Put your hand out, can’t you?”[22] This, however, stands in
great contrast to the film, where Orlando seems to be absolutely calm and happy as she is
riding her motorbike around the city with her daughter sitting next to her.
Later in the book, as Orlando is wandering around in the shop, she suddenly falls
back into her memories and sees Sasha entering the shop in the picture of an elderly fat
woman in furs. The daughter of the czar also appears to be immortal, just as the character
of Nick Greene. He is the one who finally has Orlando’s poem published. Nonetheless,
Potter found that “it might take some of the energy out of the notion of immortality if
anyone other than the central protagonist appeared to possess this quality.”[23] The only
reference to this part of the novel is that the actor who plays Nick Greene in the film
(Heathcote Williams), appears in the last scene as the publisher. His physical appearance is
so different that it is generally difficult for viewers to discover Nicholas Greene in him at
all.
To make a long story short, the last part of the novel is more like a succession of
memories and feelings that appear in the mind of Orlando than a logical order of related
events, i.e. plot, and as such, it is difficult to adapt to film. This is very typical of the
stream-of-consciousness novel, where every little sight, scent, sound reminds one of things
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in the past, or of issues that trouble them (like the sound of the bell in Mrs. Dalloway). As
Woolf herself says in Orlando: “the truth is that when we write of a woman, everything is
out of place – culminations and perorations; the accent never falls where it does with a
man.”[24]
In changing or not including some of these cardinal functions, Potter formed the
story of Orlando to fit her own purposes. After the failure of The Gold Diggers she aimed
for a wider audience and thus she probably wanted to put less emphasis on feminism or
feminine relationships. She rather wanted to make a story that could appeal to more people
while it has a message, at the same time, i.e. genders are not as different as we think they
are.
MAKING UP FOR THE LOST LITERARY CONTENT
As mentioned several times above, the novel Orlando is full of hidden or more obvious
hints to other literary works. The way Woolf copies the style of prominent writers of the
time period she is writing about cannot be put to film for several reasons. One of these is
that film is a very different medium. It is not written but it shows, it makes see and hear.
Thus Potter needed to find different ways to make up for this literary content. One of the
means she applies is the precise use or sometimes parody of period costume and setting, no
matter in which century the given scene takes place. As we will see later, the music also
tries to correspond to the different eras the film depicts. In this way what Woolf imitates in
her style, Potter makes us see and hear.
On the other hand, the most obvious intertextual suggestions are made in scene 27
and 29. In 27 we witness the Archduke kneeling down, offering his hand to Orlando to
save her from shame. At this moment the butler and the two officials exit in a hasty way as
they find it inappropriate to witness such personal affairs. This scene reminds one of Jane
Austen’s Sense and Sensibility and of the last but one scene in Ang Lee’s adaptation of the
book. Here it is Edward Ferras who proposes to Elinor who breaks out in tears upon which
Mrs. Dashwood and her other two daughters exit the room as quickly as possible. The
second example also comes from Austen’s book: in scene 29 Orlando falls in the field and,
out of the fog, the figure of a man on horse appears who eventually falls down beside her.
In Sense and Sensibility it is Marianne who falls while running on the hill. Then Wilby
appears and takes her home after examining whether her ankle is twisted or not. In
Orlando, however, it is Shelmerdine’s ankle that is broken. At the same time, this scene
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may remind one of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, where it is Lord Rochester who falls
from the horse when first meeting Jane. To put it plainly, with the help of these short
intertextual scenes it might be obvious that Potter tried to imitate Woolf’s style in
cinematic terms as much as possible.
FRAMES
There are several recurring events in the story that work as frames in the plot. The first
such frame has already been mentioned: Orlando wants to elope with Sahsa and says she
belongs to him just because he adores her. The independent and smart Russian girl (played
by French Charlotte Valandrey) does not like to be ordered around without asking her own
opinion on a subject. She does not connect her life to Orlando and is thus free to leave as
soon as the ice breaks. The same way, when the Archduke Harry says to Orlando “But I
am England. And you are mine”, she inquires “I see. On what grounds?” “That I adore
you.” Upon which a most unpleasant reasoning follows on the Archduke’s part, concluding
in his last sentence his verdict: “You will die a spinster. Dispossessed and alone.” On
hearing this Orlando leaves not only the presence of Harry but also the whole 18th century.
After running through the maze she finds herself a single Victorian woman with a romantic
relationship ahead of her. But her reaction to being treated as property is exactly the same
as Sasha’s reaction was to his proposal.
Another recurrent phenomenon in the film is Orlando’s unexplainable long sleep
after traumatic events in his life. First he falls asleep when Sasha leaves her. When he
awakes he simply says “I can find only three words to describe the female sex. None of
which are worth expressing.” And from that moment on he devotes himself to poetry. Then
we see him sleeping after the riot brakes out in Turkey. He escapes into dreamland only to
awake and discover he became a woman. Now, it is important to see the significance of the
duration of the sleep: in both cases he sleeps seven days after a trauma that fell upon him.
Seven is obviously a mystical number, as it was in seven days that God created the Earth,
just as the dragon usually has seven heads in fairy tales. Orlando thus needs seven days to
recreate himself. First he dies to love as he is disappointed in women, than he dies to his
own sex and starts to experience life from a different point of view.
It is also interesting to note that in the moment he realizes he lost Sasha,
rain starts pouring over him. He does not run for cover but stands there as if she were
taking the infliction of nature as a whole. The same thing happens when Shelmerdine
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leaves her. As the rain starts to fall Orlando suddenly finds herself in the front line of the
Great War. In short, the rain comes whenever Orlando loses his/her greatest love.
As the character of Nick Green and his reappearance has been mentioned
above, the last recurring section we need to point out is the voice-over that opens and
closes the film. In both cases we hear a solid statement about the sex of the main character.
The film starts with the following monologue: “There can be no doubt about his sex
despite the feminine appearance that every young man at the time aspires to,” and ends
with a very similar one “She, for there can be no doubt about her sex, is visiting the house
she finally lost for the first time in over a hundred years.” The viewer gives credit to the
filmmakers who convince him that Orlando is a boy at the beginning of the film (especially
that it is Sally Potter whose voice-over is heard at the beginning) and he has no other
choice but to believe that Orlando is a woman two hours later (where Tilda Swinton’s
voice is used over the images). Thus the goal of the director is hopefully achieved: the
viewer remembers Orlando as a person and cannot define whether he is a he or a she.
Nevertheless, as much as the unimportance of sex is emphasized in connection to the story
of Orlando in each and every criticism it is exactly the sex change and the ambiguity about
his/her sex that occupies the critics’ mind. This means that, in a way, the struggle for
sexlessness has in fact lost its aim: we have to admit that a world without sex does not
exist, it is biologically impossible.
TIME AND SPACE
Woolf’s novel follows the events of Orlando’s life through four centuries and so does the
film, although in the last scenes it takes us to the end and not to the beginning of the
twentieth century. Other than this, the events of the novel are presented in chronological
order in the film. The places Orlando visits in the movie correspond to those in the novel.
There are, of course, scenes that are left out from the movie: for example, we do not see
Orlando in the desert with the gypsies, which is of major importance in Orlando’s life,
because it makes her realize that she belongs to England. Also, Potter omitted the scene
where Orlando travels back to England on the Enamoured Lady and sees London in its 18th
century glory, including the works of Sir Christopher Wren. In the novel it is on the ship
that Orlando first starts to think about herself being a woman and what that exactly means.
There she sees how pretentious the gender-stereotypes are that rule the whole society of the
time. Eventually, however, she decides to be a woman and makes use of all that she had
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learned as a man before. This decision is illustrated in a different way in Potter’s film as
she decided to show it rather than to say it. First Orlando is dressed in a great costume of
her time in which her movement looks rather awkward: it is difficult for her not to push
chairs around and knock tables over as she moves in her own house. Then we see her being
much more natural, walking in her garden, reading the invitations she received that
morning. This change in her movement is to show that she finally really became a woman.
The idea of time is, nevertheless, very different in film and novel. It is impossible to
reflect such passages from the novel as the following:
This extraordinary discrepancy between time on the clock and time in the mind
is less known than it should be and deserves fuller investigation… What is
love? What is friendship? What truth? But directly he came to think about
them, his whole past, which seemed to him of extreme length and variety,
rushed into the falling second, swelled it a dozen times its natural size,
coloured it a thousand tints, and filled it with all the odds and ends of the
universe.[25]
Still, the moviegoer may have the same feeling when leaving the cinema and thinking
about what he has just seen. The short time of the movie was filled with love, friendship,
truth, variety, and color.
The mansion of Knole also has a different meaning in Potter`s film than in Woolf`s
novel. In the film Knole is given over to the state and it becomes a museum, which idea is
present in the original novel as well:
…everywhere were little lavender bags to keep the moth out and printed
notices, `Please do not touch`, which, though she had put them there herself,
seemed to rebuke her. The house was no longer hers entirely, she sighed. It
belonged to time…[26]
In the film we do not feel the gloomy mood that comes over Orlando on looking at the
lavender bags and notices, but see her with her daughter looking at her own portrait made
in the 17th century. She looks happy and satisfied, and the fact that Asian tourists are taking
pictures of her former home does not seem to bother her at all. In Potter’s view, Orlando
became free of property or any kind of bondage. She communicates the birth of a new
woman, whereas Woolf found it a key aspect of the story that Orlando is after all able to
keep her property.
CHARACTER FUNCTIONS
After looking at the plot more closely, I would like to pay closer attention to the characters
that make the novel and also the film so lively. First of all, let us take a look at the person
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of Orlando. Obviously his/her name has not been changed and Potter has tried to form
his/her character as similar to the one we read about in the novel as she could. There have
been many critical remarks made about the credibility of Tilda Swinton as a man. Her
fragile appearance and her smooth face make it hard to believe that she is indeed a man. Of
course, Potter paraphrased Virginia Woolf’s first line in the novel to match her purposes,
and so, as already quoted above, the voice-over at the beginning of the film states that
“…there can be no doubt about his sex, despite the feminine appearance that every young
man of the time was bias to…” to save this aspect of the movie. Nevertheless I have to
agree with the statement made in a review of the DVD version, which said the following
about the feminine appearance of Tilda Swinton: “The opening narrative tries to persuade
us of the idea, saying it was the fashion of the time for young men to appear feminine, but
when all the other men in the film sport beards and more masculine characteristics, the
point is lost.”[27] At the same time, it is obvious that Swinton`s performance as a man (and
also as a woman) is fabulous, which make up for much that is lost due to her appearance.
Another change in Orlando’s character can be found in his actions concerning
his/her gender stereotypes. In the novel we read about him as a flirtatious man, who had
many lovers not only as a man but also as a woman, howbeit in the film we only see three
such relationships, as already listed above (Euphrosyne, Sasha, Shelmerdine). Also, in the
novel he is ready to fight on the khan’s side and kills as many people as any brave
gentleman in his time would have done in the same situation. Whereas, in the film it is
exactly the fight and the sight of blood that makes him change into a woman, as if he were
not able to cope with the duties of a “real” man. In the book there is always confusion
about his/her appearance: he is described as feminine in the beginning, at the same time,
later she is more masculine than the woman-stereotype of her time (“She was apt to think
of poetry when she should have been thinking of taffeta; her walk was a little too much of
a stride for a woman, perhaps, and her gestures, being abrupt, might endanger a cup of tea
on occasion”[28]). It is well illustrated now that Woolf created Orlando in a way that he/she
never fits the “normal” gender-type of her time, which is very much different in the case of
the film for, as already alluded to above, Tilda Swinton is always feminine. What we have
discovered at this point comes from the characteristic difference between novel and film:
for the author it is enough to write down that the person is a man and the reader can create
a masculine image in his mind, and as Orlando changes into a woman, the reader only has
to change that picture, which he can easily do. However, as opposed to the novel, the
viewer of the film is presented an image which he cannot change but has to accept. As
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George Bluestone put it “between the percept of the visual image and the concept of the
mental image lies the root difference between the two media.”[29] Thus the film is apt to
suffer more criticism than the novel when we talk about the same person once being a man
and then changing into a woman.
Woolf laid great emphasis on the poetic character of Orlando. The writing of
his/her poem, The Oak Tree comes back again and again as a theme. He/she spends years
thinking about it, pondering, meditating on the significance of poetry. This aspect of the
novel is almost completely lost in the film, although it emphasizes Woolf`s feminist point
of view in the book: Orlando had to become a woman to be able to finish her poem and
also to find success with it.
To stay with the character and the story of Orlando a little longer, we have to
mention another major difference in the film that comes from the gender of Orlando’s
child. In the novel we read “´It’s a very fine boy, M`Lady,` said Mrs Banting, the midwife,
putting her first-born child into Orlando’s arms. In other words Orlando was safely
delivered of a son…”[30] That is the only mention of him in the story, still it is of major
importance in the life of Orlando (or we might say Vita Sackville-West). Potter on the
other hand commented on this part of the novel the following way:
I’m much more concerned with dismantling the ideology of inheritance, and I
think it’s more interesting narratively for Orlando to lose everything by the
end, in order to find something else. Whereas in the book, Orlando keeps the
house, and somehow the message becomes, Everything is eternally the same –
you know, history repeats itself and all that. I don’t think this is true of Virginia
Woolf’s attitude as it comes through her essays, for example, or of her opinions
in general. I think that this development in the plot was a slightly private joke –
a gift to Vita.”[31]
Potter wanted to show that only by losing everything could Orlando really find herself, a
self that is independent of gender, time, or any other circumstance.
Another character who gained a greater significance in the film than she originally
has in the novel is Queen Elizabeth. As already mentioned above, Quentin Crisp played the
role of Elizabeth I, and so the Virgin “Queen” became one of the biggest implicit jokes of
film history. But that is not the only significance she gains in the film. She also becomes
responsible for Orlando’s eternal youth. She is the one who orders him “Do not fade, do
not wither, do not grow old”, as a condition of his getting the inheritance the Queen is to
bestow upon him. This sentence does not appear in the book for Woolf probably did not
feel the need to explain why Orlando lives so long and so young. It is simply given to her.
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Potter on the other hand says that “I had to strengthen some of the narrative muscle for
cinematic purposes – to supply little bits of motivation for the story’s premise, to make it
psychologically convincing on film… the film needed this little moment to launch us onto
the path of immortality.”[32] Thus the queen became a key character in the film.
It is also worth noting that in the case of Queen Elizabeth Potter created ambiguity
in the film where there was none in the novel, whereas in the case of Sasha she avoided
any kind of misunderstanding concerning her sex. In the book we read that on seeing Sasha
for the first time
Orlando was ready to tear his hair with vexation that the person was of his own
sex, and thus all embraces were out of the question. But the skater came closer.
Legs, hands, carriage, were a boy’s, but no boy ever had a mouth like that; no
boy had those breasts; no boy had eyes which looked as if they had been fished
from the bottom of the sea.[33]
This sort of ambiguity is not present in the film at all, although there is a hint to it in the
original screenplay:
Orlando
Earl of Moray
Orlando
Earl of Moray
Who is that?
I believe she is the daughter of the Moscovite Ambassador.
She?
Were you in some doubt? Of course they are not quite like the women of
our islands.
This short discourse is left out of the film probably because Sasha (Charlotte Valandrey)
appears to be feminine enough with her long hair, long eyelashes, feminine movement,
dissolving thus any kind of doubt about her gender. Other than this, the Russian girl is very
much portrayed in the movie as she is in the book.
We have to come back to ambiguity again when we mention the Archduke Harry.
His character is of major importance in both the novel and the film as he is the one who
proposes marriage and position to Orlando. However, the fact that he dressed as a woman
and was already in love with Orlando before he became a woman is not referred to
anywhere in the film. Only in the proposal scene do we hear that the Archduke has always
looked upon Orlando with love and respect and now is ready to forget the ambiguity of her
sex and marry her:
Archduke
Orlando
Archduke
Archduke
Orlando
Orlando
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I can offer you a house to rival your own.
I don’t quite understand.
I confess: Orlando, to me you were and always will be, whether male of
female, the pink the pearl and the perfection of your sex. I’m offering
you my hand
There is only one solution in your current predicament.
Oh, Archduke, that’s very kind of you, yes. I cannot accept.
Indeed?
Archduke
Orlando
Archduke
Orlando
Archduke
Orlando
Archduke
Orlando
Archduke
But I… I am England. And you are mine.
I see. On what grounds?
That I adore you.
And this means that I belong to you?
You’re refusing me?
I am. I’m sorry.
But Orlando, with your history, quite frankly, who else will have you?
Do you realize what you are turning down? With your ambiguous
sexuality, which I am prepared to tolerate. This is your last chance of
respectability.
I can’t breathe.
You will die a spinster. Dispossessed and alone.
Yet in the novel he (dressed as the “Archduchess Harriet Griselda of Finster-Aarhorn and
Scandop-Boom in the Roumanian territory” – alone her/his name is a joke –) is the cause
of Orlando’s leaving of the country and becoming the ambassador to Turkey. In the film,
however, the driving force seems to be Orlando’s misfortunate encounter with Nicholas
Greene. Here we then see that in writing the script Potter picked up bits and pieces from
the book instead of following every single occurrence of it, and she created a different
story where the motivations are more or less in place.
The character of Shelmerdine, the American adventurer, seems to be more
receptive for a serious relationship with Orlando in the book than he is in the film. In the
original story he marries her and they keep in contact even when he is sailing to the Cape
Horn. They create a special language only they can understand, and Orlando’s dependence
on Shelmerdine and her love for him is felt all the way to the end of the book. Vita herself
was actually disappointed that it should be so, for she liked to see Orlando (and herself in
him/her) as an absolutely independent personality. Much the same way, Potter did not want
to have Orlando on the safe side but wished her to stay independent, so that by not having
anything (neither house nor a husband) she would find herself.
Shelmerdine (played by Billy Zane) is again supposed to be of ambiguous
sexuality, for at one point of the novel Woolf writes “an awful suspicion rushed into both
their minds simultaneously, `You`re a woman, Shel!`she cried. `You`re a man, Orlando!`
he cried. Never has there such a scene of protestation and demonstration as then took place
since the world began.”[34] Potter tried to suggest this ambiguity with the somewhat
feminine appearance of the long-haired Billy Zane along with one conversation in which
Orlando and Shelmerdine play with the idea of what they would do if they were of the
opposite sex:
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Orlando
Shelmerdine
Orlando
Shelmerdine
Orlando
Shelmerdine
Orlando
If I were a man...
You?
I might choose not to risk my life for an uncertain cause. I might think that
freedom won by death is not worth having. In fact...
You might choose not to be a real man at all. Say, if I was a woman...
You?
I might choose not to sacrifice my life caring for my children, nor my
children's children, nor to drown anonymously in the milk of female
kindness, but instead, say, to go abroad. Would I then be...
A real woman?
This reflects the feminist issue that is so obviously present in the novel. These few words
play with the idea of breaking the domineering gender roles, stating that neither women’s
nor men’s roles are quite correct as they are. In addition, not only is there no ambiguity
about the sex of Shelmerdine but his devotion to Orlando also seems to be less strong than
in the novel. He is represented as a tough man, who wants to stay free. He is determined to
fight on for freedom, although it does not seem to come to him. Orlando asks him in the
film “This future of yours, when does it begin? Today? Or always tomorrow?” upon which
Shelmerdine chooses tomorrow and leaves with the south-west wind never to appear again
in the film.
Although the functions of other characters (such as Pope, Swift, etc.) have also
been changed, they did not have a major effect on the plot and so I do not attempt to
analyze these changes here. At the same time, it is important to note from the point of view
of adaptation what Potter did here is exactly the kind of inspired condensation scriptwriters
are taught. When Orlando’s visitations and invitations to different parties go on for pages
in the novel, and when she accepts all the wits of the time in her house one by one, it is a
great solution to put all these people, visits and conversations into one scene. Thus, again,
Potter’s feminist message is strengthened while in Woolf’s novel Orlando is actually
amused by these men, and she realizes that they are common people, and that they “were
very witty, too (but their wit is all in their books).”[35]
MISE-EN-SCÈNE AND SETTING
It has already been mentioned that a diverse international team worked on the realization of
Orlando.[36] The film’s cameraman, Alexei Rodionov comes from Russia and brings a
special quality to the movie. His genius and the internationality of the team had an
influence not only on the style of the movie but also on its setting and locations. Some
parts of Orlando were shot in Russia, where the icy St. Petersburg provided the
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background of London in the Great Frost. In contrast to the red and golden darkness of the
Elizabethan era, the white glare of the snow and the silver of the skates are displayed here.
This effect is only emphasized by the silvery shades of the dinner scene. This contrast
between black and white may also symbolize Orlando’s inexperience: young people are apt
to see things in black and white. Orlando only sees the “treachery of women” in Sasha’s
betrayal without thinking of any other reason that could force her to leave him.
In scene 15 we see Orlando having lunch with Nick Green. The position of the
actors and the setting of the scene emphasizes that Potter is far from being a traditional
heritage director. In fact this scene reveals her ability to communicate deeper meanings
through a simple creative idea. Here, Orlando is sitting on one end of the table while Green
is sitting on the other end, symbolizing how far their mentality is from each other. Orlando
sits way up, in the realm of the ideals still. He believes in poetry as this is the only thing
left to him after loosing his beloved and being disappointed in the female sex in general.
Green on the other hand sits closer to us, his is a down-to-earth poet who already knows
that besides living for the noble art one has to feed his children and pay the rent. He hangs
onto the soup bowl lest the butler should take it away and even his teeth show his
deterioration. He is not only a poet but flesh and blood. He does not have the luxury to deal
only with the high art of poetry when his teeth are rotting and his children are starving.
Nonetheless, his harsh reality makes him repellant to the viewer who feels sorry for
Orlando who can see just another disappointment ahead of him. This scene can be
understood as a fillip not only to the British conventions that hold the great poets in high
regard, but also to traditional heritage film which on the surface may encourage people to
keep up this high regard for simple physical beings.
Coming back to the mise-en-scène of the film, we must take a look at the scenes in
which Orlando acts as the English ambassador to Turkey (in reality shot in Uzbekistan).
Here we are first struck by the immense sunshine that flows in through the windows and
curtains, leaving beautiful silhouettes on the wall (see scene 20). This image suggests hot
weather, and points to the disparate temperament of the English and the Turkish Orlando
so well conforms to. In all these sequences the color of the sand dominates the screen, yet
the presence of cold blue is also obvious (background objects, the cuffs of the Khan, etc).
And from this puritan light brown color we are dragged back to the arty, colorful setting of
England in the 18th century. The only similarity between these two sections is the
abundance of sunshine and light. In scenes 25-27 we see Orlando, already female, dressed
into the most impossible dresses that ridicule the fashion of the time. Her “eighteenthCHAPTER 4 – ORLANDO
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century femininity is parodied by juxtaposition with excessively ‘feminised’ and absurdly
shaped and draped furniture.”[37] These features of the costume design and setting put the
preoccupation of the costume drama with authenticity into the center of ridicule. After the
title “Birth” the spectator then arrives into the modern, or we might say postmodern age.
Not Woolf’s age but into the straight horizontal and vertical lines of 1990’s London. Not
only are the buildings stripped down to some sort of skeleton-structure, but Orlando’s
clothes, hair, pasture also suggest the loss of all embellishment. She does not need any
signifiers to show her femininity as there is no need to emphasize her sex: in these last
scenes she stands close to androgyny. The automobile that was so modern in the 1920s is
transformed into a motorbike with side-car, but the horns and different sounds of the city
can be heard in both the novel and the film. After a rush through the city Orlando and her
daughter (Swinton’s niece in real life) arrive at the estate that used to belong to Orlando’s
family. Here, what strikes the spectator are the covered shrubs. One cannot help but to
remember Christo and Jeanne-Claude as they wrapped the building of the Reichstag in
Berlin in 1995. This sort of artistic design emphasizes that Orlando is now in the
postmodern age. But one is also reminded of the covered furniture in scene 25. The estate
is not used in its former social function: it became a museum. And from this artificial
creation of the twentieth-century, we return to nature, i.e. to the starting point of the story.
Yet this return is not without significant changes in the protagonist. The reunion is
strengthened by technology and the hope of future as Orlando’s daughter holds a video
camera in her hand. She is able to form her own view of the world as she is free from all
bonds Orlando had to struggle with in the last 400 years.
MUSIC AND SOUND
Music and sound play a very particular role in Potter’s adaptation of Orlando. As the inner
thoughts and different moods of the main character cannot be represented the same way as
in the novel, sound and music can create a very special inner world instead. As Maggie
Humm notes, “In postmodern fashion, objects/surface/music (which Potter composed) are
crucial signifiers, not linear narrative.”[38] Thus music is not simply a background element
in the movie but gives special flavor to it, emphasizes not only the flow of the story but the
message of the director. Potter noted:
I wanted a sound effect structure and score that would mirror the scale of the
film. Our policy during the mix was to make a broad dynamic range and then
highlight certain evocative or pointed sounds – such as the peacock’s cry when
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Orlando is walking down the gallery of long white drapes, or the sound of the
ice cracking, or of rain taking over the soundtrack.[39]
Based on this comment it is even more interesting that the film opens with the falsetto of
the gay activist and pop star Jimmy Sommerville, who helped in writing the music and
sang in many parts of the soundtrack as well. By making him sing “Elisa is the fairest
queen” Potter creates a double joke: Elizabeth in his old age is far from being the fairest
(as she also notes when Orlando starts to recite her parts from The Faerie Queene) whereas
Quentin Crisp may be looked upon as the fairest of Brirish “queens”. In great contrast to
this opening sequence there is no music in scene 5 where one only hears the swishing
sounds of heavy dresses, drapery, and the cracking of the fire. To speak in such an
environment implies significance. And indeed, it is in this scene that the Queen provides
Orlando with his immortality and rank. Throughout the movie the different sounds of birds
(owl, peacock, crows, etc.) or other animals are heard in significant moments, e.g. at
Orlando’s third aside while saying “Interesting person”, or after dressed into her first
oversized white dress, etc.
The Society sequence also starts with a falsetto (accompanied by the cembalo)
which is contrasted by the deep voice of the hostess. This reversed contrast between the
two sexes helps to emphasize Potter’s aim of breaking gender barriers and stereotypes. But
gender stereotypes are not the only ones in need of breaking: when Orlando makes love to
Shelmerdine, instead of hearing soft romantic music the spectator is presented with an
electronic score which for a person living in 2008 sounds rather alienating and cold. But it
also reveals that Orlando and Shelmerdine’s love is not the usual love-marriage-childrenhappily-ever-after sequence. This is a free relationship, and although in Woolf’s novel the
two lovers do get married, Shelmerdine leaves Orlando behind to seek adventures. Besides
the strong effects of dripping water or Orlando’s heart-throbbing, I would like to mention
one more interesting feature and that is the “sound dissolve” heard in scene 16. In the first
section of this sequence we see Nick Green reading out his criticism of Orlando’s poem.
Then the film cuts to Orlando burning all his works while Greens voice is gradually
dissolved into his. The mixing of a person’s voice with another person’s face carries in
itself the symbol of the stealing of the spirit (one only has to think about the film The
Exorcist, for example). This implies in a way that Green stole Orlando’s spirit or rather his
belief in the noble art, his safe fortress he built after Sasha left him. After the loss of his
faith he finds no other way out but to escape to Turkey.
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To summarize, we can confidently state that instead of using conventional sound
editing method, Potter made use of this aspect of filmmaking to a higher degree. This
creative handling of the sound makes the movie even more unique in film history.
SEGMENTATION AND CAMERAWORK
There are 568 cuts in the film, out of which there are three fade-outs at the end of
sequences. Dissolves and fade-ins are not typical of Orlando, although these techniques are
frequently used in films that deal with dreams and dreamlike phenomenon of which
immortality and the change of sex might as well could be a part. A few words have already
been mentioned about the camerawork in the film, stating that as opposed to heritage films,
in Orlando one is apt to find many close-ups and less unmotivated establishing shots.
Besides this characteristic I would simply like to point out one feature that is striking in
Rodionov’s style. In some scenes he uses the camera as if it were a pendulum-clock:
instead of using shot/reverse shot he makes the camera swing back and forth from one
character to the other. Meanwhile, the character speaking may not even be in the frame as
he/she starts to speak, still the flow of the scene remains unbroken. This effect corresponds
very well with the idea of the stream-of-consciousness, as our thoughts are also flowing
from one idea to the other, sometimes even backwards, until they find a new track. This
“pendulum-technique” can be found in scene 19, 26, and 29. In scene 19, we see Orlando
drinking with the Khan in the desert, and as they are saying their toasts to the different
beauties and worthy phenomenon of the world, the camera moves back and forth from one
to the other.
Khan
Orlando
Khan
Orlando
Khan
Orlando
Khan
Orlando
So Orlando, I salute your country. To England, green and pleasant land.
And… and I salute your country – so… spacious and… so… warm.
Ah yes – to the glorious sun which shines so brightly on this bountiful
earth…
Ha-ha, quite so … yes, yes… To the beauty of nature…
And of course to the beauty of women, and the joys of love.
I see. You are here as a casualty of love, my friend.
They’re not like us fellows…
Women... It is said: man should reverence his guardian lord who created
him. And from a single being created of like nature his mate, then from
those two, scattered like seeds, countless men and women. So Orlando…
let us now drink to brotherly love.
To the manly virtues –Loyalty! Courage!…
This noble conversation between the Khan and Orlando breaks down at the mentioning of
women, and so does the gentle flow of the camera. It returns to conventional editing until
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Orlando, as a woman, arrives into the company of the wits of the 18th century. Here, as
opposed to scene 19, the flow of the camera creates rather a sort of dizziness and
communicates the stunning effect these gentleman exercise on the unprepared Orlando. At
first she is unable to react to their revolting remarks and the floating of the camera breaks
when she finally puts into words what she feels. “Gentleman. You are poets, each one of
you, and speak of your muse in the feminine, and yet you appear to feel neither tenderness
nor respect towards your wives or towards females in general.” With this remark the
vicious circle is broken, men can no longer dominate the conversation as it is also reflected
in the camera work.
The last appearance of this flowing shot can be found in scene 29, where it
emphasizes the ambiguity of sexuality and the feminist ideas of the director, as I have
already quoted above. The camera flows from man to woman and vica versa without a
break, indicating that there is no break between the two genders. By looking at these few
scenes it is readily apparent that although the film is very different from a novel that works
with the stream-of-consciousness techniques, it can still mediate a very similar message
through its camerawork, for example.
CONCLUSION
As we have seen Sally Potter decided to abandon about one third of the above listed
cardinal functions of the novel and she also changed a few more. Nonetheless, one still has
the impression that this film is a quality adaptation of Woolf’s story: it is about a man who
was born in the sixteenth century, lived almost unchanged until the twentieth century (later
we do not know for sure) and turned into a woman in between. She had two great love
affairs: one as a man with Sasha, the daughter of the Russian ambassador to England, and
one as a woman with the American adventurer, Shelmerdine. She has one child and he/she
wrote a literary work that later became successful. The story Virginia Woolf wrote about
feminism or about the (non-existing) differences between the sexes has a message even
today and I find Potter’s movie an apt messenger of that meaning. At the same time, a film
based on a popular literary work can never be a perfect adaptation of the given novel, for
as DeWitt Bodeen wrote in his article The Adapting Art: “Adapting literary works to film
is, without doubt, a creative undertaking, but the task requires a kind of selective
interpretation, along with the ability to recreate and sustain an established mood.”[40] One
has to be aware that film is a different art form and as such, it cannot have the same effect
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as a novel or a drama has on the reader, still the viewer can gain much from the different
interpretations of a given work. The audience has to accept that the film is the creation of
another person’s fantasy and so it cannot coincide perfectly with every different viewer’s
interpretation of the story. The reason why Potter’s adaptation was so well received is that
she tried to stick to the mood of the book, she read many books on the different periods the
novel is set in and attempted to recreate the same atmosphere based on her own
understanding of the novel. Her message is a not as clearly a feminist one as Woolf’s was
in her time, but it is able to speak to the heart of a new, more modern audience. The only
question is whether we are ready to understand what the film is trying to communicate,
whether we are able to let Orlando the book and Orlando the spirit (and maybe some parts
of ourselves along with him/her) free.
[1]
Walter Donohue, ‘Immortal Longing’, Film/Litrature/History ed. Ginette Vincendeau (London: British
Film Institute, 2001) 58.
[2]
Woolf, Virginia. Orlando. (Wordsworth Edition: Ware, 2003) xi.
[3]
As it has already been stated in a previous chapter on adaptation theory, words cannot be put to the screen.
But without words and puns, Woolf’s wonderful novel may be considered less entertaining, less decisive.
[4]
Kelly Tetterton, Orlando, 13 Oct 2004, http://www.geocities.com/athens/academy/6422/rev1110.html.
[5]
Donohue 58.
[6]
At the same time, Potter did use voice-over in her film, namely right at the beginning and the end of the
movie where she found it important to clear all doubt about the sex of the main character.
[7]
Donohue 58.
[8]
Sarah Street, British National Cinema (London: Routledge, 1997) 176.
[9]
Woolf 77.
[10]
Woolf 93.
[11]
Susan Gerhard, Orlando, 27 Sept 2004, http://www.planetout.com/kiosk/popcornq/db/getfilm.html?1889.
[12]
Max Hoffmann, Orlando, 28 Sept 2004, http://www.imdb.com/Reviews/19/1906.
[13]
Marjorie Baumgartner, Orlando, 12 Oct 2004,
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gbase/Calendar/Film?Film=oid%3a139042
[14]
Maggie Humm, Feminism and Film (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997) 177.
[15]
Claire Monk, „Sexuality and Heritage” in Sight and Sound. October 1995.
[16]
Donohue 59.
[17]
Woolf 88.
[18]
Woolf 106-7.
[19]
Woolf 107.
[20]
James Berardinelli, Orlando, 10 Nov 2004, http://movie-reviews.colossus.net/movies/o/orlando.html
[21]
Woolf 108.
[22]
Woolf 108.
[23]
Gary Indiana, Spirits either sex assume - interview with film director Sally Potter, 25 Oct 2004,
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_n10_v31/ai_14156124.
[24]
Woolf 154.
[25]
Woolf 95.
[26]
Woolf 157.
[27]
DVD Times, Orlando, 13 Sept 2004, http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php? contentid=5379.
[28]
Woolf 95.
[29]
George Bluestone, Novels into Film (Berkley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1957) 1.
[30]
Woolf 146.
144
[31]
Indiana
Indiana
[33]
Woolf 17.
[34]
Woolf 124.
[35]
Woolf 104.
[36]
Verina Glaessner’s comment in her article ‘Orlando: Fire and Ice’ is very interesting from the point of
view of the British national (!) cinema, as she says “It is a mixed pedigree indicative of a moment when
notions of national cinema are dissolving and possibilities for a European cinema are being explored”
(Verina Glaessner ‘Orlando: Fire and Ice’ Film/Literature/Heritage ed. Ginette Vincendau (London: British
Film Institute, 2001) 54)
[37]
Humm 174.
[38]
Humm 174.
[39]
Donohue 60.
[40]
DeWitt Bodeen, ‘The Adapting Art’ in Films in Review 14/6, 1963, 349.
[32]
145
146
CHAPTER 5
LORD OF THE FLIES
After jumping over almost two decades since the birth of Woolf’s Orlando we arrive to
William Golding’s novel about the dark nature of man’s soul. The novel was written in
1954, which marked a turning point in the course of the British novel. As elaborated in
Chapter 2, this year had a special significance as it celebrated the publication of Iris
Murdoch’s Under the Net and Kingsley Amis’ Lucky Jim, as well.
THE NOVEL
The novel’s starting point is considered to be the notion of original sin, nevertheless in
Golding’s book it is not dealt with in a strict or obviously religious way. Arnold Johnston
writes about Golding and his work:
… Lord of the Flies has been read and discussed widely as the work of a
literary maverick, a writer who dares to be didactic, and whose moral platform
seems uncomfortably close – in these iconoclastic times – to the orthodox
religious doctrine of Original Sin.[1]
The novel is set some time after World War II, and tells the story of a group of boys who
land on an uninhabited island without grown-ups. At first, they are able to keep up order
but soon enough the struggle for power and the fear of the unknown takes the overhand.
After three boys die, the group is rescued by a British cutter.
Golding deals with the issue of the boys’ dark nature less from a theological
perspective than from a humanitarian one. He, through the actions and the drives of the
boys, illustrates how savage children really are under the civilized surface. The moral
message of the book is evidently debated because in this case it is not society that is made
responsible for the sins and morally questionable deeds but the individual human being
himself. The reason Golding started to work on such a sinister story, as he said in an
interview, was that
Before the Second World War I believed in the perfectibility of social man;
that a correct structure of society would produce goodwill; and that therefore
you could remove all social ills by a reorganization of society. It is possible
that today I believe something of the same again; but after the war I did not
because I was unable to. I had discovered what one man could do to another…
I believed then, that man was sick – not exceptional man, but average man. I
CHAPTER 5 – LORD OF THE FLIES
147
believed that the condition of man was to be a morally diseased creature and
that the best job I could do at the time was to trace the connection between his
diseased nature and the international mess he gets himself into.[2]
Of course, the horrors of the Second World War were only followed by the seemingly less
devastating tensions of the Cold War. The course of contemporary history produced a
pessimistic view of moral man. This is illustrated in much detail and through countless
symbols in Lord of the Flies as we will see in the analysis below. E.L. Epstein notes:
The theme is an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of
human nature. The moral is that the shape of a society must depend on the
ethical nature of the individual and not on any political system however
apparently logical or respectable. The whole book is symbolic in nature except
the rescue in the end where adult life appears, dignified and capable, but in
reality enmeshed in the same evil as the symbolic life of the children on the
island. The officer, having interrupted a man-hunt, prepares to take the children
off the island in a cruiser which will presently be hunting its enemy in the same
implacable way. And who will rescue the adult and his cruiser?[3]
It is readily apparent from the above mentioned themes that the story is a highly symbolic
one. It deals with deep moral, social, and psychological questions in a subtle way which
can be easily decoded once the reader is willing to take some time for interpretation.
INTERTEXTUALITY
The change in historical circumstances, the experience of the Second World War, and the
psychological consequences of these events make the question of intertextuality certainly
intriguing. Golding’s pessimistic view shows how the romantic idea of man’s ability to
survive in a civilized manner in extreme circumstances with the help of practical
knowledge and adaptability has diminished.
Nevertheless, the idea of man’s survival on an uninhabited island has appeared in
literature many times before. In British literature alone we can find several examples
starting with the most obvious one, Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719), continuing
with Johann Davis Wyss’ The Swiss Family Robinson (1812). The former shows the
survival of the adult Robinson, whereas Wyss’ novel is a moral fable teaching basic
Christian values within a family stranded on an uninhabited island. However, the most
obvious starting point of Golding’s novel must have been Ballantyne’s The Coral Island
published in 1857. There are clear references to these forerunners in the book as well:
… Ralph went on.
“While we’re waiting we can have a good time on this island.”
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He gesticulated widely.
“It’s like in a book.”
At once there was a clamor.
“Treasure Island– “
“Swallows and Amazons– “
“Coral Island– “[4]
At the very end, the naval officer’s last comment on the boys recount reads the following:
“I know. Jolly good show. Like the Coral Island.”[5] In a way he is right: The Coral Island
tells the story of British boys Ralph, Jack, and Peterkin, and shows their adventurous
survival on an island where pigs run wild. This is basically the story of Lord of the Flies.
However, the fact that the officer in Golding’s novel already knows that two boys[6] have
died in this “jolly good show” and he still alludes to The Coral Island shows that he does
not want to face the fact of what really happened here. He does not want to admit that
without adult supervision the boys became real savages and in their evilness they had
already killed two boys and were just about to hunt down the third. Through this
intertextual reference Golding makes it stunningly clear how unprepared the post-war
society is to accept the rottenness of human nature. After all, if it did accept this fact, it
would admit its own shortcomings and pass a judgment on itself.
After bringing up intertextuality in literature and before going into details about the
two cinematic adaptations of the book, it is impossible to avoid taking a short look at the
same phenomenon in the world of films. Beside the countless movie versions of the above
mentioned novels, we can also find clearly cinematic forerunners of the above mentioned
themes. One obvious example would be the film The Blue Lagoon (1980) with Brooke
Shields in the leading role. The film is about two shipwrecked children who grow up
together on an uninhabited island and fall in love later on. Another recent example is Tom
Hank’s movie Cast Away (2000) which shows the adventurous survival of a FedEx
employee who spends four years on an uninhabited island. However, the idea of children
turning out to be evil is less frequently illustrated in film, let alone literature. If we omit
films with occult stories, such as The Exorcist (1973) or Omen (1976), the only obvious
example that deals with such a topic is The Good Son (1993), starring Macaulay Culkin
and Elijah Wood. This story is about Mark (Wood) who tries to prevent his cousin, Henry
(Culkin) from killing his sister and mother after he already drowned his own little brother
out of jealousy. The film, however, was very unsuccessful with the critics as they thought
the idea of such evil children is not something the audience would want to see.[7] The
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unfavorable reviews came out despite the fact that the movie’s screenplay was written by
one of Britain’s most successful contemporary authors, Ian McEwan.
The popularity of the survival novels and films, along with the rareness of the topic
of evil children in both literature and in film reveals why Golding’s novel became not only
popular but even a Nobel Prize winner. He manages to mix the adventurous parts with
deep humanistic and psychological knowledge that have become so important in the
decades following World War II. As opposed to The Good Son, for example, Golding’s
story is more subtle, a symbolic fable in which the children are less aware of their own
psychological drives and so the story points to the general evil in man’s heart not to the
stirred psychological background of one individual. Thus the adaptation of such a story
must also have promised success with the audiences.
THE ADAPTATIONS
Over the decades following the novel’s publication, two movie adaptations were made.
One was produced in 1963 by British director Peter Brook, while in 1990 Harry Hook’s
film came out in the theaters.[8] As we will see, there are smaller alterations in Brook’s film
compared to the novel but the major cardinal functions are mostly adapted. Now, the case
is slightly different with Hook’s adaptation. He also adapted most of the functions but
many of them are significantly changed or updated.[9] In order to be able to explain the
need or the superfluity of these changes it is essential to compare the two films in greater
detail.
The first difference that strikes the eye is that the British version is black and white.
As mentioned in Chapter 1, black and white films often give the impression of being closer
to reality. They are more like a documentary. The realistic cinematography seems an even
greater achievement as the two cinematographers, Gerald Feil and Tom Hollyman had
never worked on a feature film before. Their unusual method of shooting with several
cameras in parallel enabled them to edit the film using 60 hours of raw material. This way
they filmed many spontaneous reactions and moments the boys went through while
working on the different scenes. The natural effect is supported by the unaffected style of
the amateur children actors. As opposed to this, in the American adaptation, already the
underwater shots, the sound effects and later on the lavish colorful nature of the island
creates a more children’s-fantasy-like atmosphere. By simply using a different medium,
the two films make a radically different impression. Whereas the 1963 version seems
150
darker and more realistic, even more depressing, the vivid pictures of the 1990 version
suggest more fun on the island at first sight. Also, in the 1980s the idea of youth struggling
and gaining experience together was a popular theme. Such movies as The Goonies (1985)
or Stand by Me (1986) already made children gangs familiar to the audiences. Hook’s film,
in contrast to these adventures, and however different it is from the 1963 version or the
original novel, still had a cutting edge and so the boys’ cruelty could still shock the viewer.
Another major difference can be found between the two cultures the movies
represent. In 1963 Brook adapted the modern English novel of William Golding. Although
it is a basically universal human story, the social structure and the language the boys use
amongst them is typically British, and represents the upper classes. These boys come from
a British private school and many of them are choir boys. In these circumstances the fact
that Jack can sing C sharp can make him a leader. He can sing better than any of the boys,
he is chapter chorister and head boy, thus he is granted power. In today’s society, or that of
the 1990s, boys who sing in choirs are not necessarily considered masculine and their
ability to sing does not put them into leading positions. For this cultural difference, Hook
decided to update the story and made young cadets out of the British choir boys. Instead of
wearing black gowns they have blue uniforms on. The difference between Jack and Ralph
is not in their ability to sing but in their age (Jack is the oldest in the group) and their rank
(Ralph is colonel). This change, as we will see later on, is of major importance, as for
example the black line of the choir boys creeping from the jungle has a symbolic meaning
in the original story which is more or less lost in Hook’s version.
The American cadets bring along another significant difference between the two
films, and that is the question of nationality and accent. In the 1963 version Englishness is
very much emphasized. Jack alludes to their special position as British children: “We've
got to have rules and obey them. After all, we're not savages. We're English. And the
English are best at everything!”[10] National pride comes to the surface, although this
statement may be considered ironic once the reader knows the end of the story. Also, in the
book this national attitude is preceded by Ralph talking about his father and the Queen:
My father’s in the Navy. He said there aren’t any unknown islands left. He says
the Queen has a big room full of maps and all the islands in the world are
drawn there. So the Queen’s got a picture of this island.[11]
Now, in the 1990 version no such overt national dignity is to be found. Instead, we have
the covert national pride that surfaces through the American accent of the children and
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their several allusions to contemporary American culture, which will be elaborated later
on.
In both cases, however, the cast was selected from a group of inexperienced young
actors. In the case of both groups of children one can state that the majority of the boys
appeared on the screen only in this film and may have appeared in two other movies at the
most. Interestingly enough, only James Aubrey and Balthazar Getty, the two boys playing
Ralph, make an exception to this statement.[12] The inexperience of the boys strikes the
viewer at the beginning and the actors’ natural style makes the movies even more
convincing. Brook chose his non-actors out of 3000 applicants and took them to an island
near Puerto Rico for the summer vacation of 1961. In his book The Shifting Point he
recounts finding Piggy’s character the following way:
Piggy, he arrived by magic through the post—a sticky Just William on lined
paper, “Dear Sir, I am fat and wear spectacles,” and a crumpled photograph
that made us cry with delight. It was Piggy, come to life in Camberley—the
unique boy himself, conceived ten years before at the very moment that
Golding was wrestling with the birth of the novel.[13]
By choosing amateur actors, Brook hoped to create a rather realistic effect in the film. He
wanted to prove in a way that Golding’s story was not only a beautiful yet frightening fable
but also a real insight into the human soul. He later also stated that,
experience showed me that the only falsification in Golding’s fable is the
length of time the descent to savagery takes. His action takes about three
months. I believe that if the cork of continued adult presence were removed
from the bottle, complete catastrophe could occur within one long weekend.[14]
However, instead of becoming traumatized by these experiences, most of the boys turned
out to be leaders in their school and contributed a great deal to social life.
There is a further interesting difference between the two adaptations and that is
their historical background. By the 1960s, the horror of the Second World War was
wearing off, nonetheless, a less visible yet just as significant historical phenomenon started
to form world politics, namely, the Cold War. Golding alludes to this in the first
conversation between Piggy and Ralph in the book:
“How does he know we’re here?”
Because, thought Ralph, because, because. The roar from the reef became very
distant.
“They’ll tell him at the airport.”
Piggy shook his head, put on his flashing glasses and looked down at Ralph.
“Not them. Didn’t you hear what the pilot said? About the atom bomb?
They’re all dead.”[15]
152
The film, on the other hand, was shot in the shadow of the Cuban missile crisis. These
historical facts make the publication of the novel and the making of the film absolutely
justifiable. Nevertheless, we do not know about such a global crisis that would surface in
the 1990 movie. Although, the early 90s saw the collapse of the Soviet Union, this hardly
could have had any effect on the filmmakers, or at least it is not mediated in any significant
form. This supposition is supported by the fact that, as opposed to the original story, in the
American adaptation the boys are not being taken into security from their threatened
homes but are actually heading home when their plane crashes.[16] There is no international
threat behind their fate. In contrast to this, the political background of the story allows for
further interpretations of the original story. In the book (and more overtly in Brook’s
version) the opposing groups of the boys may represent the opposing political forces ruling
the world outside the island. Ralph’s group represents Western law and order, while Jack
stands for Eastern abuse. He makes use of the boys’ basic needs such as food, water, and
entertainment to support his power. In keeping up the fear of the beast he even supports the
idea of a common enemy that forces the boys to raise no questions about the validity of
Jack’s power. These are obvious characteristics of communist politics that ruled in Eastern
Europe while the novel was written or the film was made.
The last difference to be noted is the question of updating. Since Brook made his
film less than a decade after the publication of the novel, culture and language had not
changed significantly throughout that period. This is not the case with Hook’s version.
There is not only time difference, i.e. 46 years, but also a great deal of cultural difference.
The boys come from contemporary North America and not from post-war England.
Brook’s updating goes only so far as to have a plane pass by the island instead of a ship. In
Hook’s film we have a helicopter flying by, and instead of a cutter a military helicopter
picks up the boys at the end of the film. The boys also wear watches and use glowsticks
that indicate the advancement of technology since the publication of the novel.
Hook updated not only the circumstances but also the language. Alone the fact
mentioned before, that the boys come from an American military school is a significant
alteration. Instead of singing choir songs, like Kyrie Eleison in Brook’s film, they sing a
typical American army march. Here we hear Jack sing a song line by line which is repeated
by the others. The text reveals how much the two cultures differ from one another:
Mama, mama, can’t you see.
What’s the army done to me.
153
They put me in a barber’s chair.
Spun me round, I had no hair.
I used to drive a Cadillac.
Now I’m marching in a pack.
I used to drive a Chevrolet.
Now I’m marching for my pay.
They took away my TV.
Got me doing IOT.
Just as in the case of the photography of the film, here we also detect the influence of the
famous war movies of the period. This march creates an entirely different atmosphere as
the Kyrie Eleison is heard all through the 1963 version.
Beside the school background, another major alteration is that the boys, especially
Jack, do not shy away from swearing. He often uses contemporary swear words such as
fuck/fucking, shit, bullshit, goddamn, etc. which make his character even less agreeable
than it already seems through his actions. Nevertheless, all the characters, including Ralph,
use such bad language at one point or another throughout the film, even though not as
often and shamelessly as Jack does. To stay with such linguistic changes, we must note a
difference in word choice. Instead of the word beastie that is to be found in the novel and
also in Brook’s adaptation, Hook uses the word monster. The fact that the American word
contains the consonant r at the end makes the difference even more emphasized. For
example, in the tribal scene when Simon appears with the glowstick Jack shouts “That’s
the real monster. Kill him!” In this sentence the word monster receives more emphasis than
the word beastie would have. This is all the more true as in the original and in Brook’s
version the boys do not say anything, but scream in their delirium and run at Simon. They
do not break the rhythm of the chant by words but simply change the object of their ritual
hunt and find an outlet for their fright in striking down at something real. At the same time,
monsters were very much in trend in the late 80s’, early 90s’ horror and children movies.
Beasts, not to mention beasties, on the other hand would only scare a group of little boys
on an uninhabited island nowadays.
Another instance of updating appears through the references to television culture. In
the 1990 film we see two boys by the fire as they talk about television programs. They say,
- What time is it?
- What difference does it make?
- Well, if I knew what time it was I’d know what’s on TV. I’m not even sure
what day it is.
- It’s Monday.
-…
154
- Mondays. Monday’s Alf.
- Alf comes on at eight o’clock. It’s a lot later than eight.
- Yeah. But I bet we’re in a different time zone. I bet it’s really about eight
o’clock and Alf’s causing some trouble right now.
Similarly, later in the story Jack and his gang come to Ralph and the rest of his group
shouting and whooping, with painted faces. To this Ralph reacts the following way: “Okay,
Rambo, you made your point. What do you want?” This, along with the example about Alf,
indicates that we find ourselves not only after the Vietnam War but also in a time when
such movies as Rambo have become cult objects and television is an everyday
entertainment for the children. This allusion to Rambo, however, is not the only allusion to
the Vietnam War as the cinematography at the end of the film uses very similar tropes as
well. When we see Ralph running with the burning jungle behind him, while the dynamic
choral music reaches its crescendo, and later on we see the military helicopter, we cannot
but remember war movies such as Oliver Stone’s The Platoon (1986), or Francis Ford
Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979).
After listing the most significant differences between the two film adaptations of Golding’s
story, let us now take a closer look at the list of major cardinal functions of the novel and
how these were adapted in the two film versions.
Function
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Event
Piggy and Ralph meet on the beach
The conch found
The first assembly summoned
Electing Ralph as chief and Jack as the head of the hunters
Ralph, Jack and Simon go to explore the island
The second assembly: the snake-thing first mentioned; Ralph
suggests lighting a signal fire
Fire runs out of control and a large area of wood goes up in
flames; little boy with a mark on his face disappears
Ralph realizes nobody really cares for the fire or builds the
shelters
A ship passes while the fire is out
The hunters come back with a boar, reenacting the chase in a
ritual dance
Piggy falls upon Jack who hits him in the face and breaks a
lens in his glasses
Ralph blows the conch and keeps a speech about order; The
little boys are afraid of the beastie
1963
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
1990
yes
yes
√
yes
no
yes
no
√
√
yes
√
yes
yes
yes
yes
√
155
13 The dead parachutist drifts to the island and is caught up on
the mountain
14 Sam and Eric see the parachutist at night and think it is the
beast
15 The boys explore the island looking for the beast; Jack and
Ralph see it on the mountain
16 At the next meeting Jack and Ralph quarrel: Jack wants Ralph
to be removed as chief but the others will not vote against him
17 Jack leaves the group and invites the hunters to join him
18 Ralph makes the remaining boys to set up a new signal fire
down on the beach
19 Jack organizes hunting and a ritual slaughter
20 The hunters cut the sow’s head off and place it on a stick that
is sharpened on both sides
21 Simon finds the head covered in flies and has a horrible vision
in which the head talks to and threatens him
22 The head threatens Simon who faints
23 Simon wakes, goes up the mountain and discovers that the
beast is a parachutist
24 Ralph and Piggy join Jack’s feast and dance ritual
25 The dancing boys see Simon’s figure coming, attack him and
kill him
26 Ralph and Piggy discuss the matter in the morning
27 Jack steals Piggy’s glasses
28 Ralph, Piggy and the twins go to Jack’s Castle Rock to claim
back the glasses
29 After Jack orders Sam and Eric tied up he fights with Ralph
30 Piggy blows the conch and wants to speak to the heart of boys
31 Roger rolls down a huge rock which kills Piggy and breaks the
conch shell
32 Ralph runs away and hides
33 Ralph tells the twins, who became part of Jack’s tribe now,
where he will hide when the groups wants to hunt him down
34 Jack’s group chases Ralph through the jungle and set the
woods on fire
35 Ralph runs to the beach
36 Ralph exhausted sees a British naval officer
37 The hunters arrive on the beach and stop on the sight of the
officer
38 The officer asks Ralph what they are doing
39 Ralph begins to weep and the other start to sob
40 The officer turns away to give them time to regain their
composure
yes
no
yes
√
yes
√
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
√
yes
yes
yes
yes
√
√
no
yes
no
√
yes
yes
√
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
√
yes
yes
yes
√
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
√
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
√
√
When looking at function 1 one might wonder how the boys got to the island on the first
place. In the novel there are several allusions to their crash but the exact circumstances are
not stated. The case is different in the two films: both versions adapt the plane crash in
156
some form or another. Brook uses a powerful montage made up of still pictures and photos
which have a very powerful effect. For this reason let me here give an account of what the
spectators see in this short introductory scene which lasts 3 minutes and 50 seconds. First
we see the picture of a typical British cottage while a bell is tolling. This indicates that the
story starts in a British private school. The camera cuts to a class photo where we see only
boys and a few teachers. The camera zooms in on the different faces. In a dissolve we see
the boys in class with their backs to the camera which is panning down the picture, and the
next shot dissolves into a photo of boys at class but this time we see them facing the
blackboard. Meanwhile an undistinguishable speech of a man is heard while the shot
dissolves into a dining hall picture and we hear the boys chattering at meal time. Suddenly
the chattering fades and we see a picture of two choir boys singing, while the music
changes to the song Kyrie Eleison. This score constructs the main theme of the film and it
is under this picture that we hear it for the first time. Meanwhile the first credits and the
title appear. There is a cut to a cricket match, then a fast cut to a photo of spectators from
the back, and a round of applause is heard. This sound effect is replaced by a slower drum
rhythm as the camera is zooming out of the spectators of the match. A fast cut to missiles
and the ever increasing rhythm of the drum indicates that the peace of the school is
disturbed. The pictures of the spectators and the missiles alternate in a rapid way showing
the unexpected danger approaching. Then there is a sudden slow down in music while the
camera pans the picture of an enormous rocket from bottom to top. There is a cut to a
photo of military airplanes flying in an air-raid, while the camera quickly pans down the
picture pausing as the Big Ben comes into view and its bell is heard. Next we see the photo
of a blackboard and as the camera zooms out we can read “EVACUATION” and the plan
of how the different classes are to leave town. A picture of a boys’ assembly is shown, and
the camera zooms out to reveal more of the smiling boys. Meanwhile the drums are heard
again. Suddenly the camera zooms in to a photo of an airplane held by one of the boys in
the assembly. We see a cut to a photo of a bomber, while the sound of the drum is mixed
with the sound of a bomber flying by. Several photos of airplanes alternate with a photo
montage of darker and darker clouds assembling while the drum beat goes on and gets
faster and faster. A picture of a map is shown in dissolve where the letters give out the
name of the Pacific Ocean. At the climax of the music an ever faster cut montage shows
parts of a plane until lightning and the picture of an explosion is shown, followed by a
circularly moving shot of an airplane, supported by the sound of a falling aircraft. The
sequence ends with an explosive sound montage while a plane is shown as it is floating on
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water with an island in the background. As silence slowly settles, we see the photo of a
stormy beach, the palm trees obviously blown by strong wind. Then, with the use of a fade
out/fade in, the film starts. It has often been stated that the real challenge of making a film
lies not in dramaturgy but in the camerawork and the editing. A film should be able to
deliver its meaning without words, using only pictures. As described above, this is what
happens in the opening scene of Brook’s Lord of the Flies. The sequence of images tells us
of the tense historical situation, i.e. the coming of an unidentified war, which the boys
“escaped from.” No clearer explanation is needed: the pictures speak for themselves.
In the American version, on the other hand, not the visual but the aural effects gain
major importance. As the boys are under water the viewer hears what they hear: the dull
splashing and the deep murmur of the sea as the boys try to swim to the surface. Whenever
the camera follows one of the boys to the surface we hear the loud shouting, heavy
breathing of the boys and the roaring of the ocean. The lifeboat comes up with a hissing
sound. As opposed to Brook’s lead-in, Hook’s opening does not tell anything about the
boys’ background or why they land on the island. As stated above, there is no direct
political or historical background to their travel and misfortune, thus there is no need to
explain why they end up on the island.
From this point on I will follow the major cardinal functions and analyze the most
important differences between the movies themselves and between the movies and the
novel. According to function 6, a second assembly is summoned on the island. This
assembly is crucial to the novel as it represents the last bits of organized society. The boys
decide that they are going to have rules and Ralph brings up the idea of lighting a fire in
order to be rescued. But there is a further event that marks the first significant difference
between the two film versions. At this meeting a little boy comes forward and asks the
question all little boys were afraid to ask. “He wants to know what you are going to do
about the snake-thing?”[17] By raising this question he has to admit that he is weak and
afraid, but also that he believes in the existence of something inexplicable, namely, the
snake thing or the beastie.[18] This inner fear has a foreshadow in the novel. Here we read as
the choir appears before the assembly:
Within the diamond haze of the beach something dark was fumbling along.
Ralph saw it first, and watched till the intentness of his gaze drew all eyes that
way. Then the creature stepped from mirage on to clear sand, and they saw that
the darkness was not all shadow but mostly clothing. The creature was a party
of boys, marching approximately in step in two parallel lines and dressed in
strangely eccentric clothing.[19]
158
The same way, in Brook’s adaptation we see the black line of the choir boys coiling along
the shore. First, however, their Kyrie Eleison song is heard, and that is what makes Ralph
aware of more boys approaching. The sinister sign, a black (snake-like) thing curling out of
the jungle or, as in the film, on the white sand indicates symbolically the primary source of
decay and chaos, i.e. Jack’s group. However, since the American version is less mystical
and concentrates less on the poetic nature of the novel, we do not see any “snake thing”
coming out of the woods. At the same time, the fact that in Hook’s film all the boys are
equal and come from the sea together indicates the primal message of the novel: we are all
evil on the inside, there are no exceptions. Here it is worth noting that Chapter Five of
Golding’s book is titled Beast From Water. It is in this chapter that we read Simon’s
momentous statement when the boys talk about the beast. He says: “What I mean is…
maybe it’s only us.”[20] The idea of the beast (the inner evil) coming from the water is thus
very creatively adapted by Hook right at the beginning of the film.
The assembly is important from another aspect as well. It introduces the first little
boy who will be killed on the island. The little boy with a mark on his face is the first one
who intuitively sheds light on the dark side of the boys and so he has to die right away. His
death is unintentional though. As we read in function 7 the boys cannot control the fire and
as it spreads the little boy disappears. Now, this function is not adapted by Brook,
interestingly enough, and Hook only uses the fire in his version without any reference to
the little boy. As he had not mentioned him before, there is no need for him to die. I
believe this momentum is a crucial one in the novel and I find it curious that neither
director found it important to include it in their films. It shows the gradual decline of the
boys’ morals: first they kill unintentionally by their inadvertent action, then intentionally
although under a spell, so to say, whereas Piggy’s death at the end is clearly intentional.
This gradualness is eliminated in the films.
After the first assembly, the three key persons, that is Ralph, Jack, and Simon, leave
Piggy with the little ones and go to explore the island. In the novel this scene serves to
illustrate how close Ralph and Jack really are to each other. They are friends, comrades
who work together and enjoy their abilities as leaders and as friends. Their friendship
represents how close goodness and evil, order and chaos are to each other and that there is
only a thin line that separates right from wrong. Although these are more covert
lamentations, Brook found the scene important from the point of view of the characters’
development. In the 1990 film in which we see the two boys walking on the beach together
while Jack tells Ralph he should not worry so much; then they end up fighting playfully
159
and laughing together. This also reveals some of their connectedness, however, the fact
that in Hook’s version Jack is shown as a very tough and headstrong boy who is the most
vulgar among all of them leaves little room for this friendly bond to develop. In his film
Jack and Ralph are more obviously rivals from the beginning on.
At the next assembly the little boys bring up the question of the beastie again. Since
it had not been mentioned in Hook’s version at the first assembly, there is no question
about the beastie’s existence in this scene either. The idea of the monster is restricted to the
thing in the cave. This brings us to another major invention of Hook’s film.
In the American version there is an adult on the island: the captain of the plane
survives and is taken care of by Simon. The only adult in the story keeps his function as
the monster later on: he goes to the cave in an unconscious rage and one of the little boys
goes there and mistakes the dying captain’s moans for a monster’s. As opposed to this,
Brook sticks to the original story although he tells it from the boys’ point of view. Unlike
in the novel, where we read that a dead parachutist lands on the island, in the film we only
see what the twins see: the flapping of an enormous “something”. The decaying body of
the parachutist the boys imagine to be the beastie is not visualized until Jack, Ralph, and
Roger go to the mountain to check on it. The significance of this change originates in the
fact that in the original novel the parachutist symbolizes war and destruction. The adult
world, in which people are fighting and killing each other, thus symbolically represents the
greatest fear of the boys. The decaying body, therefore, stands for the rotting
adult/contemporary society based on war. In Hook’s version this symbolic meaning is
entirely lost and the monster becomes more like a childish fantasy or misunderstanding
than the reflection of the boys’ most inner thoughts.
In function 21 we can observe the most significant difference between the
adaptations and the original novel. Here we see Simon finding the head covered with flies.
This part is included in both versions, however, the key scene, where the pig’s head talks
to Simon is omitted from both movies. It is rather uncommon for films to adapt dreams and
visions. Films that might use covert symbols, like Lord of the Flies, still try to give a
realistic impression which would be ruined by a talking pig head. This is again, a key
difference between novel and film: when we read about the pig’s head talking, we
understand it is in Simon’s head, we do not contemplate whether the dead head opens its
mouth or if it is ridiculous or not. We see things from Simon’s point of view, as opposed to
the film, where the filmmakers would have had to decide on many details, such as the
visual effects or the voice of the pig, whether it should have a deep voice, or if it should be
160
distorted or not, etc. And however well they solve the problem, it would still demystify the
scene, which is in itself the greatest mystery of the novel. The filmmakers therefore
decided to omit this sequence. Although in the 1963 version we see Simon sit down in
front of the pig’s head in awe, in the 1990 version there are two (14-second-, and 5-second)short cuts where Simon is shown finding the head and then looking at it in the darkness
while the thunder lights the grotesque image. But there is no reference to his fit or any
communication between the head and Simon. This instance of omission is a problematic
one, as Simon’s trance is a key scene in the book. It is here that he realizes what really ails
the boys and that there is a chance to come over the beast. Also, the title of the book and
the films originates in this conversation. Some critics say, the way the pig’s head explains
the source of evil to Simon is rather didactic in the novel and it makes everything too
explicit. This fact might also account for the decision of the filmmakers for leaving out this
sequence.
As Simon wakes after his confrontation with the head, his nose is bleeding,
signifying that he had some sort of an epileptic attack, or fit as Golding refers to it.[21] After
he faces the greatest enemy, he realizes the beast cannot have any physical form and
decides to go up the mountain to see what resides there. This scene is partly included in
Brook’s film, while in Hook’s version we see Simon going to the cave where he discovers
the captain’s dead body. This is the good news he wants to tell the others but it eventually
leads to his death.
On taking a look at the adaptation of function 24 we can discover a very important
cultural difference. The most amazing fact about this section is that even the most innocent
characters, Ralph and Piggy also join the feast and the dancing ritual following the killing
of the pig. The feeling of belonging, the promise of meat, and warmth around the camp fire
is stronger than their self-esteem or feelings about Jack and his gang. As the storm comes
Ralph and Piggy do not feel like going back to the deserted shelters all alone when there is
company, fire, and warmth here. Their desire to belong succeeds over their good judgment.
Golding writes: “Piggy and Ralph, under the threat of the sky, found themselves eager to
take a place in this demented but partly secure society. They were glad to touch the brown
backs of the fence that hemmed in the terror and made it governable.”[22] Yet this way they
are also swept away by the rythm of the ritual and take part in the killing of Simon. As will
be noted later, in contrast to the original story, Hook decided not to let Ralph and Piggy
take part in the ritual.
161
As opposed to the film versions, in the book Simon tries to say what he saw. That is
the most interesting thing about the scene: the boys are so taken by the ritual, so terrified
by the coming storm, and their inner tensions are by this point so unbearable that they do
not even recognize the voice they hear. Golding plays with the reader’s consciousness as
well, when at first he uses the boy’s name: “Simon was crying out something about a dead
man on a hill.” And then suddenly, Simon is referred to as the beast: “The beast was on its
knees in the center, its arms folded over its face. It was crying out against the abominable
noise something about a body on the hill.”[23] By referring to Simon as the beast Golding
places the reader in a situation where he has to see the little boy like those dancing around
in a rage, he has to identify with the crowd. This technique implies that all of us would
possibly have reacted the same way the boys did as we are all rotten and stirred inside. At
the same time, while describing the wild scene, the allusion to Simon as the beast becomes
ironic as Golding makes it obvious that it is the crowd itself that becomes the real beast
that attacks an innocent boy. It rushes after the body and crushes it without mercy: “The
beast struggled forward, broke the ring and fell over the steep edge of the rock to the sand
by the water. At once the crowd surged after it, poured down the rock, leapt on to the beast,
screamed, struck, bit, tore.”[24] This is exactly the savagery one faces not only in nature but
also in contemporary horror movies. It leaves no room for discussion; there is no room for
defense or reasoning.
In the 1990 version it is Jack who points out the approaching Simon and shouts
“The monster!” This way the blame can be put on Jack for turning the boys against him.
He is the evil leader and takes most of the responsibility for the indignity that takes place
on the island. In the original, however, the boys become one and turn on the beast together
as a group. The point is exactly the fact that there might be leaders and more dominant
personalities among the boys, yet, deep inside they are all corrupted without exception. In
most of the American movies the traditional classification of characters is kept: there are
the bad guys standing against the good guys who suffer. Here Jack is obviously
represented as the bad guy. He turns the boys against Ralph and Piggy, he turns their
attention to Simon, he hunts for Ralph in the end. As opposed to this, Ralph and Piggy stay
clean. They do not participate in the ritual but stand outside of the circle and are left behind
as the boys run at Simon. They remain the suffering good guys. This, of course, goes
against Golding’s message but meets the audience’s expectations, which is the goal of any
filmmaker.
162
The way the sea takes in Simon’s body is one of the most solemn scenes in the
book and also in the movies. Golding describes the scene as follows:
The tide swelled in over the rain-pitted sand and smoothed everything with a
layer of silver. Now it touched the first of the stains that seeped from the
broken body and the creatures made a moving patch of light as they gathered at
the edge. The water rose farther and dressed Simon’s coarse hair with
brightness. […] The body lifted a fraction of an inch from the sand and a
bubble of air escaped from the mouth with a wet plop. Then it turned gently in
the water. […] Softly, surrounded by a fringe of inquisitive bright creatures,
itself a silver shape beneath the steadfast constellations, Simon’s dead body
moved out toward the open sea.[25]
It is amazing how such a poetic text can be transformed into equally poetic pictures. In
Brook’s movie the black and white images give emphasis to the glittering water as the
shining body of the dead boy turns into the deep. The slow and quiet choir music stands in
great contrast to the frantic soundtrack of the ritual scene that preceded Simon’s killing.
The morning after Simon’s death finds Ralph in agony over what happened.
Through Ralph’s and Piggy’s conversation it is wonderfully illustrated how one can distort
his own memory and calm his consciousness.
‘It was an accident,’ said Piggy stubbornly, ‘and that’s that.’
He touched Ralph’s bare shoulder and Ralph shuddered at the human contact.
‘And look, Ralph,’ – Piggy glanced round quickly, then leaned close –‘don’t
let on we was in that dance. Not to Samneric.’
‘But we were! All of us!’
Piggy shook his head.
‘Not us till last. They never noticed in the dark. Anyway, you said I was only
on
the
outside.’
‘So was I,’ muttered Ralph, ‘I was on the outside too’.
Piggy nodded eagerly.[26]
This scene is adapted closely in Brook’s version but the last thing we hear from Piggy’s
and Ralph’s conversation is that it was an accident. They do not try to save their bad
consciousness by deceiving themselves or the twins. By this a very interesting
psychological phenomenon is omitted from the movie, but it does not change the plot or
the character functions. In the 1990 movie the audience feels for Ralph as he is blaming
himself: “We were there and we didn’t do anything about it,” upon which Piggy calms his
consciousness by saying, there were too many of them. Even if they wanted to do
something for Simon, it would have been in vain, he suggests. Thus guilt is washed off.
Still, when the twins come over to get fire from him, Ralph wants to show his noble intents
and he tries to talk to the twins about what happened the night before. They deny being
163
there and the outcome of their statements reminds one of the conversation Ralph and Piggy
have in the novel. Ralph thus remains the honest good leader tortured by his remorse, yet
this guilty feeling is a lot less terrible than that of the original novel, where the boys were
really there and took part in the murder of Simon. In the American adaptation the good
characters remain good, however questionable their passivity might seem. This “good guy
scenario” will make its affect on the twins as well, as we will see in function 34.
The next change is made again in Hook’s version of the novel. In function 28-29
we see that the twins are still with Ralph and Piggy. They are the only ones left except for
the littluns who “don’t count.” As the four remaining biguns go to Jack’s tribe to claim
Piggy’s glasses back, the twins are tied up and taken as “prisoners” to show how obedient
to Jack the children became. In Hook’s version, however, the twins come back the morning
after Simon’s death to get fire. Earlier in the film we see them painting each other in a
symbolic scene. By putting on their “mask” they transform themselves into savages. They
are not forced; they choose to betray Ralph and Piggy. Later the twins try to make up for
this wrong step. Here the tribe has already set the jungle on fire and the twins see Ralph
hiding under the leaves. When Jack asks them whether they see anything, they deny
finding Ralph and by this they save his life. This act corresponds to the “good guy
scenario” mentioned above but it again, differs from the uncompromising message of the
book. Golding does not make heroes of the twins, but shows their cruel side: they tell Jack
where Ralph is hiding and so they put him into great danger.
In the last scene, where the boys are rescued a longer, rather awkward conversation
takes place between the officer and Ralph. In the novel we read:
‘We saw your smoke. And you don’t know how many of you there are?’
‘No sir.’
‘I should have thought,’ said the officer as he visualized the search before him,
‘I should have thought that a pack of British boys – you’re all British, aren’t
you – would have been able to put up a better show than that – I mean – ‘
‘It was like that at first,’ said Ralph,’ before things – ‘
He stopped.
‘We were together then – ‘
The officer nodded helpfully.
‘I know. Jolly good show. Like the Coral Island.’[27]
For dramatic reasons this conversation has been left out of Brook’s version and cut down
to one sentence in Hook’s film: “What are you guys doin’?” In both versions Ralph simply
starts to cry not being able to tell what really happened. Since the conversation above
sounds rather awkward the tension and the drama behind Ralph is much better emphasized
164
by his remaining silent. One cannot answer such questions just one minute after he was
running for his life. Ralph’s silence and tears make this scene more stunning and leave the
audience room to ponder over the happenings in the films.
When thinking about the message of the book and especially this scene, one has to
realize that the rescue is no rescue at all. The only reason the officer could find them is that
he is on a mission: he needs to track down the enemy and possibly destroy it, just like Jack
and his tribe was trying to kill Ralph. The boys will have to go back to a society where
power and war rule no matter how hidden beneath the surface. That is why Golding wrote
his rather pessimistic conclusion on the last page of the book: “Ralph wept for the end of
innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend
called Piggy.”[28]
CHARACTER FUNCTIONS
Ralph
Just like the major cardinal functions, character functions are very closely kept in the
adaptations. Ralph appears as the hesitating chief in both films, although as noted above,
there is a great change in his actions in the 1990 version: here he does not take part in the
dance and the killing of Simon. He becomes, if not innocent, only indirectly sinful.
Ralph is the character in the novel the reader associates himself with. He has the
right judgment, he tries to behave in a responsible way, he cares for the others, but is still
not a nerd. He is, at the same time, still a child: for the sake of fun and recognition he tells
the others they should call the fat boy Piggy, although this was the only thing Piggy asked
him not to tell the others. Interestingly enough, this action is also attributed to Jack in the
1990 version. As already elaborated above, in this film Ralph is made into the good guy
whereas Jack is made responsible for everything that is wrong on the island.
At times Ralph is at the end of his ability to judge a situation and to talk about the
most important things. On these occasions it is mostly Piggy who helps him out, whether it
be the question of the beastie, or the claiming back of Piggy’s glasses. For this reason he is
also connected to Piggy. Ralph stands in the middle between common, yet annoying sense
(Piggy) and savage chaos (Jack). By the end of the book it becomes obvious that he
belongs to sense. While he is being chased he realizes he would need Piggy to find the
right way out of his situation as he always helped him out when he was stuck in his
reasoning:
165
Ralph pushed back his tangled hair and wiped the sweat out of his best eye. He
spoke aloud.
‘Think.’
What was the sensible thing to do?
There was no Piggy to talk sense. There was no solemn assembly for debate
nor dignity of the conch.[29]
He knows, at the same time, that there is a strange link in him to Jack. They are the two
sides of the same coin. There are several allusions to their friendship until the middle of the
novel: “Eyes shining, mouths open, triumphant, they savored the right of domination. They
were lifted up: they were friends.”[30] Or:
At the return Ralph found himself alone on a limb with Jack and they grinned
at each other, sharing this burden. Once more, amid the breeze, the shouting,
the slanting sunlight on the high mountain, was shed that glamour, that strange
invisible light of friendship, adventure, and content.[31]
Ralph also refers to his friendship when he talks to the twins at the Castle Rock in secret:
“What have I done? I liked him – and I wanted us to be rescued – “[32] But this friendship
turned out to be something different. Once the connection between two people is made it is
very difficult to break it. In the case of Jack and Ralph, friendship is obviously ruined but
the bond between them cannot be broken as we see from the following quote:
The breaking of the conch and the deaths of Piggy and Simon lay over the
island like a vapor. These painted savages would go further and further. Then
there was that indefinable connection between himself and Jack; who therefore
would never let him alone; never.[33]
This later connection is what remains visible in both film versions. Although in Brook’s
film we see the boys exploring the island together while they look obviously happy, such a
strong bond as friendship is not visible. The boys’ inner thoughts and vacillations about
their relationship cannot be shown in the films. In Hook’s version the boys stand in clear
opposition to each other. However, this slight change of attitude is minor and does not
influence Ralph’s function as the chief of the boys. It only gives a slightly different
coloring to his relationship to Jack.
Piggy
Piggy’s case is very much similar to Ralph’s. He, as the annoying sesquipedalian, keeps
his function in both adaptations. Nonetheless, there are significant questions that need to be
mentioned when talking about his character.
166
First of all, Piggy’s real name is not mentioned in the book or in the films. He is
simply Piggy which is still “better than Fatty.”[34] This detail receives special significance
when the reader realizes that the boys are after meat, i.e. the pigs of the island. Albeit that
most of the time Golding uses the word boar or sow for the pigs, Piggy’s name becomes
symbolic. He represents reason and social order which is obviously dissolving and even
intentionally killed off as the story proceeds.
His position also gets less and less secure: first of all, he has asthma that makes him
incapable of any serious physical work, then Jack takes his glasses, without which he is as
good as blind, and later on Roger kills him by rolling a huge rock on him. His asthma can
also be considered symbolic: if Piggy represents social order, his illness reveals that this
order is far from healthy. People breathe heavily in it when challenged by extreme
circumstances.
The way his death is described also puts an emphasis on his flesh and blood and
shows his role as a sacrificial animal:
The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch exploded
into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist. Piggy, saying nothing
with no time for even a grunt, traveled through the air sideways from the rock,
turning over as he went. The rock bounded twice and was lost in the forest.
Piggy fell forty feet and landed on his back across the square red rock in the
sea. His head and legs twitched a bit, like a pig’s after it has been killed. Then
the sea breathed again in a long, slow sigh, the water boiled white and pink
over the rock; and when it went, sucking back again, the body of Piggy was
gone.[35]
Although this scene is not so graphically shown in the films, his death gains ample
significance. His function as a symbol for order, as an indicator of society’s cruelty in
making him an outsider, and his sacrificial role remain undiminished in the film
adaptations.
Jack
Jack’s function is revealed already by a closer look at his name; it comes from a Hebrew
word and means one who supplants. He is the one who deceives the others in order to keep
his own power. He keeps his function as the savage chief in both adaptations. In Brook’s
film he stands as an equal to Ralph. He accepts his position as the leader of the hunters,
although he originally wanted to be chief. But at the beginning he assimilates into the
group and does what his duty is until his passion for hunting makes him forget to keep the
fire going. He then gradually becomes the destroyer of society. In this version, as in the
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book, there is more emphasis on Jack’s childish pride: we see him hurt and crying after the
group stands by Ralph and votes against him. On the other hand, in Hook’s film Jack’s
deep voice and his blond hair make him stand out right away. He takes an aggressive tone
right from the beginning and the fact that he swears often makes him even less
sympathetic. Although, as mentioned above, we read in the novel that at the beginning
Ralph and Jack had a strange attraction towards each other, and at some points they even
felt friends, there is no much sign of this in the film. Other than this, his function is
perfectly translated in both films.
Simon
Just like Piggy, Simon is also an outsider. But he is so because of his strange intuitions,
deep thinking, and quietness that separates him from the rest of the group. He is a
contemplative person, whose name is again symbolic: it means listener. Many critics refer
to him as a Christ-like figure or the symbol of the artist in society, as we read in Johnston’s
article: “Simon’s habitual isolation from the other boys, his obvious inability to
communicate to them the ‘truths’ that he grasps intuitively, and finally his death at their
hands, reflect the all-too-frequent fate of the artist in society.”
[36]
His most important
function in the novel originates from this deeper intuition he possesses: Simon is the one
who, after having the vision of the lord of the flies, goes to the top of the mountain and
finds the body of the decaying parachutist. He unmasks the beastie. Simon is the one who
frees the parachutist as well: he releases the corrupting body and lets the lines of the
parachute loose so that the wind cannot play with it anymore. Later on, right after Simon’s
death the wind carries off the body and lets it drop into the ocean. Although the physical
image of the beast left the island the real beast still resides within. The good news is in
reality a terribly disturbing one: upon hearing it the boys would have to admit they cannot
put the blame on anyone else but on themselves. They are rotten inside, they are the beast.
Each and every one of them. And before they realize this they kill Simon and the wind
takes the dead man’s body out to the sea. The dreaded secret remains unrevealed. What
remains is compunction and total commitment to Jack’s tribe, and to his new “society.”
In Brook’s film Simon’s function is kept intact except that he does not free the
body but leaves silently to go down to the boys on the beach. As a consequence his
symbolic role as a savior is less emphasized. It is here I would like to comment on the
peculiar changes Hook made in his version concerning the bodies of the dead. In the novel
and also in the 1963 version the sea has a significant function when someone on the island
168
dies. The sea always takes the bodies to herself, except for the little boy who is lost in the
fire. The parachutist drifts back to the ocean, Simon’s dead body is taken by the tide, Piggy
falls onto the rock and the waves wash away his body. This ancient funeral-like function of
the water is entirely lost in Hook’s film. The captain’s dead body remains in the cave and
Simon’s body also stays in the sand washed around by the waves. Interestingly, Piggy does
not fall into the water either but his body lies where the rock hit him. How the bodies are
buried or taken care of is not accounted for. The sea as the ancient life force and cemetery
loses its function in this film.
Coming back to Simon’s function in the 1990 version, we can note that here he is
still an outsider but represented more like a dreamer than a listener. He looks more
respected by Ralph and the boys. Simon is absorbed in taking care of the only adult on the
island, i.e. the wounded captain of the plane. He even dreams about the captain being
healed and taking them back home. His care gives him an extra connection to the adult
world, to his wisdom about the children’s heart. Apart from this, just as in the original
story, Simon is the one who discovers that the monster is no one else but the dying captain
in the cave. He wants to save the boys from their fears but is killed instead. Thus we can
state that in both films Simon’s function is kept.
SYMBOLS
Since Golding’s novel is considered a symbolic fable, it is important to take a closer look
at the appearing symbols and how they are transferred to film. It is also interesting to
analyze why certain symbols are left out and what kind of an effect these omissions have
on the general message of the story.
Simon and the flies
As already noted, Simon’s conversation with the pig’s head is omitted from both films. In
this section of the book, however, his Christ-like role is very clearly implied by the actions
of the flies. First he stirs the flies as they dwell on the pig’s head and spilt guts. Then, when
Simon’s nose starts to bleed he takes the flies, the black stains (the sins of the world) upon
himself, but when he awakes after the attack (resurrection), the flies abandon him and go
back to the pig. Later on, when after being convinced that the evil resides really within, he
goes to the mountain and sees the parachutist:
The flies had found the figure too. The life-like movement would scare them
off for a moment so that they made a dark cloud round the head. Then as the
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blue material of the parachute collapsed the corpulent figure would bow
forward, sighing, and the flies settle once more.[37]
In these sections everything that has to do with the beast or decaying flesh is covered with
flies. After the parachutist’s body is taken by the sea and later on Ralph knocks down the
pig’s head, rescue comes and the boys go back to society. However important this
symbolism may be in the book the films work in a more realistic way. As soon as we see
the flies dwelling on the pig’s head, they become realistic and somehow lose their
symbolic application.
Masks/painting on the face
Another important symbol in the story is the painting on the boys’ faces. As soon as Jack
and his tribe break away from Ralph’s group, they distinguish themselves by painting their
faces. Obviously, this action shows a very typical aspect of human behavior: as soon as
their real face is hidden, the boys’ personal moral judgment is shaken off as well. They are
now not Maurice, Roger, or the other little boys who can be held responsible for their
actions, but simply members of the tribe. If anyone can be blamed for their actions it is
their leader, Jack, but he himself hides behind his mask. He is the first to paint himself
when he realizes it would help in hunting down the pigs:
Jack planned his new face. He made one cheek and one eye-socket white, then
he rubbed red over the other half of his face and slashed a black charcoal
across from right ear to left jaw… A rounded patch of sunlight fell on his face
and a brightness appeared in the depths of the water. He looked in
astonishment, no longer at himself but at an awesome stranger.[38]
The transformation the painting brings along is clearly stated a page later and in a
conversation between Piggy and Ralph:
[Jack] began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling. He
capered toward Bill, and the mask was a thing on its own, behind which Jack
hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness.[39]
“‘But they’ll be painted! You know how it is.’
The others nodded. They understood only too well the liberation into savagery
that the concealing paint brought.
‘Well, we won’t be painted,’ said Ralph, ’because we aren’t savages.’”[40]
Interestingly enough, the denial of savagery came from Jack himself at the beginning of
the story.[41] Yet, he is the one who not only turns himself into a savage but drags the others
along with himself.
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The symbol of the masks is made use of in both film versions. There is, however
one significant alteration in Hook’s film. Here we see the twins painting each other’s faces
before betraying Ralph and joining Jack’s tribe. They choose savagery deliberately to take
part in the advantages Jack is able to provide them. Nevertheless, in the original story the
twins are taken by force to Castle Rock right before Piggy’s death and stay there although
not assimilated entirely:
‘Honest Ralph, you’d better go.
Ralph looked up again.
‘You two aren’t painted. How can you -? If it were light-‘
If it were light shame would burn them at admitting these things. But the night
was dark. Eric took up; and then the twins started their antiphonal speech.
As already pointed out and again proved by these lines, the American version handles the
twins in a very different way. Although it makes savages of them, there is some good left
behind the mask. They do not betray Ralph at the end.
Other than this savagery is well depicted in both films through the use of the masks.
As Johnston notes “Lord of the Flies doesn’t allow the reader any ‘real’ savages with
whom to compare the boys, as Golding’s artistic sense evidently told him to avoid
confusing the central human issue with such anthropological quibbles.”[42] In Brook’s film
the boys act exactly like real savages at a ritual dance. They do not need to be contrasted to
“real” savages as they act brutal enough on their own.
Lord of the Flies
The title of the book is a reference to the pig’s head Jack places on a stick sharpened on
both ends as a tribute to the beast. They do not realize that by making this sacrifice they
create the beast not on the mountain but in their own souls. Jack keeps up fear and also his
own power over the tribe by making such a physical tribute to the worst fear of the boys.
At this point, it is revealing to note that the phrase Lord of the Flies does not allude
simply to the rotting head on the stick. It has a deeper meaning. According to Johnston
…the mere physical presence of the pig’s head, the Lord of the Flies, would
have served well without the didactic pronouncements, since ‘lord of the flies’
is a translation of the Hebrew Ba’al zevuv (Beelzebub in Greek), implying
quite effectively that the head is representative of “man’s inner devil.”[43]
However, I would like to argue here with this statement. As we live in a postmodern age
where religion and theological knowledge lost much of their privileges, people are not so
well informed about the Judeo-Christian culture. Even if the phrase Lord of the Flies were
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connected in the reader’s or viewer’s head with the Greek word Beelzebub, I doubt that a
significant percent would remember the meaning of it from the Bible or other theological
studies. Thus it is important to make this fact clear in the book. Other symbolical allusions
to Biblical elements, such as the island being the Garden of Eden which is later corrupted
by man’s thirst for power, are more obvious and need not be explained, but in the case of
the title explanation is, in my opinion, more than justifiable.
At the same time, as I have already pointed out, the phrase itself and the significant
conversation between the pig’s head and Simon is left out of the movies, so the idea behind
the lord of the flies loses much of its meaning. For this reason the following scene is also
omitted from Brook’s film:
The skull regarded Ralph like one who knows all the answers and won’t tell. A
sick fear and rage swept him. Fiercely he hit out at the filthy thing in front of
him that bobbed like a toy and came back, still grinning into his face, so that he
lashed and cried out in loathing. Then he was licking his bruised knuckles and
looking at the bare stick, while the skull lay in two pieces, its grin now six feet
across. He wrenched the quivering stick from the crack and held it as a spear
between him and the white pieces. Then he backed away, keeping his face to
the skull that lay grinning at the sky.[44]
Here we see the laming power of the skull is gone. It has lost the flesh, the flies are gone
and in contrast to Simon, Ralph has the strength to knock it down. The grin of the pig’s
head is broken, so is Jack’s rule, although nobody knows that just yet. Ralph takes the stick
sharpened on both ends with him.
These symbolical meanings do not appear in the movies however important they
might seem from Golding’s moral point of view. Hook included the head in the hunting
scene but here Ralph does not knock it down. He stares at it somewhat scared and runs on,
leaving the remnants of the head on the stick. Hence it is even more interesting why, after
considering these symbolic meanings insignificant, the filmmakers kept the title.
The conch
The unique shell, the conch represents democracy and order on the island. It is no wonder
Piggy and Ralph, the two stable representatives of social order, find it right at the
beginning of the story. They use the conch to call the assemblies where the person who
holds the shell has the right to speak. Nevertheless, as the story proceeds, the conch
gradually loses its power and significance and by the end we read Piggy’s last attempt to
refer to it as a tool to make his voice heard. But as Jack and his tribe do not live under the
old values anymore, Piggy’s insistence on order brings along his death and the destruction
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of the conch as well: “the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to
exist.”[45] Order cannot be kept up any longer.
This symbolic meaning can be detected in both films. Nevertheless, as opposed to
the novel, the filmmakers do not pay close attention to the breaking of the conch although
it is a most symbolic event: by killing Piggy and breaking the conch social order and moral
restraint disappear from the island completely.
Piggy’s glasses
Piggy is the only person who wears glasses in the group. It is typical for little children to
mock those who have the slightest kind of disability compared to the average. Piggy is thus
made an outsider not only because of his appearance but also because of his suggested
blindness. However, his glasses have several practical and symbolical functions in the
story.
First of all, Jack realizes that with the use of the glasses they can make fire. He
snatches them from Piggy and the embarrassing question of how to start the fire is solved.
Interestingly enough, in the 1990 version it is Ralph who realizes how useful Piggy’s specs
are and it is he who asks for them and not Jack. By this change Ralph’s politeness and
cleverness is emphasized, whereas in the original novel and the 1963 version it becomes
clear that although Jack may be rude and brutal he is still creative and is able to solve
difficult situations. He proves his ability to think for the whole group and provide them
with what they need. By attributing this action to Ralph, Hook again emphasizes the above
mentioned good guy scenario. Jack is a savage and Ralph is the gentle leader who takes
care of his group.
Jack, as we saw it, realizes how useful the glasses are. But beside their practical
uses the glasses stand also for vision. Piggy is the wisest boy among the children who
always seems to know the right, sensible answer to the problems. Whenever Ralph faces a
difficult situation he cannot solve, Piggy comes to his help. He has vision which is first
broken by Jack when he hits Piggy in their quarrel after Jack let the fire go out and thus
made it impossible for the bypassing ship to recognize and rescue them. This is again
another symbolic sign of Jack’s gradually destruction of clear vision and social order.
Later, as he realizes how important the glasses are, he steals Piggy’s specs under the
darkness of the night. This is the last but one step towards destroying all the tools and
symbols of civilized wisdom on the island; the last step being the breaking of the conch.
This symbol is very obviously presented in both film versions.
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The beast / The parachutist
As aforesaid, the idea of the snake-thing or the beastie appears right at the beginning of the
story. This beast gains material form in the dead body of the parachutist. In a sense, the
corpse has a double symbolical function. First it represents the insecurity and inner fears of
the boys, but in a more subtle sense, it stands for evil in society. It is a dead soldier,
someone who gave his life while hunting for others. He is the representation of all the
sickness of the world that forced the boys to leave their homes to look for safety. From this
point of view, the boys’ vision of him as being the beast is more than real. It is because of
him and his like that their home and safety were threatened in the first place, and then,
consequently, they landed on an island that broke up all the social order that had kept them
safe.
In Brook’s version this implication is made possible by the fact that he adapted the
dead parachutist, whereas, it is completely lost in Hook’s film. Since he made the captain
of the plane into the monster, the implication of the war going on in the background is lost.
The beast becomes the man who tried to bring them into safety and its symbolic meaning
of the rotten society and the evil of war becomes redundant.
The language--for some critics didactic--of the book makes such symbols obvious,
and while reading the novel it becomes clear that they allude to something more than the
physical appearance of the conch, the glasses, or the pig’s head. In the films, however,
these covert references are less apparent as everything is realistically material, every single
aspect takes real physical form. As opposed to the author, who has the power to comment
on the happenings and hidden meanings or feelings appearing in the story, the director’s
job is to make the spectator see. Nonetheless, since Brook kept his story in visual
descriptions very close to Golding’s text, on closer analysis it is easier to find these
symbolic meanings in his film than in Hook’s version.
MUSIC AND SOUND
In Brook’s film the soundtrack gains a very significant role and is used consciously not
only as background music. It is the liturgical song Kyrie Eleison and the rhythm of drums
that dominate the film’s soundtrack alternated with natural sound of birds and insects.
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Kyrie Eleison means Lord, have mercy and this meaning gives emphasis to the song
whenever it is heard in the film. We first hear Kyrie Eleison sung in the introductory
montage which leads up to the boys’ evacuation and plane crash; then again as the choir
boys appear and march towards the place of assembly. As stated above, the appearance of
the choir and Jack along with it brings a sinister feeling to the boys. Ironically the choir
boys sing this song as they are hunting. It becomes something like a ritual song for them.
The last significant occurrence of Kyrie Eleison is when Simon is killed and taken by the
sea. From these few examples it stands out that Brook used the theme to foreshadow
serious or tragic turns in the story.
In other scenes he makes use of drums and percussions. For example, in the scene
where Simon finds the pig’s head, a drum is heard in sudden gulfs. Its rhythm implies the
nervous heartbeat of Simon as he approaches the dreadful scene. Then, as the boy sits
down in front of the head, the pig’s nose is shown in a close up with flies flying all around
it and the sound of the drum is replaced by the buzzing of the flies. Their sound gets louder
and distorted as the camera zooms in to Simon’s eyes and then cuts to a close up of the
pig’s mouth.
The effect of the buzzing flies returns while Ralph is on the run in the burning
jungle. First he hears the voices and the chanting of the hunters which subsequently turns
into the distorted sound of flies. Later in this scene it is interesting that at the beach Ralph
falls onto all fours and drags himself on while the loud chanting of “Kill the pig!” is heard
closeby. Nevertheless, when the boys arrive at the scene several seconds later, their
chanting seems to have been more in Ralph’s head. It indicates the evil forces or rather the
ghost that haunts him in the form of the boys.
When they are finally found, we hear no conversation between the captain and
Ralph. First dead silence sits on the group which is later replaced by the fast instrumental
theme of Kyrie Eleison as the captain obviously gives orders to the other adults with him at
the boat. The lively music stands in great contrast to the shot of Ralph’s face in a close up
as he starts crying. This shows that although the rescue is a happy and “glorious” turn on
the surface, the scars caused by the experiences on the island cannot be obliterated.
The soundtrack of the 1990 version stands closer to the normal usage of music
accompanying the pictures. Most of the time the music here is also dominated by drums
and percussions. As an addition to this, a more cheerful violin theme suggests an
adventurous youth film. The use of the soundtrack in Hook’s film is thus less suggestive
and contains fewer hints to the symbolism of the happenings.
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CONCLUSION
In conclusion we may then state that both versions are able adaptations of Golding’s novel.
Brook’s version stands obviously closer to the original, whereas the changes made in
Hook’s film can be readily justified. As noted in Chapter 1, if a director decides to shoot a
remake of a given film, he evidently has to make changes to it. These appear as the updates
in Hook’s story. The language he uses stands closer to the contemporary audience, and in
fact, reflects the contemporary youth better than the sophisticated British text. Some of the
changes Hook initiated originate in the fact that almost forty years passed between the
publication of the novel and the film, and thirty years between Brook’s version and his.
Nevertheless, for those who find themselves appalled by the accent or the swearing of the
boys for instance, Brook’s film must fit better. Although some say that the amateur actors
in the 1963 version are a bit too stiff and that the director stuck too close to the original
novel, still, it is this movie that represents Golding’s original moral message better.
[1]
Arnold Johnston, Of Earth and Darkness: The Novels of William Golding (Columbia, Missouri: University
of Missouri Press, 1980), viii.
[2]
Johnston 1.
[3]
E.L. Epstein. ‘Notes on Lord of the Flies’ in Lord of the Flies, William Golding (New York: Berkley
Publishing Group, 1954.) 204.
[4]
William Golding, Lord of the Flies (New York: Berkley Publishing Group, 1954), 34-35.
[5]
Golding 202.
[6]
Well, counting the little boys with a mark on his face, three boys have died but since the first death was
accidental, Ralph obviously does not consider it in this situation.
[7]
See Roger Ebert’s review on the movie.
[8]
It is interesting that the name of the American production studio, Castle Rock drew its name from the
novel. It is Castle Rock where Jack’s tribe settles down.
[9]
See Table 1
[10]
Golding 42.
[11]
Golding 37.
[12]
They both played in several films after shooting Lord of the Flies: Balthazar Getty for example in David
Lynch’s Lost Highway (1997), and in several minor films and television soaps, while James Aubrey has also
been starring in several television mini series. Nevertheless, neither of them became internationally
acknowledged stars.
[13]
Peter Brook, The Shifting Point: Forty Years of Theatrical Exploration, 1946-87 (London: Methuen
Publishing Ltd , 1987) 72.
[14]
Brook 75.
[15]
Golding 14.
[16]
This is stated by Piggy at the first assembly.
[17]
Golding 35.
[18]
Note that this instance is missing from Hook’s film. Here we only see a little boy who comes forward and
asks „Sir, are we ever going home?” The reason he asks is that Jack told him they are never going to be
rescued. This sheds light not on the general inner fears of the boys but again, on Jack’s mean nature.
[19]
Golding 19.
176
[20]
Golding 89.
Golding 145.
[22]
Golding 152.
[23]
Golding 152.
[24]
Golding 153.
[25]
Golding 154.
[26]
Golding 157.
[27]
Golding 201-202.
[28]
Golding 202.
[29]
Golding 196.
[30]
Golding 29.
[31]
Golding 39.
[32]
Golding 188.
[33]
Golding 184.
[34]
Golding 25.
[35]
Golding 181.
[36]
Johnston 15.
[37]
Golding 146.
[38]
Golding 63.
[39]
Golding 64.
[40]
Golding 172.
[41]
See quote on page 5
[42]
Johnston 10.
[43]
Johnston 13.
[44]
Golding 185.
[45]
Golding 181.
[21]
177
178
CHAPTER 6
ROOM AT THE TOP
The great revolutionary turn in the history of the British novel that one could witness in
1954 revealed significant changes in society as well. Out of the three major novels that
were published then, Amis’ Lucky Jim is said to be part of the Angry Young Men
Movement, although Amis had no intention to join any movement or to be labeled as a part
of one. The Suez crisis two years later brought to light the fact that Britain’s power in the
world was irreversibly declining. In place of the noble and proud British identity, the new
working-class men as well as the members of the intelligentsia were offered an impersonal
place within the masses enjoying consumer goods. Disillusionment is the catchphrase that
best illustrates the general mood of the nation. As a result of historical and sociological
changes, alienation sprang up in the place of consensus and national pride.
The egalitarian society brought along by the consensus of the post-war period
allowed for working-class men to pursue a higher career than that of their fathers.
Educational chances were much better in the newly opened schools and universities, and
while the wages were also higher, a safe rise on the social ladder was set before this class.
However, the social barriers were not so easy to bring down. As Malcolm Bradbury writes,
“By the second half of the decade, the sound of protest grew. Even now, though, the
dominant air was not exactly that of rebellion, rather the often half-cynical exploration of a
new order of society, where a new affluence was emerging, but a sense of alienation
remained.”[1] This alienation, the frustration felt by the working-class youth surfaced in the
novels of the Angry writers and playwrights, and showed that the class background that
had been so willingly played down was important after all. The Angry label was also
applied to Kingsley Amis (Lucky Jim, 1953, filmed 1957), John Braine (Room at the Top,
1957, filmed 1958), Shelagh Delaney (A Taste of Honey, 1957, filmed 1961), Alan Sillitoe
(Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, 1958 filmed 1960; The Loneliness of the Long
Distance Runner, 1959 filmed 1962), Keith Waterhouse (Billy Liar, 1959, filmed 1963),
Ted Hughes, Philip Larkin, John Wain, Colin Wilson and Arnold Wesker, but also to John
Osborne (Look Back in Anger, 1956, filmed 1958) or Harold Pinter (The Birthday Party,
1958, filmed 1968) among the dramatists. Osborne's Jimmy Porter was in fact becoming a
kind of figurehead impersonating the intelligent, articulate, university-educated man
denied opportunities because he comes from the lower class. The new style of direct,
CHAPTER 6 – ROOM AT THE TOP
179
honest language rejecting the experimentation of the novel in the prewar years was
welcomed by the public. Most of the above-mentioned books became bestsellers in the
shortest of time.
The novels that were released in the second half of the fifties depicted a working
class that was for the first time gaining some economic power. As already stated in Chapter
2, the new developments left the lower classes with not only time but also money to spare.
For this reason, and it is very intriguing indeed, the working-class heroes in these novels
are presented mostly in their free time. In the fifties there was no more need to emphasize
the nobleness of work and the heroic attempts of these classes to survive. They had
survived in very crude circumstances and this was the time of new opportunities for them.
The same refers to Joe Lampton, for whom working in the factory and raising a family in
humble circumstances is not an option anymore. He wants more. Not just more; he wants
what others have. And that leads to the tragedy in John Braine’s Room at the Top.
It is relatively rare for a novel to be adapted to screen within only two years.
However, it seems an even greater achievement that the adaptation of a groundbreaking
novel within such a short time could become a trail-blazer film as well. This almost
unparalleled success indicated that contemporary culture and society had gone through
such serious changes in the 1950s that it was ready for new approaches, adult storylines,
‘poetic’ realism, and for the discovery of the proletariat. This was proven not only on the
literary front but also in cinema, as the power of film censors obviously diminished by the
end of the 1950s and allowed for a more sexually daring representation of relationships
than ever before. These groundbreaking changes all combined in the success of Room at
the Top.
THE NOVEL
Braine’s story tells of Joe Lampton, the working-class young man from Dufton, who
comes to Warley to take up an accountant job at the Town Hall. Joe does not hide his
ambitions and it is clear right from the beginning that his main goal in life is to rise
socially. By his schemed marriage with Susan, Joe achieves his goal but he has to pay a
high price for this position. Alice, who he was not only the lover of but in fact really loved,
dies in a suicidal car accident. The greatest question that gnaws the consciousness after
such a story is whether social mobility really is possible? Joe has to sell his soul, as it were,
to achieve his goal, because Joe as he was, the real person, could not have arrived at the
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top. However, Room at the Top is different from other novels of the period since the male
protagonist manipulates the class system to his advantage instead of merely rebelling
against it. He achieves what he has always wanted and has no big regrets afterward as is
seen in the following confession of him: “This I can honestly say: my intentions towards
Susan were always those described as honourable… Even apart from her money, she was
worth marrying. She was the princess in the fairy stories.”[2]
As might be seen from the above quote, one means of the novel that engages the
reader is the directness and honesty of the first person narration of Joe. He does not hide
anything, does not excuse himself, but gives an honest account of the happenings and his
own feelings. Joe’s comments between the flashbacks suggest a certain degree of self-pity
throughout the book. On an abstract level this self-pity may also represent the feelings of
the working class in general, since the example of Joe reveals that there is no real upward
mobility in this class. Either the individual pays a high price for his own development or he
is stuck in his own class without the hope of real affluence. Nevertheless, Joe states several
times, although many critics like to ignore it, that he was in love with Susan: “If flesh had a
taste, hers, I imagine, would be like new milk. I fell in love with her at first sight.”[3] As the
story develops Joe realizes that Susan is no more than an innocent, inexperienced nineteenyear-old girl, whom he constantly describes with words that are far from what a fully
grown sexually mature woman like Alice would use. Susan is seen by Joe most of the time
as the princess in a fairy tale, a baby or a kitten who needs caressing, kindness and most of
all protection. But she can never be his real partner and is unable to fill the emptiness
inside of him, as he also notes: “As I took her roughly into my arms I felt loneliness come
over me, real as the damp churchyard smell of grass, melancholy as the sound of the beck
in the little glen below us.”[4] Although he confesses several times that he loved her, she is
obviously not a match for his soul. In this confused situation Joe finds it hard to lie to her
but feels forced to in order to achieve his final goal:
As the words came from my lips I felt that they had nothing to do with me.
And they hadn’t: a part of me felt a great tenderness for her – she way as
trustful as a baby – but the most important part of me was continuing the
operation according to plan.
However, after the humiliation at the Civic Ball, Joe gives way to his true feelings and
instead of concentrating on Susan, he goes back to Alice. As his love for the older woman
is reassured, he realizes that he does not have a chance to marry Susan and although he still
takes her out, her breaking-up letter relieves Joe.
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Nevertheless, from a previous section we already know that Joe sees his life as a
subject to some kind of destiny. When describing his feelings upon seeing the AstonMartin and the wealthy couple getting into it, he says:
…something happened which changed my whole life. Perhaps that isn’t
entirely true; I suppose that my instincts would have led me to where I am now
even if I hadn’t been sitting at the window of Sylvia’s Café that afternoon.
Perhaps I wasn’t directed in the Ministry of Labour sense, but I was certainly
shown the way to a destination quite different from the one I had in mind for
myself at that time.[5]
These personal sections reveal the real nature of Joe to the reader. Throughout the novel
one has the feeling that Joe is not as mean and cold-hearted as he seems according to his
actions. There seems to be a force in him that drives him all the way up to the top. And
when he gets there he is not cool but joyous: “Susan with my son, - I said, and smiled. I
was dizzy with happiness. It was happiness as wholesome as honey on a comb, I was a
man at last.”[6] But this happiness has nothing to do with reality. This is the joy of the
swineherd from the fairy-tale who finally wins the princess.[7] But in reality Joe is in love
with Alice, no matter how much he tries to convince her at their last meeting that he loves
Susan. He even feels “pleased with himself” the next morning until he hears about Alice’s
suicide. The pink cloud of the fairy tale is blown away.
What is very interesting about Joe as a working-class hero is his openness for not
only drama but also for poetry. Most of the time when Joe describes a new situation or a
new person in the story he introduces not only the physical appearances but also the
sensory ones, like smell. The dressing-room “smelled agreeably of make-up and tobacco
and well-fed well-washed bodies.”[8] Susan and Alice are also described according to their
scent: “Her eyes were sparkling and her cheeks flushed a little and there was about her that
clean smell – like baby-powder mixed with new-mown hay – which I had noticed the first
time I’d met her.”[9] The scent of Alice after she made love to Joe the first time on Sparrow
Hill is also very important to Joe: “I kissed Alice on the little wing of hair just above the
temple. The hair at that point always seems to me to smell differently from the hair on the
rest of the head; it’s vulnerable and soft, and somehow babyish. She pressed herself more
closely against me,” like a defenseless little child in need of protection. But from this
moment on Alice is the symbol of experience, maturity, real intimacy. Her scent mirrors
this change as described by Joe: “I could see nothing but her body, breathe nothing but that
peppery odour of lavender and the indescribable, infinitely good smell of woman’s
flesh.”[10]
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At other instances Joe describes his surroundings also according to their smell, as
when he first goes to the Town Hall. He remarks: “As soon as I passed the front door I
recognized the municipal smell of radiators, disinfectant, and floor polish; having been
away from it for two days I’d forgotten how depressing it could be – the smell of security
and servitude, Charles used to call it.”[11] Smells then stand not only for sensory experience,
but have most of the time a deeper meaning. The smell of Susan represents her innocence,
her naiveté as the baby-powder implies, while Alice’s lavender scent reveals how natural
and true her relationship is to Joe, while other times, the official smell of the Town Hall
building brings other associations of depression or infertility, for example.
The above mentioned first-person narration leaves one always with the question of
how to represent the individual, most intimate thoughts of the protagonist in film.
Although such minute details as the above mentioned changes in scent are impossible to
adapt to the film, in the case of Room at the Top the difficulty of inner monologues is
superbly solved by introducing Joe’s thoughts, feelings and calculations in conversations
with Charles, his best friend. In the film, most of the comments that are directly given to
the reader are told to Charles by Joe. A good example is the scene when Joe arrives to his
lodgings at Warnley with Charles and he describes the difference between Dufton and
Warnley.[12] In the same scene Charles tries to play down Joe’s ambitions of getting to the
top and draws out his prospects for the next ten years in town. When Charles points him
out T’Top and its beautiful houses, the following conversation takes place:
Joe
Charles
I’ll have one of those. I’m going to have the lot.
Oh no, you’re not. Not in Local Government you’re not. Did you ever work it
out brother? In twenty years time you could be sitting in Hoylake’s chair, that’s
as high as you can go. And that means a 1000 a year, a semi-detached
downtown, a second-hand Aston, and a wife to match if you know what I
mean.”
In the book these are calculations Joe makes himself when disappointed by Susan
and tries to set himself back into his own class.
One of the most amusing but also disturbing themes that reoccurs in the book is the
grading system Joe and Charles set up to evaluate women, income, and their chances for a
better future.
The grades corresponded, naturally, with the income of husband or fiancé,
running from One, for millionaires and film stars and dictators – anyone with
an income over £20,000 in fact – to Twelve for those under £350 and not likely
to get any more. Charles and I belonged to Grade Seven, which was for the
£600 and over deputy and assistant head group…. Sometimes men in Grade
Seven would have Grade Three wives, women capable of acquiring £5,000-ayear men, and self-made Grade Three men would have Grade Ten wives whom
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they’d been hooked by before they’d made their pile. But the Grade Seven men
generally lost their wives to lovers who really understood and appreciated them
or, worse still, had to endure them grumbling about money for the rest of their
lives.[13]
In the movie these calculations are presented in a shorter version and the system itself is
hardly recognizable. In the dog-race scene Joe reveals the system to Charles:
Charles
Joe
Charles
Joe
Charles
Joe
Charles
Joe
Charles
What do you think of that one?
Not bad, but not Grade One.
What do you mean by that?
Time I filled you in upon the Lampton report on love. I’ve got a foolproof
method of grading women, partly money, partly background, partly sheer
Lampton’s instinct. Now take Susan Brown.
Are you offering her to me?
No, seriously. Susan is Grade One on every account. You just have to look at
her to know that.
Susan’s not for you lad.
But it just so happens that I like her.
You lust after her, that’s what you mean.
These examples try to show how the filmmakers adapted elements from Joe’s comments in
the book. Although it is not an easy task, in this film it works perfectly well.
Although the novel is often described as the first classical example of the Angry
Young Men movement, Joe in the novel presents himself more disappointed or blasé than
angry. He accepts his fate and pretends as if it were his destiny to lose his real love and
settle for a comfortable life with Susan. The way Joe describes the events the reader may
even sympathize with and feel for him. But in this lies one of the greatest contrasts
between the novel and Jack Clayton’s film. In the scenes with Susan Joe is represented as
the angry working-class or ‘vulgar’ boy, as he imagines Susan’s mother calls him, who is
mad at her family and friends for humiliating him. At this point the weakness of the movie
is revealed. Because of this anger Harvey was to represent, his charm does not come to
life. He is a wonderful lover in the scenes with Simone Signoret but when he has to play
the seducer of the fairy princess, he comes over only as dull. He does not look at Susan,
never even tries to convince her that he really loves her. To the girl’s question of “How
much do you love me Joe?” he answers curtly in a bored deep voice “Very much.” This
situation forces Heather Sears to present Susan not as the naïve seduced girl but as a dumb
schoolgirl. The way Joe emotionally manipulates her to make love with him, or his
manners when he comes to visit her after their engagement is settled, only strengthens this
suspicion. No healthy woman would pose the following theoretical question after seeing
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the crabbed face of the bridegroom at the altar and his empty expression in the car on the
way to the honeymoon, “Wasn’t it absolutely the most wonderful wedding? Now we really
belong to each other.” This is in fact a repetition of the words she said after they first made
love. Again, Susan is presented to the audience as a dumb but rich young girl. To sacrifice
Alice for her seems really an abject deed. However, Susan in the novel is smarter than that.
She is young and inexperienced but never dumb. The way Joe ‘makes love to her’ is
believable and his frustration with his background or rather with his confrontation with the
upper classes is credible. These experiences do not lead to a cold rejecting attitude when he
is with Susan. It is interesting that Harvey’s performance in the love scenes with Alice is
engaging and elevating, just as in the book. This creates a greater contrast between his two
choices than the one found in the novel.
Although Joe finally achieves the goal he came to Warley for, he loses his freedom
in the long run which is presented in the most subtle way in the novel. In the following
section Joe talks about his first dressing-gown but reveals a whole lot more:
For all that, it gave me far more pleasure than the dressing-gown I have now,
which was bought from Sulka’s in Bond Street. Not that I don’t like the Sulka;
it’s the best, and I always wear the best. But sometimes I feel uncomfortably
aware that I’m forced to be a living proof of the firm’s prosperity, a sort of
sandwich-board man. I’ve no desire to be ill-dressed; but I hate the knowledge
that I daren’t be ill-dressed if I want to. I bought the cheap rayon garment to
please myself; I bought the expensive silk garment because always to wear
clothes of that quality is an unwritten term of my contract.[14]
He signed his contract and as a result sold his soul. He even states at other places that his
character has changed over the past ten years and although he describes these feelings
honestly he would be unable to feel so deeply at present. His soul is not his own anymore;
Joe Lampton became the servant of his life at T’Top.
THE FILM
When giving an analysis of a film belonging to the British New Wave, I believe it is
essential to understand the background of this short-lived genre. Although British realism
owes its existence to John Grierson and the documentary movement, New Wave grew
directly out of the Free Cinema, a documentary film trend between 1956 and 1959.
Nevertheless, the kind of working-class film depicted by the New Wave directors was very
different from the documentary style of Grierson, who managed to raise sympathy toward
the class by showing them in their everyday work as noble citizens. As a contrast, in the
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novels and hence the adaptations of the Angry Writers’ stories we see these young men
almost exclusively in their free time activities, in pubs, on the street, at night, but very
rarely at work. As Lowenstein describes it, New Wave’s “gritty, spare aesthetic of kitchen
sink realism is heavily indebted to”[15] the Free Cinema which was mainly concerned with
the depictions of the English working class. In these films
…there is a claim for a surface realism, an iconography which authentically
reproduces the visual and aural surfaces of the ‘British way of life.’ The
‘authenticity’ of place and character, for instance, is achieved by breaking
some of the studio conventions of classical cinema – by shooting on location in
actual British landscapes, for instance, and by using unknown, or unglamorous
or non-professional performers.[16]
Also, New Wave films often set up a contrast between the traditional working class and the
emerging mass culture and consumer society. In these films the emphasis is to a great
degree on the working-class male protagonist “who seeks to resist the pressures toward
embourgeoisement and social conformity (including domesticity).”[17] From this point of
view Joe Lampton is obviously an anti-hero as he cannot resist the pressure and strives for
exactly those goals many working-class males could not achieve and therefore loathed.
Interestingly, after he achieves them he loses the most honest part of himself and may be
described as content but only as a shallow person. His deepest feelings and potentials as a
strong character died with Alice.
Room at the Top by Jack Clayton has been considered if not the best New Wave
film, undoubtedly a trailblazer in 1959. The story about class warfare that finally dared to
challenge the state of things in Britain at the time touched the majority of the population.
Joe is presented as someone who is not acutely ashamed of his class but is more than
happy to leave it, even if it means cold-hearted calculation and emotional manipulation.
Although many critics flay Laurence Harvey’s somewhat timid performance, the movie
turned out to be a great success which lead to two Academy Awards: one to Simone
Signoret as Alice and one for the adapted screenplay. Among nominations for Best Actress
in a Supporting Role, Best Director, and Best Picture, Harvey was also nominated for the
Oscar. In Britain the film received the BAFTA Award as Best British Film, and Best Film
from any Source. Signoret was obviously the highlight of the film, as her performance
earned her a BAFTA Award along with the Oscar and her award at the Cannes Film
Festival. In short, the film, like the novel, conquered the heart of the people. In hindsight
there are many questions about this achievement, and to be able to answer the whys of the
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film’s success, it is worth taking a look at Leonard Moseley’s comment in the Daily
Express, for example:
Room at the Top was the real eye-opener for me – the real proof that something
had happened in the cinema. For here was a British film which, at long last, got
its teeth into those subjects which have always been part and parcel of our
lives, but have hitherto been taboo subjects on the prissy British screen… It is
savagely frank and brutally truthful.[18]
New Wave films in general are truthful about such topics as pre- or extramarital sex,
abortion, abuse, alcoholism, or even homosexuality. In the case of Room at the Top, the
honest handling of the love scenes between Joe and Alice earned the admiration of critics
and the audience. At last someone in a British film dared to admit that sex was in fact
enjoyable and not only for men but also for women. For us now this might seem an
outdated topic but in 1959 Room at the Top introduced a turning point in this sense. Here
was a film that finally addressed the personal life of people. The majority of society could
identify with the problems of sexuality, poverty, or the desire to make it to the top.
However, Joe’s determination to reach this goal is greater than that of the average man. In
the movie, when he catches sight of a girl (Susan) with a Riviera suntan getting into an
expensive car with her boyfriend (Jake), Charles sees the greedy expression on his face and
reminds him “That’s not for you.” To this he responds, “That’s what I’m going to have.”
And as a prophecy, Joe’s life really ends on T’Top.
The sequel of the film came out in 1965. In Life at the Top Laurence Harvey played
Joe again and Jean Simmons was cast as his wife Susan. Harvey, however, skipped the
final film of the series, Man at the Top (1973, written by Hugh Whitemore and John
Junkin) which, made as the decline of the New Wave was already obvious, turned out to be
a flop.
In order to be able to identify the changes made in the story when adapted to the screen, it
is very useful to list the main events of the novel. These are the major cardinal functions in
John Braine’s book:
1
2
3
4
Arriving to Warley; driving home with Mrs Thompson
Doing shopping in Warley: Joe sees an Aston-Martin and a couple driving off
in it: he sets a new goal to achieve
Bob and Eva Storr come over for tea to the Thompsons: they go to theater
together
Joe first sees Susan and pays him compliments after the play
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5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
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Joe joins the Thespians and plays Alice’s lover in Meadowes Farm
Joe and Alice drive off after rehearsal and have a drink at the St Clair: first
attachment formed
Joe phones Susan and asks her out
Joe has sandwiches at the Aisgill’s
At the ballet with Susan
Joe makes love to Alice on Sparrow Hill after rehearsal
Joe goes home for Christmas and meets his aunt, uncle, and Charles
Joe tells Charles he meets and sleeps with Alice at a friend’s flat at
Leddersford.
Charles advises him to stop seeing Susan to find out whether she really likes
him.
His aunt advises him to marry his own people and not to strive for too much
Joe visits his old home and gives an account of the death of his parents during
a bomb raid
Joe in bed with Alice : “Would you have loved me had I been ten years
younger or nineteen?”; Elspeth comes home and asks Joe whether he loves
Alice
Reggie tells Joe Susan keeps talking about him
Alice and Joe in Elspeth’s flat: breaking up because of the nude photo
Joe meets Susan at Sally’s birthday party : they kiss
Joe and Susan flirting at Benton Woods
Hoylake tries to threaten him to leave Susan alone
Bob and Eva do not want them to baby-sit at their house so they go out to
Stevens Clair Park but Susan does not want to sleep with him just yet
Joe goes to the Civic Ball and is humiliated by the upper-class company of
the Browns
Joe and Alice get back together at Sparrow Hill
After Joe and Alice meet in Elspeth’s flat, Joe is caught on the street by Eva
Susan writes a letter to Joe in which she breaks up with him because of Alice
Charles writes a letter to Joe telling him there is a cottage free where he could
lodge in his holiday before his friends join him
Alice and Joe on holiday in Dorset
Alice goes back to Warley and Joe’s friends, Charles and Roy arrive
Charles tells him to forget Alice as her husband would never let her go and
they would have nothing to live on :
Charles tells Joe to go after Susan
Susan tells Joe to stop seeing Alice: she wants him to go to Alice who is in
hospital waiting for surgery
Joe does not obey her but shakes and bites her and in this cathartic emotional
state they make love for the first time
Mr Brown meets Joe at the Conservative Club and after being convinced
about his intentions agrees that Joe should marry Susan, who is pregnant, and
offers Joe a new job. He also tells Joe that Alice slept with Jack Wales
Joe breaks up with Alice
Joe hears the news of Alice’s death in a car accident
Joe goes to Leddersford and gets drunk
Joe goes to another pub and, after sleeping with the girl of one of the locals,
he is attacked but beats up the two guys
Joe collapses and is found by Bob and Eva who take him home encouraging
him that no one blames him which makes him cry
Starting from the very beginning of the novel, i.e. with function 1, what stands out is that
the Thompsons are left out of the movie. They are the ones who take in Joe as a lodger,
introduce him to Eva and Bob Storr with whom they all go to the theater where Joe gets to
know Susan and Alice. However, as we will see later on, the character of Charles serves in
the film as a collection of left out characters and he takes over much of the function of the
Thompsons, and in fact, of the Storrs as well.
In function 8 we read that Joe goes to the Aisgills and has sandwiches with the
couple. George Aisgill may cheat on his wife but he is most cordial with Joe. This is the
only time they see each other in the novel. He is mentioned once more because of his
affairs and when Charles enlightens Joe about how George would react if Alice wanted to
have a divorce. Not so in the film. George appears in the pub where the actor group goes to
after rehearsal. He comes for Alice’s car obviously to take his secretary on a short holiday
and so he humiliates Alice in front of her friends. Another occasion when he appears in the
story is after Joe and Alice’s holiday in Dorset. George comes to Joe’s office to tell him he
will not let Alice divorce him. He blackmails Joe that if he wants to take away his wife
from him, he will ruin them both socially and financially. As a last act of power over Joe
he takes back the silver cigarette case Alice gave Joe as a token of their happiest days
together. In the movie then George not only gains more significance but is presented as an
arrogant cold-hearted cuckold.
One of the most striking differences however, apart from Joe’s attitude towards
Susan described above, is the change in the chronology of the events. After his humiliation
at the Civic Ball, Joe rushes into the arms of Alice to find some comfort. When he is
caught by Eva on the street Susan learns about the affair and breaks up with him in a letter.
Then she leaves for France, while Joe and Alice make the best of their holidays in Dorset.
However, after Charles convinces him that a divorce from George would make his life
with Alice impossible as much socially as financially, he advises Joe to pursue his
relationship with Susan, which he does. After a fight over his breaking up with Alice Susan
finally gives herself to him in the hope of keeping him. “Oh Joe, I love you with all of me
now, every little bit of me is yours. You won’t need her any more, will you?”[19] In the
novel, as their relationship has been built up leading to this emotionally disturbing
situation, it is more justifiable that Susan sleeps with Joe than in the film. When she came
back from France and Joe’s letter was waiting for her, he promised to break up with Alice
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and be there for her. Following from the events, her actions do not seem entirely naïve. As
opposed to this, in the film Susan is sent away to France by her parents in order to keep her
away from the ‘vulgar Lampton boy.’ Joe does not write to her although Susan keeps
sending him postcards. She goes back to him upon seeing his humiliation at the Civic Ball
and after a disimpassioned quarrel about sex they finally make love. Upon the obvious
disappointment with Susan Joe phones Alice and goes back to her. Now, partly from these
chronological changes follows the fact that Susan is presented as a silly child. In the novel
she is aware what she goes into when she gives herself to Joe and agrees to marry him, as
opposed to the film, where she is overjoyed about their engagement and the baby, only
shortly getting angry about the Alice affair. Susan then remains the puppet of her father
and her future husband in the film.
There are several minor differences as well. For example, when Joe hears about
Alice’s death he is able to keep a calm appearance. In the movie, nevertheless, the scene is
made dramatic not only by his telling face but by the fact that all his colleagues are there to
congratulate him on his engagement with Susan. Charles and Teddy even open a bottle of
champagne before they realize the expression on Joe’s face. Here again, what is told by the
help of narration in the novel, i.e. Joe’s desperate state of mind over Alice’s death, is
presented to the viewer by Harvey’s facial expressions.
Another small but symbolic change can be found in function 38. Here we read that
Joe is attacked by the working-class men but is able to beat them up even when drunk. This
can be read as a symbol of his struggle to leave his own class in which he succeeds, yet,
this success is far from a glorious one. In the film he is beaten up by these young men and
as they leave him on the bank of the canal, his hand hangs into the water, while the water’s
surface mirrors the ‘Brown’ sign. This mise-en-scène is again symbolic, showing that the
real Joe gets dirty and beaten up while he strives for a better life among the Browns. When
Eva and Bob Storr find him (Charles and June in the film) they try to comfort him saying
that nobody blames him. And the novel ends with Joe’s desperate answer, “that’s the
trouble.” Nonetheless, the movie goes on to show Joe and Susan’s wedding. It takes a long
time for the heart-stricken Joe to say “I will,” but he eventually does, and they are cheered
off by friends and family as they leave for their honeymoon. As already mentioned above,
Susan is thrilled and believes the wedding to have been the most beautiful event in her life,
while Joe simply stares out of the window and starts to cry. Susan who takes them as tears
of joys declares Joe sentimental after all. The barrenness of the road they drive through
190
symbolizes the emptiness of their newly beginning life together. Neat, orderly, painfully
empty and hopelessly lonely.
Most of the other changes originate in alterations of character functions. I have
already stressed how the cold and bored attitude of Joe effects Susan’s role, how her
performance is made her character rather dull. Although Harvey was nominated for the
Oscar, many critics noted that his frigid or tight-lipped presentation of Joe does not explain
his character’s motivations. I have already argued that his motivations seem clear as
opposed to Susan’s. However, it is important to see that this change in Joe’s attitude results
from the changes of other characters around him. In the novel all the upper-class characters
play their part independently of Joe. They obviously have no intention of destroying him or
making his life more difficult. As it turns out, it is only Joe who thinks the world is against
him. He knows at the same time that he can conquer it. Nevertheless, these intuitions and
hidden personal motifs can be presented in the film only if these characters are shown
really nasty. Then the audience can identify with Joe who thus appears to be the victim of
the new society. For this reason, Jake Wales, the rich Cambridge student and possible
future husband of Susan appears in the film as a most annoying, possessive, arrogant
‘zombie.’ His rank-pulling forces Joe into an inferior situation. He keeps calling him
‘Sergeant’ to emphasize the difference in the ranks each held in the military, which was, in
turn, largely a result of class privilege.
Jake
Joe
Jake
Hello, Sergeant. Shopping for lingerie? What size are you? 44?
Listen. Do me a favor, will you? I know all about you now. I know you were a
squadron leader with a distinguished war record, the DSO and all the rest of it.
But just do me a favor. The war is over, stop calling me Sergeant!
I’ll try to remember. But Sergeant, you’re selling me short. Didn’t anyone tell
you about my DFC?
Jake’s constant emphasis on Joe’s humble background, his lower rank as a soldier and the
fact that he did not escape from prison camp puts Joe into an uncongenial situation against
which he understandably rebels. However, in the novel Jake is always very polite and
friendly with him. For example, when Joe goes to the Conservative Club to meet Mr
Brown he drops across Jake.
- How are you, old man?
- Very fit, – I said. – Had a good holiday in Dorset. You seem to be bursting
with health, I must say.
- Been to Majorca. Cambridge seems a bit damp and chilly after it. I’m just
returning there, I made a flying visit to Warley. Papa’s rather off-colour.
Works too hard.
191
- I’m sorry to hear that, – I said, wondering maliciously whether it was gout,
prostate trouble, or high blood pressure that was making Wales Senior ill.
- …What brings you here anyway? Thought you were a red-hot Labour man.
Seen the light, eh? – He gave one of his hearty false laughs.
- I’m meeting Mr Brown.
- Susan’s father?
- Uhuh.
- Nice chap. Don’t let him overpower you, though. Stick out for the highest
figure the traffic will bear; I suppose it’s a job you’re discussing?
- Could be, - I said. There wasn’t anything else that I could say.[20]
This short conversation illustrates well the difference between the attitudes in the film and
the novel elaborated above. While Jake is very polite and encouraging, Joe responds
accordingly on the surface while making malicious remarks to himself. It is Joe who is
covertly arrogant and not Jake, as in the film.
A peculiar change is made in Alice’s character. Instead of introducing her as a
Yorkshire woman, the role is played by Frenchwoman Simone Signoret. Now this casting
brings about decisive changes in the story. First of all, Alice becomes an outsider in
Warnley just like Joe. For him it is his class background, for her it is her nationality that
creates a barrier between them and the rest of the upper- or middle-class society of the
town. Alice is pushed even further by the fact that her husband humiliates and so obviously
cheats on her. Joe is humiliated by Jake and the like, and so there is a ‘natural’ link
between the two characters. Also, the fact that Alice is French in the movie reinforces “the
old-fashioned notion that loose, dangerous women were usually foreign and generally
French.”[21] This, nevertheless, indicates that Clayton was not ready to provide a British
woman with all the moral and sexual freedoms Alice has in the story. Interestingly enough,
in the novel it is Susan who goes to France and tells enthusiastically about the French cities
and her experiences to Joe on the bus. Thus the association between the story and France
was in a way given. Sarah Street points to the fact that Signoret’s alluring French accent
endows Alice’s tragic character with glamour especially as it is “contrasted with the harsh
counties tone of Susan Brown and her mother. Indeed, one profoundly important result of
the social-problem genre was the permission it gave actors to break free from BBC English
and experiment with accents.”[22] In this film Harvey’s imitation of northern accent stands
against Signoret’s French. Her special position in the story is further supported by the
camera-movement as well.
Large close-ups of her face draw attention to the signs of age in her face and
she is filmed apparently without make-up, with her hair wet and bedraggled.
The light falls harshly across the flat planes of her face. These close-ups also
192
give access to her feelings and the length of the scenes between Alice and Joe
give an unusual amount of time to the exploration both of their physical love
making and their intimate conversation. Honesty is thus linked to her sexuality
and involves the complete surrender of herself in a way that Joe, in the end,
cannot match.[23]
Her sexual and mental freedom is accompanied by a resigned attitude that makes her
emphasize her age repeatedly, calling Joe’s attention to the fact that such affairs cannot last
long. Alice’s passionate love, her experience, the security of her wisdom, her sexual
freedom, and also her tragedy is brought to the light in an amazing performance by
Signoret.
There are intriguing changes made in the character function of Joe’s best friend,
Charles. In the novel Joe relies on his advice and quotes him several times. He recounts
how they used to mock the ‘zombies’ of Dufton, how they created the Grade system
mentioned above, and many other details that attach him to his friend. Charles has an
enormous influence on Joe. It is he who tells him to stop meeting Susan to test her
affections towards Joe. Later again it is Charles who describes to Joe what would wait for
him if he really wanted Alice to get a divorce and live with him. After his monologue he
makes Joe promise he would write to Susan. This proves to be a turning point in their
relationship and had Charles not interfered, their story might have ended very differently.
Now, it is difficult to introduce many new characters in a film and in order to simplify the
story the filmmakers decided to merge Charles’ character with Joe’s colleague Teddy and
that of Bob Storr. They befriend each other when Joe arrives at Warnley, and Charles takes
him to the theater and introduces him to the Thespians. However, as opposed to the novel,
here it is Joe who seems to know his way around and he simply informs Charles about his
decisions instead of taking advice from him. Also, at the very end of the film it is not Bob
and Eva Storr who find Joe lying on the ground but Charles and June who in the meantime
got engaged. As a result of these changes Charles’ character spared many sidetracks and
the story came to be more compact.
Susan, as already pointed out several times above, is presented more naïvely
in the film than she is in the novel. Her somewhat exasperating tone and repetition of
questions or sentences make her character and her relationship to Joe absolutely
incomprehensible. Just to give one example, I would like to quote her remarks after Joe
made love to her for the first time:
Susan
Joe
Poor Mommy, if only she knew
That’s quite a thought.
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Susan
Joe, do you know I don’t feel any different. I thought I’d feel terribly
different and I don’t. Joe, do you feel different? … You don’t really want to
talk about it, do you? You’re not very sentimental, are you?
Joe
No, I’d rather not talk about it.
Susan
Joe, do you know something? I do believe you’re a prig. You’re really shy,
aren’t you?
Joe
I expect I am.
Susan
Do I look different? Do I, Joe?
Joe
No.
Susan
I don’t feel different. Just the same, only better. I thought it would be terribly
different. It’s funny. Are you sure I don’t look different?
In the novel the reader is reminded over and over again that Susan is like a baby. The way
Joe feels about her is the tenderness one feels towards a little child who needs protection
and love. The way Susan keeps asking questions absolutely ignoring Joe’s irritated mood is
exactly like a three-year-old child exploring the world, asking questions, wondering about
how things are, and how she fits into the picture. By changing Susan’s character the
director put into practice what the novel states about her nature.
Susan’s father, Mr Brown appears more often in the film than in the novel. As
already stressed above, some characters’ harshness is given more emphasis in the movie in
order to give motivation for Joe’s anger. This is true of Mr Brown as well. He is introduced
as an arrogant businessman who sweeps off the model of a new building proposed for his
expanding facilities by a young architect. The way he treats these young men suggests that
he is a real tyrant. When his wife and daughter come in he is somewhat softened, he even
indulges Susan in the Joe-affair, and reminds his wife that he also used to be a man of
humble backgrounds, like Joe Lampton. Still, he calls Hoylake to scare off Joe. At the
Civic Ball he is cordial to Joe in the novel, however, in the film he is part of the open
humiliation campaign against him. His tone changes somewhat in the Conservative Club
scene, although to say he becomes friendly would be going too far. In the book although he
is firm. he still gives Joe “one of his unexpectedly charming smiles, the hanging judge
becoming a Santa Claus who would send absolutely every item on the list.”[24] And so he
does. He arranges the wedding and offers Joe a nice job, after testing his honest intentions.
As a conclusion, most of the characters from the upper classes are represented as
much more arrogant and hostile than in the novel. Braine’s story tells of a man who is in
fact well received in Warley but because of the antagonism between his goals and his
background he feels inferior to the clique of the Browns and the likes. Jake Wales, Susan,
all the members of the Thespians welcome him in and the reader learns about his
frustrations only from Joe’s personal account. As these accounts cannot be revealed
194
directly in the movie, the filmmakers decided to show Joe’s frustrations through his tone,
facial expressions and his whole manner. To give reason for his anger most characteristics
of the upper-class protagonists are changed or taken to the extreme: Jake is arrogant,
teasing and possessive about Susan, Mr Brown is harsh and dry, George blackmails him
and makes it clear that he is an easy prey for him, and Susan is simply dumb. Although this
solution is necessary to understand the anger of the main character, these tensions are far
more subtle in the original novel.
CONCLUSION
Although the problem of social mobility does not seem to be as difficult today as it used to
be a few decades ago, the content of Room at the Top is still a biting one. Since Joe’s
character mediates a kind of self-pity in spite of the fact that he achieved what he always
wanted, the reader is apt to sympathize with him. However, Lowenstein argues that “the
film removes the threat of involvement with [the social] changes, and allows instead for
distant, painless contemplation.”[25] He even goes on to say that “Room at the Top and
many other British New Wave films reassure us that ‘realism’ hinges on displacing
desperation to others.”[26] As opposed to this, Peter Hutchings states that the films of the
New Wave “are fictions that seek, often in very seductive ways to involve us in their
narratives in a manner that still has the potential to neutralise any critical distance, in effect
to make us sympathetic participants in their world. Hence the stern gaze that has
sometimes been fixed on them by critics and historians concerned to resist their
influence.”[27] Although I am looking at the novel and the film from a different age, a
different class, and also a different nation, I believe Hutchings is right. One can still
identify with these characters as their problems and basic needs are universal and as such,
one faces their stories in many different ways even today.
[1]
Malcolm Bradbury, The Modern British Novel (London: Secker & Warbug, 1993) 324.
John Braine, Room at the Top (Hardmondsworht: Penguin Books, 1957) 57.
[3]
Braine 38.
[4]
Braine 135.
[5]
Braine 27-8.
[6]
Braine 209.
[7]
See Braine 57.
[8]
Braine 39.
[2]
195
[9]
Braine 71.
Braine 97-8.
[11]
Braine 24.
[12]
Please note that as the name of the town has been changed by one letter, its implication has also become
different. Instead of Warley the film is set in Warnley. This may indicate that in the novel the reader
witnesses Joe’s war against the upper classes, while in the film these circles receive a warning against the
infiltrating working class.
[13]
Braine 37.
[14]
Braine 13.
[15]
Adam Lowenstein, ’Peeping Tom and the New Wave,’ British Cinema, Past and Present, eds. Justine
Ashby and Andrew Higson (London: Routledge, 2000) 225.
[16]
Andrew Higson, ’Space, Place, Spectalcle: Landscape and Townscape in the ‘Kitchen Sink’ Film,’
Dissolving Views, ed. Andrew Higson (London: Cassell Wellington House, 1996) 136.
[17]
John Hill, ‘From the New Wave to ‘Brit-Grit,’’ British Cinema, Past and Present, eds. Justine Ashby and
Andrew Higson (London: Routledge, 2000) 251.
[18]
Quoted in John Hill, Sex, Class and Realism: British Cinema 1956-1963 (London: British Film Institute,
1986) 191.
[19]
Braine 199.
[20]
Braine 204-5.
[21]
Geoff Brown, ’Paradise Found and Lost: The Course of British Realism,’ ’ The British Cinema Book, ed.
Robert Murphy (London: British Film Institute, 2001) 252.
[22]
[23]
Christine Geraghty, ’Women and 60s British Cinema: The Development of the ’Darling’ Girl,’ The
British Cinema Book, ed. Robert Murphy (London: British Film Institute, 2001) 110.
[24]
Braine 205.
[25]
Lowenstein 228.
[26]
Lowenstein 230.
[27]
Peter Hutchings, ’Beyond the New Wave: Realism in British Cinema, 1959-63,’ The British Cinema
Book, ed. Robert Murphy (London: British Film Institute, 2001) 146.
[10]
196
CHAPTER 7
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE
Dystopia is far from unknown in English literature. Before Anthony Burgess’ novel, A
Clockwork Orange was published in 1962 several important literary works appeared with
similarly pessimistic attitudes toward (modern) society. The most important novels to be
mentioned are Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932), George Orwell’s 1984 (1949),
or Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 (1953) from the United States. These novels all depict
the disappointing sides of the developments in the first half of the 20th century. Similar is
the case with Burgess’ novel. However, while Huxley, Orwell, and Bradbury illustrate the
absolutely numbing effect of the State in a fairly gloomy tone, in A Clockwork Orange we
see the dystopian society not from the viewpoint of the oppressed at first, but from the
point of view of the active individual in it. Or at least the main protagonist, Alex DeLarge,
seems active and free on the surface. As we will see later, his ability to be active is latently
driven by and later taken away by the State, yet Alex is restored to his right to choose in
the last section of the novel. This right is, nevertheless, just as questionable as it was at the
beginning of the story.
It is important to see what influence the date of the novel has on the content, and
how it inspired Burgess to see the near future in such a dark tone. Burgess published his
work in 1962. This period of history is usually referred to as the ‘Swinging Sixties’ in
Great Britain. It marked the period of a developing youth culture or rather counterculture.
The most typical phenomenon of the age was the widespread appearance of drug use and
new developments in music, such as rock, soul, pop, and blues. Drugs and music often
went hand in hand, as one could witness through the stories of The Beatles, The Doors,
Janis Joplin, etc. Even folk music went through radical changes, as Bob Dylan or Donovan
appeared on the scene. This counterculture, as it is clearly visible in A Clockwork Orange,
had a great influence on Burgess: drugs and music play a central role in the life of Alex,
however, Burgess’ genius goes against mainstream culture and introduces his hero as a
lover of classical music.
Not only drugs and music had repercussions in the lives of the youth but the
international tension of the Cold War, the spread of communism also left their marks on
everyday life. Through the background information Burgess gives in the novel we develop
CHAPTER 7 – A CLOCKWORK ORANGE
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a critical view not only of Soviet communism but also of the American consumer society.
This comes obviously to light, for example, when Alex describes how everybody on the
Municipal Power Plant has television sets on which they viddy the same brainwashing
program.
It was like resting between the feet of two terrific and very enormous
mountains, these being the flatblocks, and in the windows of all of the flats you
could viddy like blue dancing light. This would be the telly. Tonight was what
they called a worldcast, meaning that the same programme was being viddied
by everybody in the world that wanted to, that being the middle-aged middleclass lewdies. [1]
This indicates two things: in Alex’s society comfortable life is in reach for everybody, but
at the same time, they are required to watch the same show that allows the State to control
the citizens’ minds. Both powers dominating contemporary politics and thinking are
latently condemned by Burgess in this scene.
Another less obvious indication of the sequence is that by entertaining the masses
in front of the TV, control is guaranteed to the state over the minds of these people. In
order to be able to do this, they indirectly encourage the youth gangs to rally the streets at
night, so that no sensible middle-aged middle-class person has the desire to go out and thus
fall out of control. As the political climate changes in the country, the government decides
to make the members of the gangs join the police force, and so terror becomes officially
accepted, what’s more, propagated. In the film this is expressed by F. Alexander’s remark
he makes on the phone in scene 33, where he says:
Recruiting brutal young roughs into the police; proposing debilitating and willsapping techniques of conditioning. Oh, we’ve seen it all before in other
countries; the thin end of the wedge! Before we know where we are, we shall
have the full apparatus of totalitarianism.
Nevertheless, F. Alexander is put away later as he openly stands against the government.
In the society of A Clockwork Orange, those who stand against the current power are
“taken care of.”
However, life did not seem so bleak in Britain at the time the book was published.
Indeed, when Harold Macmillan led the Conservative Party to victory and became Prime
Minister in 1959, he could even state “most of our people have never had it so good.” Fact
is that by the end of the 50s, the British working class finally prospered. This is also
reflected in the novel: Alex’s pee and em have secure jobs. As he remarks,
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…there being this law for everybody not a child nor with child nor ill to go out
rabbiting. My mum worked at one of the Statemarts, as they called them, filling
up the shelves with tinned soup and beans and all that cal.[2]
His father also works and so Alex is securely taken care of. Not only that, he has enough to
eat, has a room on his own, and is perfectly safe which could not be said of the workingclass children in the 1930s or 40s. Of course, he has his own money which comes from
their rallies at nights, and thus he is able to buy himself records and all the accessories he
finds important to enjoy life. From the above mentioned details it is evident that the age
and the political and cultural developments had an enormous influence on the way Burgess
saw the contemporary youth culture. As we will see later, other significant characteristics
of his story prevent the novel from becoming outdated, and make it outstanding and even
relevant reading for today’s audience.
THE NOVEL
One source of the novel was Burgess’ dislike of contemporary youth culture. He had a
personal experience with violent young men, as in 1944 his first wife was attacked, beaten
and robbed in Gibraltar. She lost their baby as a consequence and could not perfectly
recover from the experience. Burgess also suggested in an interview that her early death
may have been caused by this experience. This personal vein is duly illustrated in the rape
scene, where Alex and his friends break into F. Alexander’s house and abuse his wife.
As we saw in the previous paragraphs, in the 1960s Burgess witnessed the
development of a dominant subculture, which was characterized by strong tensions. Youth
groups such as the Mods (stemming from ‘modernists’) created closed groups with specific
features. The fact that the mods preferred tailored or slim-fit Italian suits suggests that in
his depiction of the droogs’ appearance Burgess was influenced by that specific
development in youth culture. However, the mods preferred modern jazz, rhythm and blues
and were not to be mixed with the rockers of the time. The enmity between Alex’s group
and Billyboy’s gang depicts a very similar tension as that of the youth groups of the 1950s
and 60s. However, in Burgess’ story, it is not only clothing that differentiates the groups
from one another or from the average society. The author’s genius invention, the language
of the teenager group called nadsat also makes the barrier between the group and ordinary
people impenetrable for outsiders.
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Obviously, the sense of belonging is a basic need of any human being. The novel
illustrates a society in which real belonging is in reality alienation. The members of Alex’s
group are held together by drinking hallucinatory milk, committing various brutal crimes,
and by fearing Alex, their leader who is the most creative of them. Their togetherness has
nothing to do with honesty, real friendship, or any kind of commitment to one another.
This becomes evident in the scene when Alex gains his power back by fighting and
defeating his own droogs or the way they betray him after the attack against the cat lady.
The feeling of alienation makes this story more than relevant today as it also surfaces in
such contemporary stories, and their film adaptations, as Irvine Welsh’ Trainspotting, for
example.
Other relevant topics of the novel, such as police state violence, for which we find
countless examples even in today’s societies, or science, that neglects individual freedom
and treats the members of the society only as consumers, surface in a very disturbing way
in Burgess’ novel. These topics, along with debated social, moral, and theological themes,
show that the novel has relevance even today.
THE TITLE
It is interesting to see how already in the title of the book Burgess hid many allusions to the
themes that will come up later in the novel. First, the word clockwork indicates something
(or someone in this case) that can be wound up. To be wound up it needs a force from
outside and is therefore subject to this force, it has no free will. But clockwork can be also
understood as anything but human, a mechanical, artificial construct that is more like a
robot than a free human being. Orange, on the other hand, suggests an organic being that
lives. But if it lives, the word may also relate to the fact that man has become an orangutan, a hairy ape-like creature that cannot be differentiated from animals anymore. At least
not based on its moral decisions and free will. This idea corresponds to Kubrick’s
depiction of Alex in scene 11, where the low-angle shot and his posture reminds one of the
ape man in 2001: Space Odyssey. The ape man at the beginning of the film realizes he can
kill with the bone and here Alex is illustrated as a truthful descendant of the apes. For him
man is not the beautiful creation of God that has fallen from his mercy, but the straight
descendant of the apes.
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Of course, the title also obviously alludes to the Cockney phrase “as queer as a
clockwork orange” which indicates that the main protagonist of this novel may appear
natural and human on the surface, nevertheless, internally he is corrupt and bizarre.
All these references foreshadow the story of dehumanization, first by the use of
ultra-violence and drugs and, more latently, by overt government scheming. In this story
the government is represented as an immoral institution that tries to clean out prisons by
rehabilitation to make place for the politicals. This rehabilitation is based on a negative
Pavlovian response, so to say, and makes it clear that citizens are treated rather as animals
or guinea pigs as it were.
NADSAT
As it is widely known, Burgess was a great admirer of James Joyce. His modernist
approach to language, his puns, and his creative, ambiguous use of English language
fascinated Burgess. One direct sign of his devotion to Joyce is the style of the prison
Chaplain as he talks to the prisoners about hell. His words remind the reader of Father
Arnall’s forbidding sermons about hell in Chapter 3 of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young
Man. Inspired partly by the great modernist writer and by personal experiences, Burgess
decided to develop a unique slang language for his teenager characters. The thus created
Anglo-Russo-American language makes the novel what it is. His decision was partly based
on the recognition that if he used contemporary slang the novel would age in a very short
period of time as the usage of slang changes from generation to generation. He started to
work on this idea but abandoned it after a while as he could not find the right string for it.
But he went back to it later, after a holiday in Leningrad with his wife. Before his trip he
decided to refresh his knowledge of Russian and in the process it occurred to him, that the
language he should use would be the mixture of Russian, demotic English, and slang. This
recognition guaranteed that nadsat would not be outdated by the time the book was
published. It is then evident that without nadsat the whole story would probably still be
interesting but not unique. Many words have some kind of a Slavic origin but most of them
are distorted in a way so that they look English and fit into their environment. The best
known example of these is the word horrorshow which comes from kharashó, the Russian
word for good. Further play with this word comes from its usage: when Alex describes
extreme scenes of violence which he enjoys he uses the word horrorshow most of the time,
which for him means great. For the reader, however, it really means horror but also a
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grotesque entertaining show. Nevertheless, through the Ludovico treatment it is Alex
himself who has to sit through the show of horrors which he does not find all that
horrorshow. His own vocabulary is thus turned against him by the author.
By depicting Alex’s horrific deeds, Burgess makes use of a phenomenon of human
kind, namely its bizarre longing for stories of cruelty in other people’s lives. If we only
take a look at today’s cheap newspapers, we have to state that the most selling pieces are
those dealing with extreme violence, murder, on any other story that is not typical of the
everyday life of an average citizen. However, Burgess makes use of this curiosity to
introduce his individual genius by the invention of nadsat. On starting to read the novel the
reader first has to show great diligence. Understanding such a familiar yet seemingly
gibberish language makes one frustrated at first but it is intriguing at the same time. The
genius of Burgess in the use of nadsat, in my opinion, is his timing. Just as one starts to
grasp what is really going on, he finds himself at the first extremely violent part of the
novel. At the same time, not all the words are yet clear and nadsat works as some kind of a
screen that shields the reader from the graphic parts of the plot. Burgess plays a gruesome
trick on the reader here: just as one grasps the meaning of the slovos and gets into the
rhythm of the narrative, he feels joy, he is proud of himself. He becomes one of the gang,
which makes him happy. But then, what kind of droogs does he group himself with? With
people who beat up others, break into houses and rape women. That is the psychological
trick Burgess so marvelously applies in his book. By the time the reader really understands
nadsat, the happenings calm down and we can concentrate on the psychological issues in
Alex’s life.
As we will see later, one major difference between the film and the novel is that in
the movie we see the terrible acts. Nadsat does not have the distancing effect it has in the
book. Yet, it is worth noting that the most violent acts are left out or only indicated in the
film, as, for example, the actual raping of F. Alexander’s wife.
We have already mentioned Joyce as a literary inspiration for Burgess, but there are
also very obvious allusions to other significant literary figures in the novel. One example
that stands out is Burgess’ homage to Swift when he decided to substitute the word head
by the word gulliver. Other such allusions lead to the group of contemporary writers and
prominent persons, as the streets and avenues are named after them: Kinsley Avenue,
Wilsonsway, Attlee Avenue, Amis Avenue, Marghanita Boulevard, etc. Another witty sign
of the gang’s contempt for traditional culture and values lies in the fact that when they
mask themselves to commit their crimes they use masks of prominent people from history:
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We put our maskies on – new jobs these were, real horrorshow, wonderfully
done really; they were like faces of historical personalities (they gave you the
names when you bought) and I had Disraeli, Pete had Elvis Presley, Georgie
had Henry VIII and poor old Dim had a poet vack called Peebee Shelley.[3]
The fact that they could not recognize the faces the masks depicted shows their negligence
of history and education. These subtle references and allusions make the reading of the
novel extremely entertaining for readers with a little bit of knowledge of British culture,
but are completely lost in the film adaptation of the novel.
In the 1960s when the novel came out, the use of the word like in teenage language
was not yet so widespread as today. We probably cannot imagine our spoken, everyday
language without this expletive and again, it was Burgess’ linguistic vigilance that
recognized this later development. Repetitions are also very typical of the novel and in fact
make the book very cinematic. By indicating the movement and sound of the happenings,
one has the feeling of actually experiencing these events with more than one sense. For
example, in the following line the triple use of the word out reminds one of a referee at a
boxing match as he indicates a knock out: “with one fair boot on the Gulliver he was out
and out and out”[4] By using repetitive onomatopoeic words the reader has a vocal
experience while reading as in the following example: “we viddied the fuel needle had like
collapsed, like our own ha ha ha needles had, and the auto was coughing kashl kashl
kashl.”[5] These characteristics make the novel very cinematic and a strong candidate for
adaptation.
PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES BEHIND THE NOVEL
As mentioned above, the 1960s and 70s saw the rise of a new culture that included the use
of drugs, the spread of violence, but also the appearance of an extreme peace movement.
Wild youth were partly a new phenomenon. At the same time, huge developments in the
field of psychology were made. Burgess took the principles of behavioral psychology as
the base of his Ludovican process. Behavioral psychology is based on conditioning
discovered by Ivan Pavlov at the turn of the century. It became popular in the 1940s to 60s
by the works of B.F. Skinner and John B. Watson. Taken to the extreme, one could state
that with the use of conditioning, science can make the criminal resistant to violence.[6] The
problem with this theory is that by these behavioral modification methods only the
behavior of the patient/criminal can be monitored, while his mind and thoughts, desires, or
more importantly his moral developments cannot.
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On the other side of the scale we have the crime and punishment discourse. It states
that punishment does not seem to be all that effective on the long run. One has to mend his
way from the inside, alter his own convictions in order to be able to change. And this is
where the counter-discourse of the Ludovican idea comes in. As the new Minister of the
Interior states “The Government cannot be concerned any longer with outmoded
penological theories. Cram criminals together and see what happens. You get concentrated
criminality, crime in the midst of punishment.”[7] Instead of simply putting these people in
jail and humiliating them, the doctors in the novel are convinced that violent people are
sick, malfunctioning and it is the duty of the state to cure them. Treating a prisoner with
the Ludovico process is thus not a moral or legal issue, but a purely clinical one. This is
also illustrated in the film in the show scene, where the Chaplain argues for Alex’s free
will. Here the Minister answers him:
We are not concerned with motives, with the higher ethics. We are concerned
only with cutting down crime and with relieving the ghastly congestion in our
prisons. He will be your true Christian, ready to turn the other cheek, ready to
be crucified rather than crucify, sick to the heart at the thought of killing a fly.
Reclamation! Joy before the angels of God! The point is that it works.
Obviously, by conditioning a citizen to do good leaves the idea of free will out of the
question. This is where the prison Chaplain has a significant role. He is the one who stands
up for Alex’s right to chose right or wrong. He realizes that man is innately sinful, he is in
the need of redemption, but he needs to choose his salvation by his own will not by any
external force. In the opinion of the Chaplain Alex needs to have the freedom even if it
means he is free to kill, rape, or beat up other people. He stands up at the presentation and
says
’Choice,’ rumbled a rich deep goloss. I viddied it belonged to the prison
Charlie. ‘He has no real choice, has he? Self-interest, fear of physical pain,
drove him to that grotesque act of self-abasement. Its insincerity was clearly to
be seen. He ceases to be a wrongdoer. He ceases to be a creature capable of
moral choice.’[8]
Although this approach should seem the most inviting from an objective point of view,
Burgess decided not to take sides. All the characters arguing or fighting for Alex’s rights
and future life have some kind of a flaw. The prison Charlie, as the prisoners call him, is
drunk all the time. Also, his naïve faith in Alex’s transition from bloodthirsty hooligan to a
devote Christian makes him look ridiculous. Still, at the show scene Alex grasps this
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opportunity to speak up for himself after he sees how the Chaplain argues for him, and
suddenly the words he once read in F. Alexander’s find their way out:
‘Me, me, me. How about me? Where do I come into all this? Am I like just
some animal or dog?’ And that started them off govereeting real loud and
throwing slovos at me. So I creeched louder, still creeching: ‘Am I just to be
like a clock-work orange?’ I didn’t know what made me use those slovos,
brothers, which just came like without asking into my Gulliver.
Interestingly enough, Kubrick turned Alex’s sympathy around. In scene 27 Alex is shown
in a middle-close up as the minister puts his hand on his shoulder, while arguing with the
Chaplain about Alex’s moral being. After a while the Chaplain also puts his hand on
Alex’s other shoulder, and they stand by him as the classical figure of angel and evil, while
Alex only turns his head and listens to the conversation. He smiles when the minister talks
and looks in incomprehension when the Chaplain speaks for him. With this change
Kubrick created coherence in Alex’s conscience. He has never really cared for moral
questions and will not make moral decisions later on, why would he in this scene?
However, both in book and film, in this scene the two opposing psychological or moral
sides are clearly revealed.
THE FILM
When dealing with adaptations, the question of relevance arises many times. Why was the
novel successful at its publication date and why was it worth making it into a film? This is
again very important in the case of A Clockwork Orange. At the time when Burgess’ novel
was written, Stanley Kubrick had just become a world famous director through the film
Spartacus (1960). Although Kubrick, working for Kirk Douglas and replacing the original
director, did not take the film as his own, it still won four Oscars and a great deal of
attention to Kubrick. His next project turned out to be even scandalous, the adaptation of
Nabokov’s novel Lolita which came out in 1962. The film was condemned by the Catholic
Church. Kubrick had to re-cut it and it became his first highly controversial film followed
by several others in the course of his career. This already points to the fact that Kubrick
was not a person to shy away from difficult, even taboo topics. Yet, he needed to wait
another ten years until censorship loosened up a little. It was 2001: A Space Odyssey that
established him as a genius in filmmaking. By 1971 the general mood of the Hollywood
censors indicated a more relaxed attitude towards sex and violence. Such movies as The
Devils (1970), A Clockwork Orange (1971), Straw Dogs (1971), Deliverance (1972) and
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Last Tango in Paris (1973) were certified. “This provoked a backlash amongst critics and
moralists. Moral campaigners like Mary Whitehouse, politicians and the popular press now
combined to blame the cinema for moral decline and the measurable increase in violence in
society.”[9] Yet, Burgess’ novel stands as witness to the fact that general violence or at least
the wind of moral decline had been surfacing already a decade earlier. And Kubrick was
courageous enough to choose this sort of mental manipulation and moral decline as a topic
of his next film.
It is still interesting to note that the novel had to wait ten years before it was put to
the big screen. As is well known, before Burgess’ novel came out, the Angry writers had a
decisive influence on the British novel as we saw in the case of Room at the Top. This
influence also spread all the way to filmmaking, as the novels of the Angry writers and
other contemporary authors tended to be put to the screen within a few years of their
publication. By 1962, this wave of sudden publication ebbed and Kubrick discovered
Burgess’ book only years later.
The effect of the film on the contemporary youth is also intriguing. A Clockwork
Orange turned out to be probably the most controversial Kubrick movie, as many young
people claimed to have been inspired by the film when committing acts of violence in
Britain. Kubrick was also personally threatened and turned to Warner Brothers. To the
surprise of many, the company pulled the film out of the market. This was almost never
heard of in the history of commercial filmmaking which indicates that Warner Brothers
really had great trust in the genius of Kubrick and found it important to protect him. But
today the film is regarded as a classic. It won two New York Critic’s Circle awards for best
picture and best director, and was nominated for four Oscars, including Best Picture, Best
Director, and Best Screenplay, and also for seven BAFTA Awards for Best Art Direction,
Best Cinematography, Best Director and Best Film among them.
Now the question arises: what made A Clockwork Orange so popular and so
outrageous at the same time? The answer to this question might be found already in the
first scene of the film. We see Alex and his droogs sitting at the Korova Milkbar, drinking
what looks like milk. As the camera zooms out, we realize what a peculiar place the
Korova Milkbar is. White, nude feminine dummies function as tables, milk is served by a
breast-fountain, and people are dressed in futuristic clothes. This vision is topped with the
voice-over of Alex, who calls the audience friends and thus places himself at the center of
the action right at the beginning. By starting out with such a personal tone Alex also
manipulates the viewer to sympathize with him without knowing what kind of person the
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main protagonist is. At the same time, he talks about ultra-violence in such a soft voice that
we do not even realize at the beginning what he is talking about. Thus the flamboyant art
direction of John Barry and the genius cinematography of John Alcott give the film a
modern look, and make it possible to put such taboo subjects as nudity, sex and violence
on the screen. The futuristic set and props, like the colored wigs, the outsized phallus in the
catlady’s house, or the set of the Korova Milkbar, for example, not only made the film look
modern at the time, but also served to distance the topic from the contemporary audience.
As we will see later, the peculiar score of the movie also helps to achieve a kind of
remoteness for the viewer. At the same time, the whole impact of the art design, although it
is futuristic, still bears the marks of the 1970s, and so from the present point of view, it
seems somewhat outdated.
But what made the adaptation possible was that the novel touched upon issues that
were just as relevant in 1962 or in 1971 as they are today. In a world where globalization
and control over individual life keeps spreading, the question of free will is more than
applicable. We are influenced by television, hidden and overt advertisement, the press and
many other forces that we do not even think about. These are most of the time closely
related to some political matter that indirectly influences our decisions and course of life,
just as Alex’s life was basically run by different forces outside his own influence. He was
not free to choose right or wrong after the Ludovico treatment, he was conditioned to.
Whether the government has the right to kill the criminal instinct remains a question. From
Alex’s point of view it obviously does not have the right, as the prison Chaplain rightly
argues. But if we consider our own and our children’s security, I suppose we would have to
think twice about the subject. That is the genius of the story: it does not have a final claim.
All the ideas represented in the course of the plot have their own truths and can rule out the
others.
After making A Clockwork Orange, Kubrick turned into a less radical direction
with the adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray’s Barry Lyndon (1975). In 1980 he
shocked his audience with the horror story of Stephen King, The Shining, while his war
film, Full Metal Jacket came seven years later. With the surreal Eyes Wide Shut (1999) his
career unfortunately came to an end but his genius legacy enthralls all those, who show any
interest in film history. His films are all unique in a way, but it is A Clockwork Orange that
stands out as the most shocking and mostly debated. It is through this debate and attention
that Kubrick involuntarily made Burgess famous. The author found it difficult to forgive
the filmmaker, and maybe the audience as well for acknowledging his novel only in
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relation to the film version, and so Burgess disparaged the film wherever he could. As
Helbig writes:
And yet A Clockwork Orange can serve as a prime example of the potential
conflicts between the director and the author of the literary model of a film.
During his lifetime Burgess missed no opportunity to disassociate himself
from Kubrick’s film, sometimes in a polemical fashion, accusing him of having
gravely altered the contents of his novel..[10]
In the following sections I am going to take a look at these changes and the influence that
indicated them.
STRUCTURAL PATTERNS
The Novel
The structure of Burgess’ novel hints at several significant symbolic meanings. The
obvious ABA composition shows the classical tripartite division. Within each part of the
book there are seven chapters. The number seven has been referred to as a mythological
number ever since, according to the Bible, God created the world in seven days. The first
seven chapters, in fact, introduce Alex and his droogs as hooligans running amok on the
streets in the near future. Alex goes through no change throughout this section. The next
seven chapters also stand as a whole, as they show Alex in prison and his sufferings under
the Ludovico Treatment. He changes from an active criminal to a passive victim, who
cannot even defend himself. This leads us to the third section of the book, and in the last
seven chapters, we see another whole phase of his life: after prison all those he abused turn
against him, and by the end of the book he turns into an average good citizen, who is ready
to settle down.
If we add up the number of the chapters, we get the number 21, which obviously
alludes to the official age of adulthood. By chapter 21, Alex grows up and realizes that his
rebellion has come to an end. To many critics, Christian W. Thomsen among them, the
ending
seems
too
didactic.
Thomsen
writes:
“Inhaltlich
gesehen
kann
die
Moralitätenanleihe und Rückkehr in die Spießidylle nicht überzeugen. Zu sehr hat Alex
den Bogen überspannt, um sich nun bruchlos in einen ‘…und wenn sie nicht gestorben
sind…’ Märchenschluss zu retten.”[11] Although at first I agreed with this statement, I found
Tamás Bényei’s comment on the ending of the novel even more intriguing. He argues that
Alex’s socialization and settlement guarantee the efficient survival of the
system; the values, in the name of which Alex abandons his former violent but
at the same time through and through aesthetic (dandy-like) lifestyle, get the
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upper hand not because they prove to be more valuable according to the logic
of a Bildungsroman but because they prove to be interiorized assuptions
essential to the survival of the system. … none of the elements of Alex’s
reasoning are “intrinsic.”.[12]
This anti-utopian ending is in accordance with the almost comic view of a modern society
where values have become endlessly relative. No matter what Alex decides to do in the
future, his son and youth in general will commit the same crimes.
But youth is only being in a way like (…) little chellovecks made out of tin and
with a spring inside and then a winding handle on the outside and you wind it
up grrr grrr grrr and off it itties, like walking, O my brothers. But it itties in a
straight line and bangs straight into things bang bang and it cannot help what it
is doing. (…) When I had my son I would explain all that to him when he was
starry enough to like understand. But then I knew he would not understand or
would not want to understand at all and would do all the veshches I had done
(…) And so it would itty on to like the end of the world, round and round and
round, like some bolshy gigantic like chelloveck, like old Bog Himself (by
courtesy of the Korova Milkbar) turning and turning and turning a vonny
grahzny orange in his gigantic rookers. [13]
Consequently, the sudden turns Alex goes through do not bring real immanent
change. Even though he himself changes, others fill his place right away. Violence and
ignorance have no ending. I therefore believe the last chapter is essential to the symbolic
meaning of the structure. However, Burgess agreed to omit the last chapter from the
American release of the book.
The Film
If we want to compare the structure of the novel to that of the film, we face several
difficulties. The first and most obvious of these is that the film does not have the
possibility to hint at the age 21 as it is not divided into chapters. This symbolic meaning is
lost in the process of adaptation. What we have, on the other hand, is the almost perfect
circle that closes around Alex. Peter W. Jansen, in his book Stanley Kubrick, refers to this
structure as an almost perfect roundel[14] and creates a diagram based on the places Alex
goes to on his journey to adulthood:
A1
D2
B1
E2
B2
C1
D1
A2
E1
C2
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In this case the figures stand for the following stages:
A1 A2 In town
B1 B2 Home
C1 C2 Parents’ house
D1 D2 Sexual abuse
E1 E2 Healing
Although the hidden meaning of number 21 is lost in the adaptation, another mythological
journey is alluded to in the film. In the first half of the circle Alex plays with his fellow
citizens without considering their human dignity and without thinking about the
consequences, while as the circle closes in on him, his deeds are revenged by his previous
victims.
The greatest difference between the British version of the novel and the film,
however, is the omission of the twenty-first chapter. As mentioned above, the American
edition did not include the last chapter until 1986, and so it comes as little surprise that
Kubrick’s adaptation ends with chapter 20. Alex is cured and may perform acts of violence
as he did before. Kubrick claimed that he was almost finished with writing the screenplay
when he first heard about the 21st chapter. He did not even consider including it into the
film. In order to see the influence of changes and omissions on the adaptation, let us take a
look at the narrative functions of the novel.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
210
Alex and his droogs sit at the Korova milkbar drinking milk laced with
stimulants
They beat up an old man carrying books from the library
They go to the bar called The Duke of New York for several drinks
They rob the store around the corner and come back to the bar
On the street they spot a drunken old man and beat him up
By the Municipal Power Plant they have a fight with Billyboy and his gang
They steal a Durango 95 and terrorize pedestrians on the roads
They enter the house of the writer F. Alexander where they beat him and rape
his wife
They go back to the Korova Milk bar where Alex has a conflict with Dim
Alex goes home, listens to classical music
Alex does not go to school the next morning; he is visited by P.R.Deltoid
Alex goes to the record shop
He picks up two girls whom he gets drunk and rapes
Alex leaves to meet his droogs who already wait for him downstairs, telling
√
√
√
*
him about the new order
15 Alex fights off their rebellion by beating up Dim and Georgie
16 They go to the Manse where Alex attacks the catwoman
17 As he is leaving Dim waits for him outside and hits him in the eye with his
chain
18 The police takes Alex to the police station where P.R. Deltoid pays him a
discouraging visit
19 In his cell Alex later learns that the cat lady has died
20 Alex is sentenced to fourteen years in Staja 84F
21 Alex spends two years in prison supported by the prison’s Chaplain
22 When a new prisoner is added to their cell and tries to molest him a fight breaks
out in which the new prisoner is beaten to death
23 The Minister of the Interior selects Alex for the new criminal correction
program
24 Alex is taken to a new hospital-like building where Dr. Branom describes the
treatment to him
25 The first sessions begin
26 At the next screening Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is played while Alex has to
watch a movie about World War II
27 Alex decides to attempt an escape which fails
28 After the treatment Alex is taken to a presentation where he is the test subject
to be introduced
29 Alex is left free and goes to a café where he reads about himself in the papers
30 Alex goes home to find that his room has been taken by a lodger, Joe
31 Alex goes to the record shop but realizes he is unable to listen to classical
music because of the treatment
32 Alex decides to commit suicide
33 Alex goes to the library where the old man recognizes him and asks his friends
to help him take revenge on the young man
34 Two policemen, i.e. Dim and Billyboy, arrive and take Alex out of town to beat
him up
35 Beaten up, Alex goes to the nearest house which turns out to be F. Alexander’s
HOME
36 F.Alexander offers his help while he tells him that his wife died after a gang
raped her
37 F. Alexander’s associates arrive and after Alex gives himself away by using
nadsat; they take him back to town
38 Alex wakes and hears classical music coming through the walls
39 Alex jumps out of the window to kill himself
40 A week later Alex wakes up in a hospital
41 He realizes he can entertain thoughts of violence again
42 The Minister of the Interior visits him
43 He signs a form the Minister gives him while a huge stereo is rolled in his room
and he can again listen to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony
44 Alex sits in the Korova Milkbar with his new droogs
45 They go out on the street and beat up an old man buying newspaper; Alex does
not participate, only watches
46 They go to the Duke where a photo of a baby is revealed as Alex puts money
on the table from his pocket
47 Alex leaves the others
*
*
√
√
*
√
√
√
*
√
√
√
√
211
48 Alex meets Pete who got married
49 Alex contemplates his future and realizes he also wants a family: he has grown
up
√
√
Although Kubrick’s film was attacked by many as being unnecessarily violent and graphic,
it is interesting to see how many violent scenes he left out or softened in his film. In
function 2 and 3 we read about a schoolmaster who gets beaten up by Alex’s gang after
leaving the public library and we also witness the robbing of a shop near the Duke of New
York. Instead of these brutalities Kubrick switches right to the old tramp after introducing
the boys in the Korova Milkbar in scene 1. The sinister, brutal scene with the singing old
man lying on the ground is enough for the viewer to illustrate what kind of atrocities these
young people are up to when they come out on the street.
There is a minor, but symbolically still important change in function 6. Here Alex
tells us in the book that they met Billyboy and his gang at the Municipal Power Plant. This
name reminds obviously of nuclear plants the validity of which was at the time, and even
today, questionable. But the name of the place is even more significantly a subtle reference
to the Cold War that was getting more and more serious at the time the book was written.
Nevertheless, Kubrick changed the set of the scene in the film. According to Alex’s voiceover, instead of a power plant, he and his droogs found Billyboy in the empty and rundown casino of the town. This casino, however, is more like a deserted theater. This
impression is only strengthened by the ballet-like choreography of the fight between the
two gangs. The symbolism of the scene is clear: Alex’s generation (i.e. the generation of
the future) does not go to the theater but leave the building run down, dusty. Everything is
torn to pieces, nobody comes here anymore to be a witness to a cultural event. Human
intellect is replaced by the brainwashing of the television and its worldcast, while ballet is
performed in a bizarre, brutal way. It becomes then apparent how adaptation can very
subtly make up for a lost meaning, how it can create symbolism and reflect a complete
society through the setting and mise-en-scène.
The next significant change can be found in function 8. In the book it is in this
scene where Alex reads out from F. Alexander’s manuscript called A Clockwork Orange.
Here the reader’s attention is caught by the recurrence of the novel’s title and thus special
attention is paid to the passages Alex reads out unknowingly. The writer’s manuscript
includes the following passage: “The attempt to impose upon man, a creature of growth
and capable of sweetness . . . laws and conditions appropriate to a mechanical creation,
against this I raise my sword-pen.” This remark already foreshadows Alex’s fate. The
212
liberal opposition of F. Alexander to the social government appears to fight for human
rights and dignity, yet it is also this force that will drive Alex to suicide. F. Alexander’s
situation before and after the raping of his wife serves to demonstrate the two sides of the
coin in one person. He, at first, stands for human rights as we would all do when asked
about them in general, but once it comes down to a personal level, he is just as fallible as
any other human being: he wants the wrong-doer to suffer and possibly die which, in the
meantime, would also serve his personal political interests. In the movie, however, this
precursory knowledge about the writer’s disposition is omitted. Thus the meaning of the
film’s title is left to the audience to be figured out, it is not presented to them as it is to the
reader. This section in the book is important for a further reason: Alex reads this paragraph
from F. Alexander’s book and without knowing it, the words stuck in his head and come
out late in function 28. Here he argues that he does not want to be treated like an animal,
does not want to become a “clockwork orange.” Since function 8 is only partly transferred
to the film, this argument is also missing from the adaptation.
One of the most peculiar scenes in the novel is where Alex attacks the cat
lady. The place and scene is described by Alex the following way:
…you could viddy this old baboochka talking back to them, govereeting in like
scoldy language to her pussies. In the room you could viddy a lot of old
pictures on the walls and starry very elaborate clocks, also some like vases and
ornaments that looked starry and dorogoy.[15]
The way Kubrick changed the scene is an able example of creative adaptation. The
meaning, or the function of the scene remain unchanged, but many literal and symbolic
cues are altered. The dialogue is almost the same as that in the novel, but the props and the
setting are radically changed. Instead of an old lady with a walking-stick we see a younger
woman exercising in her apartment. The old paintings are replaced by pop-art-like bizarre
prints of naked women with obvious sexual connotations. This daring atmosphere is
topped with a huge white penis prop that Alex rocks after he enters the room. As Walker
writes:
The décor, too, suggests the sterility that results when sex is separated from its
function and becomes only “form.” The lewd paintings caricature the owner’s
own “balletic” postures, and even the sculptured phallus that Alex sets rocking
absurdly on its truncated testicles has the gargantuan proportions of obscene
fantasy.[16]
From today’s point of view the setting bears the modern style of the 1970s and looks
outdated, however, by changing the setting from an old lady with grandfather clocks to an
213
exercising woman, Kubrick created a dreamlike sequence. This effect is amplified by the
wide lens shots with a hand-held camera. Through the distorted image created this way we
gain a subjective view. The camera starts to turn around and around as in a dance. The
scene turns out to be something like a grotesque Totentanz.
Another notable difference concerns the Beethoven bust in the cat lady’s room. In
the novel the bust seems to fit in perfectly with the old paintings and grandfather clocks of
the house, and stands out only because Alex is magically attracted to it. In order to lay his
hands on the bust he needs to stumble through the milk saucers laid out all around the
room. When the old woman keeps hitting Alex with her stick and the cats attack him, he
grabs the bust and hits the old lady on the head with it. This scene is again symbolic: Alex
loves classical music which is considered to be a very cultural characteristic. But in his
hand (and head) everything is turned upside down. Instead of becoming refined by
listening to classical music, he gets the wildest fantasies through it, and with a piece of art
he kills the helpless, innocent woman. This topsy-turvy effect of classic arts is elaborated
on by Alex himself on page 32:
I had to have a smack, though, thinking of what I viddied once in one of these
like articles on Modern Youth, about how Modern Youth would be better off if
A Lively Appreciation Of The Arts could be like encouraged. Great Music, it
said, and Great Poetry would like quieten Modern Youth down and make
Modern Youth more Civilized. Civilized my syphilised yarbles. Music always
sort of sharpened me up, O my brothers, and made me like feel like old Bog
himself, ready to make with the old donner and blitzen and have vecks and
ptitsas creeding away in my ha ha power.
Interestingly enough, not only is this remark omitted from the film, but the Beethoven bust
appears in the hands of the cat lady. She tries to hit Alex with it, while he teases her with
the huge penis prop. It is with this he strikes her dead, while pop-art pictures are
simultaneously cut in extremely fast editing. The Beethoven bust loses its magical
significance in the process of adaptation, yet the white penis prop and the lady defending
herself with the bust brings in an absolutely new meaning without the function of the scene
being lost.
As already mentioned above, Kubrick’s film was attacked by many for its graphic
violence and brutality. However, in the novel we find even more ruthless scenes, and most
of these are also bloodier than the ones in the adaptation. At the interrogation, for example,
Alex is beaten up until he vomits, whereas in the film we see some blood running out of
his mouth but his condition is less worrisome than in the novel. Also, one of the most
214
depressing and brutal scenes of the novel that we see in function 22 is left out of the film.
We do not see how Alex and his fellow prisoners beat the newcomer to death after he tried
to molest Alex. He is a model prisoner in the film, he even asks the prison Chaplain before
talking to him about the possibility of the treatment:
Alex
Chaplain
Alex
Chaplain
Alex
Chaplain
Father, I have tried, have I not?
You have, my son.
I have done my best, have I not?
Indeed.
And, Father, I have never been guilty of any institutional infractions, have I?
You certainly have not, 655321. You’ve been very helpful, and you’ve
shown a genuine desire to reform.
It is still fascinating that Kubrick changed Alex’s reaction to the Minister’s remarks
exactly to the opposite and yet the function of the scene remains the same. In function 23
the Minister of the Interior talks to the “Chief Chasso” and Alex interrupts:
Common criminals like this unsavoury crowd’ – (that meant me, brothers, as
well as the other, who were real prestoopnicks and treacherous with it) – ‘can
best be dealt with on a purely curative basis. Kill the criminal reflex, that’s all.
Full implementation in a year’s time. Punishment means nothing to them, you
can see that. They enjoy their so-called punishment. They start murdering each
other.’ And he turned his stern blue glazzies on me. So I said, bold:
‘With respect, sir, I object very strongly to what you said then. I am not a
common criminal, sir, and I am not unsavoury. The other may be unsavoury
but I am not.’[17]
As opposed to this, Alex in the film simply says: “You’re absolutely right, sir!” without
permission. From this boldness the Minister concludes: “Excellent. He is enterprising,
aggressive, outgoing. Young. Bold. Vicious. He’ll do.” And Alex is selected for the
treatment.
In the table above it can be seen that the adaptation of the Ludovico process was put
to film almost literally. Little differences can be found, such as the omission of the scene
where Alex is unable to hit his discharge officer. This particular attempt is transformed and
appears when Alex attempts to hit Joe the lodger and gets sick. After the scene at his
parent’s apartment, we see him walking by the river but, in contrast to the book, it is not
made perfectly clear that he contemplates suicide. Instead of going to the library as we read
in function 33, the old tramp recognizes him and Alex gets beaten up by him and his
homeless friends. This change is a logical consequence of the changes made at the
beginning of the story: since we did not see the schoolmaster coming out of the library
there, it is best to make a short cut and have the old tramp take his revenge on Alex first.
215
After his encounter with Dim and Billyboy, or in the film, Dim and Georgie, he
finds himself again in F. Alexander’s house. In the movie we see the writer in a wheelchair
and accompanied by a muscular bodyguard. The wheelchair obviously serves to raise pity
towards the former victim of Alex. The bodyguard on the other hand, may serve two
purposes. First, it shows how scared of another attack F. Alexander must have become, and
secondly, in a comical way, the bodyguard is necessary to move F. Alexander around his
house. The modern design with its countless steps and different levels makes it impossible
for the writer to roll around. The fact that F. Alexander did not move out of the house,
although it is more than inconvenient in his present state, may lead us to a subtle symbolic
meaning. It shows that in a modern society people become insecure and they have to keep
up a mechanical form of living instead of moving around naturally and free. Although he
calls his wife and Alex “a victim of the modern age,” he himself is also one of them.
Late in the book it becomes obvious that Alex did not change in his character at all,
no matter how “good” his actions have become. When he learns that the writer’s wife died
after they raped and beat her, he does not feel sorry for her, but starts to worry about his
own wellbeing and security. Since they had masks on during the attack F. Alexander does
not recognize him until he starts to speak nadsat. However, Kubrick chose a more dramatic
way for Alex to give himself away. In the rape scene we heard Alex sing “Singin’ in the
Rain” which turned out to be one of the most famous trade marks of the movie. It is this
song Alex starts to sing feeling secure in the bathtub, while F. Alexander listens to it
outside and realizes who he allowed into his house. Another change in function 36 follows
again from the fact that F. Alexander’s book did not gain significance at the beginning.
Thus in the film we do not see Alex reading F. Alexander’s book. Although the meaning of
the novel’s title is covertly explained again, this reference is left out of the film.
Functions 38 through 43 are all faithfully adapted to film but, as already noted in
detail above, the last chapter of the book is completely left out of Kubrick’s version.
CHARACTER FUNCTIONS
Not only are the functions of each character in the book transferred almost without change
to the film, but also their different motivations. The main protagonist is the fifteen-year-old
Alex, who is the leader of the group. Alex is already well characterized by a short, abstract
analysis of the meaning of his name: A-lex, i.e. one who is outside the law. He is a person
who does not care about regulations, customs, rights, or morals. He stands above all these
216
matters and thinks he can do whatever he wants to do without consequences. Throughout
the story we get to know him as a person who considers himself superior to all, but the
reader eventually has to realize that he is no more than a naïve teenager. Although he is the
leader of the gang, he does not realize when his droogs turn against him. Throughout his
treatment in the hospital he criticizes the smart grown-ups, he even looks down on them
all. Yet he is unable to make the simplest, logical connections in order to realize that it is
the drugs he gets before the viewing sessions that make him sick. Even though by the end
he realizes that he was only a puppet in the hands of the politicians and other fanatics, he
does not learn from this knowledge: he signs the papers the Minister of the Interior gives
him in the hospital without even reading them:
The Min said: ‘Good good boy,’ patting me on the pletcho, then he ittied off.
Only one veck was left, saying: ‘Sign here, please.’ I opened my glazzies up to
sign, not knowing what I was signing and not, O my brothers, caring either.
Then I was left alone with the glorious Ninth of Ludwig van.[18]
Real change comes first after he is restored to his old self. When he meets Pete, he realizes
that he also wishes for a settled life. This change, this character development is again
missing from the film because of the omitted chapter in the American edition.
Now, of course the actor’s performance has a great influence on how the
atmosphere of the book is transferred to the screen. Kubrick chose Malcolm McDowell to
play Alex, and his decision turned out to be highly praised by the audience and critics. The
only significant change, except for the last scene, is the age of the main character. Alex is
about fifteen years old in the novel and suggested to be around eighteen in the film.
However, McDowell was already twenty-eight when making the film, which makes his
performance even more superb: he is able to play the role of a teen very convincingly. He
is charming, and just as the “humble narrator” of the book, he is able to win the sympathy
of his “brothers,” i.e. the audience. There is another example of the above mentioned age
change in the film: the two girls Alex brings up to his apartment are only nine or ten years
old in the novel, whereas in the film they appear to be at least fourteen-fifteen. This again,
along with the fact that in the movie Alex does not get them drugged and does not rape
them, proves again the point that Kubrick actually softened the story compared to the
original. This is also true of the rape of F. Alexander’s wife: in the novel the reader is told
about all the details of the sexual act, whereas in the film it is only implied. Kubrick shows
only so much, thus the audience understands what is about to happen. Jörg Helbig even
argues, that “Alex wirkt im Film generell sympathischer als im Buch, seine Taten
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erscheinen weniger verwerflich, seine Opfer weniger harmlos.”[19] McDowell’s facial
expressions at the beginning differ significantly to his expressions after he goes to prison.
His famous look into the camera at the beginning of the film raises fear just as his
expression before attacking the old drunkard. This is, nevertheless, substituted by a more
naïve, sometimes even comic face, as for example when he talks to the Minister of the
Interior in prison, or at the hospital, when he shakes hands with the minister in front of the
press people. The best example of his childish behavior can be found in scene 39. Here we
see Alex being fed by the Minsiter while talking to Alex:
Minister
Alex
Minister
There are certain people who wanted to use you for political ends.
People who would have been glad to have you dead because then they
would have been able to blame it all on the Government. I think you
know who those are. There is also a certain man – a writer of
subversive literature – who has been howling for your blood. He’s been
mad with desire to stick a knife into you, but you are safe from him
now, we’ve put him away. (…) We put him away where he can do you
no harm. You see, we are looking after your interests. We are interested
in you, and when you leave here you will have no further worries. We
shall see to everything… a good job on a good salary.
What job and how much?
You must have an interesting job at a salary which you would regard as
adequate. Not only for the job you are going to do and in compensation
for what you believe you have suffered, but also because you are
helping us.
The idea of the Minister feeding him, and Alex acting as if a young bird opening his mouth
for more food, came up at one of the “crucial rehearsal periods” or CRPs. In these periods
Kubrick remained alone with his cast and had them play the scene over and over again to
bring the best out of it. The way McDowell opens his mouth expecting the Minister to feed
him while the Minister talks openly about political imprisonment and bribing Alex has an
overt symbolical meaning. Alex would eat anything just to take advantage of a situation.
He does not think about the consequences and he lets himself be dragged by the flow. The
above mentioned elements are completely missing from the original. In a novel as one can
only imagine the protagonist’s facial expressions, but cannot actually see them. The way
McDowell plays with his gestures determines the way we as viewers interpret his
character.
Alex is to a great degree ignorant of the group dynamics and political games around
him. First, he cannot read between the lines when his droogs, after trying to deprive him of
his power, seemingly return to his allegiance. This leads Alex to be captured by the police
and sentenced to fourteen years of prison. He agrees to take part in the Ludovico treatment
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without understanding, or even wanting to understand what he submits himself to. When
he realizes what those in power did to him, it is already too late. Then again, he goes back
to society without learning from his mistakes: he lets himself be dragged into the
manipulative game of F. Alexander and his associates. As if it were not enough, he then
signs a piece of paper the Minister of the Interior shows him not even caring what was in
it. He gives himself out as a smart leader or a poor victim, but in reality he is simply a
puppet in the hands of the different political powers.
There is also a slight change that concerns the motivations of Alex in
function 28. In the novel Alex tells us that his reactions toward the persons provoking him
at the test presentation are far from humble. The only reason he shows humility is because
of the physical pain and discomfort he experiences as a reaction to his natural feelings. The
point of the novel, thus, is that Alex really did not change in his character. He remained the
same on the inside but is forced to execute acts of goodness on the outside. The degree of
his humiliation in the movie is less than that in the novel. Again, it is interesting that
Kubrick was attacked for the film’s brutality although he smoothed the edges of several
scenes and left out quite a lot of violence when transferring the novel onto the big screen.
The real difference, and also the explanation for the attacks originate in the fact that the
effect of the written word the reader has to imagine for himself is less dramatic than the
actual acts physically carried out and put to the screen. Again, this is a proof that a film can
never be completely “true” to the novel. The two media work on very different levels.
The last note we have to make on Alex’s character function proceeds from the
already mentioned omitted last chapter. In the movie Alex does not go back to the street
with his new droogs, he does not meet Pete, and he does not talk about his views on youth.
Alex’s character does not develop in the course of the film. Also, Burgess’ pessimistic
view, according to which Alex’s son will commit the same crimes while looking for his
own way, is also lost and Alex is presented as a person beyond remedy.
OTHER CHARACTERS
Dim, Georgie, and Pete keep their functions as Alex’s satellite and betrayer. Pete, however,
becomes less significant in the film. In the book it is mostly he who tries to calm things
down. This becomes obvious when Georgie tries to take over the power from Alex, but it
also surfaces through the fact that he is the one who settles down first and indirectly
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inspires Alex to do the same. Again, by leaving out the last chapter, Pete loses his
significance as catalyzer in Alex’s life, and so his character melts into the others.
P.R. Deltoid, Alex’s parents, and the doctors participating in the Ludovico
treatment are also transferred almost without change. Another significant person in the plot
is the prison Chaplain. He is possibly the only one in the story who really cares for Alex.
He alone questions whether or not forced goodness is really better than chosen wickedness.
In his views the modern conditioning goes against the moral freedom of facing your sins
and doing something about them. By these doubts he gets to be one of the key persons of
the story as he very obviously mediates the message of the book. The Chaplain is not taken
seriously by either the prisoners or by those in power: the prisoners call him Charlie, as a
pun to the name of Charlie Chaplin, whereas the director and the minister dismiss his ideas
about freedom. As Alexander Walker notes in his book Stanley Kubrick, Director “He
starts out as a figure of fun within the State system but ends as a figure of protest against
it.”[20] His role in the film becomes thus doubly important. Since the excerpts of F.
Alexander’s book are omitted, only the Chaplain’s argument stands against the technique
that produces clockwork oranges.
All other characters, if not omitted, are transferred to the movie and keep their
original function.
DIALOGUE
Most traditional novels contain a great deal of narration or description, and less dialogue.
This is also true of A Clockwork Orange. However, the fact that the central narrator, i.e.
Alex addresses the audience and talks to it as if it were a friend creates the effect of a
dialogue between main protagonist and reader. Alex’s inner monologues build the body of
the book and as such, could not be left out of the film either. Although voice-over is
usually used only restrictedly, to introduce a story and give it a kind of historical
credibility, the case is much different in A Clockwork Orange. Here Alex’s narration is
present throughout the whole movie. The text of the voice-over sections is taken from the
novel almost unchanged. The same is true of the dialogues found in the film. Since
Burgess’ style is fascinatingly conversational, Kubrick had to change little to make it apt
for his screenplay.
It is at the same time worth mentioning that Kubrick, beside the futuristic setting
and the use of nadsat, brought along an intriguing style of conversation: many times the
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characters talk to each other in a loud, excited voice. This intonation, which dominates in
the conversation of Alex and P.R. Deltoid, or F. Alexander after he realized who he is
dealing with in scene 33, lends a masque-like air to the whole movie. It reminds the viewer
that he sees more like the performance of an allegory than a realistic film. The effect of this
comical representation can be compared to the less sophisticated shows of Monty Python,
who use the same kind of farcical style in their films. The fact that such scenes are not to
be taken word-by-word is naturally underlined by the music and the ballet-like
choreography of scene 3 or the death dance mentioned above in scene 13, for example.
These characteristics are naturally unique to the medium of film and cannot be compared
with anything in the novel.
SYMBOLS
As in most novels, the reader can find several symbolic references in Burgess’ book. One
of these, the tripartite structure of the book and its implication of the age 21, I have already
mentioned. But the book and the film both start with another significant symbol. Both
works introduce Alex and his droogs while they are drinking drugged milk. The white
color of milk, as well as its association with babies indicates innocence. However, it also
shows that we are dealing with immature boys who, just as babies, have their own will but
are not mature enough to understand what is right or wrong. In the book Alex is described
as being about fifteen years old, which is a very typical age when teenagers think they are
ready for independence, while they are in fact very much ignorant of real life. This is true
of Alex as well. However, as aforesaid, Alex is played by twenty-five-year-old McDowell
in the film who looks mature enough, which abates the reference to this momentary state of
teenagers.
In the novel the reference to milk appears again when Alex breaks into the catlady’s
house. Here, it is exactly the laid-out milk saucers that cause him to trip and lead,
indirectly, to his downfall. Since in Kubrick’s movie there are no saucers, only cats in the
room of the woman, this symbolical meaning would have been lost, if not for scene 13.
Here we see that as opposed to the novel where Alex is hit in the eye by a chain, Dim
crashes a bottle of milk on Alex’s forehead. He goes blind and is taken away by the police.
He cannot pretend to be innocent anymore, he is taken in the act and has to pay for his
deeds. The milk is spilt out, his faked innocence is gone.
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A traditional symbol of the devil in Christian tradition is the snake. Interestingly
Kubrick inserts this symbol and presents Alex with a snake in his room. His pet is called
Basil, which is a Greek name meaning royal or kingly. These adjectives are usually
attributed to God, but in this story we see that the ruler of the street is Alex. Evil gains
control. Now, after Alex comes out of prison and goes to his parents’ apartment, he asks
them where Basil is after realizing that the police took all his belongings. He learns that
there had been an “accident” and the snake passed away. Evil is no longer present; Alex
has no power on his environment anymore. The events after this affair prove the same
point. He cannot defend himself and is taken revenge on.
The last symbol I would like to mention originates again in the Christian belief.
We read about the ring of electrodes that is attached to Alex’s head. Although this will
simply measure his physiological changes throughout the viewings and will not directly
cause Alex pain (although he attributes his sickness to the electrodes), it still can be
associated with Jesus’ crown of thorns. Whenever it is put on his head, he suffers terribly
for his own betterment and for the security of others. This symbol is obviously more
evident in the film version where one can actually see what the ring looks like. Also, in
Kubrick’s movie Jesus himself is presented in scene 17 where Alex imagines himself being
the Roman soldier flogging Jesus on his way to Golgotha. Hence the symbolic meaning of
the ring on Alex’s head is indirectly prepared for the viewer to observe.
MUSIC
The Novel
Music and especially Alex’s love for classical music are key factors in the book. With the
fact that Alex, as opposed to other teenagers of the time, is an ardent classical music lover,
Burgess wanted to avoid the dating of the story. So besides creating nadsat instead of using
contemporary slang, he chose Bach, Mozart, Beethoven as the favorite composers of his
main character. Thus the story is not a subject of obsolescence. As Blake Morrison points
out in his introduction to the book, there is also a historical phenomenon behind Burgess’
choice for classical music:
Burgess uses music to address the question of whether high art is civilizing.
The fact that the men who ran Auschwitz read Shakespeare and Goethe, and
played Bach and Beethoven, was much discussed at the time Burgess was
writing A Clockwork Orange: the essays collected in George Steiner’s
Language and Silence (which Burgess reviewed on its publication in 1967)
repeatedly address it.[21]
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Since our culture has not changed so radically in the last few decades, the average reader
will still associate classical music with taste and culture. Alex thus becomes different, a
rascal of a higher rank. This is again a psychological trick Burgess plays on the reader. As
quoted above in reference to Beethoven, Alex only laughs at those who think classical
music or the arts make the youth less violent, more civilized. “Music always sort of
sharpened me up,”[22] he says and while listening to the American Plautus, Mozart, or Bach,
he keeps fantasizing about rape, beatings, and murder.
The civilizing effect of music is turned upon its head not only by Alex but also by
Dr. Brodsky. One would assume that graduates or more civilized people do have a refined
taste for classical music. Dr. Brodsky does not know anything about music and he is
ignorant enough to condition a secondary sense in Alex’s case: “Music…So you’re keen
on music. I know nothing about it myself. It’s a useful emotional heightener, that’s all I
know.” This comment is preceded by a session where Alex is forced to watch a film about
concentration camps in Germany while Beethoven’s Fifth is played. When he realizes what
he hears, he bawls: “Stop, you grahzny disgusting sods. It’s a sin, that’s what it is, a filthy
unforgivable sin, you bratchnies!”[23] It is interesting that this is the first time Alex makes a
moral judgment and calls something a sin. Morally he is not upset about what he sees in
the films throughout the treatment, only about the use of his favorite piece of music while
he is physically ill. Here again, Burgess plays with conventional values and presents them
upside down to the reader.
This is also underlined by F. Alexander’s misusage of one of Alex’s former favorite
pieces. In function 38 we see that after he realizes who Alex really is, he turns on music to
drive him crazy: “It was a symphony that I knew real horrorshow but had not slooshied for
many a year, namely the Symphony Number Three of the Danish veck Otto Skadelig.”[24]
Music becomes torture, a means of destruction in the hand of those in power over Alex.
Music keeps its function in a sense: at the beginning of the story the music of Otto
Skadelig, Beethoven, Handel, etc. stirred Alex in a way that it helped him torture others.
Now it tortures him. Music is presented as the tool of the evil in the book.
Alex’s taste for music also illustrates his psychological changes. At the beginning
he likes the powerful movements of Beethoven and Bach. By the end of the story where
he, at first latently and later consciously, starts to long for a settled life his taste for music
also turns to more romantic pieces:
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I was slooshying more like malenky romantic songs, what they call Lieder, just
a goloss and a piano, very quiet and like yearny, different from what it had
been all bolshy orchestras and me lying on the bed between the violins and the
trombones and kettledrums. There was something happening inside me.[25]
Music becomes the indicator of his maturity and inner changes. Since the last chapter is
missing from the book, this function of music is obviously lost in the film.
The Film
The case is clearly different in the film. In a motion picture the director has the chance to
really make the viewer hear these melodies and, at the same time, he can also manipulate
him through the composition of the visual images. The peculiar effect Kubrick achieves
can be very well illustrated by scene 11. Here we see Alex beating up his droogs in slowmotion. Now this technique is usually associated with emotionally melancholic or
triumphant moments in film. Thus, when we see him beat up his friends and hear the
jubilant music of Rossini, we also feel in a way triumphant, elevated. This play with the
image and the audio track is a transfer of the effect of language Burgess created by the use
of nadsat. At the beginning of this chapter we saw, how by our developing understanding
of nadsat we feel joy while reading about violence and abuse, and in this case we feel
elevated as well, although we are presented with sequences of violence. This is a
wonderful example of transfer between the two media. By using cinematic tools, Kubrick
genially achieved the same psychological trick Burgess creates in the novel. Thus when
Alex listens to Beethoven in the film the audience listens with him. This has a very
different effect then when we read that he listens to music in the novel.
However, there are of course changes indicated by the change of medium. Since we
really hear the music in the film, our own personal associations are roused right away.
While we are watching the film we cannot seriously associate music with something bad as
in the novel, where music is represented as the tool of evil. That is why Kubrick decided to
change a few elements of music when transferring the novel to the screen. First, in scene 2
the old tramp sings Dublin’s anthem, Molly Malone, although there is specific reference in
the book as to what the old man is singing. Here Kubrick brings in our associations with
Ireland, and so the reader consciously or not connects the old man with Ireland, beer, and
the usual conflict between the Irish and the English.
The most famous example of Kubrick’s change in the score is the use of Singin’ in
the Rain in scene 5. Here we see how Alex, masked, dancing to his own song, kicks F.
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Alexander in the head and cuts off pieces of his wife’s outfit to the rhythm of the music.
But Kubrick does not stop here. He gives a new meaning to the song in scene 33 where
Alex gives away himself not by using nadsat but by humming and singing Singin’ in the
Rain in F. Alexander’s house. The writer obviously recognizes the sound and the melody
and thus Alex becomes a toy in his hand. For many Kubrick fans Singin’ in the Rain is no
more associated with Gene Kelly, but with A Clockwork Orange. By ending the film with
Gene Kelly singing the song, Kubrick indicates on the one hand, that Alex goes on the way
he has and is ready to sing this song while committing more crime, while on the other, it
reveals that the whole story is more like a comic play, a fillip to modern society.
Although in the novel we find countless references to classical works, Kubrick
substitutes most of them to pieces of his own taste that fit the choreography of each scene.
The first stunning example of these choices is Rossini’s The Thieving Magpie. In scene 3
Alex and his droogs arrive to the old casino and start a fight with Billyboy and his gang.
The scene is as strictly choreographed as a ballet, but instead of seeing beautiful men and
women dancing on stage, we observe how the two gangs beat up each other. Again, by the
use of this twist Kubrick allowed his film to be artistic about violence. He put on the scene
as a stage act and thus distanced it from the viewer just as the reader is distanced from it by
nadsat in the book. Rossini’s William Tell Overture is used in a very similar way, only the
footage is in this case fast forwarded instead of normal speed. In scene 9 we see Alex and
the girls he picked up in his room. Just as the scene is presented in fast motion, so is the
music. It is obvious that Alex initiates several sexual plays with the girls but by making use
of the music and the film footage this way, Kubrick prevented the scene from becoming
pornographic or obscene. Other than these examples of individual choices, we hear
Purcell’s Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary, Sir Edgar Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance,
and of course Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony several times.
For the score, Kubrick invited electronic pioneer Walter/Wendy Carlos. She has
been famous for adapting classical works such as Beethoven's Ninth Symphony to the
Moog synthesizer. The metallic, strange-sounding score emphasizes the dystopian fantasy
of the film, yet, by using classical works, the audience can still connect to it. By making
the above choices and daring to make use of contemporary trends, the soundtrack has
become a classic. Although it often uses classical music, these are transferred in such a
way that the viewer listens to them as if with fresh ears.
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NARRATION
The novel
The central narrator of the novel is obviously Alex. We are informed about the events only
from his point of view, through his interpretations and recounting. This narration is to a
great degree manipulative. Alex addresses the readers in a personal way, talks to them as to
a friend. This is achieved not only by his honesty, sometimes to the point that he
shamelessly reveals his dumbness in situations, but by calling himself Your Humble
Narrator and addressing the readers as O my brothers. Through these intimate invocations
he allies himself with the reader which has a very tricky psychological effect. The reader
really feels like he cannot let him down and in the course of the events Alex presents
himself as the victim of the story.
It is also interesting to note that although he is considerably young he portrays the
current political situation and the psychological state of society quite aptly. By the help of
his inner monologue we realize to what extent the government controls the mind of its
citizens. Alex states that a government that does not allow its citizens to behave badly is a
government that denies its citizens their right to be human beings. This argument coincides
with F. Alexander’s but it also exceeds it. Although the writer argues for the freedom of
the individual in society, he does not give Alex his freedom to be bad. This turn has, of
course, a decisive message which shows that ideals are a wonderful thing but when it
comes down to personal experience everything can turn to its opposite. It is a shame the
government treats young people like they treated Alex, who, according to F. Alexander is
the victim of modern age, yet when it comes to his personal story, he behaves even worse.
He tries to torture Alex and eventually drives him into suicide. In this story everything is
relative, there is no absolute truth. Again, this revelation is underlined by the fact that the
state and the police are represented to be no better than Alex. The conditions in state
institutions such as in jail, are just as bad as out on the street. The state is unable to keep
order even on her own ground. Alex also states when he is beaten up by the millicents, spat
on by P.R. Deltoid, and forced to sign a long statement that “Hell and blast you all, if all
you bastards are on the side of the Good then I’m glad I belong to the other shop.”[26]
From the way Alex describes the Ludovico treatment two striking notions stand
clear. One is that for the state Alex is only a mechanical entity who responds to stimli. He
is as predictable as a clockwork and ceases to be a human being. The other shows the
inconsistency of the treatment, namely that the state, the alleged defender of righteousness
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sponsors such brutal films and allows his co-workers to watch them every day along with
the patients. This is morally almost as condemnable as Alex’s behavior. These political and
moral events are all presented directly or indirectly but absolutely clearly through the
thoughts and monologues of the central narrator. I, therefore, have to argue with Thomsen
who writes
In political terms, Kubrick’s film is more complex than Burgess’ novel. All his
life Burgess was up in arms against any attempts of the state to restrict the free
will of the individual, regardless of the fact that since antiquity and the
teachings of the church fathers the question of whether human beings are
determined by God or their genes, or society, has been controversially
discussed - or whether they are capable of voluntary decisions. Without
Kubrick’s adaptation Burgess’ novel would likely have sunk into oblivion, or
at best be still of interest because of its linguistic originality.[27]
As opposed to Thomsen, I believe that all the political and cultural criticism is present
already in the book. Although I admire the films of Kubrick and I find Burgess’ behavior
against him and the adaptation deplorable, I find the novel a masterpiece. It not only has
linguistic genius but also strikingly clear sociological insights. If without Kubrick this
book would have been forgotten that would have revealed not the flaw of the book, I am
convinced. But I have digressed too far from the original subject. Let us turn to the film
and see what becomes of the central narrator.
The Film
Since the point of the central narrator is his constant personal presence in the book, Alex
has to be present in each scene of the film. More than that, he has to comment on the
scenes in order for us to understand what goes on in his mind. Although voice-over as a
long term narrational mode is seldom used, Kubrick did not shy away from applying it.
Since Alex does not simply recount the events of his days but actually addresses the
audience, McDowell’s monologues create the same kind of intimacy we find in the novel.
Our humble, long-suffering narrator becomes our friend in a way.
Nonetheless, since film uses also visual and aural channels, the effect of the group’s
jargon becomes somewhat different. In the novel it is nadsat that is the most characteristic
of Alex, whereas in the film already the first shot emphasizes his looks and voice. The fake
eyelashes, his costume and dominant intonation of McDowell create a peculiar effect. As
Thomsen writes:
Linguistically he encompasses all shades of body language, from spoken
language through facial expressions and gestures to specific postures of
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individual characters. The reader of the novel forms his idea of the protagonist
Alex primarily through his exotic language. In the film Alex’ speech is less
striking than his looks and his body language because Kubrick differentiates all
the other characters in subtle linguistic gradations along the parameters of class
distinctions in British society, following the simple rule: “Let me hear your
intonation, and I can tell you who you are..“[28]
At this point the charismatic performance of McDowell prevails. This, nevertheless, leaves
little room for more than the comments on the plot. When compared to the novel, in the
film we find relatively little reference to music, for example, let alone the comments on the
aesthetics of brutality. Also, while in the novel Alex ponders over why grownups are so
concerned with the cause of badness when they never think about the cause of goodness, or
over the alleged effects of classical arts on youth on accounts of P.R. Deltoid’s visit or
newspaper articles, such monologues are omitted from the film.
When Kubrick decided to adapt A Clockwork Orange he allowed Burgess’
greatest invention, nadsat to come to life, become a spoken language. On the other hand,
by keeping the central narrator and inserting voice-over he makes it possible for the
audience to identify with Alex, just as in the book. Jensen argues that
One of the most fortunate decisions made in the conception of this film was to
make Alex speak in the first person as in Burgess’ book. It compels the
audience to identify with him and dispenses the filmmaker from any semblance
of objectivity. Above all, it makes it unnecessary to explain the language
spoken by Alex and his cronies.[29]
Kubrick’s direction, along with McDowell’s performance, makes it clear that this story
belongs to Alex from the beginning to the end.
MISE-EN-SCÈNE
Camerawork
When analyzing the editing techniques of A Clockwork Orange, the most intriguing fact
that is that there are 665 cuts in the film but there is not one single fade or dissolve in the
whole two-hour-movie. Interestingly enough, one reads that Kubrick wanted to achieve a
kind of fantasy or dream effect within the film, but instead of using everyday editing
techniques like dissolves or fades, he only uses the wide lens especially when things are
shown from Alex’s point of view.
In the shot analysis[30] of the film I have listed the length and the number of cuts in
each scene. According to the analysis the average editing ratio of the film is five cuts per
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minute. This statistical number is however overruled in a few scenes. One good example is
scene 7 where we see Alex getting ready for bed while he listens to Beethoven. The scene
lasts 3’07 minutes but has 46 cuts in it. This is explained by the fact that Kubrick adjusts
the editing to the rhythm of the music and shows the Jesus statues as if they were dancing
to Beethoven’s symphony. Also, this rapid editing indicates the kind of delirium Alex is in,
which is supported by the last nine cuts of the scene where Alex’s fantasies are cut in in
such a speed that it becomes almost difficult to follow. This rhythmic editing is also typical
of scene 3 or scene 13 where Alex attacks the catlady, for instance. However, there are
beautiful examples in the film of unexpectedly long takes. As Walker notes: “When he
holds a shot, Kubrick seems to hold if for measurably longer than one expects him to.”[31]
This is true for scene 17 which is a 5’35-minute-long sequence but has only 11 editing
units in it. Kubrick uses a long dollying shot when Alex leaves the library with the
chaplain to talk about the Ludovico treatment. The significance of this conversation is
enhanced by the fact that no editing interrupts the two of them. A further example of long
shots and of Kubrick’s genius camerawork can be found in scene 9 where we find only 3
cuts over more than three minutes. This effect is heightened by the 360-degree dollying
shot which follows Alex around the disc shop to find the two girls at the counter he is later
going to have sex with.
The camerawork in Kubrick’s film is incredibly inventive. This is also necessary
because, as aforesaid, Kubrick wanted to represent Alex as the narrator of the film just like
he is in the novel. It is basically through his eyes and recountal we get to know the story. In
the book this problem is easily solved by linguistic means: he tells his story in first person
singular. However, in the film exclusive point of view shots would have worked
awkwardly. Kubrick chose to use a dominant photographic device instead, namely the use
of the wide angle lens. This technique provides that the objects in the center of the screen
look normal, while those around the edges become bizarrely distorted. Roger Ebert
observes that
Kubrick uses the wide-angle lens almost all the time when he is showing
events from Alex's point of view; this encourages us to see the world as Alex
does, as a crazy-house of weird people out to get him. When Kubrick shows us
Alex, however, he either places him in the center of a wide-angle shot (so Alex
alone has normal human dimensions,) or uses a standard lens that does not
distort. So a visual impression is built up during the movie that Alex, and only
Alex, is normal.[32]
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However critical Ebert is in his review of A Clockwork Orange, it is undeniable that
Kubrick made use of the given photographic devices in an amazingly creative way. He
thus perfectly illustrates how the camerawork may influence our vision and our perception
of the film. One perfect example of inventive filming is found in scene 5. Whenever F.
Alexander is shown the image is distorted, just as when Alex attacks the catlady. In scene
14 the interrogating officers and P.R. Deltoid are filmed with wide lens. In scene 37 his
parents are also shown in this distorted way. These examples show that Kubrick uses the
wide lens whenever Alex is drugged by the milk or medication, and attacks someone or has
a conflict with another person. His distorted perception is emphasized by this technique.
As mentioned above, in scene 9 we watch Alex having sex with two girls. But to
illustrate the distorted perception of Alex and the bizarre nature of the whole incident,
Kubrick presents the scene in fast forward. The original filming time of this scene was 28
minutes, but it is presented to us in only 40 seconds. Furthermore, to emphasize that he is
filming from Alex’s point of view, in scene 36 Kubrick went as far as to throw a camera
off a rooftop to show the vertiginous feeling Alex must have had when committing suicide.
Strick notes that these subjective shots make us identify “with the hero of Clockwork
Orange in his moments of greatest crisis – being crushed to the floor, lying powerless in
the hospital, or, most unsettling of all, falling in despair from his window to smash himself
on the paving below.”[33] But most of all, they help the director transfer the same direct
mode of narration the narrator of Burgess’ story uses.
Costume
Since I have elaborated on the setting and its futuristic, yet still typically seventies style, I
would now like to take a look at the costume design of the film. Burgess gives a very
specific description of what the boys dressed like:
The four of us were dressed in the height of fashion, … a pair of black very
tight tights with the old jelly mould, as we called it, fitting on the crotch
underneath the tights. […] Then we wore waisty jackets without lapels but with
these very big built-up shoulders…which were a kind of mockery of having
real shoulders like that. Then, my brothers, we had these off-white cravats
which looked like shipped-up kartoffel or spud with a sort of a design made on
it with a fork. We wore our hair not too long and we had flip horrorshow boots
for kicking.[34]
Now this description is in a way a mockery of the contemporary youth’s fashion trends.
Since Burgess did not hold youth culture in great esteem, here he makes fun of the Dandy
230
tradition and the Teddy Boys of the late 1950s. In the film, however, Kubrick simplifies
the costume design. Each boy wears a white outfit with a black hat and boots. Their pants
look more like normal trousers than tight tights and they do not wear either jackets or ties.
However, their outfits fit perfectly with the whole design of the film. First we see them in
the Korova Milkbar dressed in all white. This again falsely communicates the idea of
innocence and purity, while it is in harmony with the black and white set of the milkbar.
Their black hats and boots build a contrast to the shirts and pants. The “old jelly mould” is
kept, communicating an image of knights in the middle ages. The waling canes are also
misleading as they are usually associated with respectable elder men or with the wealthier
strata of society. We can then state that the costume design is so constructed that it builds a
sort of tension between the looks and the deeds of the gang.
Although there is no further description found about the looks of other people in the
book, in Kubrick’s film this area gains major significance. The most obvious example
would be the outfit and the wigs of Alex’s parents. Their apartment is decorated in a
somewhat futuristic way, yet it bears obvious marks of the sixties-seventies. In scene 28
when Alex comes home, the camera tracks him through the apartment and the audience
gets the full view of the colorful art direction of the film the Germans would simply call
‘Stilbruch’. Checked wallpaper meets deep blue wallpaper, while the opposite wall is
decorated with metallic bulbs. The whole place stands for the exact opposite of harmony.
This effect is topped with the costume design of the mother who in this scene wears a
yellow wig, with a red dress and shiny red boots, as if she were the parody of Little Red
Riding-Hood. But this is not the only instance the wigs stand out. We see Alex’s mother
wearing a purple one when the parents visit him at the hospital, while Dr. Taylor wears a
deep blue wig while examining Alex’s mental state via the slides. There are several other
scenes where women and only women wear extremely colored wigs. These mediate a kind
of frivolity and indicate that Alex is not willing to take these women seriously.
Lighting
Lighting is also an essential element of mise-en-scène that influences the mood of the
moving images and thus has a decisive impression on the viewer. Already the first scene
takes us into a world of artificial light where the colors black and white rule. This reflects
that the events of the film will take place in an alienated surrounding quite far from our
everyday experience. The next scene, where Alex and his droogs beat up the old drunkard
also has special lighting: the light comes from behind the characters thus making them
231
seem all dark. The symbolism of this photographic effect is obvious. Alex and his friends
appear as the angels of darkness, they represent evil, as opposed to real angels who spread
warmth and light wherever they go. Also, this sort of lighting along with the set, which is a
concrete tunnel or under-pass, communicates coldness and a depressing atmosphere. This
bleak mood is typical throughout the film, especially in the scenes that take place at night
or in the hospital during the Ludovico process. For example in scene 22 we see Alex
strapped to his chair, his eyes forced open, the electrodes attached to his head, and the
movie starts to roll. The light comes, again, from the background, but this time Alex has to
watch the projected images made visible by the light.
The above mentioned instances are not unique in this film. Any time something
sinister is about to happen, Kubrick uses back lighting. It reappears in scene 26, where
Alex is on stage while at different takes the camera is backstage, thus blinded by the
spotlight directed to the stage. Or in scene 35 where F. Alexander already realized that
Alex is the one who ruined his life and his friends interrogate Alex, the light comes from
behind the man and Julian sitting opposite Alex. In the scene where Alex tries to commit
suicide, he jumps up to the window and the camera shows him again as a black shadow
against the daylight coming in through the windows. These are a few instances where
lighting has a very specific purpose. It shows how Alex or another character is either in
danger or is blinded by the light and thus does not see what is about to happen to him.
Here I would like to come back to scene 25 where the assembled personages are
watching Alex being humiliated on stage. By using the same kind of setting, i.e. an
auditorium and a spotlight coming from the back, Kubrick suggests, that watching Alex on
stage is just as brutal and immoral as the films Alex was shown throughout the treatment.
Those sitting in the audience need basically just as much correction as Alex does, but they
are even worse: they are watching a live torture show. By this effect the hypocrisy of the
situation is subtly but obviously indicated.
By the use of lighting and its sometimes depressing effects Kubrick creates a
similarly closed, dark world one finds in the book. However, in the book we do not
physically see the light or Alex from the outside, and so the lighting in the film gains
special significance.
232
CONCLUSION
The political and moral events in the book allow us to categorize the novel as a dystopia.
Through the life of Alex Burgess illustrates that in the contemporary political situation,
when the Ludovico Treatment is considered the redemption from common crimes, human
freedom and the freedom of choice is an illusion. Moreover, the elimination of crime in
this way serves only to give place to political criminals in prison. Those who dare to raise
their voice against the government will obviously end up in the cells. Others are controlled
by the political forces. The same way, Alex is also the product of the system, as illustrated
above: the fact that he is allowed to rule the streets at night guarantees that the majority of
citizens will stay home and watch the brainwash programs of the ruling power. However,
as soon as he becomes unnecessary, he is taken into prison, from where he escapes only
because the government can use his example to gain support. When this as well turns out
to be less advantageous, Alex is cured and signs a document given to him by the Minister
of the Interior, while the press is witnessing every single movement of his. He, the only
person who seemed to be free in the dumbed down society of the future, turns out to be a
puppet in the end. Although the last chapter of the book shows some kind of original
thought on Alex’s part, there is no such relief in the film. As Jansen writes:
The opening of A Clockwork Orange reminds us of the ending of 2001: with
the shot of an eye that fills the screen. In 2001 it is the wondering, curious eye
of a foetus, in A Clockwork Orange it is the impertinent gaze of Alex. Like
Bowman, he is reborn; but whereas the Star Child extends, in an infinite spiral,
the odyssey into the future beyond the film, at the end of Alex’ odyssey, only
the cycle of violence comes to a dead end. If 2001 contained the promise of a
hope (if that is what it was), then A Clockwork Orange is only the denunciation
of that hope.[35]
In Kubrick’s film the vicious circle closes and the story ends where it actually started. Alex
shows no development and his future seems just as violent and despondent from society’s
point of view as before.
[1]
Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (London: Penguin Books, 2000) 15.
Burgess 28.
[3]
Burgess 9.
[4]
Burgess 14.
[5]
Burgess 20.
[6]
Let me shortly note, that in making use of Pavlov’s ideas, Burgess very cleverly mixed Russian and
English culture again, as he did in the language of the novel.
[7]
Burgess 69.
[8]
Burgess 94
[9]
Jeffrey Richards, ‘British Film Cencorship,’ The British Cinema Book, ed. Robert Murphy (London:
British Film Institute, 2001)160.
[2]
233
[10]
Jörg Helbig, Geschichte des Britischen Films (Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler Verlag, 1999) 226.
“Dennoch repräsentiert A Clockwork Orange eines der Paradebesispiele für das Konfliktpotential zwischen
Filmregisseur und dem Autor einer literarischen Vorlage, denn Burgess liess Zeit seines Lebens keine
Gelegenheit aus, sich – teilweise polemisch – von Kubricks Film zu distanzieren, da dieser gravierende
inhaltliche Änderungen vorgenommen hatte.”
[11]
Christian W. Thomsen, ‚A Clockwork Orange’ Literaturverfilmungen, ed. Anne Bohnenkamp (Stuttgart:
Philipp Reclam jun. Verlag, 2005) 276.
[12]
Tamás Bényei, Az ártatlan ország (Debrecen: Debreceni Egyetem Kossuth Egyetemi Kiadója, 2003) 168.
“Alex szocializálódása és letelepedése a rendszer zökkenımentes átörökítésének biztosítéka; azok az értékek,
amelyeknek nevében Alex felhagy korábbi, egyszerre erıszakos és átesztétizált (dandy-szerő) életformájával,
nem azért kerekednek felül, mert egy fejlıdésregény logikája szerint értékesebbnek bizonyulnak valami
másnál, hanem azért, mert a rendszer fennmaradásához szükséges, interiorizált alapfeltevések. …Alex
gondolkodásának egyetlen eleme sem „belülrıl” származik.”
[13]
Burgess 140-1.
[14]
Peter W. Jansen, Stanley Kubrick (München: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1984)
[15]
Burgess 44.
[16]
Alexander Walker, Stanley Kubrick: Director (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999) 212.
[17]
Burgess 69.
[18]
Burgess 132
[19]
Helbig 227
[20]
Walker 215.
[21]
Blake Morrison, ’Introduction,’ A Clockwork Orange (London: Penguin Books, 2000) xiii.
[22]
Burgess 32.
[23]
Burgess 85.
[24]
Burgess 123.
[25]
Burgess 137.
[26]
Burgess 53.
[27]
Thomsen 277.
“Kubrick hat seinen Film politisch vielschichtiger angelegt als Burgess seinen Roman. Letzterer lief vor
allem zeitlebens wütend Sturm gegen alle Versuche des Staates, die Willensfreiheit des Menschen
einzuschränken, wobei es freilich seit der Antike und den Kirchenvätern umstritten ist, wie weit der Mensch
von vornherein durch Gott oder Gene determiniert, durch gesellschaftliche Umstände konditioniert oder doch
stets in der Lage ist, freie Willensentscheidungen zu treffen. Ohne Kubricks Filmfassung wäre Burgess’
Roman wenn nicht in Vergessenheit geraten, so doch lediglich durch seine sprachliche Originalität von
fortwirkendem Interesse.”
[28]
Thomsen 279.
“Sprachlich umgreift er dabei alle Valeurs der Körpersprache, von gesprochener Sprache über Mimik und
Gestik bis zur spezifischen Körperhaltung von Charakteren. Der Leser des Romans macht sich vor allem ein
Bild vom Protagonisten Alex aufgrund seiner exotischen Sprache. Im Film fällt Alex’ Sprache weniger auf
als sein Aussehen und seine Körpersprache, weil Kubrick bis zu feinsten Nuancen auch alle anderen
Charaktere gemäß den sprachlichen Abstufungen britischer Klassengesellschaft differenziert. Hier gilt der
Grundsatz: „Sage mir, wie du intonierst, und ich sage dir, wer du bist.”
[29]
Jansen 138-9.
“Alex wie im Buch von Burgess in der Ich-Form erzählen zu lassen, kann eine der glücklichsten
Entscheidungen Kubricks in diesem Film genannt werden. Sie nötigt den Zuschauer zur Identifikation und
dispersiert den Filmemacher von jedem Anschein der Objektivität; sie befreit ihn vor allem von irgendeiner
Begründung für die Sprache, die Alex und seine Kumpane sprechen.”
[30]
See Appendix
[31]
Walker 198.
[32]
Roger Ebert, “A Clockwork Orange.” Chicago Sun-Times 11 Feb. 1972: n.pag.
[33]
Philip Strick, “Kubrick’s Horrorshow.” Sight and Sound 41:1 (1971/1972), 49.
[34]
Burgess 4.
[35]
Jansen 150.
„A Clockwork Orange beginnt, wie 2001 endete: mit einem Auge, das die Leinwand füllt. In 2001 ist es das
staunende, neugierige Auge eines Fötus, in A Clockwork Orange der impertinente Blick von Alex. Auch er
wird, wie Bowman, neugeboren; aber während das Star Child am Ende einer infiniten Spirale die Odyssee in
die Zukunft jenseits des Films verlängert, schließt sich am Ende von Alex’ Odyssee nur der Kreis der
Gewalt, ausweglos. Wenn 2001 das Versprechen einer Hoffnung war – wenn es das war –, ist A Clockwork
Orange nur noch deren Denunziation.“
234
CHAPTER 8
THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT’S WOMAN
In the case of The French Lieutenant’s Woman we speak of one of the most difficult novels
for adaptation. In fact, for several years many directors judged the book unfilmable
although Fowles would have been ready to give the rights to make the movie. Karel Reisz
was approached to adapt the book even before it was published but turned it down since he
had just finished his period picture, Isadora (1968). One of the directors who showed
greater interest in making the film (besides Sydney Pollack, Fred Zinnemann, Franklin
Schaffner, Dick Lester, Michael Cocoyannis, or Lindsay Anderson) was John
Frankenheimer. He even started working on the screenplay but after several months he said
“There is no way you can film the book. You can tell the same story in a movie, of course,
but not in the same way. And how Fowles tells his story is what makes the book so good.”
This statement might sound very true but Frankenheimer forgot what most people dealing
with adaptation forget, namely: the film is not the book. One does not have to copy the
book but has to adapt it to the screen to make it work. Pinter’s adaptation balances between
commentary and analogy according to the definitions of Wagner[1] because the original
novel is obviously altered while the Victorian story remains almost unchanged. For this
reason to call this adaptation only an analogy would go too far. In Dudley Andrew’s
terms[2] analogy or borrowing would take place if we were to see only the modern part with
the omission of the story of Charles, Sarah, and Ernestina. What makes Fowles’
experimental novel so difficult for adaptation is exactly the idea of the meta-novel which
problem was solved by Pinter through the creation of a meta-film. The inserted scenes tell
the story of Anna and Mike, two actors who get involved in an affair while shooting the
film adaptation on Fowles’ novel. By this witty insertion a great contrast as well as a useful
parallel is developed between the two pairs of lovers. This difference serves as some sort
of a substitute for the narrator of the novel, a covert comment on the themes found in the
book, upon which I will comment later. The film was a successful enterprise: along with
Golden Globe, Grammy, or Evening Standard British Film Awards wins and nominations,
The French Lieutenant’s Woman was nominated for five Oscars, won three BAFTA
Awards and was nominated in eight further categories. Meryl Streep as actress in actually
two leading roles, both in the Victorian and in the modern story, was particularly praised
CHAPTER 8 – THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT’S WOMAN
235
for her performance. Of course, the fact that Harold Pinter was nominated for the Oscar for
his screenplay reflects the inventive work he put in the creating of the meta-film.
It is interesting to see how after the film came out in 1981 the novel and film
became, in a way, interchangeable with each other. Many paperback editions of the book
published after 1981 reflect Meryl Streep on their cover wearing her black gown, looking
back at Charles or in this case at the reader, from the end of the Cobb. The Signet publisher
cover, for instance, became a kind of poster of the film, announcing “The international
bestseller is now a major motion picture from United Artists starring Meryl Streep” on top.
This only proves that though the adaptation is criticized for not keeping close to the novel,
it is still perfectly suitable when it comes down to advertising. It also implies that the book
tells the same story as the film whereas they are far from being identical. However, as
already stated in Chapter 1, the appearance of an adaptation often ends in a rising
popularity of the original novel, especially when it is connected to such canny tie-ins.
Andrew Higson in his book English Heritage, English Cinema deals with the The
French Lieutenant’s Woman as a heritage film. Nevertheless, since there is also a very
peculiar second, present day level in the film, I find it difficult to categorize the film as
clearly heritage. At the same time, the novel includes the usual criticism on the British way
of life that is so typical of the genre. As Horlacher argues, “…the projected images of
femininity and masculinity form part of a critique of patriarchal society which is also
articulated through explicit commentaries, historical documents, and illustrative
episodes,”[3] which are always present in the British heritage film as well. Yet, as already
stated in previous chapters, I am looking at heritage from the narrower point of view, i.e.
costume dramas of the 1980s and 1990s, I would say that The French Lieutenant’s Woman
can be looked at as a pre-heritage film. Before leaning back contently over the success of
categorizing the film, let me quote Fowles who was very much against such restrictions
and said in an interview that
Students nowadays seem to want to ‘place’ precisely, to locate precisely,
everything about a writer’s work: what he is, what has made him or her what
they are, and so on. It seems to me that to imprison it is to deny something very
essential about writing..[4]
In view of Fowles’ statement it would be unworthy then to argue about whether the film
fits the category of a heritage film or not. It might as well be enough to state that Reisz’s
film is an original adaptation of an original novel.
236
After thus introducing the film, in this chapter I would like to deal with both the
novel and its adaptation in more detail. First I will take a look at different crucial themes
present in the book, such as decaying Victorianism, the motivations of characters,
representation of the lower classes, or the role of sexuality in the story, for these themes
will be interesting also from the adaptation’s point of view. Then by the help of the list of
major cardinal functions[5] I will compare the film to the novel, going into details such as
characters, added parts, setting, etc. to finally elaborate on a few interpretations that are at
hand in the film. With the help of this analysis I would like to illustrate that Reisz’s
adaptation of the novel is a daring filmic equivalent of Fowles’ work.
THE BOOK
The book starts with a conventional description of the opening scene. I use the word
‘scene’ intentionally for Fowles really leads the eye of the reader from the Lyme Bay to the
Cobb and then to the little town of Lyme Regis and back to the Cobb just as the camera
does in a film. The eyes of the spectator/reader settle on two figures walking on the Cobb
braving the wind when the “camera” of the author leads the reader’s eyes to the mysterious
third figure who somehow stands out of her environment. Fowles’ cinematic style is
especially important from the point of view of adaptation for, in this aspect at least, it
makes the work of the screenwriter easier. Fowels’ himself said:
I was born in 1926, and anyone born after the time when the cinema became
popular and easily accessible has been deeply influenced in the way you tell
stories. I did at one time analyse my dreams in great detail, and I’ve recognized
there that you get jump cuts and cross cuts. One must think a bit with the
camera now. In The French Lieutenant’s Woman I was definitely making
cinema cuts here and there in the narrative.[6]
This cinematography is typical throughout the novel as Fowles is very particular in details
and descriptions. However, the novel is unique not only for this technical side, but also for
its un-Victorian Victorian storytelling.
THE UN-VICTORIAN VICTORIAN NOVEL
Fowles sets his story in the Victorian age, exactly around the time when serious changes
occurred in the era, i.e. around the 1850-60s. This is the time when Darwin’s The Origin of
the Species was published (1859), the first volume of Marx’s Capital came out (1867), or
237
the Reform Bill was accepted (1867) through which the middle classes gained power and
political influence. And it was also the time of John Stuart Mill who was fighting for the
women’s cause and helped to start the emancipation movement. All these works, when
their effects joined together, become important in view of their indirect influence on the
character’s life in the book. Darwin is important to the paleontologist Charles. Marx’s
work gains significance in relation to Mr. Freeman and his business, whereas from Sarah’s
point of view it is, of course, Mill’s The Subjection of Women (1869) that is of major
importance, for example.
All these historical changes are presented not through the characters themselves but
through the ever so interesting narrator of the book. Besides the cinematic feature this is a
characteristic that makes the book very unique and which provided the basis for some to
say the book was unfilmable. The narrator is introduced already at the first chapter when
we “hear” him talking to us. He thus creates an intimate atmosphere that introduces him as
an omniscient and doubtlessly credible narrator. He even encourages us to test him:
I exaggerate? Perhaps but I can be put to the test, for the Cobb has changed
little since the year of which I write; though the town of Lyme has, and the test
is not fair if you look back towards land.[7]
Through
such
personal
comments
the
novel
“durchbricht
die
Illusion
einer
Übereinstimmung der historischen Einheit von Erzähler und Erzählten”[8] and makes us
realize that the person who is writing the novel is just as far from the happenings as we are
even if not geographically. At the same time, we seem to believe whatever he says, not
realizing sometimes that he dissolves the clear borderlines between fiction and reality.[9]
The narrator talks about his characters as if they were or had been real living persons
whose story continued after the end of Fowles’ recount as well. Thus we learn about
Ernestina, for example, that she “outlived all her generation. She was born in 1846. And
died the day that Hitler invaded Poland.”[10],[11] The boundaries between reality and fiction
are blurred. There are also many other instances where the narrator expresses his own
thoughts and opinion about his own characters, as if they really were his living
acquaintances. “Of the three young women who pass through these pages Mary was, in my
opinion, by far the prettiest,”[12] he states. Or at other times he talks as if the readers were
sitting there around him, close enough to interrupt him with questions about whom he is
referring to: “Mary’s great-great-granddaughter, who is twenty-two years old this month I
write in, much resembles her ancestor; and her face is known over the entire world, for she
is one of the more celebrated younger English film actresses.”[13] In this case one
238
immediately starts to think who she might be. Has the author made any allusions to Mary’s
later family or any other actress? Should we know whom he is alluding to? Wait Mr.
Fowles! Who is Mary’s great-great-granddaughter? But of course these questions remain
unanswered although for a moment the reader believed that the story is in fact reality. In
Chapter Thirteen we are reminded again that this is simply a book, reflecting the
imagination of one person. The narrator says:
I do not know. This story I am telling is all imagination. These characters I
create never existed outside of my own mind. If I have pretended until now to
know my characters’ minds and innermost thoughts, it is because I am writing
in (just as I have assumed some of the vocabulary and “voice” of) a convention
universally accepted at the time of my story: that the novelist stands next to
God. He may not know all, yet he tries to pretend that he does.[14]
After this statement all illusions are lost. The reader has to realize that Fowles is only
playing with him, manipulates him. He also admits to it by stating that he only follows the
example of normal people who tend to think about their own “true” story as being liable.
We all do the same thing he does in the novel after all: we color our own story, change the
chronology, leave out characters, etc. and by the end we truly believe that we are able to
recount our own story as it really was. In the light of this everyday psychological
phenomenon even Fowles’ story might be a “real” one thought anew, just as liable as any
other personal story might be.
This sort of play with the credibility of the narrator appears sometime in the most serious
situations, as for example, in the scene where Charles finally finds Sarah in Elliott’s house.
When Charles tells her that he broke his engagement to Miss Freeman, Fowles explains the
circumstances from Charles’ point of view: “Now she was the one who was shocked. Her
eyes probed his for a long moment, then looked down. She had not known,”[15] he reports
and so the reader feels the tragedy of misunderstanding. But then a few pages later we are
presented with the fact that Sarah did know about his search for her. She says “I thought
much of you some six months later, when I first saw one of the notices you had had put
in…”[16] proving that she did know what happened to him and what his intentions were.
This method by which Fowles fools the readers corresponds to his idea of his characters’
freedom. It seems as if though while he is writing he is present in and not above the
situation and thus he is provided just as little information as the readers are. He does not
know what the end will be, or what Sarah’s motivations are and so he believes her mimic
when she seems struck by the fact that Charles left Ernestina for her. He is thus not an
omniscient author who knows the story from the beginning to the end, but a viewer who
239
shares his firsthand experiences with us. The theme of freedom is thus presented to us not
only directly through the life of the characters but also through the seemingly limited
power of the writer.
With the help of these few themes we can now state that, if not for Fowles’ modern
methods, the book would be about a conventional Victorian story with ambiguous moral
messages. But by his presence in the story and through his unique style he created a kind of
novel that turned the Victorian traditions and conventional storytelling upside down.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON CHARACTERS
There is no question that from a book of some 366 pages one cannot adapt every single
detail to film. This is true not only of actions and settings but also of different traits of
characters, such as Charles’. As opposed to the film, there is much subsidiary background
information in the book about Charles’ grandfather, father and uncle, all the people he is
similar to or different from. We also learn about Sarah’s father and her own special
characteristics that make her so special. If we take a closer look at these facts that seem
only pieces of less important background information I believe we can find a reason why
Sarah chose Charles as her lover or even victim. Fowles tells us that Charles “…had an
unnatural fondness for walking instead of riding. And walking was not a gentleman’s
pastime except in the Swiss Alps,”[17] thus we know that he is not a typical gentleman of his
time. He chooses to do what pleases him although at this point this decision concerns only
a minor part of his life or character. Another comment on Charles says “Indeed toying with
ideas was his chief occupation during his third decade”[18] that he is actually in at the time
of the novel. This man in the prime of his life toys with the idea of Sarah, his desire, and as
the Bible says in James 1:14-15 “Rather each person is tempted when he is lured and
enticed by his own desire. Then desire conceives and brings forth sin, and when sin
reaches maturity it gives birth to death.”[19] His desire for Sarah draws him to her, makes
him sin and causes his death as a social being, at least in the conservative Victorian
society. Sarah realizes that he is apt to toy with ideas, that he is not the sort of narrowminded person she has been surrounded with. These facts about Charles combined with
Fowles’ following comment on Sarah make Charles seem an easy prey for the girl’s goals.
About Sarah we learn that she had “…rather an uncanny…ability to classify other
people’s worth: to understand them, in the fullest sense of the word.”[20] So she spots
Charles and falls in love with him the moment she sees him. Fowles also hints at a part of
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her motivation which, again, we can deduct from the following background information we
only learn about in the novel but not in the film. After her father sent Sarah to learn to be a
governess, she became educated but was forced to remain in her own class. In a time when
marriage is the only possible solution for a woman to move on in the social strata or escape
from her rather degrading position, the option of remaining a spinster is more than
unpleasant. As for Sarah,
“[h]er father forced her out of her own class, but could not raise her to the
next. To the young men of the one she had left she had become too select to
marry; to those of the one she aspired to, she remained too banal.”[21]
She thus had the ability to detect right away what the gentlemen she came into contact with
thought about her “…she saw through the too confident pretendants. She saw their
meannesses, their condescensions, their charities, their stupidities. Thus she appeared
inescapably doomed to the one fate nature had so clearly spent many millions of years in
evolving her to avoid: spinsterhood”[22] She also explains in detail in her confession to
Charles that she is terrified of being sentenced to loneliness for the rest of her life. Her sole
chance to avoid this and still stay true to herself was to prove that she can catch a
gentleman. At the same time she wants to remain independent. By choosing Charles as her
lover she achieves both of her goals. These motivations are, of course, not illustrated in the
movie and the viewer is left with the mysterious attraction between Charles and Sarah and
Fowles’ request is thus respected: Sarah is not explained. Nobody really understands why
she leaves after their night together until her brief explanation at the end of the movie.
Although the novel is peculiar about these hidden motivations, the film does not seem less
by not explaining these to the audience.
SEXUALITY AND LIBIDO IN THE BOOK
As stated above, the story of The French Lieutenant’s Woman would be a simple Victorian
love story had Fowles not turned it into a modern, experimental novel. One cardinal aspect
that distinguishes it from other Victorian stories is the presence of sexuality throughout the
book. This does not refer only to the main characters who are obviously attracted to each
other and eventually make love to each other in Exeter, but also to other, on the surface
more innocent characters. This is the case with Ernestina who is at one point pirouetting in
a peignoir in her room and is suddenly overcome by sexual thoughts, “an imagining, a kind
of dimly glimpsed Lacoön embrace of naked limbs.”[23] This thought she, of course,
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suppresses according to the morals of her time but by inserting this short scene Fowles
allows even the most childish of characters to be fully a human being. For, as the author
reminds us again and again in the novel, even at those times sexuality was of major
concern. Mrs. Poulteney, the most conservative character in the story does not serve as an
exception from these concerns either. Her great fear of the Ware Commons, or Lover’s
Lane as the locals call it, and all the wild things that are to take place there, proves that she
has, under her opium trans, constructed very exact ideas about the carnal act. The Ware
Commons became “the objective correlative of all that went on in her own
subconscious.”[24]
Naturally, the character filled with the most mystery and sensuality is Sarah. The
way Fowles describes her is dominated by sensual comments. We read about her
appearance that “the suppressed intensity of her eyes was matched by the suppressed
sensuality of her mouth.”[25] This mouth is so desirable that Charles cannot stand against it
and kisses it in the barn, which physical act becomes his first step towards his final fall. It
is not only her mouth that attracts Charles but her whole face and body. “He associated
such faces with foreign women – to be frank (much franker than he would have been to
himself) with foreign beds”[26] which only reinforces that Sarah’s character is a fully sexual
being as opposed to Ernestina’s. She, in his imagination, is the embodiment of mystery,
love, adventure and not least of all, free sexuality. When Sarah reveals to him at their next
meeting in the woods (or in the graveyard scene in the film) that “I am weak. How should I
not know. … I have sinned,”[27] the use of present tense at the beginning of the sentence
means that she is still weak. It also indicates that if she had sinned once she will be
powerless to deny sin should it come close to her again. The reference to her sin and her
act only makes Charles’ desire grow for he knows that if he tempted her she would give
herself to him. So as soon as she repents and shows her willingness to be cured by telling
her story to Charles, she also proves herself ready to commit the same kind of sin again.
Her actions, either sinning or repentance, are marked by sexuality.
The fact that Sam and Mary discover Charles and Sarah in the barn proves to be
more significant than it seems at first sight. Of course, it is important because it makes the
story more exciting from Charles’ point of view as Sam and Mary will be absolutely
disillusioned about him and will turn against him. This disclosure, among other
occurrences, leads eventually to his downfall. The turn comes, when the reader discovers
that Sam and Mary go to the barn with a special reason. In fact, Mary was not at all an
“innocent country virgin,” she was indeed “very fond of apples,”[28] as Fowles expresses it
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in a beautiful euphemism. He continues: “You will guess now why Sam and Mary were on
their way to the barn; and it was not the first time…”[29] Their intimate times together in the
woods or in the barn brought the fruit of their later marriage and the blessing of a baby.
And it is exactly this fruit that makes Sam’s heart turn milder towards Charles later on.
This incident, at the same time, shows the hypocrisy of Victorian England, where a servant
secretly having sex outside of marriage in the woods may judge and ruin his master for the
same act.
Many sections of the novel dealing with sexuality reveal the two-sidedness of
Victorian society: on the surface everybody had to keep clean, innocent, feel the presence
of God and behave according to that, but under the surface of decent life hypocritical deeds
blossomed. This is true also of Charles. He did not hold his virginity as dear as he did
Ernestina’s or in fact any other woman’s around him.
Traveling no longer attracted him; but women did and he was therefore in a
state of extreme sexual frustration, since his moral delicacy had not allowed
him to try the simple expedient of a week in Ostend or Paris. He could never
have allowed such a purpose to dictate the reason for a journey.[30]
This section suggests that before he got engaged with Ernestina he did go to Paris and
Ostend to satisfy his sexual appetite as there are also other allusions to this fact already at
his first meeting with Sarah in the woods.
There was something intensely tender and yet sexual in the way she lay there;
it awakened a dim echo of Charles of a moment from his time in Paris. Another
girl, whose name he could not even remember, perhaps had never known, seen
sleeping so, one dawn, in a bedroom overlooking the Seine.[31]
Thus exactly at the moment when he sees her, the outcast, who became an outsider
because she presumably slept once with a French lieutenant whom she thought would
marry her, Charles thinks about one of the many occasions he slept with a woman outside
of the wedlock. He remains a respected member of the society whereas she is referred to as
a whore. The fact that Fowles does not comment on this ambiguity makes the whole scene
on the one hand more valid (you believe that Victorians had two standards and that meant
no contradiction to them) but on the other hand even more revolting.
The scene where Charles goes to the brothel with his old schoolmates proves to be
another sign of the double standard. For Charles there is no moral question about his right
to go to a brothel and spend a night with a girl before his wedding. In fact, he feels entitled
to after the way Mr. Freeman treated him and wanted to drag him into business. If Fowles
had not played a joke on him in the prostitute scene, by christening the poor girl Sarah and
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thus making Charles vomit, he would have had sex without further sense of guilt. But if a
woman were to do the same she would be doomed to become a prostitute right away.
Although Fowles does not elaborate the contradiction between women and men on these
occasions, he comments on Victorian and present day, i.e. 1960s sexuality in greater detail
in Chapter 35. Here he remarks that the Victorians were “quite as highly sexed as our own
century – and, in spite of the fact that we have sex thrown at us night and day (as the
Victorians had religion), far more preoccupied with it than we really are.”[32] In the
following section he judges our sexual freedom to contain possibly less pleasure than that
of the Victorians. He writes
But the desire is conditioned by the frequency it is evoked: our world spends a
vast amount of its time inviting us to copulate, while our reality is as busy in
frustrating us. We are not so frustrated as the Victorians? Perhaps. But if you
can only enjoy one apple a day, there’s a great deal to be said against living in
an orchard of the wretched things; you might even find apples sweeter if you
were allowed only one a week.[33]
And if the fruit finally falls into one’s lap the desire is so great that it lasts “precisely ninety
seconds” and in this short time Charles’ fate is decided. We have then arrived at the last
sexually almost overdriven scene in the novel, i.e. the love scene between Sarah and
Charles. She sits by the fire, her feet covered with the bandage as if she had hurt it, her hair
let down. She is wearing a night gown and the green shawl she packed out with so much
pleasure. On stepping in, Charles finds himself in a situation more intimate than he
thought. By putting a red blanket on her lap, i.e. by color symbolism, Fowles emphasizes
the sexual and emotional tension that is between these two people. But it is again Sarah
who takes the initiative when she reaches out for Charles’ hand. She drags him more and
more into the situation, showing that she is willing to touch and be touched if he were
ready. And he is. He does what he came here for, thus Sarah gets what she wanted him to
give her. As he realizes he “forced a virgin,” she tells him that by sleeping with her he gave
her the “consolation of believing that in another world, another age, another life” she might
have been his wife. He has “given her the strength to go on living… in the here and
now.”[34] But she might not realize that this strength given to her is a bond and so he cannot
go on living without her. What counts to her now is that she triumphed and the fact that her
intellect forced her to spinsterhood thus proved to be false. This moment in the Endicott
Hotel was her greatest step towards her self-realization.
These motivations and essay-like contemplations about sexuality are mostly
omitted from the film because they take place either in the characters’ minds or they are
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mediated through the author’s comments. Yet, as we will see later on, the filmmakers have
different means to express the same kind of sexual tension in the movie that one finds in
the book.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TWO WOMEN
If one takes a step back and looks at The French Lieutenant’s Woman from some distance,
the story becomes basically simple: Charles has to choose between two women who
promise two different lifestyles. However, when one sees how he is forming his choice, a
few questions may arise: Why does he decide to throw everything away for an outsider?
Why was Ernestina not enough for him? How is it possible that Ernestina was not strong
enough to keep him beside her? In the comparison between the two women I am trying to
give an explanation to these questions.
Ernestina
The fragile, playful, yet hysteric character of Ernestina represents obviously the spoiled
child in the story. She in not a settled woman yet and cannot exist without the help of men.
She is indeed the kind of girl who sees herself through the glasses of society. And that
society happens to be a patriarchal one. Ernestina becomes at least aware of the fact and
admits to her aunt after their visit to Mrs. Poulteney that she is not at all at home in the
adult world. She cries “This is what comes of trying to behave like a grown-up. […] I am a
horrid, spoiled child”[35] who will grow up by seeing her innocent dreams falling to pieces.
Because she is not an independent personality Ernestina always acts to please
others and most of all Charles. Even her most personal thing, her diary is written for the
eyes of Charles: she envisages “a day when he might coax her into sharing this intimate
record of her prenuptial soul. She wrote partly for his eyes.”[36] This section creates a
perfect foundation of the scene where Charles breaks up their engagement and she admits
to be yet unformed. She cries
I know to you I have never been anything more than a pretty little… article of
drawing room furniture. I know I am innocent. I know I am spoiled. I know I
am not unusual. […] Perhaps I am just a child. But under your love and
protection… and your education… I believed I should become better. I should
learn to please you, I should learn to make you love me for what I had
become.[37]
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She does not realize that for a real man it is important that a woman should have a
character of her own that is not created by him, not constructed to please him but is to be
discovered, usurped, and then cultivated. She does not see this because she became “after
all the victim of circumstances”[38] as opposed to Sarah who is in total control of her life in
every situation. Horlacher also notes that “Ernestinas Fehler [sind] sicherlich nicht bei ihr
(allein) zu suchen, stellt sie doch in ihrer Künstlichkeit und Inauthentizität vor allem das
Geschöpf ihrer ‚Vater’ und das Produkt einer langen patriarchalen Tradition dar.“[39]
As a result of their conflict at Mrs. Poulteney’s Ernestina decides to behave like a
diligent young wife. This, of course, means that under no circumstances is she to oppose
Charles. After a while he becomes wary of this sort of behavior. Such attitude makes
Ernestina look even more like an obedient child without her own thoughts, motivations, or
wishes and makes her simply dull. There is no mystery Charles would have to solve or
unfold. The relationship becomes boring. At this point when the balance is still on
Ernestina’s side, Charles even teases her: “she was very deferential to Charles, so dutifulwifely that he complained he was beginning to feel like a Turkish pasha – and unoriginally
begged her to contradict him about something lest he forget theirs was to be a Christian
marriage.”[40] He does not realize yet that this change of attitude in Ernestina tosses him
even more towards the interesting mystery Sarah represents. The process is so swift that
only a few pages later we read that “He knew at once where he wished to go. He had had
no thought except for the French lieutenant’s woman when he found her on that wild cliff
meadow.”[41]
This thought is followed by the disillusionment with Ernestina at the concert. Here
Charles realizes what his uncle kept telling him and later on Grogan also admits, i.e.
Ernestina is unbearably shallow. “She was very pretty, charming… But was not that face a
little characterless, a little monotonous with its one set paradox of demureness and
dryness? If you took away these two qualities, what remained? A vapid selfishness.”[42] A
few pages later we read: “and yet once again it bore in upon him, as at the concert, that
there was something shallow in her – that her acuteness was largely constituted,
intellectually as alphabetically, by a mere cuteness.”[43] She thus means no perspective to
Charles who wants more than a drawing room article. He wants intimacy, depth.
The fact that he never tells Ernestina the secret about Sarah also shows that they do
not have an intimate relationship at all. He does not trust her that she would understand,[44]
for she is simply not mature enough. The absence of intimacy is revealed perfectly after the
barn scene between Sarah and Charles. When Charles arrives to Ernestina’s she does not
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sense his mood, does not realize how agitated he is. She only thinks about her dress and the
compliments he missed to give her. This is again, not a well-based relationship where one
senses all the little twitches, understands the thoughts and vibrations of the other.
Yet sexuality remains an important force in this relationship as well. Charles’
sexual agitation has an effect on their relationship and he is deluding himself that once he
wins Ernestina sexually many other aspects of their relationship will alter. His dilemma
between the two women and the desire of the flesh is revealed best in the scene where
Ernestina wants a goodbye kiss from him before he leaves for London. Here
There was a distinct stir in his loins. There had always been Ernestina’s humor,
her odd little piques and whims of emotion, a promise of certain buried
wildness… a willingness to learn perversity, one day to bite timidly but
deliciously on forbidden fruit.[45]
His unappeased desires lead him to think about their future sexual life and hope for it to be
as exciting as he can imagine. He desires such things, “perversities” only prostitutes were
to do in bed, but hopes to have Ernestina somehow learn it. At the same time, he forgets
that it is Sarah who, as far as he knows, is more experienced and is, according to the
society he lives in, a whore, that is, exactly the kind of person who would be able to still
his sexual appetite. He also feels the wickedness of this situation: he feels “a sense of
pollution: to feel carnal desire now, when he had touched another woman’s lips that
morning!”[46] and so he escapes.
One of the most decisive scenes between Ernestina and Charles is when he informs
her about his decision that he is not going to marry her. As Sarah told Charles before that
she is not worthy of him, so does he recite the phrase to Ernestina and says he is not
worthy of her hand. After realizing that he is not joking, she confesses, as partially already
quoted above:
Perhaps I am only a child. But under your love and protection… and your
education… I believed I should become better. I should learn to please you, I
should learn to make you love me for what I had become. […] I would
abandon anything to make you happy.[47]
At this moment Ernestina proves yet again that she is not at all the woman Charles wants.
He needs someone who has ideas of her own, whose personality enchants him. He does not
want to form some dependant woman for his own pleasure but desires the sort of balanced
relationship that comes to life when two people who consider themselves equal meet. That
is what Sarah means to him in a way.
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After the confession Ernestina starts threatening Charles, once again proving her
childish and immature attitude. She finally falls to the floor in a fake faint. “Auch
Ernestinas inauthentischer […] Ohnmachts- und Hysterieanfall folgt traditionellen Bildern
von Weiblichkeit”[48] Horlacher argues, which proves she is in want of independent
arguments for herself. She can only use panels she has learnt from society. This scene
finally leads to the end of her innocence and she proves to be more mature later on, as we
hear that she was the one who tried to calm her father not to ruin Charles and his whole
social being. Yet, the bottom line is the same, i.e. she was not able to give Charles’ life an
able purpose as, on the other hand, Sarah was.
Sarah
This name corresponds to loneliness, mystery, sexuality, emancipation, and passion in the
novel. Already at the beginning of the story we see her standing alone at the end of the
Cobb looking out at sea. She is sad; she is “poor Tragedy” as the locals call her. Although
everyone seems to know her story she is somehow still bound into the fog of mystery. That
is what catches Charles’ attention first. But later on he realizes that behind this sadness and
mystery there is a mature character, a person with her own will.
Charles had known women – frequently Ernestina herself – contradict him
playfully. But that was in a playful context. A woman did not contradict a
man’s opinion when he was being serious unless it were in carefully measured
terms. Sarah seemed almost to assume some sort of equality of intellect with
him; and in precisely the circumstances where she should have been most
deferential if she wished to encompass her end.[49]
Sarah in this scene appears to be an emancipated woman who stands above her time’s
conventions. She is not waiting for Charles to tell her what to become, how to change to
please him as we saw in Ernestina’s case. She is more likely the person whom Charles has
to ask to get to know, who has the key to her own soul and would give it only to a chosen
few. She can be all that in one person, while living among those who cast her out and
presenting her (or unconsciously their) shame to them. Through dying to society she gains
a life of her own, which she at the same time subjects to the services of Mrs. Poulteney for
a while. Kamp points out,
Sarah’s decision to go against the order of her authoritarian employer is a very
important step toward emancipation. Her ‘long fall’ is similar to being driven
out of Paradise which is observed by the author-God of the garden (Eden).
Through her decision she becomes a modern woman who, after separating
herself from the custody of her creator, is now self dependent.[50]
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She knows her emancipation is for her alone and to achieve it she has to be driven out from
the social net, from the paradise that surrounds and protects all other beings in it.
Yet, there is a trap for Charles buried in the emancipated personality of Sarah. He
sees throughout that she is different, a lot more independent than any other woman of the
age. He realizes that she considers herself his equal but then there is no need for Charles to
help her. She can stand on her own, “no blame can touch her” thus she does not need
protection. This is the contradiction that Charles is unable to see. If she really were that
independent she would not need Charles. But the fact that she might have chosen him to
tell her story to must be flattering to him and it makes Charles curious how far this
attraction can be brought.
After Sarah told her story to Charles she goes towards the dairy, lets herself be seen
and counts on Mrs. Fairley that she will report to Mrs. Poulteney about her trips to the
Ware Commons. She must be absolutely aware that she is going to be dismissed but it does
not matter now for she has told her story and knows that Charles will help her in one way
or another. If we suppose that she planned the whole scheme before, at this point she must
be sure that Charles will follow her wherever she goes. And he will be hers.
As aforesaid, Sarah is a mysterious woman but not only because of her secret about
the French lieutenant but because her ideas and action are unpredictable. She has two faces
in the novel. One is the tragic face that suffers without words and is not willing to share her
burden with anyone except Charles. The other face is the self-confident emancipated
woman who sees through all the people around her. Her two faces appear in her
relationship not only to Charles but also to Mrs. Poulteney. At the beginning she is
obedient, reads the Bible and achieves what Mrs. Poulteney never could in her own
household: people begin to understand what real religion, faith, humbleness means. Sarah
is humble herself and does not complain about Mrs. Poulteney’s harshness towards her.
But there is a point where her real thoughts and character come out. At the moment she is
dismissed she dares to say all about Mrs. Poulteney and her house that others try to
suppress. She answers with the following words to Mrs. Poulteney on her command to
leave the room:
Very well. Since all I have ever experienced in it is hypocrisy, I shall do so
with the greatest pleasure. […] and if it is possible with so small a sum of
money, I suggest you purchase some instrument of torture. I am sure Mrs.
Fairley will be pleased to help you use it upon all those wretched enough to
come under your power.[51]
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In this scene it comes to the surface that she has her own inner world which she only shows
when she decides to or if it fits her purpose. And here, her goal is to make herself
dismissed in order to seem even more distressed and thus make Charles come to her and
offer his help again. In the movie one cannot of course go into such details and the
sequence with her angry remarks is omitted, thus her character becomes more rounded. In
the film Sarah remains a mysterious and on the surface humble woman who is heartbroken
and is the prey of her own destiny.
Another difference between the two women comes from the one still being a child
and a typical Victorian woman with suppressed emotions and sexuality and the other being
an independent, fully sexual being. Sarah is described with the topoi of “sensuality,
naturalness, instinctiveness, physicalness and sexuality”[52] which all come to the surface
with the help of her facial expressions, her secretiveness and loneliness. Although she does
not flirt with men in general, does not present herself in fabulous clothes on the street, it is
obvious that she is able to burn with emotion and passion. As Fowles writes “Sarah was all
flame. Her eyes were all flame as she threw a passionate look back at Charles.”[53] Her
description as someone burning with fire fits in very well with her two faces that I have
elaborated on before. Fire can make one warm, it gives light and warmth to a house, and
thus the woman represents the flames in the family hearth. This is the way Charles sees
her; he feels the warmth of passion and love, and later on, as he is searching for Sarah, he
sees her as a friend, a wife who makes the house warm and cozy. On the other hand, fire is
only too old a topos to know how dangerous it is. Fire burns and destroys without mercy. It
is exactly this sort of destructive fire that we can find in Sarah: at first she burns with
passion, she has the ability of creating a warm family atmosphere in the Endicott Hotel, but
in reality she can also hurt badly. She is not to be stopped for she has her own way.
After the scene where Charles kisses Sarah and then suddenly meets Sam and Mary
in the woods, he treats Sarah according to the name the common men gave her: he gives
her money and leaves her with the statement that they shall never meet again. Even in this
situation she is completely aware what she is worth; when Charles confesses his regrets
that he did not realize before how special she was, she does not react according to the
manners of Victorian ladies but answers boldly “Yes, I am a remarkable person.” And as a
remarkable person she is able to get hold of Charles in a way that seems to him coming
from himself, that seems to be solely his own desire. He does not realize how the scene is
set for him the next time they meet in the Endicott Hotel. It is only the reader who can see
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Sarah preparing her hotel room for the great scene. She buys a teapot, a jug, which seem to
be innocent objects. They simply make the hotel room more comfortable, cozier. This is
Sarah’s wifely part that creates a home wherever she goes. On the other hand, she also
packs out a nightgown and a “dark-green shawl, merino fringed with emerald-green silk.”
These are the tools of a woman who wants to look pretty on her lover’s arrival. And she
knew he would come. That is why she also bought a roll of bandage. This preparation
corresponds to Horlacher’s idea, who says that Sarah has an “Affinität zum Frauenbild der
Hexe, wie sie sich aus einem radikalfeministischen Blickwinkel herausgibt.“[54] The idea
that a woman could be so calculating and independent of men, what more, able to lead
them on, must have been seen at the time as witchcraft. And indeed, she charms Charles
with her bandaged leg and newly bought shawl. Her magic worked and so the witch got
hold of her victim. At the same time, if we do not want to go as far as identifying Sarah
with witches, we can still state that through the objects she bought from the money she got
from Charles her two faces are revealed. She is wife and lover, spiritual and carnal in one
person.
As mentioned before Sarah or the idea of his relationship with her was able to give
Charles a good purpose for life. It provided him a mission to save her from what would
become of her in London alone, and this mission was accompanied with a “beneficial
expiation”. The strange thing about this mission is that Charles does not realize that he
does the same thing he protested before: he wants to form her into the image he has of her,
take her to see the world and in a way force her into a kind of relationship where she is
subjected to him. After all, he saved her from being an outcast or even worse, he thinks.
But at the end she does not throw herself into the arms of Charles. She does not even want
to marry as opposed to Ernestina who begs Charles to reconsider and still marry her. Sarah
does not “wish to share her life” with anyone, even Charles, especially if it means losing
the freedom she developed herself. She stands as the model of our society’s single mother.
For as we later learn, she has a daughter from Charles who will after all still build the
bridge between them and thus in the second ending of the book, we leave them off as a
happy family. At the same time, Sarah’s character and motivations remain unexplained in
the book. As Kamp notes, “she is not represented as a round character. For the gentleman
Charles she is ‘the mysterious other,’ for the reader she is a ‘super symbol,’ in which the
unspoken ideas of the age, the changing time and the perspective of something new merge
into one figure. ”[55] All this is very difficult to give back in a film but with the help of able
actors and actresses, costumes and setting the makers of the film were able to recreate
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much of the depth found in the above mentioned characters as will be shown later in this
chapter.
After enumerating the most important aspects of the novel, let us now turn to the
film. To be able to analyze the adaptation I would like to make use of the list of major
cardinal functions of the book.
1
A black figure stands at the end of the Cobb
2
Charles and Ernestina walk on the Cobb. Charles first meets Sarah
3
4
Mrs. Poulteney is ready to employ a woman in her household upon which Mr.
Forsythe suggests Sarah Woodruff
Sarah is taken into employment
5
Charles discovers Sarah in the woods and tries to show her his compassion
6
Charles pays a visit to Ernestina
7
Charles, Ernestina, Mrs. Tranter visit Mrs. Poulteney where Charles is rebuked
by Mrs. Poulteney. He realizes that with Sarah they share a common “enemy”
Ernestina apologizes to Charles
Charles finds out that Sam’s intentions are serious with Mary
At a concert with Ernestina and Mrs. Tranter Charles realizes that his fiancée is
shallow
Sarah follows Charles to the woods and gives him two ammonites she found;
she wants to tell him her story, and declares him her last hope
Dr. Grogan tells Charles about the melancholy and its different types
Sarah tells her story to Charles
Charles’ visit to Winsyatt and the news about his uncle’s marriage which
means the loss of his inheritance
Charles hears from Ernestina that Sarah has been dismissed from Mrs.
Poulteney’s employment and is being looked for all over the woods
Charles gets a letter from Sarah in which she asks him to meet her one last time
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
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Charles goes to Dr. Grogan to discuss the situation. Grogan gives him the book
about the 1835 accounts of hysterical cases
Charles finds Sarah at the Undercliff and promises her financial help
They kiss each other and on the way out the agitated Charles meets Sam and
Mary
Sarah goes to the Endicott Family Hotel after buying herself several things
from the money Charles gave her
Charles tells Mr. Freeman that he lost his inheritance upon which Mr. Freeman
offers him the possibility to go to business
Charles goes to the Club, gets drunk, goes to a brothel with his friends
Finally goes off with the prostitute Sarah
Charles receives Sarah’s address the next morning
Charles decides to go back to Lyme and dreams about the ideal ending of the
story, his marriage with Ernestina
*
√
*
√
*
√
√
*
*
*
*
*
√
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
Charles stays in Exeter and sleeps with Sarah
Charles writes a letter to Sarah telling her that he wishes to marry her which he
sends, along with a brooch, with Sam to the Endicott Hotel
Charles breaks up his engagement with Ernestina
Charles goes to Exeter but does not find Sarah there; he employs detectives to
look for her
Charles signs the document written by Mr. Freeman, declaring that he is not a
gentleman anymore
Charles travels through Europe and America
In New Orleans he gets the news that Sarah is found
Charles goes to meet Sarah in Dante Gabriel Rosetti’s house
Happy ending with a daughter
Third ending, Charles leaves Sarah and begins a new life
*
√
*
*
*
On first looking at the list above, we can state that the Victorian part of Reisz’s adaptation
follows closely the happenings in the book. The first cardinal functions are found in the
film with slight changes: it is Mrs. Poulteney and Sarah who pay a visit to Mrs. Tranter and
not the other way around; Ernestina does not apologize to Charles for her taking the part of
Mrs. Poulteney in their argument about the developing relationship between Sam and
Mary. Function 10 is also omitted from the film. The reason for the omission might be the
fact that in this scene Charles is only pondering over Ernestina and her shallow character.
These most intimate thoughts that are circulating in his head throughout the concert are
illustrated rather by his facial expressions before, in the tea party scene. Function 11 is
altered as in the film Sarah does not give ammonites to Charles and neither does she follow
him to the woods. She gives him a note at the tea party instead, asking him to meet her in
the graveyard. Thus the director condensed function 10 and 11 into one scene presented in
function 7.
As it will be discussed later, function 14 is also omitted from the film, along with
any other comment that refers to Charles’s uncle. This way there is a great deal of
motivation present in the book but lost in the film. Also, I will discuss later why the brothel
scene in function 22 was left out of the movie. Function 25 with the ideal ending of the
story is not included as it is only Charles’ imagination, a dream.
Another more important function that is omitted from the film is function 27 where
Charles writes a letter to Sarah telling her that he intends to marry her. In the book Sarah
emphasizes that she is not worthy of Charles and his hand, so it becomes obvious that she
does not want to marry him. In the film he leaves her hotel room in peace and love whereas
in the book they argue and Charles is rather agitated for he does not understand Sarah. By
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changing the mood upon Charles’ departure, the filmmakers made it unnecessary for him
to write the letter explaining his feelings and his intention to marry her. Again, this is a
very typical practical example of how in the process of scriptwriting the original story is
shortened in order to fit into the film’s time frame.
After this incident the course of events does not alter until the very end. In the
novel we see Charles traveling in the world, and later on he ends up in America. He comes
back only because of the telegram informing him that Sarah is found. In the film there is
simply a continuity title telling us that three years have passed since the last scene. This
function is less important in the story of the two main characters and its omission did not
cause a major break in the story line, however, it gives a different turn to Charles’
character development. At the same time, the fact that in the modern level of the film Anna
is American reminds us of the other continent. She embodies all that Charles thinks about
women in America, whom he would happily court but does not dare because he fears that
they might discover his confessio delicti. In Mike and Anna’s case there is no such fear.
Function 33 as a happy ending is kept but there is no child in the adaptation, and
Function 34, in which Charles leaves to start a new life is reflected by Mike being left
alone in the film set.
After listing most of the functions that are altered or not included in the film, let us
now turn to the most interesting aspect of the movie, i.e. the added parts. There are 13
added sequences in the film, which tell the story of Anna and Mike. These sequences make
up about the quarter of the whole film, indicating that the emphasis is still on the Victorian
plot. The love affair of Anna and Mike is told parallel to that of Charles and Sarah and its
aim is to set a contrast between the past and the present. As mentioned in the introduction
of this chapter, Reisz and Pinter had to invent this part to offset the loss of the narrator. In
the novel it was the narrator who contrasted the two worlds with his witty hindsight
remarks on the Victorian age.[56]
CHARACTER FUNCTIONS
Most of the characters are kept in the film, and their functions remain intact, whereas the
role of specific supporting characters is sometimes reduced (e.g. Mrs. Fairley). The most
interesting change comes, of course, by the introduction of the modern characters.
Charles, Sarah, Ernestina, Mrs. Poulteney, Mary and Sam have basically the same
functions as they have in the novel. There are, at the same time, a few characters that are
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omitted. First we have to mention the narrator who plays a decisive role in the novel. His
comments, his misleading pieces of information, his essay-like discussions about the past
and the present could not be included as it would have required some kind of a constant
voice-over commentary. In scene 12 however the scriptwriter tried to weave his role into
the story. Here Anna is seen reading a book on the bed preparing for her role, trying to
understand Sarah’s motivations. She reads out a section to Mike to illustrate what the
situation of single women was like in London at the time. She reads that most of these
women became prostitutes and realizes that this is exactly what is waiting for Sarah if she
is to go to London and try to start a new life there alone. In this case we hear from Anna
what we learn from the narrator in the novel. This part, in its meaning, corresponds to the
Children’s Employment Commission Report from 1867 on page 211. Nevertheless, except
for this scene the viewer has to make out the meaning behind the insertion of the modern
scenes for himself. The narrator tells us how different the world has become while Pinter
shows the contrast to us.
Charles’ and Sarah’s characters remain basically the same in the film as in the book
with the important exception that in the movie they receive another identity as well. In the
modern representation of the story Sarah becomes Anna and Charles becomes Mike. It is
also important to note that the filmmakers made Charles a more decisive character in the
plot than he is in the novel. As Reisz said
Charles is a bigger character than Sarah, he is in all the events, so the pull
between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, or between manners and
feelings, is in him. In the novel he is rather passive, a person of sensibility but
not much authority. We’ve tried to make a film about the sentimental education
of a decent Victorian chap. He starts more innocent and ends more knowing
than in the book.[57]
Charles’ character is thus altered not so much in his deeds but in his attitude towards his
own future and destiny.
Ernestina’s function as the childish and innocent fiancée of Charles remains the
same as in the novel. There are no major changes in her character. The character of Sam
and Mary also remain almost intact save for the fact that the story of their later life is not
told. The only aspect about Sam that is worth mentioning is the fact that in the novel he has
a significantly more intimate relationship with Charles than in the film. For example, in
scene 39, when Sam wants to talk about his future plans upon hearing that Charles wants
his house opened up in London, he does not even want to pay attention to him, does not
even look at him. It seems he is too busy with his own trouble but in fact, he is ashamed of
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himself after Sam and Mary discovered him with Sarah in the barn. In the novel, however,
he listens to Sam even before he is caught with Sarah. He really talks things through with
him and does not realize that his servant is trying to blackmail him in a subtle way later on.
Of course, the film cannot present such ups and downs that occur in the relationship
between lord and servant. It rather has to build up tension to be able to explain why Sam
betrays and leaves Charles. In the row between the two Pinter follows the conversation of
the book almost word by word but the tension that culminated between Charles and Sam
has no reconciliation in the film. In the novel, on the other hand, Sam starts to feel for
Charles upon seeing what he goes through. Finally he is the one who sends the note to
Montague about Sarah’s whereabouts and not Sarah herself.
The role of Dr. Grogan remains basically the same in the film but there are minor
changes in his circumstances. As opposed to the book, he is not a family doctor but the
head of an asylum. He is still the confidant of Charles but this relationship is evidently
much better founded in the book. At the same time, the changes made are not bothering.
For the sake of time limit Grogan’s psychiatrist friend and the physician himself are melted
into one person.[58] To avoid excessive background information and sidelines, the
scriptwriter forms one character out of two or many, so that the plot remains the same
albeit the character functions are slightly changed.
Mrs. Poulteney remains as vile in the film as she is in the novel. Only her inner
thoughts and jealousies towards Mrs. Cotton are missing but these seem of minor
importance from the plot’s point of view. Another omitted person besides the narrator is
Charles’ uncle Robert, the lord of Winsyatt. His role is important only if we want to
understand more of the motivations behind Charles’ decision to leave Ernestina. By
omitting uncle Robert Pinter left out the line of the story that explains how Charles loses
his inheritance after his uncle’s decision to get married despite his old age. Thus Charles
cannot receive the title of barons and becomes mostly dependent on Ernestina’s dowry. For
a free man, such as Charles, this dependence looks rather downgrading.
Sarah the prostitute is an important character who is only very distantly included in
the film. In the novel, after his conversation with Ernestina’s father the desperate Charles
seeks solace in the company of his friends at the Club. They go off together to a brothel but
after a while he decides to look for amusement for himself. Out on the streets he finds a
woman, who looks a little bit like Sarah and decides to spend the night with her. This
attempt fails as he starts vomiting on hearing that the prostitute’s name is Sarah. He then
later on, while Sarah is out, meets her child and calms her with his shiny watch. The reason
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this image is important is that based on this experience, Charles believes his own Sarah is
to look forward to the same future. That is why he is so surprised on finding her as an
independent woman doing her own work in Rossetti’s house. This surprise is duly
demonstrated by Jeremy Irons in the final scene of the film. The contrast between him and
the new Sarah is perfectly emphasized not only by Irons’ performance but also by their
appearances. She is wearing a light blouse with a matching skirt, her hair is let down to
emphasize her freedom and passion that is underlined by the vivid red color of her hair. As
opposed to this, Charles wears dark clothes, his hair has grown grey, and his complexion is
rather ill which is also highlighted by his new beard-style. Coming back to the prostitute it
is worth noting that she does appear in the film but only after Sarah’s disappearance. The
obsessed Charles has been looking for Sarah for a while when he mistakes the prostitute
for Sarah. She is wearing a cape with a hood and turns to look back at him the same way
Sarah did the first time they met on the Cobb. He follows her and as it is indicated he goes
off with her. The audience thus assumes that in his despair he slept with the prostitute
unlike in the novel where we are presented the rather comical situation when Charles gets
sick after he hears the girl’s name. So in this line of the story neither the chronology nor
the plot remains unchanged. Although the extent of his obsession and his disturbed spirit is
less emphasized due to this change, the basic plot remains the same.
The character of the prostitute’s child is important in the novel because we see it
again in the form of Charles and Sarah’s own child. Charles again takes out his watch to
calm the child and the horrible image of the prostitute with her illegitimate child turns thus
to its opposite: a happy ending. His Sarah has a child, but they do not live on prostitution in
the slums but reunite with Charles and live happily ever after. On the other hand, the idea
of a child is absolutely omitted from the film perhaps because it would have been too much
of a nostalgic happy ending. It is enough to see Sarah as an independent lady, free of the
conventions of society, of men, or of any force that would make her compromise. As she is
without a child it is entirely her own decision to stay with Charles after asking for his
forgiveness. There is no other force behind Sarah than her own free will.
SHOT ANALYSIS
As already stated above there are 13 modern scenes out of the total of 75 sequences. This
leaves ample emphasis on the Victorian story while also providing a contrast to it. The
different editing techniques such as dissolves, fades, low or high angle all have an
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influence on the viewer along with the rhythm of the cutting. By analyzing these we can
detect how the director indirectly manipulates the story to create covert meanings.
The first dissolve in the movie can be found in scene 3 when Charles is on his way
to Ernestina. Here the cheerful music, the rhythm of the moving images and the added
dissolve suggest some kind of a fairly tale-like story. And it is in fact so: for Ernestina the
love of Charles and his upcoming proposal is really like a dream come true. This merry
atmosphere is then underlined by the camerawork as well. The next dissolve in scene 37
indicates Charles’ entrance into his own dreamland, the woods where he meets Sarah in the
barn. The kiss that follows upon her awakening determines his future. The last occasion
when a shot ends in a dissolve can be found in scene 73. After making up to each other in
Rossetti’s house, the dissolve reveals how Charles and Sarah are rowing away in peace and
harmony. Here again, the editing highlights the dreamlike nature of the happenings, and it
may also indicate that this ideal ending is not the reality. This is only the first ending,
which is contrasted by the end of Anna and Mike’s relationship.
The first time the director uses a camera angle is in scene 8. Here we see Mr.
Freeman and Charles talking about business, while they are shot in a low angle. This angle
indicates how the trouble of financial security towers over Charles in the person of his
future father-in-law while, at the same time, he as a gentleman and scientist stands above
such down to earth work. He needs to go into business with Mr. Freeman in order to be
able to keep his position in society. The same angle is used in the last take of the scene,
which allows the huge sign of the company FREEMAN to tower over Charles in the
background, giving the scene a symbolic meaning. In scene 9, high angle emphasizes how
Charles is on a different level from Ernestina. Within this scene she is shot several times
from above because Charles goes up the steps of the Cobb ahead to help her. But this use
of camera angle indicates that Ernestina is small not only in her physical being but also
mentally especially when compared to the woman Charles is about to see at the end of the
Cobb. In scene 11 we see low angle shots again. In this case, Mrs. Poultney is shown from
below to emphasize her harsh, uncompromising character Sarah subjects herself to but also
the bizarre nature of the situation. At the tea party scene Charles is presented several times
in a low angle shot, although the other characters in the scene are presented in simple
middle close ups or reverse shots. This setting of the camera indicates that he stands above
the situation he is in at the moment; he does not mingle with the chatting ladies but is taken
by the presence of Sarah. It is also in this scene where Sarah secretly hands him her note in
which she asks him to meet her. After that Charles is even more separated from the
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everyday chit-chat of the women around him. In the rest of the cases when high or low
angle is shown in the movie usually one person is sitting while the other is standing, thus
these angles do not represent any additional meaning to the story.
Many times the rhythm of the visual images also has a significant effect on the
viewer. The film contains 754 cuts, 3 dissolves, 1 wipe, and 3 fades.[59] The average
number of cuts per minute is about 6,5. From these statistical numbers we can detect which
scenes are edited in a fast or slow way. In scene 1 we see Anna at first on the set before she
transforms into Sarah of the Victoria story. The long tracking shot showing Sarah walking
to the end of the Cobb stands in contrast to the sudden cut and loud clipboard of the second
level already present in this scene, and makes it possible for the viewer to let himself be
lulled gradually into the unconventional Victorian story. Another example of slow editing
is scene 6 where Mike and Anna are introduced to the viewer. Over the 1’43 minute scene
there are only two cuts, which underlines the calmness, the intimacy of the scene. This
same technique can be found in scene 53 and 55 where we see Sarah and Charles lying in
bed after making love in the Endicott Hotel, and Charles taking leave later on. The last
example of slow editing illustrates again, how the treatment of the image can emphasize
the mood of the characters. In scene 73 we see the settled Sarah who is eventually able to
make up to Charles, who needs some time to digest what he hears from her. They need a
long time, exactly 5’31 minutes to slowly get used to each other’s presence again and after
21 cuts within the scene their emotions settle down and the scene is set for the happy
ending of their story.
Such intimate scenes are contrasted with fast editing when the action gets filled
with emotions, or heated conversations take place, as in the proposal scene between
Charles and Ernestina. They are shown in several reverse shots resulting a 1’39-minutescene with 21 cuts. The same applies to the decisive scene 9, where Charles is about to
recount his conversation with Mr. Freeman to Ernestina but is interrupted by the view of
Sarah standing at the end of the Cobb while a strong wind stirs the ocean. The fast editing
of this scene suggests the emotional stir in the heart of the main protagonists and indicates
the dramatic change that is about to happen. By these few examples I have attempted to
illustrate how the camerawork can support the meaning of the movie, and how it can
directly or indirectly communicate more than simple moving images.
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SETTING
After the camerawork, let us now take a look at how a few simple elements of the setting
convey many ideas that are written over pages in the book. One such example comes from
Ernestina’s role as a short-sighted, limited person. On viewing the film it is striking that
Ernestina is presented in each scene only in the interior. When she is introduced in scene 4
she is in her room. Then she comes to the observatory where Charles is waiting for her.
Later, she is always seen in the drawing room or her own room except for one occasion.
Charles visits Ernestina before he leaves for London to settle things with the help of
Monatgue and have his last independent adventure through the night. In this scene
Ernestina is shooting arrows in the garden. This would at first sight seem an exception
from her limited presentation, however, her striped dress suggests the bars of a prison or of
a window. Thus even though we see her outside where she could be finally free, we see her
tied up, unable to escape her own personality and destiny.
Talking about bars and fences, it must be noted that by setting the proposal scene in
the observatory, the cage-like existence and relationship of Charles and Ernestina gains
emphasis. The split windows reflect the cage in the center of the observatory in which two
birds are chirping. As opposed to this image, we see Sarah most of the time out in the
open. This underlines the notion that Sarah is free like a bird to go her own way, and will
not be barred or committed to any sort of institute, or institution for that matter, including
marriage. It is important to note that even when she is inside, her atelier is most airy, full of
light as opposed to the stuffy drawing room of Mrs. Tranter where we always see
Ernestina.
At the beginning of the film we see a beautiful example how the mise-en-scène can
tell stories without words. Here Sarah is about to be interviewed by the dreaded Mrs.
Poulteney. After going into the huge house of her employer-to-be, we see Sarah sitting in a
dark foyer. Most of the hallway is covered in dark wooden paneling and the light only sifts
through the stained glass windows. The red color coming in falls around Sarah, and so it
creates a contrast to her black dress and the sinister interior. By the application of this
setting the viewer senses that this house is not a cozy home of an old lady but more likely a
place of torment for those who live and serve there. The character of Mrs. Poulteney who
lives in this house is well reflected in the darkness and stuffiness of this and the following
sequence.
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In the graveyard scene, Sarah’s surrounding receives a sinister, depressing
atmosphere once more, although in the book the scene takes place, as her every other
meeting with Charles, in the Ware Commons. Since this meeting is very decisive in the
death of the old Charles and the birth of the new Charles, the director decided to transfer it
from the more or less secure meeting place to this sinister set. Besides making the setting
thus more varied, the tension is also raised around the characters as they are more likely to
be seen here than out in the woods. The graveyard also stands as an allegory for Sarah’s
dead situation in society that she in now spreading over to Charles as well. Through the
above examples we can see how, with the help of cinematic devices, the director can
mediate several additional meanings to the audience without having to be specific.
MUSIC AND SOUND
There is one important theme about the film’s soundtrack to be mentioned: the theme of
Sarah. When she first appears on the screen all other noise fades out and we only hear the
violin solo that fades in again and again later on as she appears on the screen. But it is also
heard for example in scene 26. Here Mike is standing at the window, smoking, and
eventually looking back on Anna sleeping on the bed. This usage of Sarah’s theme
emphasizes that Mike is more in love with the mysterious woman in the film than with the
American actress. He sees Sarah’s independence, passion in her which is evidently
suggested and underlined by the music.
In most of the scenes we are presented with the actual sound. In almost every scene
where we see Sarah and Charles talking we hear birds chirping, as the two characters meet
almost exclusively outdoors in the woods. On the occasion when Charles discovers Sarah
in the Ware Commons and follows her we hear a woodpecker which sounds almost like a
warning. However, as soon as we get seriously involved into the story of Charles and
Sarah, we are interrupted by the sound of a helicopter and find ourselves in the hotel room
of Anna. Mike looks out of the window, annoyed by the noise of the helicopter while Anna
does not even seem to notice it. This again might point to the fact the Mike is more into the
Victorian story and is annoyed when he is dragged back to the present reality.
There are two instances in the film where an echo effect can be heard: the first is
when Sarah is sitting in front of her mirror, drawing and Mrs. Fairley knocks on her door.
She is calling her saying that Mrs. Poulteney wants to see her right away. This sound effect
shows on the one hand that Sarah is deep in her thoughts, detached from reality, but it also
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indicates that Mrs. Fairley’s voice signals a major change in her life. She will be dismissed.
The second occasion the viewer is presented with this effect is when Ernestina is throwing
curses upon Charles. As in the previous case, here again the effect shows that Charles is
entering another phase in his life. He is leaving behind the empty, echoing marriage that
would have awaited him with Ernestina. Thus sound supports the different overt or covert
turning points in the story.
LANGUAGE CODES
Since Anna in the modern story is from the United States in each scene with Mike she
speaks in an American accent. But as soon as she steps into the world of the Victorians her
accent changes over to British. Fowles said[60] that he always thought about Anna in the
movie as American because that draws a parallel between his idea of Sarah being free at
the end of the story. As free as the American girls Charles meets on his journey.
One of the greatest ironies in the film, however, is presented through the character
of Davide. He is Anna’s boyfriend or maybe husband and when he picks up the phone in
Anna’s hotel room in London, he speaks in a clear French accent. He thus represents the
French lieutenant who persuades Anna to go to London. It might seem a little bit far
fetched but it is still worth taking a look at the shield at the Exeter train station in scene 56.
Below the name of the station, i.e. Exeter St. the word Davids is written. Anna belongs to
David. This is only important if we consider that from this point on Anna is not willing to
continue the affair with Mike but goes back to Davide.
Other language codes present in the book are also to be found in the film. These
represent the lower classes. Sam and the detective are Londoners and speak typical
Cockney, while the language spoken by Mary and the milkman follows the country-dialect
indicated in the book.
THE UNCONVENTIONAL COSTUME FILM
As the beginning of the novel already includes the elements of meta-fiction, and the reader
senses that there is someone behind the scenes directing the story, so do we become the
witnesses of meta-film already at the first shots of Karel Reisz’s movie. We see Anna
looking into a mirror as the make-up girl is helping her getting ready. Then in the next shot
a clipboard is seen and at this point we realize we are witnessing a shooting. We are in the
set. Nevertheless, on the clipboard we read Direction: K.Q. Rogers and not Karel Reisz. In
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his article Pseudonyms Quicannon noted that “Reisz’s choice of ‘Quentin Rogers’ in the
first instance possibly came from conflating or eliding his own initials and name with the
American war correspondent Quentin Reynolds, who narrated Humphrey Jennings’ Britain
Can Take It.”[61] We can then see that the narrator is omitted from the story and the idea of
film-shooting in the modern age is inserted. In this way the director breaks with the
traditional costume film tradition and reveals that whatever we so nostalgically see on the
big screen seems only magic. We, of course, tend to forget that the Victorian story we are
watching is only the film within a film and some even detest the idea of Anna and Mike’s
story. Richard Combs wrote in his article Through a Glass Doubly
The modern story becomes a self-sufficient narrative in itself, a challenge not
to suspend identification with the period melodrama but to make a double
identification, with both pairs of characters. It is a bland and rather vague
duplication, in which the ramifications of the Victorian story – the
circumscription of women, the repression of instincts, etc. – are only carried
forward in the glossiest love triangle terms.
Yet, I would argue that in the course of adaptation these are the real brave changes the
scriptwriter has to make in order to make the movie work. Without the narrator’s voice the
intimacy of the book is mostly lost, whereas with the insertion of the modern parts the
director is allowed to comment on the happenings as the narrator of the novel. Not only
that, but through the modern story we as contemporary audience can relate much better to
the dilemmas of the main protagonists. The fact that Mike and Anna’s story is set in the
present, helps the viewer to identify with their problems and emotional struggles much
easier. By Pinter’s invention of the meta-film the conventional Victorian story becomes
unique.
THE UNFILMABLE PARTS
In spite of Hegel, the Victorians were not a dialectically minded age; they did
not think naturally in opposites, of positives and negatives as aspects of the
same whole. Paradoxes troubled rather than pleased them. They were not the
people for existentialist moments, but for chains of cause and effect; for
positive all-explaining theories, carefully studied and studiously applied.[62]
This section, randomly picked from the comments of the narrator, illustrates that there is a
great difference between the two media, i.e. novel and film. The book has the means to
express and dwell on thoughts the film could only very didactically present. Nonetheless,
the film also has means novels cannot use (sound, sight, music, etc.) to emphasize its point.
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This was also recognized by a few reviewers who stated that the fact that Reisz and Pinter
handled the original novel with a great amount of freedom does not take away from the
genius of either the novel or the film. It is thus a relief for the movie goers to read a review
which states that “[the film] has one other considerable achievement as well: It entertains
admirers of Fowles's novel, but does not reveal the book's secrets. If you see the movie, the
book will still surprise you, and that's as it should be.”
The chronology of the book is another aspect that is difficult to put to celluloid.
Reisz himself admitted that “We haven’t kept this order of events, but we have tried to
keep what I suppose one could call a serial structure, like Victorian novels.”[63] The
interesting thing about this novel is that this is not a conventional Victorian novel at all.
Fowles jumps back and forth between scenes and also in time. Once he tells the story of
Charles going to see Sarah in the barn, ready to help her and send her off to first Exeter and
then to London, whereas in the next chapter we jump back in time and the narrator recites
the circumstances under which Sarah was dismissed from Mrs. Poulteney’s service. This of
course would seem very annoying in a film and could be done only if the characters were
story tellers and told what happened to them in the past few scenes when we did not
encounter them. Pinter and Reisz decided to keep the core of the story instead and they
present it in a conventional chronological order. So, for example, first we see Sarah before
her dismissal in scene 31, we go through the evening with Charles in scene 32 through 36,
and in scene 37 we follow him to the barn where he meets Sarah.
At other parts the author reveals personal experiences of his to the reader and at
points he steps personally into the novel. This happens already in Exeter when Sarah buys,
for example, a Toby jug. The narrator claims, that he can prove the jug to have been
cracked as he bought it himself “a year or two ago for a good deal more than the three
pennies Sarah was charged.”[64] The author is always present, the reader never knows when
he is going to step in again. The next time we encounter him is when he sits in to the
compartment of Charles as he is traveling back to Lyme Regis. Here he observes Charles
and by throwing up a coin he decides which ending he is going to tell us first. Though
technically it would have meant no difficulty to put the narrator into the story this way, it
would have been still challenging which face of his to illustrate? Bradbury also points at
this questionable side of the author, not knowing what to call him: “omniscient author,
source of fact and authority, or the trickster and confidence artist; the humanist concerned
in good faith about fate and freedom, and the manipulator; the plot-maker, or the plotescaper?”[65] Though the narrator’s person could have been turned into the director
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directing the film within the film, the makers of the movie decided to simply illustrate his
role solely by the modern story. This way the idea of the author as a magician who can turn
back the time and tell the other end of the story became unnecessary. Pinter chose to show
two different endings in the two levels of the film instead.
INTERPRETATIONS
Mirrors and Drawings
There are of course symbols in the film as well as in the novel. One of them is the mirror
that plays a very important part in the movie. Already at the beginning the viewer is
presented with a little mirror that reflects the face of the actress. At this point one cannot be
sure of the role of the mirror but after a few seconds it becomes obvious that it is used for
helping Anna putting on make-up. Anna at that point looks into the mirror, leaves her own
image there and turns into Sarah, the mysterious woman of Lyme Regis. She takes up the
role as Charles’ love, she becomes Tragedy and ceases to be Anna. This part is, of course,
not included in the novel but is essential to the film for it already reveals not only the two
levels the film is divided into but also how intermingled and indistinguishable these two
levels are. The mirror thus stands as a gate between the two worlds.
Another important role of the mirror in the film is revealed when we take a closer
look at Sarah’s background as depicted in the novel. First of all we learn that her father
went mad and died in an asylum. Throughout the story it is emphasized that the people of
Lyme Regis are thinking about committing Sarah to an institution as well. This idea must
make her doubt about her own common sense or at least the sanity of her plans in a way.
This is reflected in the scene that we read before her dismissal from Mrs. Poulteney‘s
service. Fowles writes:
She went to the mirror, but did not look at herself; she slowly covered her face
with her hands, and then very slowly raised her eyes from the fingers. What she
saw she could not bear. Two moments later she was kneeling by her bed and
weeping silently into the worn cover.[66]
This liability to madness is first presented in the film in scene 31. Here Sarah already
knows that Mrs. Poulteney is going to fire her. She is sitting in front of a mirror, looking at
herself while drawing very aggressive, sad, lunatic faces of a woman, probably herself.
The image of the mirror indicates that she is right now looking into her own heart,
examining what is going on in there and she finds that she is in a way mad. This fact is
265
even put into words at the end of the movie which must be due to Harold Pinter’s thorough
concept for the whole of the film. When Charles visits Sarah in Newhouse she says “There
was a madness in me… at the time, a bitterness, an envy” and it is exactly this bitterness
and envy that can be seen on Streep’s face when she looks into the mirror on her last night
at Mrs. Poulteney’s. The fact that Mrs. Fairley’s voice is heard with an echo effect only
emphasizes what state Sarah is in: she is ready to dive into the insane plan she foresaw.
Since Anna/Sarah is not the only one who has to step in and out of reality, it is not
only her reflection that can be seen in the story. Mike also has to decide whether he accepts
that with Anna he can only have a short love affair – she is American, has a friend and a
separate life which she is not willing to sacrifice for his sake – or whether he is stepping in
into the level of the film, and identifies rather with Charles in this situation and pursues a
relationship with Anna. This moment is duly emphasized in the scene where we see Mike
smoking at the window while his image is reflected in it. He looks at Anna who whispers
the name of Davide while stirring in her sleep. It is obvious that Anna will never be his in
the long run but he keeps fighting for her as Charles fights for Sarah. Thus again, as in the
case of Anna, Mike also steps into another reality through the reflected image without
realizing that the life on the other side of the mirror is not reality.
There is one last scene where the mirror image reappears. It is Anna’s last
appearance in the movie in scene 74. She escapes her colleagues and decides to go off
without saying goodbye to Mike. She rushes up the stairs, packs her stuff but in her
dressing room she finally sits down, stops for a second and looks into the mirror. This is
the moment where she has to part the role of Sarah. With this image Reisz created a sort of
frame to the film, as at the beginning we saw Anna leaving her identity behind, stepping
into the film, taking on the role and destiny of Sarah, as well as, her role as a lover of
Mike, whereas in the last scene we see her departing the role of the mysterious lover. Here
again, the mirror functions as a gate through which Anna stepped out into reality leaving
Mike behind.
As we then saw above a serious mirror symbolism can be detected in the film of
Karel Reisz. There is however another covert allegory of the mirror that can be found in
the book, and perhaps also in the film. It may be assumed that Sarah herself is a mirror to
the society around her. She shows the people of Lyme Regis how hypocritical and
judgmental they are. By representing her shame she tries to make them face their own
sexual desires, with the debatable freedom of men, and the over restrictive position of
women in society. Those who are courageous enough to take a look at their own souls in
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her image would have to admit that they either desire the same thing she did, or have
already committed it but keep quiet about it. And the most interesting thing is that the
crime that makes her the mirror of the community was not even committed. She is
innocent, “she proves to be a virgin and thus just as harmless as the majority of those
women […] who became the embodiment of ‘evil’ in the eyes of their ‘Christian’
persecutors.“[67] After seeing her as a witch we now might see her as the perfect victim. Yet
she is only too well aware of her innocence and her plans with Charles to be declared
innocent. Interestingly enough, it is finally only Charles whom Sarah succeeds to
enlighten, who sees his own reflection in her mirror.
SEXUALITY AND LIBIDO IN THE FILM
As it is illustrated above, Fowles creates a sexually tense atmosphere around his characters.
The narrator’s comments being lost in the film, this atmosphere can only be illustrated
through mimic, gestures, or little remarks. But if there is no real attraction or passion
between the main characters the overall tension gets lost. Fortunately, there is a certain
kind of chemistry between Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep that reflects all the background
information we find in the novel about the attraction of Charles and Sarah. The emphasis
is, however, on the free sexual life of Anna and Mike. The anachronism lies in the fact that
even though Mike and Anna live in a so called sexually free world, they still have to hide
their desires. Charles, as opposed to Mike, breaks up his engagement to Ernestina, gives up
his comfortable life and decides to marry Sarah, whereas Mike does not even tell his wife
what happened between him and Anna. There is an intriguing paradox here: the Victorian
age tolerated the fact that men were occasionally or even regularly visiting brothels, had
lovers and looked for sexual experience outside of marriage, if these were done in relative
silence. Here lies the hypocrisy of the Victorian age we judge so harshly. As opposed to
this we claim to be living in a free, enlightened modern age, but Mike is not man enough to
stand up to his deeds. He is just as hypocritical as any man in the Victorian age. Of course,
his situation also depends on Anna, who looks at their relationship as a fleeting affaire and
is not ready to give up whatever she has with Davide. She also seems bothered by Mike’s
love and affection.
It is interesting to see that Reisz and Pinter decided to leave out the orgy scene and
the events following it. In the novel, after drinking with his former university mates,
Charles realizes “he needed a woman, he needed intercourse.” He goes along with the
267
other two to a brothel where costumed girls dance erotically before them. After a while
Charles becomes cloyed with the scene and leaves the company. This is when he meets a
prostitute who orders wine for him to her flat. He almost sleeps with her but on hearing
that her name is Sarah, Charles “began to vomit into the pillow beside her shocked,
flungback head.” (249) Of course, these parts would have made the film more drastic and it
may had been rated to be suitable only for viewers of 18 and above, which commercially
might not have been such a smart move. At the same time, it is strange that while we live
in a sexually free world we do not dare to represent such delicate matters in the film that
are so shamelessly presented to us in the book. One of the book’s charms lies exactly in the
fact that Fowles decided to do away with all sorts of false shyness. Thus the motivations in
the novel are very often sexuality based, as I have already proved above, which are more or
less lost in the film. In an age when we meet sexuality every single day, which point
Fowles also emphasizes, it seems to be a fake chastity that hindered the filmmakers from
filming these scenes as well.
THE SECOND LEVEL
Since the story of Mike and Anna serves as a curious parallel to Charles and Sarah’s story,
it may seem important that Mike is in love with Anna? I have elaborated above on Charles’
motives in leaving Ernestina, and now the question arises why Mike chooses Anna while
he is not able to throw away his settled family life, his kind wife? What is probably even
more intriguing is whether he really is in love with Anna, or simply with the image and
impressions he has in his mind about her. The answer is, of course, obvious because
Anna’s personality collides with that of Sarah in his head. But what makes the actress so
special that she can be compared to that mysterious woman in the original story?
The woman who is able to turn a married man’s head (especially in a film) has to
be in a way exotic. In scene 60 we can anticipate that, before Anna, Mike’s life must have
been happy as a husband and father. The way his wife treats him reveals that their
relationship is or used to be very intimate. His wife senses right away that something is
distressing Mike. But there is Anna, the young American who is the special bird in the
shooting. She is independent in a way, comes from a different world, has no children, and
is ready to start a relationship with a man she knows “has other obligations.” Just like
Charles used to have in the novel. But the fact that she does not give her soul entirely into
this relationship drives Mike deeper and deeper into the unrequited love he feels for her.
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One symbolic hint to their unbalanced relationship or rather to Mike’s unclear
thinking can be found in scene 38 where Anna comes out of the trailer that has served as
her make-up room. She is fully dressed in her modern clothes, happy and ready to leave for
London. Mike, on the contrary is sitting in his costumes ready to shoot the scenes that still
need to be shot in Lyme Regis. The contrast between their clothes reveals their attitudes
towards their relationship: Anna is back to reality and is about to leave to see her
boyfriend, while Mike is stuck in the dreamland of the Victorian story.
As the movie develops it becomes more and more obvious that Mike is not so much
in love with Anna as with the image he has in his mind about her. This image is a mix of
Anna and Sarah and does not correspond to reality. Let me here quote scene 56 where
Mike and Anna say goodbye to each other as she is going to London.
Mike
Anna
Mike
Anna
Mike
Anna
Mike
Anna
Mike
Anna
Mike
Anna
I’m losing you.
What do you mean?
I’m losing you.
What are you talking about? I’m just going to London for…
Stay tonight.
I can’t.
Why not? You’re a free woman.
Yes I am.
I’m going mad.
No you’re not.
I want you so much.
But you’ve just had me. In Exeter.
In this scene we can see that it is not Mike alone who plays with the balance between film
and reality. Anna here is referring to their love scene they shot together in Exeter where
Charles made love to Sarah. She does not hinder Mike from deluding himself into the
fantasy of Sarah and Anna being in a way one person. At the same time, Anna really
means that she is a free person and as such she is free to leave Mike and consider their
affair to be ended. She goes back to her own life and leaves Mike behind. This
development serves as the foundation for the second ending of the novel.
THE ENDINGS
As it is widely known there are three endings in The French Lieutenant’s Woman. The
first, idealistic ending we find in the chapter 44. After Charles falls asleep he sees that
everything ends well, according to the morals of the Victorian society. He marries
Ernestina, gives her the brooch he bought for her, they have several children, live happily
269
ever after, and Mrs. Poulteney goes to hell. Although this is surely wishful thinking on
Charles’ part, it is still a possible romantic way to end the story. This ending is omitted
from the film.
The second ending, in which Sarah and Charles unite after so many adversities, is
included in the film except for one cardinal element: it is not even mentioned that Sarah
and Charles had a daughter. Here Sarah simply apologizes for her behavior and we see
them rowing off happily in a picturesque landscape. Nevertheless, the meaning of the
second ending is perfectly demonstrated in the film.
The third ending is represented through the contemporary level of the film. We see
that at the goodbye party Anna rushes off without even saying goodbye to Mike. He runs
after her but finds only her wig hung on its stand. By the way he strokes it one can imagine
that the hair Anna wore on the set grew close to his heart. He faintly caresses the wig as if
it were Anna’s own hair. As he hears a car leaving, he rushes to the window and shouts
“Sarah” proving that he was, after all, in love with the role of the mysterious woman Anna
played in the film and not with Anna herself. This is the first time we see a character in
contemporary clothes on the set, which again represents that Mike was not able to separate
real life from the film. In the novel we read that after leaving Sarah and being convinced
that their relationship has no future, Charles “at last found an atom of faith in himself, a
true uniqueness, on which to build.”[68] This sort of hope is not reflected on Mike’s face as
he desperately sinks onto the pillows and lights a cigarette. The way he sits corresponds to
his posture in scene 69 where Anna leaves their house with Davide. We might assume then
that in scene 69 he then lost Anna, and in the last scene he lost Sarah, his mysterious love.
All that remains to him is to go back to his family and ordinary life.
CONCLUSION
As I stated already in the introduction of this chapter, the film and the novel are two
different media which do not by all means have priority above each other. Fowles’ book is
a peculiar experimental novel that has been made into an experimental film. It needs to be
admitted that once an author sells the rights of the book to be filmed he has little control
over his own story. Fowles also saw this and said in and interview:
I don’t believe in exact fidelity. The kind of director I’ve learned to distrust is
the one who says, Mr Fowles, I love your book, I’m not going to change a line
of it. I think in all good conversations, the scriptwriter finds a metaphor for the
novel, he doesn’t try to reproduce it.[69]
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And this is exactly what Pinter did. He created a new story, embedded it into the old one
and by doing all this in a different medium, he got a very unique picture that was became a
great success in 1981.
[1]
Geoffrey Wagner, The Novel and the Cinema (Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson. University Press,
1975) 222-223.
[2]
Dudley Andrew, Concepts in Film Theory. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984)
[3]
Stefan Horlacher, Visualität und Visualitätskritik im Werk von John Fowles (Tübingen: Gunter Narr
Verlag Tübingen, 1998), 113.
“die entworfenen Bilder von Femininität und Maskulinität [sind] Teil einer Kritik an den patriarchalen
Gesellschaftsverhältnissen, die auch über explizite Kommentare, historische Dokumente und episodenhafte
Beispiele betrieben wird.”
[4]
John Fowles, ‘The Art of Fiction No. 109,’ Paris Review, 23 March 2007,
http://www.theparisreview.org/viewinterview.php/prmMID/2415.
[5]
See Introduction.
[6]
Richard Combs, ‘In Search of “The French Lieutenant’s Woman,”’ Sight and Sound, Winter 1980/81, 39.
[7]
John Fowles, The French Lieutenant’s Woman (New York: New American Library, 1970), 10.
[8]
Werner Kamp, Autorkonzepte und Filminterpretation. (Franfurt am Main: Peter Lang Verlag, 1996), 102.
[9]
Kamp 103.
[10]
Fowles 28.
[11]
It is interesting to note that there are all together three instances in the novel where Fowles alludes to
World War II. The first one can be found on page 23 where he says about Mrs. Poulteney that “there would
have been a place in the Gestapo for that lady”. Later on we read the section quoted above, and after that on
page 88 we read his comment: “Mrs. Poulteney used ‘person’ as two patriotic Frenchmen might have said
‘Nazi’ during the occupation.” This reinforces the fact that the Second World War had a great disillusioning
affect on Fowles as well, even if it is presented here in a humorous way.
[12]
Fowles 64.
[13]
Fowles 65.
[14]
Fowles 80.
[15]
Fowles 248.
[16]
Fowles 254.
[17]
Fowles 17.
[18]
Fowles 18.
[19]
Quoted from the New American Bible
[20]
Fowles 47.
[21]
Fowles 48.
[22]
Fowles 49.
[23]
Fowles 29.
[24]
Fowles 78.
[25]
Fowles 99.
[26]
Fowles 99.
[27]
Fowles 115.
[28]
Fowles 214.
[29]
Fowles 216.
[30]
Fowles 70.
[31]
Fowles 61.
[32]
Fowles 212.
[33]
Fowles 213.
[34]
Fowles 278-9.
[35]
Fowles 90- 91.
271
[36]
Fowles 202.
Fowles 296.
[38]
Fowles 201.
[39]
Fowles 98.
[40]
Fowles 94.
[41]
Fowles 97.
[42]
Fowles 107.
[43]
Fowles 122.
[44]
Fowles 106.
[45]
Fowles 210.
[46]
Fowles 210.
[47]
Fowles 297-8.
[48]
Horlacher 102.
[49]
Fowles 116.
[50]
Kamp 108-9.
“Sarahs Entsheidung, sich den Anordnung der autoritären Arbeitgeberin zu widerstehen, ist ein wichtiger
emanzipatorischer Schritt. Ihr “langer Sturz” gleicht einer Vertreibung aus der Paradies, der der Autor-Gott
aus dem Garten (Eden) zusieht. Durch ihre Entscheidung wird sie zur modernen, aus der Obhut ihres
Schöpfers entlassenen, eigenverantwortlichen Frau.”
[51]
Fowles 195.
[52]
Horlacher 106.
“Sinnlichkeit, Natürlichkeit, Naturhaftkeit, Körperlichkeit und Sexualität.”
[53]
Fowles 198.
[54]
Horlacher 109.
[55]
Kamp 100.
“sie wird nicht als round character gestaltet. Für den Gentleman Charles ist sie ‘the mysterious other’, für
den Leser wird sie zum ‘super symbol’, bei dem sich das Unausgesprochene der Epoche, der Wechsel und
das Neue in einer Figur bündeln.”
[56]
For further detail about the length and setting of the modern scene, please refer to the shot analysis in the
appendix.
[57]
Sight and Sound, Winter 1980/81, Vol. 50 No 1, 35.
[58]
This technique is very typical of adaptations as one can see in the film Room at the Top for example,
where Jack Clayton’s friend Charles is also created by two characters from the novel.
[59]
See Shot Analysis of the film in the Appendix
[60]
Sight and Sound, Winter 1980/81, Vol. 50 No 1, 34-39.
[61]
Sight and Sound, 1981/82 Vol 51 No 1, 28-29
[62]
Fowles 197.
[63]
[64]
Fowles 220.
[65]
Malcolm Bradbury, No, Not Bloomsbury (London: Andre Deutsch Limited, 1987) 281.
[66]
Fowles 195.
[67]
Kamp 110.
“erweist sich als Jungfrau und als genauso harmlos wie die überwiegende Mehrzahl jener Frauen […], die für
ihre ‚christlichen’ Verfolger zum Inbegriff des ‚Bösen’ wurden.”
[68]
Fowles 366.
[69]
[37]
272
CHAPTER 9
THE REMAINS OF THE DAY
“When a butler is in the room, the room must feel even more empty.”
Cyril Dickman, the retired butler to Queen Elizabeth II[1]
It is never easy to make a confessional diary into film as the whole idea behind the
personal notes is to deliver subjective thoughts rather than simple actions. Such is the case
with Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel The Remains of the Day (1989). Stevens, the central figure of
the novel, recounts to the reader his ideas, experiences, feelings, while he also conveys the
most important happenings that caused his ideas to arise. Of course, his recollections are
utterly subjective and sometimes even unreliable as we will see later. It is then obvious that
in the case of the Merchant Ivory adaptation of the book we cannot talk about a stylistically
faithful adaptation. Only if the filmmakers had decided to insert countless voice-over
sections from Stevens’ recollections could it have been closer to the novel, yet in that case
the product would have ceased to be a feature film. In the medium of film the camera
records what the protagonist thinks and feels without words. Looking at it in this sense,
The Remains of the Day may be a perfect task for filmmakers: a great challenge to
communicate mostly through pictures and not through words the inner feelings of the
butler, who is painfully reserved on the surface but utterly talkative in his diary. Following
from the above, we can state that there is no sense in comparing the film to the novel or in
making a value judgment based on the results. At the same time, it remains more than
intriguing how such a subjective novel can be transferred into an objective heritage film.
THE REMAINS OF THE DAY AS HERITAGE FILM
According to the characteristics listed in Chapter 2 of this dissertation, we can state that
The Remains of the Day (1993) falls into the category of heritage films. It is a period drama
made in the 1990s, the blooming period of the genre. Typical heritage actors, like Anthony
Hopkins (Howards End [1992], Shadowlands [1993]) and Emma Thompson (Howards
End, Carrington [1995], Sense and Sensibilty [1995]) play in the leading roles, while Hugh
Grant (Maurice [1987], Sense and Sensibility) and James Fox (A Passage to India [1984])
are cast in the supporting roles. Of course, the makers of the films, Ismail Merchant, James
Ivory, and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala are best known not only for their contribution to Indian
CHAPTER 9 – THE REMAINS OF THE DAY
273
cinema but mostly for their quality costume dramas, i.e. heritage films. Their movies
Maurice, Howards End, The Remains of the Day, or The Golden Bowl (2000) all illustrate
their professional handling of this genre. Janet Maslin wrote in her Foreword to Robert
Emmet Long’s book about Merchant Ivory Productions that
Films like Howards End, Maurice, A Room With a View, and The Remains of
the Day achieved a perfect fusion of style and subject. These superb films
display a rare assurance, and absolute clarity of vision, that beautifully reflects
the books on which their stories are based.[2]
The film is centered around the upper class whose life is shown through the eyes of the
servants. The contrast between the two classes is perfectly emphasized in scene 6 where
Mr. Stevens Senior is first introduced to Lord Darlington. Here we see the most elegant,
richly furnished library of the lord which is greatly contradicted by the austerity of the
servants’ staircase and rooms in the next scene, where Mr. Stevens Senior is shown to his
room. Yet, it is Stevens who emphasizes in scene 8 that he likes to keep distractions to a
minimum, i.e. he does not want decoration in his room. Of course, this comment
foreshadows his repressed character unfolding later in front of our eyes. He does not object
to beauty as it is, but to anything that requires or arouses emotions within him. The room
of Miss Kenton, on the other hand, is modestly but neatly furnished and creates a warm
impression.
As most heritage films are likely to approach their subjects with a certain
amount of nostalgia, The Remains of the Day is no exception. Here we see England as the
place of noble traditions, even to the smallest of details as it is directly addressed in
Stevens’ pep-talk:
Stevens
History could well be made under this roof over the next few days. You can,
each and every one of you, take great pride in the role you will play on this
momentous occasion. Imagine yourself the head of a battalion even if it is only
filling the hot-water bottles. Each one of you has his own particular duty or her
particular duty as the cap fits. Polished brass, brilliant silver, mahogany
shining like a mirror. That is the welcome we will show these foreign visitors
to let them know they are in England where order and tradition still prevail.
In this England butlers and footman still strive for greatness and dignity, newspapers are
ironed, and political decisions are made by gentlemen amateurs. Yet, this beautiful,
nostalgic view heritage films create is often undermined by serious tension below the
surface. Here we find the failure of Lord Darlington’s and the gentlemen’s appeasement
policy, the unhappiness of the protagonists, and the decline of the British Empire as it is.
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This, and especially the restricting nature of Victorian values depicted in the film, can be
seen as a covert criticism of Thatcherism, which tried to propagate or re-introduce
conservative values to society in the 1980s and 90s.
Once we have mentioned the content, let us now consider the stylistic
characteristics of the film. As the film is set in the 1930s and 1950s, great emphasis is laid
on period furniture and setting. The mise-en-scène of Lord Darlington’s library, the total
shot of the dining-hall at the conference supper, and other meals, for example, become
very significant and receive special attention from the camera. Unmotivated establishing
shots are not unknown to heritage films and the camera’s lingering on different accessories
is very frequent, too, as we see Darlington Hall in scene 15 or 65. For these reasons,
however, Macnab writes the following in his review of the film:
With most of the story told through flashback, the prevailing mood is one of
nostalgia, and it is little wonder The Remains of the Day seems more a lament
for lost grandeur than an indictment of aristocratic folly.[3]
According to him, the beautiful setting dominates the emotions of the viewer who laments
on the lost noble past instead of seeing the wrong decisions of the ruling aristocracy. This
criticism is not uncommon in the case of heritage films, however, through the elaboration
on the different themes below it should come to light that this film criticizes mainly not the
follies of the politicians but more the British emotional restraint of the time. This sort of
stricture upon the social values of the past is very typical of heritage film.
Taking all these characteristics into account, we may state with good reason that
The Remains of the Day is a perfect example of a heritage film.
REASONS BEHIND THE NOVEL AND THE MAKING OF THE FILM
Most of the time, it is difficult to discover the reasons that lead an author or a filmmaker to
work on the project he has chosen for himself. However, in the case of Kazuo Ishiguro and
James Ivory we have different interviews available that tell us what their motivation for
and main idea behind writing the novel or making the film was. In the interview on the
DVD version of the film[4] Ishiguro reveals that he realized, while looking at the history of
the 20th century, that:
… most of us were butlers politically and morally, perhaps, too. We try to take
a sense of dignity, some kind of pride and joy out of doing our little job well.
And we often don’t quite know how our little contribution is going to be used.
275
This idea presented a clever implication of what may happen if we put our trust and service
in the wrong person.
In the same interview section James Ivory says he sees The Remains of the Day as a
“metaphorical, universal human story” about how one can waste his life emotionally and
politically. For him there is a parallel between the private and the public sphere of the
happenings which is underlined by the fact that we see a personal story influenced by the
public events. A. Rober Lee also notes that
Stevens meditates on the question of ‘what is a great butler?’ – a question with
few apparent cosmic implications but Ishiguro teases out the issue through the
dissimulations of the butler until the question can be seen as a mask for the real
question of a nation. What makes a great leader? Who is deserving loyalty?
How can one have dignity without autonomy? It becomes evident that the
feudal values of unquestioning service to a master are not conductive to
democratic society nor to personal fulfillment and that what makes a great
butler may not make a very complete man.[5]
The ideals of feudal values and the Empire itself are then brought to a close in Ishiguro’s
story. Because Stevens spends his time in the country it becomes evident that not only has
the old world based upon duty and honor passed but so did his personal life. Thus the
public and the personal are connected in a post-colonial story.
For producer Ismail Merchant the topicality of the story lay in the fact that people
seem to make the same mistakes over and over again. In this aspect he refers to the
historical content of The Remains of the Day. At the time they decided to make the film the
Bosnian conflict (March 1992-November 1995) broke out. Interestingly enough, Ishiguro
and Merchant refer to the historical message of Stevens’ memoir while Ivory concentrates
on the parallel human story. He also notes to Long that he saw predecessors in Stevens’
story in the figures of Evelyn Waugh and Nancy Mitford but most importantly in Daphne
du Maurier’s novel Rebecca. He says, “Certainly Stevens the butler and Mrs. Danvers the
housekeeper resembled each other in their mad infatuations for their employers, which
allowed them to look away from, or cover up, anything criminal, like persecution of the
Jews, or possible murder”[6]
HISTORICAL RELEVANCE
In heritage cinema history never comes to the foreground explicitly. We usually face
historical facts through the lives of the protagonists as in Tea With Mussolini (1999), The
276
Madness of King George (1994), or in this case The Remains of the Day. Andrew Higson
also notes:
…on the one hand emotionality is always restrained (that is its poignancy in
English cinema), and on the other hand, the epic quality, the public space of
national history, is always personalized. The overtly political is occluded in
most of these films, appearing only as an intrusion in what are at heart stories
of thwarted love affairs (the arrest of Lord Risley for soliciting a soldier in
Maurice, the fascist sympathies of Lord Darlington in The Remains of the Day,
the memories of the First World War in Mrs Dalloway). The emphasis on the
pleasures of costume and interior design ensures that political context is often
reduced to decorative spectacle.[7]
As already mentioned above artistic shooting, the rich mise-en-scène is very important
indeed in The Remains of the Day, yet the historical line of the story, the scenes of the
conference and different meetings also play a vital role as parallels to the story of Stevens
and Miss Kenton. The decline of Lord Darlington and Darlington Hall signifies the
dissolution of Miss Kenton’s hopes and eventually the downgrade of Stevens’ career. But
Higson is right when he states that history as it is never stands in the center of heritage
movies. For these reasons Ivory was never really interested in reading about the actual
political situation of the period. As he notes, it was after the film was made and he started
to read into the topic that he discovered such people as Oswald Moseley and the ‘Cliveden
set’, i.e. politically influential fascist politicians or slightly anti-Semitic aristocratic circles,
really existed[8].
For Ishiguro the main question lies not in the historical facts but in personal
histories. “What would we do if we were caught up in this situation?” he asks. The
appeasement politics of the 1930s turned out to be an aberration yet it is always easy to see
the failures of others when looking back. At the moment many people only saw that, as
Hopkins also notes in the DVD interview, “the Treaty of Versaille was really brutal and
unfair,” brought Germany to its knees financially and economically which obviously gave
rise to demagogues and fanatic groups and politicians. It is always easy to see and criticize
from hindsight but at the time who could tell? People and politicians could have read
Hitler’s Mein Kampf, still they did not see or did not understand its meaning, just as they
could not foretell the deeds of Mussolini, Hitler or Stalin, whereas they wanted to believe
in a utopia. Even Chamberlain pressed Czechoslovakia to give up the Sudetenland and
thought he achieved peace by this act in 1938.
In Ishiguro’s case the topic of World War II is specifically important but from a
different point of view. He was born in Nagasaki, Japan in 1954, only a few years after the
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war and the devastation of the atomic bombs. When he sees the totalitarian Japan of the
time the real question for him becomes:
If I was born just a few years earlier, you know, if I was born just one
generation earlier, what would I have done? Would I have had the perspective,
the insight and the courage, physical and moral courage, to stand outside of
that fervent?[9]
Nobody knows the answer to such questions but it is interesting to see how people kept
excusing themselves after the war by saying they did not know what was really going on.
They were only following orders. Stevens also realizes that he served a Lord who directed
his people in the wrong direction and he, the butler made all these decisions indirectly
possible by his service. At this point he also says “I was only a servant. What else could I
do?” And then the question arises: “What if he had chosen a less significant but also less
risky private life with Miss Kenton?”
The historical event of the conference can also be seen as the symbol of the last
supper. The fact that the greatest event of the conference is the “last supper” is very telling
and it is only supported by the German lady sitting on the right of Lord Darlington, just
like Judas on Jesus’ side. The only difference is that Jesus knew what was going to happen
whereas Lord Darlington is really deceived by his own hopes. He is betrayed by the
Germans and his reputation is ruined without the hope of resurrection. Parallel to his
lordship’s downfall, Stevens considers the conference as his greatest achievement in his
career as a butler. Yet his accomplishment turns out to be nothing as he served the wrong
lord. Thus history mirrors the fate of the protagonists step by step throughout the story.
Before going into details about the themes that appear in the novel and in the film, let us
now take a look at the major cardinal functions of the novel and how they were adapted to
film.
1
2
3
4
5
278
Major Cardinal Functions
Letter from Miss Kenton arouses the idea of the trip
After Mr Farraday takes over, a new way of life is introduced to
Darlington Hall (faulty staff plan, bantering)
On the trip Stevens stops at Salisbury and delights in the beautiful
landscape
Stories about Mr Stevens Senior illustrating what dignity is (tiger in
India, drunk gentlemen, being a footman to the general of his dead
son)
Miss Kenton and Mr Stevens Senior arrive to Darlington Hall
Time
1950s
A?[10]
*
√
Before
1920s
1922
*
7
Miss Kenton comes in with flowers which Stevens considers a
distraction
Mr Stevens Senior leaves the dustpan on the landing
8
Mr Stevens Senior displaces the Chinaman
6
9 Mr Stevens Senior’s nose is dripping
10 Mr Stevens Senior falls with the tray
11 Preparation for the great conference, Stevens’ pep-talk
*
March
1923
12 Mr Stevens Senior gets new duties with the cleaning trolley
13 Miss Kenton scolded as if she has missed out on her duties
14 Stevens’ first attempt to talk to Mr Cardinal about “birds and bees”
*
15 Conference opens
16 Mr Stevens Senior taken ill
17 Mr Lewis talks to Mr Dupont in secret
18 Stevens goes to his father
19 Lord Darlington’s speech
20 Mr Dupont’s speech
*
21 Mr Lewis’ speech
22 Mr Stevens Senior dies
23 The Ford breaks down and Stevens goes to an old Victorian house
where the chauffeur helps him
24 Stevens denies having served Lord Darlington (2nd) to the chauffeur
25 Stevens denies having served Lord Darlington (1st) to the Wakefields
26 Stevens checks in to a little inn
28 Contemplation on the polish of the silver and how it influenced
historical meetings
28 Jewish maids dismissed
29 Conflict with Miss Kenton about the dismissal; Miss Kenton threatens
to leave the house
30 One year later Lord Darlington inquires about the Jewish girls; Miss
Kenton admits to her cowardice for not leaving the house then
31 Lisa as the new girl
32 The Ford runs out of petrol
33 Stevens contemplates on the changes in his relationship with Miss
Kenton
34 The flower incident retold
35 The book incident
1950s
1930s
√
√
√
√
√
*
1950s
*
1930s
√
36 Miss Kenton makes full use of her days off
37 The breaking up of the cocoa evenings
38 Miss Kenton’s aunt dies, and when Stevens wants to express his
condolences it only comes to a scolding
39 In the inn people are excited about the visitor and wait impatiently for
Dr Carlisle
√
1950s
279
40 Stevens passes himself off as a gentleman of greater importance
41 Harry’s speech about freedom and Hitler
42 At Darlington Hall Stevens is being questioned by Mr Spencer who
thus proves that total democracy is a mad idea
43 Dr Carlisle gives Stevens a lift and figures that he is not the important
gentleman he gave himself out to be
44 A new contemplation about dignity
45 Mr Cardinal shows up unexpectedly at Darlington Hall
1935
1950s
1930s
46 A secret meeting is held for the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary,
and Herr Ribbentrop
47 Miss Kenton accepts Mr Benn’s proposal, then offends Stevens
48 Cardinal tries to talk sense to Stevens
49 Miss Kenton apologizing to Stevens, crying
50 Stevens meets Miss Kenton and it becomes clear that she has no
intention of coming back to service
51 Stevens worries about how Mr Benn treats Miss Kenton/Mrs Benn
and wishes her to enjoy her time with her husband
52 Miss Kenton/Mrs Benn leaves by bus
53 Stevens sits down on the pier
54 Stevens talks to a stranger and breaks down sobbing
55 Stevens makes the cheerful decision that he will go on polishing his
bantering skills to impress his new employer
1950s
*
*
√
√
As we can see in the right column most of the major cardinal functions have been adapted
by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. At the same time, there are numerous functions that have been
altered and a few were left out. In the case of function 2 the viewer hears about the staff
problems and the faulty staff plan through the letter from Stevens to Mrs Benn, which is
read out in a voice-over as opposed to the novel where he writes about the subject in his
notes to the reader. Function 3 is left out all together as were most of the landscape scenes,
but there is an added hunting scene which serves more for the nostalgia of the audience
than the contemplation of Stevens. We will see later that the English landscape plays a
major role in the novel as it inspires Stevens to think about the past and present issues
occupying his mind. Of course, it is only the subject of these contemplations which can be
filmed and that is perfectly done by Jhabvala. In function 23-24 we see how Stevens asks
for help from another chauffeur/butler to whom he denies having worked for Lord
Darlington. This incident is totally left out of the film. We see the added scene 36, instead,
where Stevens goes to a little grocery shop to pick up a letter from Mrs Benn. It is to the
owner of this shop that he denies ever serving Lord Darlington. In the book the first denial
leads him to confess that the very first time he was also unwilling to tell someone that he
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served Lord Darlington was when the American Wakefield couple visited his new
employer, Mr Farraday. The second denial in the film, however, is to Dr Carlisle although
in the book Stevens does not shy away from admitting to him that he is the butler of
Darlington Hall. In the original they never talk about Lord Darlington and his fascist
views. Nevertheless Jhabvala inserts a discussion here that partly makes up for Stevens’
last conversation with the stranger on the pier. Stevens states when Dr Carlisle asks him:
Dr Carlisle
Stevens
Dr Carlisle
Stevens
Dr Carlisle
Stevens
Dr Carlisle
Stevens
But did you share his opinions?
Who?
Lord Darlington.
Well, I was his butler. I was there to serve him, not to agree or disagree.
You trusted him.
Yes, I did. Completely. But at the end of his life his lordship admitted
that he’d been… mistaken. That he’d been gullible and he’d let himself
be taken in.
…
I say, I don’t want to be a bore, but I’m intrigued. I mean where do you
stand in all that? If a mistake is to be made wouldn’t you rather have
made your own? Sorry, for being so inquisitive.
Not at all, sir. In a very small way I did make my own mistake. But I
might still have the chance to set mine right. In fact, I’m on my way to
try and do so now. Yes.
As we will see later, Stevens raises the issue of not being able to make his own mistakes
himself at the end of the novel. He is not confronted with this idea by someone else but he
alone finally realizes what a fool he was in serving Lord Darlington so blindly. Here we
see how a deleted scene or a character’s thought is integrated into another sequence so that
the meaning of the novel does not get lost.
The next striking difference comes in segment 32 in the film which should
correspond to functions 19-21 in the novel. In the movie the scene opens with the German
Baroness assuring the gentlemen at the last dinner of the conference that Germany wants
peace and desires peace. She is able to charm all the men around her with her ravishing
talk. Following Mr Dupont’s reaction to this speech Mr Lewis stands up and states his
famous view about the participants of the conference being gentlemen amateurs. At this
point Lord Darlington answers him in a short monologue about honor. Now, in the book
the German lady is not present at all and the words she utters in the film are mostly taken
from Lord Darlington’s speech which starts the row of speeches at the dinner. By the
insertion of the Baroness Jhabvala created a somewhat different image of the gentlemen
present: here they seem to be taken rather by the feminine charms of the Baroness than by
simple amateurism.
281
The dismissal of the Jewish maids, Elsa and Irma, in function 28 is made more
dramatic in the film. Here we see in scene 37 that two young refugee girls are introduced to
Lord Darlington who takes them in as housemaids. However, after the visit of Sir Geoffrey
and after reading sections from Houston Stewart Chamberlain’s The Foundations of the
Nineteenth Century he decides that they are not wanted in the house anymore. So the
innocent refugees are sent off with little help which seems very drastic in this situation. In
the book the dismissal of the Jewish housemaids is not as dramatic yet probably even more
unfair. The two maids had been serving Lord Darlington for six years, i.e. long before the
dawn of fascism, and despite their excellent work they are still sent off. This change in
function 28 does not alter the course of actions, however it gives a different perspective to
the act of Lord Darlington.
The next rather significant change occurs in function 50 and 51. Here we read in the
book that Mrs Benn went back to her husband already and knows about her coming
grandchild. Again, for the sake of a more dramatic plot this section has been altered in the
film. Here we see Mr. Benn coming to Mrs. Benn at her hotel, telling her how empty the
house is without her. Then he also mentions the great news that makes Mrs. Benn change
her mind and ends in her going back to her husband. This is, of course, all done in the last
moment as she is about to leave to meet Mr. Stevens. Just before this the viewer is relieved
that finally Stevens and Miss Kenton will end up together somehow. Yet, in the novel the
whole issue is filled with less expectation as Mrs. Benn states that she loves her husband
and one has no other choice but to believe her. Interestingly enough there is more emphasis
laid on Stevens’ concerns about how Mr. Benn treats Mrs. Benn. Their conversation at the
hotel is more intimate, more direct than the one found in the film. They dare to utter such
sentences without any shyness, as
I get irritated when I think what kind of a life I might have had with you, Mr.
Stevens. And I suppose that’s when I get angry over some trivial little thing
and leave. But each time I do so, I realize before long – my rightful place is
with my husband. After all, there’s no turning back the clock now.[11]
After this we read Stevens thinking: “Indeed – why should I not admit it? – at that moment,
my heart was breaking.”[12] Such direct utterances from Mrs. Benn and such an obvious
admission from Stevens do not appear in the film, where the following conversation takes
place instead:
Miss
Kenton
282
When I left Darlington Hall all those years ago, I never realized I was really,
truly leaving. I believe I thought of it simply another ruse, Mr. Stevens, to
annoy you. It was a shock to come out here and find myself actually married.
Stevens
For a long time I was very unhappy. But then Cathrine was borne, the years
went by and one day I realized I loved my husband. You see, there is no one
in the world who needs me as much as he does. But still there are times
when I think what a terrible mistake I made with my life.
Yeah. Well, I’m sure we all have these thoughts from time to time.
Here Mrs. Benn makes it clear that she knows Stevens might need her now but her rightful
place is with her husband, and no one needs her as much as Mr. Benn. Stevens reacted to
her feelings to late. But as the situation is built up one has no doubt that they both know
they made a terrible mistake.
At this point we come to the most significant omission from the film, i.e. the pier
scene where Stevens talks to a stranger and breaks down maybe for the first time in his life.
He confesses that he makes more and more mistakes, meaning that he needs to realize he
has become old. Just like his father who was forbidden to wait at table after 54 years of
serving there every day. He has become an old man who needs to draw the account of his
life which he wasted on serving the wrong person. He says, “All those years I served him. I
trusted I was doing something worthwhile. I can’t even say I made my own mistakes.”[13]
But at the end he realizes he needs to get himself together and make the best of what he
has. This is the attitude he develops as he goes back to Darlington Hall. However strange it
may seem that this key scene was left out of the film, we need to note that it is made up for
in many respects. First of all, much of the significant, personal conversation between Mrs.
Benn and Mr. Stevens takes place on the pier where people cheer as the lights come up.
Also, the remark about making one’s own mistakes is included in the film but, as we have
seen above, it is not Stevens who comes to this conclusion but Dr. Carlisle who asks him
when giving him a lift. Thus the most important parts of functions 53 and 54 are included
in the film.
Concerning function 55 we need to note that as opposed to the novel, in the film we
see Stevens returning to Darlington Hall and taking up his duties anew. We learn that he
was able to find a new housekeeper, a former matron while three girls also came up from
the village to help him prepare the house. He is then ready to take up his dignified position
as the butler of Darlington Hall. He, however, does not seem different. We do not know
about the decision he made in the book, namely that he will take a more positive look on
his life and practice his bantering skill to make his American employer satisfied. We see a
pigeon flying in the room and being let out after some struggle. The imprisoned love affair
from years ago is finally let free. The camera then shows Stevens as he closes the windows
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and remains in the prison of his chosen course. The symbolism of the shot is obvious and
leaves the viewer with a sort of sorrow and consciousness of a wasted life.
After the overview of the major cardinal functions and their adaptation into the film
it is striking how close the film follows the happenings found in the book. This is all the
more interesting since we have already stated that the subjectivity of the original is turned
to its opposite in the film.
CHARACTER FUNCTIONS
After taking an overview of how and to what extent the major cardinal functions have been
adapted to screen, let us now consider the characters that appear in these functions and
scenes. First, we need to mention the main protagonist, Stevens. As emphasized several
times above, his character is totally changed from a(n unreliable) narrator in the book to
the most isolated, suppressed, and silent personality in the movie. In the novel we have an
almost talkative, grandpa-like, aging figure who addresses the reader in several asides thus
making the tone of the book personal, whereas in the film we see a typical example of the
British stiff-upper-lip personality. His doubts about his way of life are only expressed
when he is telling Dr. Carlisle he is on his way to make a mistake right. The key to his
personality in the film is then his total silence and lack of emotion or direct
communication. These indirect communications and fine gestures are exactly what
fascinated the critics most about Hopkins’ performance. “As Stevens, the perfect butler, Sir
Anthony Hopkins gives a landmark performance of true romantic longing” writes Peter
Travers[14] while Rita Kempley notes “Hopkins gives the performance of his life as the
closely guarded gentleman's gentleman. With only an arched brow, a slight weariness in
his stride, the flicker of a smile, he leaves you shattered. It's a measured performance,
pitched to the rafters.”[15] The tension created by the constant self-justification of Stevens in
the book is replaced by his lack of any kind of explanation of his deeds. It is then
fascinating that these two antithetic characters can create such a similar effect in the book
and the movie.
The other important person in the story is Miss Kenton, whose character has been
adapted very much faithfully. Her stature, her constant attempts to get any form of personal
or human reaction from Stevens are all present in the movie. This may be seen in the
flowers, the Chinaman affair, the book affair, or her offense against Stevens after she
accepted Mr. Benn’s proposal of marriage. It is obvious that she is trying – as much as the
284
conservative Victorian morals allow her – to get him to say what he feels, to ask her to stay
or let her go in a personal way, but it never happens. She realizes and tries to keep in mind
that he really has emotions and even asks him in connection to the Jewish affair: “Why, Mr
Stevens, why, why, why do you always have to pretend?”[16] while in the film we hear the
following conversation:
Stevens
Miss Kenton
Stevens
Miss Kenton
[Lord Darlington] said it was wrong to dismiss [Elsa and Irma]. I
thought you would like to know as I remember you were just as
distressed as I was about it.
As you were? As I recall, you thought it was only right and proper that
they should be sent packing.
Now, really, Miss Kenton, that is most unfair. Of course I was upset.
Very much so. I don’t like to see that sort of thing happening in this
house.
Well, I wish you’d told me so at the time. It would’ve helped me a
great deal if I had known you felt the same way as I did. Why… Why,
Mr. Stevens, why do you always have to hide what you feel?!
This question and the usage of the word ‘always’ reveal that Miss Kenton is aware of the
fact that there are deeper strata in Stevens’ personality, yet she has no means to bring his
emotions and private thoughts to the surface. In this situation his answer is disturbed by the
entrance of Lizzie but he would have probably said something utterly decent and
impersonal in reaction to Miss Kenton’s honest inquiry. The alteration of the conversation
found in function 51 is, however, a key difference between the two media. Through this
conversation in the book it becomes clear that Miss Kenton/Mrs Benn and Stevens both
understand that they have missed a chance owing to his absurd reservedness and to her
escape into a marriage. Mrs. Benn is more direct in this situation in the book as it has
already been quoted above. From her words it is obvious that she does not mean to conceal
what she felt and hoped for in those days and years at Darlington Hall. Yet, after so many
years there is no possibility of turning back the clock. Other than this change, her character
and actions remain very close to the original.
The character of Lord Darlington, wonderfully played by James Fox, is again an
example of a faithful adaptation. The only difference is that in the book we hear him
contemplate about his politics and views more often and also in greater detail. Such is the
case, for example, when he apologizes to Stevens about the behavior of Mr. Spencer who
questioned and humiliated Stevens by cross-examining him about politics. It is obvious
that his lordship supposes that Stevens also has human feelings and did not take the
285
incident too lightly. He then goes on to justify the action of Mr. Spencer and to elaborate
his views on the situation of democracy and his country. He says,
We’re always the last, Stevens. Always the last to be clinging on to outmoded
systems. But sooner or later, we’ll need to face up to the facts. Democracy is
something for a bygone era. The world’s far too complicated a place now for
universal suffrage and such like…Ordinary, decent working people are
suffering terribly. Germany and Italy have set their houses in order by acting.
And so have the wretched Bosheviks in their own way, one supposes.[17]
Through such comments in the book the reader understands how and why Lord Darlington
could have been deceived by the Germans. It is not their fascist ideas but his experience of
the stagnating social situation of the European countries between the two world wars that
led him to his actions. In the film we only hear his monologue directed to Stevens about
the situation in Germany and his terrible experience of seeing his friend, Karl-Heinz
Bremann turning desperate and committing suicide. We see his good will but not his
deeper convictions. For this reason his character is much flatter in the film than in the
book, yet he keeps his main function as the deceived lord of Darlington Hall and the noble
employer of Stevens and his staff.
One of the more conspicuous changes made in the character functions can be
detected in the person of Darlington Hall’s new owner. According to the book, Stevens’
new employer is Mr. Farraday who has nothing to do with the conference before the war or
with Lord Darlington for that reason. He is simply an American who wanted to buy a nice
English country house with a reliable staff. He confesses this view after Stevens denies
ever serving Lord Darlington to the Wakefields and thus makes Mr. Farraday look “pretty
much a fool.”[18] Here he says
I mean to say, Stevens, this is a genuine grand old English house, isn’t it?
That’s what I paid for. And you’re a genuine old-fashioned English butler, not
just some waiter pretending to be one. You’re the real thing, aren’t you? That’s
what I wanted, isn’t it what I have?[19]
This quote illustrates how new England to Mr. Farraday is and that he does not have any
idea what life really was like before at Darlington Hall. This stands in contrast to Mr.
Lewis who participated in the conference in 1923. In the film it is Congressman Lewis who
buys the house probably out of sentiment. It remains, however, unclear why he is so
attached to the house where the former owner was so severely criticized by him as an
amateur politician. Of course, this change serves the coherence of the story and simplifies
the net of characters.
286
Another change in the characters can be observed in the person of Mr. Benn. In the
book he is only mentioned by Mrs. Benn as a former acquaintance, a butler at Granchester
Lodge whose abilities are faint compared to Mr. Stevens’, and who does not even appear
personally in the story. As opposed to the novel, in the film he is introduced well before his
proposal to Miss Kenton. He visits Darlington Hall as the footman to Sir Geoffrey and has
a leisurely conversation with Stevens about politics and the butler’s contentedness. It is
interesting again that Jhabvala turned the original Mr. Graham into Mr. Benn. Not only did
he become the person who realizes the potential emotional life in Miss Kenton but he also
receives some parts of the conversations that occur between Stevens and Miss Kenton later
on. Thus Stevens’ monologue about being contented is addressed to Mr. Benn whereas in
the novel he addresses Miss Kenton with the following lines:
As far as I am concerned, Miss Kenton, my vocation will not be fulfilled until I
have done all I can to see his lordship through the great tasks he has set
himself. The day his lordship’s work is complete, the day he is able to rest on
his laurels, content in the knowledge that he has done all anyone could ever
reasonably ask of him, only on that day, Miss Kenton, will I be able to call
myself, as you put it, a well-contented man.[20]
Thus we can see how the scriptwriter merged two characters and two situations into one, in
a way that allows continuity and coherence to the story.
By bringing in Mr. Benn in person into the story the ground is set for his master, Sir
Geoffrey. In the film it seems to be mostly his fascist views that push Lord Darlington into
a more radical direction. We hear Sir Geoffrey stating that for him concentration camps are
like prisons in Britain while Mr. Benn alludes to the fishy things his lord and Stevens’
employer are probably talking about. In the book, nonetheless, it is about Mrs. Barnet that
we read,
…she made some sort of contribution to Lord Darlington’s developing concern
for the poor of our country and as such, her influence cannot be said to have
been entirely negative. But she was too, of course, a member of Sir Oswald
Mosley’s ‘blackshirts’ organization, and the very little contact his lordship ever
had with Sir Oswald occurred during those few weeks of that summer. And it
was during those same weeks that those entirely untypical incidents took place
at Darlington Hall which must, one supposes, have provided what flimsy basis
exists for these absurd allegations.[21]
It is in these few weeks that his lordship makes Stevens dismiss the two Jewish
housemaids and creates the basis of his accusation of being a fascist. However, in the film
the dismissal scene comes right after the visit of Sir Geoffrey. Thus the direct historical
287
reference to Sir Mosley is lost and what remains is an anti-Semitic lord who does not eat
meat. As stated above, this change is more justifiable if we consider that the scriptwriter
wanted to bring in Mr. Benn to the story and he, of course, could not be the footman to a
lady. Still, I believe this change makes Lord Darlington’s rather anti-Semitist convictions
and their origin less understandable.
The last significant change that occurs in the film version concerns the man on the
pier who sits beside Stevens as he breaks down. He is partly substituted by Mrs. Benn and
Dr. Carlisle as we have seen above, but his character is mostly deleted. Still, he has a key
role from the novel’s point of view. As an outsider he is able to make Stevens realize the
real loss in his life. It is before him that Stevens does not have “to keep up appearances”
but can be honest about his deteriorating abilities, his situation as a mislead butler, his
mistake of letting no one close to himself. It is only before him that he allows himself to
cry. Seeing the importance of these revelations in Stevens’ life, Hopkins strongly objected
Jhabvala’s script as it did not contain this scene. As Ivory notes in an interview:
Anthony Hopkins had already agreed to do the film, but when he saw Ruth’s
new script minus that scene, he got very upset. He said, as actors often do
about some deleted scene, that the scene defined everything, defined his
character, was the movie’s most important scene… We did shoot the scene, but
nature was against him that night because just as we were trying to shoot, there
was a wild storm out on the pier… once it had been cut out, Anthony Hopkins
never seemed to miss it.[22]
From the directors point of view it seems then, that this scene has been successfully
integrated into other parts of the film and such an emotional outburst was unnecessary. It is
true: the idea of Stevens admitting all he had done wrong and his great change to a positive
attitude at the very end is perfectly constructed in the book whereas it would have meant
suddenly too much communication on Stevens’ side in the film. Hopkins’ fine gestures
seem to express enough of his disappointment on hearing that Mrs. Benn will not come
back to service, after all. But they also give account of his returned self-assurance as the
viewer sees him back at Darlington Hall, organizing everything for the arrival of Mrs.
Lewis.
288
THEMES
When talking about the themes of The Remains of the Day we can state that the major
themes of the film correspond to that of the novel. There are differences in the depth or the
representation of each theme, however, the adaptation follows the book very closely.
Dignity
The first person to correspond to the general notion of dignity in the story is Lord
Darlington. According to Stevens he is a man of great stature, a perfect example of a lord
with dignity. He represents honor and good will which notions are loved by Stevens. In
scene 41 as he talks to Mr. Benn he implies this:
Stevens
In my philosophy, Mr. Benn, a man cannot call himself well-contented
until he has done all he can to be of service to his employer. Of course,
this assumes that one’s employer is a superior person not only in rank
and wealth but in moral stature.
This moral stature corresponds very much to his idea of dignity which is, in Lord
Darlington’s case, combined with good will and honor. Yet these are the ideals that carried
England to war and ruined Lord Darlington in the end. As Ishiguro notes, his lordship
stuck to the old gentlemanly fair play ethic and was in the end exploited and
manipulated.[23] His attitude of helping the enemy, among whom one can find real
gentlemen, is not unknown either in British cinema or in literature: one only has to think of
the great classic The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) or of the 1993 Book of
Sebastian Faulks, Birdsong. Yet the idealist morals of the protagonists turn out to be too
romantic to become true. Karl-Heinz Bremann commits suicide and Lord Darlington wants
to make England’s mistake right by arranging the conference and convincing the
politicians that Germany is not an enemy anymore but a friend who needs support.
This dignified view of Lord Darlington is highly appreciated by Stevens. One of the
key issues that occur again and again in Ishiguro’s book (and less explicitly in the film)
concerns the question of dignity and that of a great butler. What makes a great butler?
Stevens does not seem to be able to answer the question easily, he keeps bringing in new
examples and descriptions to formulate what he thinks about the notion. For him dignity
means never showing one’s emotions or anything personal but sticking to one’s duties and
responsibilities. But, according to Ishiguro, there is another kind of dignity, a democratic
or political one as we are part of a society. In this sense Stevens needs to realize he gave
his life to an imperfect lord, who is considered a traitor in the eyes of society and so his
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service is dragged through the mud along with Lord Darlington’s reputation in the end.[24]
Yet, for Stevens this revelation comes very late in the book. His most stunning definition
of dignity is stated on the second half of the novel where the following dialogue takes
place between Dr. Carlisle and Stevens:
“‘What do you think dignity’s all about?’
The directness of this inquiry did, I admit, take me rather by surprise. ‘It’s
rather a hard thing to explain in a few words, sir.’ I said. ‘But I suspect it
comes down to not removing one’s clothing in public.’”[25]
There is, of course, a hidden joke and irony in this remark of Stevens’ which comes to light
if we remember that he has been wearing the clothes of Lord Darlington and the suits given
to him by distinguished gentlemen who visited Darlington Hall over the years. The
statement is dubious: he misleads the people of the town by his clothing and style which
gives him enormous dignity and appreciation. Yet this dignity lies in not revealing his real
self, not letting himself be seen naked, as it were, in front of anyone else. Allowing Miss
Kenton closer to himself, for example, or even marrying her would have meant standing
without clothes in front of her, being honest about who he is and what he feels. This is
something Stevens is not willing to do. This of course means that he is only noble and
dignified on the surface as he fears he would lose his dignity once his real person were
revealed to anyone else. The criticism of the nostalgic idea of dignity is a very typical
characteristic of heritage film. It shows that the old Victorian values created barriers
between people and forced many to pretend instead of being honest or able to follow their
own desires. Such issues are present in movies like Maurice (1987), A Passage to India
(1984), or Howards End (1992). Of course Stevens’ breakdown at the pier in the company
of the unknown man sitting beside him shows he has realized that by his fall from dignity
in a social sense he also fell in a personal sense:
“…His lordship was a courageous man. He chose a certain path in life, it
proved to be a misguided one, but there, he chose it, he can say that at least. As
for myself, I cannot even claim that. You see, I trusted. I trusted in his
lordship’s wisdom. All those years I served him. I trusted I was doing
something worthwhile. I can’t even say I made my own mistakes. Really – one
has to ask oneself – what dignity is there in that?”[26]
By trusting Lord Darlington blindly he lost not only the most precious thing he was
striving for but also other, more human possibilities.
Coming back to the lamentations about dignity noted by Stevens in his notebook, it
stands out that there is but little chance to put all these thoughts to screen. Prawer Jhabvala
290
took direct comments on this subject from the book instead and integrated them into the
dialogues of the film. This is what happens in scene 9 where the tiger story is faithfully
adapted to screen, for instance. Yet we need to note that the examples brought up in the
film are all typically British. As Stevens indicates in the book
Great butlers are only found in this country: It is sometimes said that butlers
only truly exist in England. Other countries, whatever title is actually used,
have only manservants. I tend to believe this is true. Continentals are unable to
be butlers because they are as a breed incapable of the emotional restraint
which only the English race is capable of.[27]
Here it becomes clear that the idea of dignity and greatness has much to do with
appearances and self-restraint. Stevens’ note underlines the main criticism articulated in
and towards heritage film. This genre usually criticizes those who are only keeping up
appearances and never admit to their own feelings. As Higson put it, in heritage film
Englishness, or rather a certain model of Englishness, is thus presented as a
role, an act – a trope that is brought to the fore by the parody of Stiff Upper
Lips, the masquerade of the butler as a gentleman in The Remains of the Day,
and the construction of an English gentleman in The Tichborne Claimant.[28]
This is very true of Stevens who not only lets the villagers be deceived by his suit but
always denies being ever unwell, for instance, as in scene 34 where Mr Cardinal and Lord
Darlington ask him at the conference if he is doing well. He states he is only tired and says
nothing about his father being dead but goes on with his duties. Also in function 48, after
Stevens hears the news that Miss Kenton accepted Mr. Benn’s proposal, he goes to the
room where Mr Cardinal is working. Mr. Cardinal notes that Stevens looks as if he were
crying. He, of course, denies being unwell or crying but this is a wonderful reminder for
the reader and viewer that there are great, suppressed emotions stirring underneath the
surface.
The greatness of the story of Stevens is to be found in his flaw and the tragedy
originating in his idea of dignity: he had a great potential which unfortunately was
combined with weakness and blindness. But what are the direct signs of his greatness or
dignity in the novel or in the film? One is that he remains polite in all situations when he is
being humiliated. In scene 50 we see Mr. Spencer questioning him about very complicated
political and economic questions. Stevens is, of course, unable to answer the inquiry as he
never deals with such issues that fall so far from his duties at Darlington Hall. In the film it
is obvious by his facial expression that he finds the situation uncomfortable, yet he keeps
his countenance and remains calm. The same is true in scene 68 when Miss Kenton offends
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Stevens after she informs him about her engagement with Mr. Benn. By not reacting to
these remarks he keeps his dignity but also his unbridgeable distance from Miss Kenton. A
somewhat different situation occurs at the end when Stevens realizes that Miss Kenton will
not come back to Darlington Hall. He does not break down and never really expresses his
disappointment but wishes her to use her time well with Mr. Benn. This, of course, is a
significant sign of self-sacrifice as he came to Little Compton the make the best of the
relationship he might have with Miss Kenton/Mrs. Benn. This controlled dignity is typical
of Stevens throughout the whole film, although his eyes seem to fill with tears on the piers
in scene 76; it is only in the book that he also breaks down crying under the weight of his
memories and terrifying recognition.
Love
The love theme of the story starts to develop as we see Miss Kenton bringing flowers to
Stevens’ parlor. As this is an obvious expression of her attentiveness and kindness Stevens
is not sure how to react to it. Although he says he appreciates her kindness he grasps the
opportunity right away to scold Miss Kenton for calling Mr. Stevens Senior by his
Christian name. And as if this has not been disappointment enough for her, he also notes
Stevens
Miss Kenton
Stevens
Miss Kenton
Stevens
Miss Kenton
Stevens
Miss Kenton
Stevens
Miss Kenton, if you would stop to think for a moment you would realize how
inappropriate it is that for one such as yourself to address as William someone
such as my father.
Well, I’m sure Mr. Stevens it must have been very galling for your father to be
called William by one such as myself.
Miss Kenton, all I’m saying is that my father is a person from whom, if you
wish to be more observant, you may learn many things.
I’m most grateful for your advice, Mr. Stevens, but do please tell me just what
marvelous things might I learn from your father.
I might point out that you’re still often unsure of what goes where and which
item is which.
I’m sure Mr. Stevens Senior is very good at his job. But I can assure you, Mr.
Stevens, that I’m very good at mine.
Of course…
Thank you and now if you will please excuse me…
Miss Kenton… Oh well…
He ends this scene with a half embarrassed, half amused laugh and goes on smoking his
cigar while she is surely deeply hurt. It is also worth noting that just as he starts to scold
Miss Kenton he sits down behind his desk while Miss Kenton remains standing. Her
posture and indeed the whole situation remind the viewer of an oral examination at school.
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From a personal, almost intimate situation Stevens escapes behind his desk where he can
keep his superior position and his dignity.
From scene 8 but mostly from scene 46 it becomes obvious that Miss Kenton needs
a special dictionary to understand what Stevens is communicating to her. As Geoffrey
Macnab notes: “This is a very British affair, with Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson
as a latter-day Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson – a couple thwarted by class, convention
and the prison house of language.”[29] This statement explains Stevens’ comment after
hearing Miss Kenton’s confession about why she did not leave the house after the Jewish
affair. She says she was afraid and alone upon which Stevens reacts, “You mean a great
deal to his house.” Although it is kind of him to say this, what he really should have said,
had he not been stuck in “the prison house of language”, would have been “You mean a
great deal to me. You are not alone.” This, of course, never happens. No wonder Miss
Kenton feels heartbroken later when she sees Lisa leaving with a man who wants her and
expresses his wish to be with her for the rest of his life. She also feels betrayed when
Stevens cancels their cocoa evenings and does not react to her consideration of marrying
Mr. Benn. He never gives any sign that he would like her to stay at Darlington Hall. Miss
Kenton still gives him ample opportunities by noting that she gives the matter thought and
if Mr. Stevens wishes her she can remain on duty.[30] He lets her go. Her last and most
desperate attempt to make him come out of the dark and speak honestly is when she
informs Stevens that she accepted Mr. Benn’s proposal. She says,
‘Did you know, Mr. Stevens that you have been a very important figure for my
acquaintance and I?’
‘Really, Miss Kenton?’
‘Yes, Mr. Stevens. We often pass the time amusing ourselves with anecdotes
about you. For instance, my acquaintance is always wanting me to show him
the way you pinch your nostrils together when you put pepper on your food.
That always gets him laughing.’
‘Indeed.’
‘He’s also very fond of your staff “pep-talks”. I must say, I’ve become quite an
expert in re-creating them. I only have to do a few lines to have the pair of us
in stitches.’
‘Indeed, Miss Kenton. Now you will please excuse me.’[31]
He thus excuses himself and leaves her feeling humiliated while it was she who wanted to
humble him for at least once in their relationship. He manages to keep his dignity but loses
her forever. Indeed, this scene stands at the end of Stevens’ list of situations that he
remembers as steps leading to their final breaking away from each other. Stevens recalls
the book incident, the courtship, the breaking up of the cocoa evenings and his inability to
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express his condolences when Miss Kenton’s aunt dies. He then notes: “There was surely
nothing to indicate at the time that such evidently small incidents would render whole
dreams forever unredeemable.”[32] He then, also had dreams that were never realized and he
never dared to express either to Miss Kenton or to himself. Of course, this sentence is
crucial to understand that Stevens really was blind in these situations. In the film, however,
the greatest tension comes from the fact that the viewer has no idea what Stevens is really
thinking about. Like Miss Kenton, we suspect that there is something stirring underneath
the surface and we expect it to burst out but it never does, as opposed to the book where we
are fully aware of what he thinks or what he is keeping even from himself.
In scene 71 we see Miss Kenton crying in a situation when she should be most
happy: after she accepted the proposal of Mr. Benn. From the book we know that in this
situation Stevens wanted to comfort her, yet all he can talk about is the alcove that has not
been dusted for a while. This, of course, means that he heard her crying, feels for her,
would like to help her and express his own feelings, yet all he is and ever will be capable
of is to talk a butler’s language. Miss Kenton probably understands most of what he really
means to say, but as this is most unsatisfactory to a woman she gives up trying to get him
speak his mind without pretending. The most obvious example of her struggle is found in
function 35, i.e. scene 56 in the film. Here we see Miss Kenton again bringing flowers to
Stevens’ parlor although she already knows he likes to keep distractions to a minimum.
She provokes him not only this way but also by urging him to tell her what he is reading.
At the beginning their conversation and reaction to each other may seem intimate but as
soon as Stevens realizes in which direction this closeness lead, he withdraws. They look,
according to Emma Thompson, like two strange birds mating, but here it becomes obvious
that “his heart is locked up, he is not allowed a say in his own life and destiny.”[33] By
avoiding love to shun pain he misses all his chances to be happy and to have a connection
to flesh and blood people around him. Thus the overall message of the story is, as
Thompson put it, that everyone needs to check whether they are really backing things they
deeply believe in[34] so that one does not lose valuable things in life.
When talking about love, we should not forget Stevens’ key relationship to his
father. In the book Stevens always mentions his respect for Stevens Senior and he honors
him for the dignity he was able to achieve even without much education or knowledge. Yet
there is no expression of love between the two men. They never touch each other or
exchange more personal words. The best illustration of their distanced relationship is when
Stevens comes to Mr. Stevens Senior’s room to tell him he cannot wait at table anymore.
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In the book even Stevens is surprised at the lack of emotion his father shows – as opposed
to the film where Mr. Stevens Senior loses his countenance for a second – while he notes
he has been waiting at table the last fifty-four years. Stevens calmly listens to this remark
and goes on with the revised duties. He does not show any compassion for him either in
this situation or when he sees his father practicing his step after the fall. These scenes are,
however, filled with tension that accumulate at the deathbed scene. Here we read Mr.
Stevens Senior saying to him, while looking at his hand “I’m proud of you. A good son. I
hope I’ve been a good father to you. I suppose I haven’t.”[35] Even in this situation Stevens
has nothing to tell his father to comfort him. We never learn whether he thinks he has been
a good father or not, but by his answer which he repeats five times on one page (“I’m glad
you’re feeling better now.”) it stands out that he has not learned to express any sort of
emotion toward his father. This, of course, has a very deep psychological meaning as it is
from the parents that children learn to express their feelings. If Stevens did not have the
chance to learn this, no wonder he does not know how to approach Miss Kenton. Also, in
the film there are a few added sentences that make the situation even clearer. Mr. Stevens
Senior tells his son at his deathbed:
Mr. Stevens
Sr.
Stevens
Mr. Stevens
Sr.
There’s something I have to tell you.
I have so much to do, father. Why don’t we talk in the morning?
Jim, I fell out of love with your mother. I loved her once. The love went
out of me when I found her carrying on. A good son. Proud of you. I
hope I’ve been a good father to you. I tried me best.
This revelation only justifies Stevens’ presumable view that it is not worth sacrificing
one’s career for the sake of love. Yet this is the only scene where we see Stevens
expressing a kind of feeling or compassion as he lightly touches his father’s hand. But Mr.
Stevens Senior sends him away immediately so this is the most he can make of the
situation. Through this analysis it stands clear that it is not only Stevens’ blind personality
but also his upbringing and the models he has in front of him that hinder him from
proposing a love relationship to Miss Kenton.
RELIABLE MEMORIES?
In the case of The Remains of the Day we have to note again the difference between the
movie and the original novel. In the film the viewer does not doubt the reliability of the
memories that are presented through the pictures. The audience usually takes it for granted
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that the applied reality it sees on the screen is in fact real, that is how things really happen
in the story. On the other hand, one of the most amazing tricks Ishiguro is playing with the
reader of the book is that he makes the reader doubt the reliability of Stevens’ accounts.
And he does that through the confessions of the butler himself. The two most amazing and
obvious examples of this are the story of Mr. Stevens Senior’s dropping nose and Miss
Kenton’s grief (function 9 and 38). In the first we hear, in opposition to the film, that
Stevens did not see the drop on his father’s nose himself. It is Miss Kenton who notes the
following, while arguing about Mr. Stevens Senior’s health:
The evening before last I watched your father proceeding very slowly towards
the dining room with his tray, and I am afraid I observed clearly a large drop
on the end of his nose dangling over the soup bowls. I would not have thought
such a style of waiting a great stimulant to appetite.[36]
Later on, only a few lines down, once the reader is convinced about the seriousness of such
a remark and the tense atmosphere developing between Miss Kenton and Mr. Stevens, we
read:
I cannot see even Miss Kenton having been so forward. … In fact, now that I
come to think of it, I have a feeling it may have been Lord Darlington himself
who made that particular remark to me that time he called me into his study
some two months after the exchange with Miss Kenton outside the billiard
room.[37]
The doubt remains then about who really made the remark upon Mr. Stevens Senior’s
nose. Jhabvala decided to go around the ambiguity and in scene 11 we see a close-up of the
old man’s nose dripping and later on his son handing him a handkerchief.
The same way we read a story about the death of Miss Kenton’s aunt upon which
she is crying in her room. Stevens feels guilty for not giving her his condolences and as he
wants to make up for this incident it only comes to scolding. Yet later on he notes that he
was probably wrong: he really felt sorry for Miss Kenton as she was crying on the evening
she accepted Mr. Benn’s proposal. But here he did not go into her room to talk to her. In
contradiction to this, Jhabvala merged these two scenes together. We hear Miss Kenton
crying in the evening the secret meeting takes place at Darlington Hall. Here Stevens goes
into her room and instead of being gentle to her, asking her why she is crying, he only
says,
Stevens
Miss Kenton
Stevens
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Miss Kenton.
Yes Mr. Stevens?
Miss Kenton, I… I’ve been wanting to tell you… It’s the small alcove
outside the breakfast room. It’s the new girl, of course, but I find it has not
Miss Kenton
Stevens
been dusted in some time.
I’ll see to it, Mr. Stevens.
Thank you. I knew you would have wanted to be informed.
Having said that, he leaves the room behind with the sobbing Miss Kenton in it. Thus,
again, Jhabvala did not leave any doubt about the credibility of the actions that take place
as opposed to Ishiguro who reminds the reader again and again that he is being related an
utterly personal story from a completely personal, that is, sometimes unreliable source.
Not only are there such misunderstandings and self-corrections in the
original story, but Stevens also comes to justifying himself about his own actions and
feelings very often, as in the case of the staff problem. Here he says,
A number of small errors have surfaced of late, including that incident last
April relating to the silver. Most fortunately, it was not an occasion on which
Mr. Farraday had guests, but even so, it was a moment of genuine
embarrassment to me. … but there is no reason to believe them to be the signs
of anything more sinister than a staff shortage.[38]
The fact that the excuses are so often emphasized tells us that there is more to the problem
than staff shortage. This, of course, comes out in the last scene on the pier where Stevens
admits to becoming old, just like his father. This justification is, of course, not present in
the film as Stevens does not communicate with the viewer. We only see him walking
slower, a little bit like his father used to walk, but on the whole there is no reason for the
spectator to doubt the credibility of the happenings.
There is another sign of Stevens’ dishonesty that can be detected in the film as well,
however. In scene 41 Stevens notes to Mr. Benn that he cannot listen in on the gentlemen’s
conversations, otherwise he would not be able to concentrate on his work. Still, all we hear
and see is what he hears and sees. As is noted by director James Ivory, “The life going on
upstairs is always shown through the eyes of a servant. It is never there for its own sake but
to reveal something about the main protagonists’ life.”[39] This suggests what also becomes
obvious in the novel: even if Stevens states he never paid attention to the conversations
going on at the different meetings, he notes down not only the exact words but also such
details as the shades of voice the speakers used. Thus, again, the butler’s credibility
becomes doubtful. Through these examples I hoped to make it obvious that there is a
crucial difference between the film and the novel, as it is merely impossible to indicate
such doubts about the narrator in the film as one can find in the book.
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LANDSCAPE AS REFLECTION
As Tamás Bényei notes in his book The Innocent Country (Az ártatlan ország),
The English identity is connected to the English landscape both metaphorically
and metonymically: its particularity is gained by being rooted in the landscape,
and thus it is formed to the shape of the landscape. Stevens, the main character
of Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day finds his ethical, aesthetic and
political creed within the English landscape: the “greatness” of the landscape,
he notes, lies in the fact that it lacks anything “remarkably dramatic or
spectecular”: it is characterized by serenity and “reserve” as opposed to the
American or African landscape which prove to be aesthetically much lower. …
the rustic meekness of the landscape, its human proportions gain a moral
charge within the English ideology and national mythology, while it gradually
merges into the “humility” of the English character, which phenomenon
nevertheless has disparaging consequences. [40]
This quote emphasizes that it is the British landscape that brings out Stevens’ real
convictions and ideas. Right at the beginning, as Stevens leaves Darlington Hall, he is
faced with the beauty of the British countryside. The landscape automatically arouses
nostalgia in the book, just like the beautiful mise-en-scène and the unmotivated
establishing shots of heritage films. The sorrow over the disappearing natural beauty is
expressed by a short note of the old man encouraging Stevens to go up and take a look
around: “I’m telling you, sir, you’ll be sorry if you don’t take a walk up there. And you
never know. A couple more years and it might be too late’ – he gave a rather vulgar laugh
– ‘Better go on up while you still can.’”[41] This sinister remark may be referring not only to
the actual landscape but also to the whole of Great Britain. Here then, we see that just as
the British landscape is in constant change and deterioration, so is, as a parallel, the British
Empire. Stevens goes up and takes a last look at the beautiful view while he also takes a
last, nostalgic look at the end of the Empire and his relationship to Miss Kenton in his
diary. Heritage film, in a way, does a very similar thing: at the end of the 20th century it
looks back on England and creates a nostalgic but at the same time critical view of the
country.
Stevens’ memories are evoked by the letter of Miss Kenton and are reflected in the
English landscape. In the novel this parallel between Stevens’ life and his trip is obviously
expressed on page 24 where we read
The feeling swept over me that I had truly left Darlington Hall behind, and I
must confess I did feel a slight sense of alarm – a sense aggravated by the
feeling that I was perhaps not on the correct road at all, but speeding off in
totally the wrong direction into the wilderness.
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This wilderness is his emotional landscape as it were, where he never dared to enter while
he was at Darlington Hall. Stevens needs to get away from the safety of his daily routine,
his position as a butler and his isolated world in order for the memories and feelings to
come to the surface. He is at the same time right: not only at this moment but all his life he
has been heading off the wrong direction. And that not only emotionally but also
professionally.
The landscape Stevens sees also brings him to a very important point:
And I believe it was then, looking on that view, that I began for the first time to
adopt a frame of mind appropriate for the journey before me. For it was then
that I felt the first healthy flush of anticipation for the many interesting
experiences I know these days ahead hold in store for me. And indeed, it was
then that I felt a new resolve not to be daunted in respect to the one
professional task I have entrusted myself with on this trip; that is to say,
regarding Miss Kenton and our present staffing problems.[42]
Stevens may as well conclude that had he been courageous enough to let go of his duties at
Darlington Hall and make the best of his relationship with Miss Kenton, he could have
experienced this “healthy flush” only too often. Such contemplations are, of course, not
suitable for adaptation in a voice-over style which would have worked unnaturally indeed.
Thus, as already mentioned previously the viewer is presented a silent, repressed
personality while the reader can jump to countless assumptions concerning Stevens’
emotional life.
HUMOR AND THE COMIC
After many serious issues and themes have been listed in this chapter, it is interesting to
note what Ivory said about the film: “Anyway, The Times calls our films ‘comedies,’ and
I’m glad they do. Howards End was a comedy, The Remains of the Day also.”[43] He, then,
looks at this film not from a nostalgic, melancholic, or even tragic point of view but takes a
lighter perspective. Although Macnab notes that “the sheer visual relish with which the
place is depicted can’t help but undermine the mordant irony in Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s
script,”[44] it still remains true that there are very many comic elements in the book and also
in the adapted screenplay.
The most obvious example for humor in the story stems from Lord Darlington’s
request on Stevens to relate the beauties of nature, i.e. the basic facts about sexuality, to his
godson, Mr. Cardinal. He, as a posh aristocrat, is not able to bring up such subjects and
trusts Stevens can do it better as the butler’s relationship is not as personal to the young
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man as his own. Around this prologue evolves the funniest scene in the film when Cardinal
takes Stevens absolutely seriously. This comes from the fact, of course, that he has never
had the chance to talk to Stevens in a more personal way. As Stevens always gives the
expression of a very serious man, Cardinal supposes he talks straight.
Cardinal
Stevens
Cardinal
Stevens
Cardinal
Stevens
Cardinal
Stevens
Cardinal
Stevens
Cardinal
Stevens
Cardinal
Stevens
Cardinal
Stevens
Cardinal
Stevens
Cardinal
Stevens
Oh! God! Stevens!
Sorry. Most sorry, sir, but I do have something to convey to you rather
urgently, sir. If I may be permitted, I’ll come straight to the point. Perhaps you
will have noticed this morning the ducks and the geese by the pond?
Ducks and geese? No, I don’t think so, Stevens.
Well, perhaps the birds and the flowers, then… or the shrubs, the bees.
No, I’ve not seen any bees.
Yes. Well, this is in fact not the best time to see them in their full glory, sir.
What, the bees?
No, no, sir. What I’m trying to say, sir, is that with the arrival of spring we
shall see a most remarkable and profound change in all these surroundings, sir.
Yeah, yeah, I’m sure you’re right. In fact, the grounds are not at their best
now.
No, no, sir.
Although I have to say, I haven’t paid much attention to the glories of nature
because it’s rather worrying, you know, Dupont D’Ivry has just arrived in the
foulest mood imaginable, which is the least anyone wants.
Oh, M Dupont D’Ivry has arrived?
Yeah, half an hour ago, in a really foul mood.
Ah, in that case, please excuse me, I’d better go and attend to him.
Right you are, Stevens. It is very kind of you to come to talk to me.
Not at all, sir. In fact, I do have one or two words to convey to you on the topic
of, as you put it most admirably, sir, the glories of nature. But it will have to
wait for another occasion, sir. Thank you.
Well, I’ll look forward to it, Stevens. But I’m more of a fish man, myself.
Fish, sir?
Yes, I know all about fish. Freshwater and salt.
Ah! Well, all living creatures would be relevant to our discussion, sir. If you
will excuse me. I had no idea that Monsieur Dupont D’Ivry had arrived. Thank
you.
Stevens does not have a chance to relate what he really meant and the fact that Cardinal
wants to talk to him about fish later on in scene 34 and still does not realize Stevens was
speaking metaphorically makes this scene even funnier. As Geoffrey Macnab notes about
Cardinal’s character, Hugh Grant as Darlington’s journalist nephew ”shows all the cheerful
inanity of a P.G. Woodhouse character.”[45] Until scene 62 he has a comic role, however, he
becomes one of the most tragic characters by the end. He realizes the dangers of Lord
Darlington’s policies, he writes against the Nazis in his articles and still, he is the only one
among the characters of the story who dies in the Second World War.
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Another very serious subject is also undermined by comical inserts: the most
prominent member of the conference, Mr. Dupont is unable to pay full attention to the
happenings around him as he suffers from blisters he attained at a sightseeing tour in
London. These scenes ease the tension that surrounds the conference and the fate of Lord
Darlington, Stevens, and Miss Kenton. Yet they also serve as a contrast since we, as
spectators or readers, know that in Stevens’ life real tragedy has just happened when Mr.
Dupont bothers him with his aching feet. No normal, everyday figure would care for his
blisters if he knew his father was dying or had just died, but Stevens is different. He
sacrifices all for his professional life. Thus instead of mourning and taking a few minutes
off at his father’s deathbed, he asks the doctor to go to the billiard room to attend a
gentleman who is very much in pain because of his feet. On top of this, in the book
Ishiguro makes the deathbed scene even more contrasted by the description of Mrs.
Mortimer and the smell she brought with herself from the kitchen. It is more than ironic
how Stevens describes that he expected to find the smell of death in his father’s room but
finds the scent of grease and roast meat instead. Through this comic note we now see that
Stevens’ life is centered around his professional duties and outside impressions instead of
inner feelings, pain, or sorrow.
Another tense situation arises from the fact that Lord Darlington takes in German
refugees in the film. Although, as mentioned above, this scene has been added to the
original story, the humor present in it needs to be mentioned. Lord Darlington accepts the
two girls warmheartedly but instead of really comforting them in their situation he uses the
opportunity to practice his German. His accent is hilarious and he even translates all the
“complicated” questions to Miss Kenton:
Miss Kenton
Darlington
Miss Kenton
Darlington
Miss Kenton
Darlington
Miss Kenton
Darlington
Elsa
Darlington
Elsa
Darlington
Miss Kenton
My lord, you rang?
I hear the young ladies from Germany have arrived.
Yes, my lord, they’re just outside.
I’d like to say hello to them. To practice my German.
They do speak excellent English, my lord.
Good. Well, ask them to come in.
This is Elsa and this is Irma.
Haben Sie eine gute Reise gehabt? I’m just asking them if they had a
good journey.
It was long, my lord.
Haben Sie gut er… angekommen? Was halten Sie vom Wetter? I’m just
asking what they think of the weather.
We are very grateful to you, my lord, for letting us come here. Our
parents are very grateful.
Not at all, not at all. Miss Kenton will look after you, won’t you?
Oh, indeed, my lord.
301
Darlington
Elsa and Irma
Welcome to Darlington Hall. Wilkommen zu Darlington Hall.
Thank you, my lord.
Another rather ironic joke that stands out is made at the American delegate’s account as is
typical in British heritage films (see Tea with Mussolini, for example). In scene 13 we see
Lord Darlington and two English lords talking about the conference in the observatory.
When the unknown American congressman is mentioned the following conversation is
heard.
Lord Spencer
Darlington
Another lord
Darlington
Another lord
Lord Spencer
Another lord
Lord Spencer
Darlington
It’s vital that we’ve agreed a common policy before the arrival of… your
Frenchman. What’s his name?
Giscard Dupont D’Ivry. We are also expecting the American delegate,
Congressman Lewis, to arrive on the same day.
Who is he, this American?
He’s rather an unknown quantity. He’s a young congressman from
Pennsylvania. Sits on some sort of powerful Foreign Affairs committee.
Heir to one of these American fortunes.
Meat packing?
Trolley cars?
Or dry goods? (laugh) What are dry goods?
Evidently something Americans make a lot of money in.
No, I think Mr Lewis’ fortune comes from cosmetics, actually.
However comical, or even cynical these remarks are, it is the American Mr. Lewis who
turns out to have been right all along. Although neither the lords nor the French
representative, Mr. Dupont let themselves be influenced by Congressman Lewis and his
backward ways, it is the American who puts it well: these gentlemen are well-meaning
amateurs. Here it is worth noting that the contrast between Americans and the British is
often present in heritage films. According to Higson,
Some of the films do indeed seem to engage in this sort of activity, by
addressing the issue of Americanization, for instance. Thus in Chariots of Fire
Englishness is specifically set against the modernity of America, while in The
Remains of the Day (1993), some of the stately home at the heart of the
narrative are eroded when it is bought by an American. English national
cinema in such instances is thus defined as quite distinct from the culture of
Hollywood, even as it depends on Hollywood funding and the access it affords
to the huge American market.[46]
The difference between the English lords and the new American owner is also stressed in
the book. We have already quoted the scene when Mr. Farraday says he paid for the
genuine English stately home and a real butler, as he is used to getting whatever he wants
with his money. In England this sort of attitude is looked down upon as stately homes used
302
to go from father to son or any other relative while purchased titles (and money coming
from cosmetics) were not appreciated. At the same time, had it not been for Mr.
Farraday/Mr. Lewis, nobody knows what would have become of Darlington Hall. The
irony of the situation is that, in the long run, it is the American who saves the precious
British heritage.
THE REMAINS OF THE DAY: A HAPPY ENDING?
In the last chapter of the book we read Stevens’ account of the most intimate conversation
that ever passed between him and Miss Kenton. From this account it becomes clear that
they are both aware, even if for just one moment, that they wasted their lives when they
parted, but also, that they cannot undo the past. Their romance ended before it could have
begun. They politely smile at each other, and Stevens lets her go back to her husband with
tears in her eyes.
When Miss Kenton/Mrs. Benn leaves he goes to Weymouth and sits down on the
pier. Here he is able to face the fact that he wasted his life on an employer who directed
him and those around him in a wrong direction. Stevens then sacrificed his personal
happiness for a misguided professional career. And after this recognition comes the third
shock, when he faces the fact that his constant self-justification about the staff problems
simply means that he has become old. He is not able to run a house on the same level he
used to when serving Lord Darlington. After all this, it must seem obvious to him that his
life has been wasted as it is and he does not really have anything to hope for. No love, no
professional life, no perspective. And it is at this moment he decides he will not despair.
He develops a more positive view of his life and instead of lamenting over the past he tries
to fit himself to the needs of his new master. He wants to make the best of what little
remains of his day by polishing his bantering skills. However banal this decision may
seem, this is the only way for him to survive the situation into which he got himself. In the
film, however, such deep recognitions never occur on the surface. On the contrary: the end
seems a lot more tragic and leaves the viewer with a deep feeling of loss and sorrow.
Stevens is left off behind the prison bars of Darlington Hall, buried under the noble work
he has to do to make the house ready and running by the time Mrs. Lewis arrives. He
strives to make the best of what remained of Darlington Hall and himself.
303
[1]
Robert Emmet Long, James Ivory in Conversation. (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005),
229.
[2]
Janet Maslin, ’Foreword,’ James Ivory in Conversation, Robert Emmet Long (Los Angeles: University of
California Press, 2005) xi.
[3]
Geoffrey Macnab, “The Remains of the Day,” Film/Literature/Heritage, ed. Ginette Vincendeau (London:
British Film Institute, 2001). 160.
[4]
The Remains of the Day, Columbia Pictures Industries, 2001.
[5]
A. Robert Lee, ed., Other Britain, Other British (London: Pluto Press, 1995) 107.
[6]
Long 229.
[7]
Andrew Higson, English Heritage, English Cinema (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003) 79.
[8]
Long 227.
[9]
DVD Interview
[10]
The meaning of signs in this column: = faithfully adapted; * = adapted but altered; √ = not adapted
[11]
Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day (London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1999) 251.
[12]
Ishiguro 252.
[13]
Ishiguro 256.
[14]
http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/movie/5947457/review/5947458/the_remains_of_the_day
[15]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpsrv/style/longterm/movies/videos/theremainsofthedaypgkempley_a0a3cd.htm
[16]
Ishiguro 162.
[17]
Ishiguro 207-208.
[18]
Ishiguro 130.
[19]
Ishiguro 131.
[20]
Ishiguro 182.
[21]
Ishiguro 154.
[22]
Long 234.
[23]
DVD Interview
[24]
DVD Interview
[25]
Ishiguro 221.
[26]
Ishiguro 255-56.
[27]
Ishiguro 44.
[28]
Higson 32.
[29]
Macnab 160.
[30]
Ishiguro 225-6.
[31]
Ishiguro 230.
[32]
Ishiguro 188-189.
[33]
DVD Interview, Thompson
[34]
DVD Interview
[35]
Ishiguro 101.
[36]
Ishiguro 62.
[37]
Ishiguro 63.
[38]
Ishiguro 148-9.
[39]
Long 238.
[40]
Tamás Bényei, Az ártatlan ország, (Debrecen: Debreceni Egyetem Kossuth Egyetemi Kiadója, 2003) 45.
“Az angol identitás metaforikusan és metonimikusan az angol vidéki tájhoz kapcsolódik: a tájban gyökerezve
nyeri el sajátszerőségét, és emiatt maga is olyanná válik, mint az angol táj. Kazuo Ishiguro A fıkomornyik
szabadsága címő regényének fıszereplıje, Stevens is az angol tájban találja meg etikai, esztétikai és politikai
hitvallásának alapját: az angol táj „nagysága”, mint mondja, abban rejlik, hogy hiányzik belıle a
„szembeszökı drámaiság és látványosság”: nyugalom és „visszafogottság” jellemzi, ellentétben például az
esztétikailag jóval alacsonyabbrendő amerikai vagy afrikai tájjal… a táj rusztikus szelídsége, emberi léptéke
az angol ideológiában és nemzeti mitológiában morális töltésre tesz szert, fokozatosan összeolvadva az angol
jellem „szelídségével”, aminek azonban káros következményei vannak.”
[41]
Ishiguro 25.
[42]
Ishiguro 26.
[43]
Long 115.
[44]
Macnab 160
[45]
Macnab 160.
[46]
Higson 5.
304
CONCLUSION
Although it would be too idealistic to assume that the constant rivalry and love-and-hate
relationship between the novel and the film would shortly cease, I still hope I could
contribute to this ideal with the writing of this work. As stated in Chapter 1 adaptations
have been around ever since the birth of the cinema and their popularity does not seem to
diminish. For this reason it is important to develop a discourse about adaptations in the
academic circles as well. This dissertation tried to serve this purpose by first describing the
development and the theoretical debate about adaptations in Chapter 1. The following
chapter concentrated on the cultural background, as well as the history of the British novel
and film in the last century in order to construct a wider base for the ensuing analyses.
By the help of this background information I hopefully managed to make clear how
the contemporary cultural or political changes effected the different adaptations. The fact
that the most important questions of the age surface in these novels and films gives the
adaptations a kind of similarity. Maurice and Orlando concentrate to a great degree,
overtly or covertly, on the search for the individual’s sexual identity while class boundaries
are also called into question in both novels as these were vitally changing concepts at the
beginning of the twentieth century. The adaptations of these novels came out well into the
second half of the century, revealing that the questions raised in the early twentieth century
had still not been settled in spite of the enormous changes resulting from the two World
Wars and from the loosening of the traditional conservative values. These values are called
into question not only by these (novels and) films but very openly in The French
Lieutenant’s Woman and more subtly in The Remains of the Day. All four of these movies
are categorized by Higson as heritage films, which deal with deep social and individual
problems under the beautiful surface. Room at the Top stands out from this group as it does
not represent the suppressed life of the bourgeoisie but introduces the struggles of the
working-class hero. Interestingly, this theme of bitter march up on the social ladder was so
urgent that the film adaptation was made already two years after the novel was published.
The social realism presented in this movie is unique among the films chosen for the case
studies. There is only one other black-and-white movie in this dissertation: Lord of the
Flies from 1963. Just like the other movies, this film also shows several aspects of the dark
side of human beings and their behavior in society. It is worth noting that Golding’s novel
is the only work in my paper that has a remake from 1990. The analysis of the differences
between the black-and-white British and the updated American version is a telling one. It
CONCLUSION
305
reveals again what kind of an effect the changing cultural background has on the given
adaptations. All in all, the seven novels dealt with in this dissertation mirror a few
important aspects of the many-sided British society which are worth studying if one wants
to gain a deeper understanding of the country’s earlier and present state or direction.
From the point of view of adaptation it is worth noting that there are a few common
features concerning the transfer of these novels to the big screen. It has already been stated
that the material of a novel is considerably more voluminous than can be put into a feature
film. Hence most adaptations shorten or leave out specific sections, characters, or different
threads. The novels under analysis form no exception to this observation. Maurice’s affair
with Dickie is cut out as James Ivory decided to concentrate on the two most important
relationships in Maurice’s life, i.e. Clive and Alec; Orlando and his affairs at court are not
even mentioned in the film; the little boy with a marking on his face who, as we saw
above, has a symbolic role in Golding’s story is left out; Charles’ uncle from whom
Charles hoped his financial security is not even mentioned in the film, and the list could be
continued. An even more interesting aspect is, however, when the function of a character
changes or is melted together with the function of another character from the book. One of
the best examples of this can be found in Room at the Top where Joe’s best friend Charles
is merged with his colleague Teddy. Thus Charles’ influence, which is here in fact less
decisive than in the novel, becomes very direct in Joe’s life. Many comments Joe recounts
to the reader about his friend are directly presented in the movie. Another good example of
the possible changes in character functions is the gender of Orlando’s child. As mentioned
above, from Woolf’s point of view it seemed imperative for Orlando to have a boy in order
to be able to keep her estate, while for a modern director like Sally Potter the message of
freedom proved to be more important, and so in the film we see a little girl running around
on the field with a videocamera in her hand. Redaction, merger, changes in attitude are
most common in the practice of adaptation. However, in a few cases added scenes try to
make up for meanings that have been lost in the process of scriptwriting. One good
example would be the addition of the Risley affair in Ivory’s Maurice. Without the tragic
fate and trial of Risley it would have been difficult to account for Clive’s changing attitude
towards homosexuality. In this case the added scene serves as a kind of explanation. In The
Remains of the Day the addition of the hunting scene serves more the purpose of the
pictorialist style and nostalgic feelings surrounding heritage films in general. The added
scene is justified by the typical features of the genre. A more interesting case was found in
The French Lieutenant’s Woman, where Harold Pinter created a perfectly new thread, a
306
CONCLUSION
modern story within the Victorian one. By this invention he constructed a parallel to the
story of Charles and Sarah, contrasting it with the modern life of Mike and Anna. In part
this addition was to make up for the loss of Fowles’ narrator and his witty comments in the
book. In other cases it is the camerawork that turns out to be one of the most decisive
factors of the adaptation as in Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. Nevertheless, inspite the
above mentioned similarities and differences, and sometimes additions or changes, the
adaptations of the novels chosen for the case studies stay very close to their source novels.
The alterations are usually accounted for by the goals of the director, the influences of the
particular decade, or the changes in the attitude of modern Britiain.
Although it seems a difficult task to undo the ties of the literary bias, in the case
studies I have tried to introduce the novels and their adaptations as thoroughly and
objectively as possible. Hopefully, by paying attention to these novels and their
adaptations, a new appreciation of the British film will follow. As Sarah Street notes
Charles Barr (1986) has described how for many years Britain was
marginalized from film history and criticism, thereby giving tacit approval to
the opinion, also held by respected film-makers like Francois Truffaut and
Satyajit Ray, that apart from a few isolated exceptions British films were not
particularly interesting or worthy of study. In the 1980s and 1990s this
situation has been in good part rectified.[1]
My dissertation is a means to contribute to this rectification. The fact that British novels
and British literature in general are held in high esteem is called to help here. Since fiction
and film cannot be separated, by calling attention to key novels of the twentieth century I
have also tried to point at the quality and diversity of British film. If scholars honestly want
to study the phenomenon of “Britishness,” besides focusing on cultural studies and
literature, they cannot ignore the national film which reveals basic ideas about what it
means to be British.
[1]
CONCLUSION
307
APPENDIX
SEGMENTATION:
MAURICE
1
On the beach
2
MICHELMAS
TERM 1909
CAMBRIDGE
Cambridge
3
Cambridge
Mr. Ducie telling Maurice about the mystery
of sex
Dinner at the Dean’s
Risley inviting Maurice to his club
Maurice goes to see Risley
Maurice meets Clive
Clive goes after him with rolls of music
Maurice and Clive play the pianola
End-ofsequence
Editing
No. of Shots
Scenes
Length
Segments
5:51
31
Cut
2:30
0:38
25
4
Cut
Cut
3:59
19
Cut
1:52
2:01
13
14
Cut
Cut
1:16
14
Dissolve
0:43
5
Cut
19:55
7
Cut
3:00
21
Cut
2:41
2:14
17
9
Cut
Cut
1:15
1:54
15
12
Cut
Cut
2:46
20
Cut
1:49
18
Cut
0:45
5
Dissolve
LENT TERM 1910
4
Maurice’s room
5
Dean’s room
6
On the river
7
8
9
At the Hall’s
SUMMER TERM
1910
Cambridge
10
11
On the fields
12
Dean’s room
13
14
Train station
Halls’ house
PENDERSLEIGH
PARK 1910
Durhams’ estate
15
Durham’s
16
17
Pendersleigh
THE CITY 1911
Clive tells Maurice about his row with his
mother
Maurice and Clive fool around
Greek translation class
Maurice, Clive, and Risley talk about the
hypocrisy of the dean in boat
Clive waits for Maurice in front of chapel,
the developing friendship
Maurice refuses to go to church
Establishing shots
Maurice and Clive caressing each other
when friends burst in
Clive tells Maurice he loves him
Dining at Cambridge, avoiding each other
Maurice waits for Clive in his room, trying
to tell him how he feels
Maurice climbs in Clive’s room
Maurice and Clive go for a picnic
Maurice is sent down from Cambridge until
he writes a letter of apology
Maurice and Clive saying goodbye
Dr. Barry’s scolding
Maurice sent to the Blue room
Clive bursts in, joyful that they can be alone
Dinner party, Maurice sitting next to Mrs.
Durham
Maurice and Clive out riding
APPENDIX – SEGMENTATION: MAURICE
309
Maurice’s office
Library
18
Durhams’
Hall’s
Restaurant
London
19
London
20
Library
Train
21
22
Wigmore Hall
23
In court
24
Hall’s
25
Maurice’s office
Pendersleigh
26
27
Greece
28
Hall’s
29
31
BERMONDSEY
1913
Gymnasium
Hall’s
32
Maurice’s office
33
Train
34
Dr. Barry’s
35
Pendersleigh
PENDERSLEIGH
AUTUMN 1913
36
Park
310
1:35
2
Cut
2:06
10
Cut
2:20
28
Dissolve
0:59
4
Cut
0:30
3
Cut
1:52
3
Cut
1:32
21
Cut
3:59
26
Cut
2:13
8
Fade out
0:53
12
Cut
1:28
8
Cut
1:55
14
Cut
6:35
69
Fade out
1:27
13
Cut
1:50
8
Cut
2:02
14
Cut
0:51
5
Cut
3:42
23
Cut
0:40
4
Fade out
SPRING 1912
Restaurant
30
Maurice reading a telegram
Clive reading among a pile of books
Mrs. Durham writing a letter to Mrs. Hall,
then Pippa with baby disturbs her
Letter handed over to Scudder
Mrs. Hall’s letter to Mrs. Durham about
Maurice
Clive and Maurice at dinner with friends and
family
Clive lets Maurice help undress him but
already annoyed
Lord Risley in bar, trying to solicit a soldier,
arrested
Clive reads about Risley in the newspapers
Maurice reads the news on the train
Risley telephones Clive to help him in the
trial which Clive refuses
Maurice waiting for Clive, going to concert
together
Clive goes to Risley’s trial
Dinner at Maurice’s celebrating that Clive
became a barrister, Clive faints then sobs
Maurice taking care of Clive who does not
like the situation
Doctor arrives, Maurice sent out
Maurice hears that Clive is taken home, he
rushes home but fails to prevent it
Simcox helping Clive undress, alluding to
the Risley case
Clive with Maurice’s family before his
departure for Greece
Clive walking to an amphitheatre alone,
reading Maurice’s letter
Maurice teaching boxing
Clive arrives from Greece, Kitty lets him in
Ada and Kitty bind Clive
Maurice arrives home from work
Clive breaks up with Maurice, the row
Ada comes in and is blamed by Maurice
Maurice teaches boxing
Maurice sees naked men playing around
after training
Mrs. Hall reads out Mrs. Durham’s letter
about Clive’s engagement
Maurice’s apology to Ada
Phone call from Clive and Anne, inviting
him
While traveling on train Maurice is harassed
by an old man
Maurice goes to Dr. Barry to ask for advice
and cure
Clive’s wedding ceremony
Maurice out shooting with London and
Scudder
Getting undressed, a telegram arrives for
37
Pendersleigh
38
Bedroom
39
Drawing room
40
Bedroom
Fields
41
Bedroom
42
Hall
43
London
44
Pendersleigh
45
Park
46
Dining-room
47
Park
Basement
48
Park
49
Bedroom
Maurice from Mr. Lasker Jones
Scudder wishes Maurice happy birthday
Anne talking to Maurice about the poor and
how Clive intends to help them
Mr. Borenius arrives for dinner
Clive and Anne dressing for dinner, Anne
telling Clive she suspects Maurice has a girl
up his sleeves
The company playing after dinner, rain
coming through the ceiling
Alec comes in to help move the piano forte
Maurice writes his statement to Lasker Jones
Clive comes in, joyous about marriage
Alec by the river at dusk, kills a rabbit with
his bare hands
Light only at Maurice’s window, Alec looks
up
Clive kisses Maurice’s hand showing he
remembers the past but means to conceal it,
makes Maurice kiss his hand
Maurice opens curtains and refreshes
himself in the rain, which Alec sees from
below
Clive going to their bedroom, Anne awakens
and peeps as Clive is undressing
Clive telling Anne she was right about that
girl
Scudder standing outside, Maurice
complaining to London that Alec would not
take money from him
Maurice at Lasker Jones’
Maurice wants to get another appointment,
meanwhile Lasker Jones suggests he should
go back to Pendersleigh
Maurice rushes back but finds Clive and
Anne leaving
Maurice spends the evening with Mrs.
Durham and Mr. Borenius who are
discussing Alec’s confirmation
Maurice out strolling, meeting Alec who
apologizes for his behavior
Maurice is having dinner with Mrs. Durham
and Mr. Borenius as Simcox comes in with
the message that Scudder asks him whether
Maurice wants to bathe
Maurice out strolling after dinner, meets
Alec and asks him about the emigration
Simcox derides Alec for calling Maurice a
gentleman
Alec strolling outside in the dark
Maurice has a nightmare about Lasker Jones,
and sees himself in a boat with a woman
Maurice rushes to the window for fresh air
and Alec sees him
Alec comes to his room and they make love
Alec and Maurice lie in bed, Maurice asking
him whether he ever dreamt about a friend
Simcox comes in and sees the signs Alec left
behind, then asks Maurice whether he would
be willing to captain them at the cricket
2:03
9
Cut
1:02
4
Cut
0:37
4
Cut
2:11
15
Cut
3:00
8
Cut
1:03
6
Fade out
1:15
10
Cut
3:37
25
Cut
0:57
7
Cut
0:50
4
Cut
0:36
4
Cut
1:17
3
Cut
0:09
1
Cut
6:24
33
Cut
311
50
Park
51
Boathouse
52
London
53
54
55
56
London
Hotel
Port
Penderleigh
57
Boathouse
58
Bedroom
59
312
match
Cricket match
Clive arrives and takes over form Alec
Maurice sits down and sees Alec laughing
with another boy
Maurice rushes in
Clive is taking Maurice to the station
Alec waiting angrily for Maurice, then
writes him a letter
Maurice’s second visit to Lasker Jones but
he is not suggestible
Lasker Jones suggests him to go to France or
Italy where homosexuality is not criminal
Maurice gives Alec’s letter to hypnotist
Alec comes to London and calls on Maurice
unexpectedly in his office
Maurice brings him to the British Museum
They meet Mr. Ducie but Maurice says he is
Scudder whereupon Alec says he has
charges against Maurice
Mr. Ducie is waited for by his wife and two
children
Maurice and Alec sleep together in a hotel
and Alec tells Maurice about his humiliation
at the Durham’s
As Alec starts to get dressed Maurice asks
him to stay with him, miss his boat and live
with him which Alec refuses
Maurice arrives to see Alec off
Maurice meets Alec’s family on the ship
Mr. Borenius also arrives but Alec does not
come
Maurice visits Clive for the last time and
tells him about Alec
Clive tries to convince him to come to his
senses
Maurice disappears in the dark
Maurice goes to the boathouse where he
finds Alec, they kiss and hug knowing they
will stay together
Clive hugs Anne
Clive starts to close window shutters and
sees Maurice image as a student in
Cambridge
5:01
63
Cut
0:52
4
Cut
3:00
27
Cut
6:04
40
Cut
4:37
11
Cut
4:15
36
Cut
3:25
11
Cut
2:21
18
Cut
1:56
5
Fade out
END CREDITS
1
2
Orlando rehearsing by the oak tree
Starring Tilda Swinton with…
Orlando realizes he is late
Queen Elizabeth on water
0:31
0:33
0:11
1:27
0:30
4
2
9
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Queen Elizabeth coming ashore, Orlando
runs and gives her rose-water
1:02
7
Cut
Dinner, Orlando recites a poem to the Queen
Orlando and Queen in park
Orlando and Queen in her bedroom
Orlando in his own bed
Funeral of Orlando’s father
Orlando and his fiancée
0:07
1:44
0:57
2:19
0:23
1:05
0:24
0:07
1
20
5
10
1
3
1
1
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Fade out
Cut
Cut
Cut
1:54
19
Cut
2:04
21
Cut
3:19
45
Cut
2:49
18
Cut
2:01
20
Cut
15
Cut
18
Cut
1:54
15
Cut
0:06
5:24
2:34
23
5
Cut
Cut
Cut
0:48
4
Cut
0:07
2:27
26
Cut
Cut
4:24
15
Cut
1:34
11
Cut
3:41
32
Cut
1:39
0:42
1:34
1:01
1:35
0:06
15
1
4
1
6
Cut
Fade out
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
1600 – DEATH
3
4
5
6
Road to cemetery
Orlando’s estate
1610 – LOVE
7
Thames
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
Orlando’s estate
1650 – POETRY
Orlando’s estate
17
At Court
18
1700 – POLITICS
Turkey
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
England
1750 – SOCIETY
End-ofsequence
Editing
Scenes
No. of Shots
Segments
CREDITS
Field
Credits
Field
Orlando’s estate
Credits
Length
SEGMENTATION:
ORLANDO
King James staring at frozen woman,
Orlando sees Sasha for the first time, skating
Dinner on the frozen Thames
Skating and dancing, Orlando ignores her
fiancée for the sake of Sasha
Orlando and Sasha on outing in sledge
together
Orlando takes Sasha to the ship, jealousy and
the plan to elope
Orlando keeps waiting for Sasha
End of the Great Frost, the treachery of
women
Orlando reads poetry in his library, his
seven-day sleep
Lunch with Nick Green
Green reads his poem, writes criticism
Orlando asking King William of Orange to
make him ambassador
Orlando in Turkey, meeting the Khan
Developing friendship between Orlando and
the Khan, drinking in the desert
The Archduke arrives
Orlando takes his wig out, nobody appears at
his reception
War in Turkey
Orlando on bed asleep
Orlando awakes as a woman
Orlando in the desert
Orlando arrives home, she is being dressed
APPENDIX – SEGMENTATION: ORLANDO
313
26
27
Orlando’s estate
28
Orlando receives invitations, goes to enjoy
the society of the great authors and poets
Orlando finds out about the loss of her
estate, the proposal of the Archduke
Orlando running in the maze
1850 – SEX
29
30
Orlando meets Shelmerdine
Orlando sleeps with Shelmerdine
Warrant arrives from Queen Victoria,
Shelmerdine leaves
World War I, Orlando pregnant
31
32
5:46
58
Cut
3:08
29
Cut
1:17
0:07
5:17
3:39
14
1
19
5
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
2:41
7
Fade out
1:13
9
Cut
6
Cut
2:13
13
Cut
2:07
29
Cut
BIRTH
33
34
35
314
Orlando at a publisher in the present
Orlando and her daughter motoring to their
formal estate, which is a museum
Orlando and her daughter on the field by the
oak tree
APPENDIX – SEGMENTATION: ORLANDO
SHOT ANALYSIS:
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE
0. (0’51)
00:00:00
Title (red screen) Warner Bors.
Cut
MCU to total of Alex (and his droogs) in the Korova milk bar
Cut
CU of bottles in the drunk man’s hand (zoom out)
LS of droogs approaching
LS of droogs harassing old drunkard
MCU of drunk old man Alex sticking his stick in his stomach
CU of Alex talking to drunkard
MCU drunk old man
CU of Alex starting
LS of droogs beating up drunk old man
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
8 cuts
MCU to total of a painting in casino to see Billyboy and his gang harassing a girl
LS of gang with girl stripped naked
Total of theater stage with gang and girl
LS of gang with girl
Total of emptied and rundown casino; Alex’s gang arriving from the darkness
LS of gang and girl on mattress
CU of Alex
MCU of Billyboy
LS of Billyboy’s gang running at Alex’s
Total of gangs getting at each other
Total of gangs figthing
MCU of Billyboy attacking
LS of fight
MCU of Billyboy being hit by a bottle
LS of Alex running at others
LS of fight
LS of fight
LS of fight
LS of fight
LS of fight
LS of fight
LS of fight
LS of fight
LS of fight
LS of fight
Total of empty theater spotted with fighting couples
MCU of Alex beating Billyboy then calling off the fight
Total of theater with figures then Alex and droogs leaving as the police sirens are
heard
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
1. (1’28)
00:00:51
2. (2’06)
00:02:19
3. (2’57)
00:04:25
28 cuts
APPENDIX – SHOT ANALYSIS: A CLOCKWORK ORANGE
315
4. (1’22)
00:07:22
LS of the gang driving in car at night
LS of road ahead
MCU of Pete screaming
LS of road ahead with car
MCU of Georgie screaming
LS of road ahead with motorcycle approaching
MCU of Dim screaming
LS of car approaching
MCU to CU of Alex driving madly
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
9 cuts
Total of road with Alex’s car approaching and HOME sign on the right
Total of a modern house at night, the droogs getting close to it one by one
LS of F. Alexander typing (camera moves to the right as the bell is heard), F.
Alexander’s wife goes to answer the door
LS of F. Alexander’s wife going to the door in the hall
MCU of F. Alexander listening to the conversation at the door
LS of F. Alexander’s wife opening the door and droogs coming in wearing masks
LS of living-room with droogs pouring in
LS of droog jumping on writer’s back
MCU of droog spinning with wife on his shoulder (camera goes round)
MCU of F. Alexander on the ground bleeding
LS of droogs harassing the couple, Alex whistling then starting to sing Singin’ in
the Rain
LS of Alex binding up woman’s mouth, snapping her
LS of Alex dancing and singing
MCU of F. Alexander’s mouth being stuffed with a small ball
LS of Alex dancing around the house, turning around furniture
LS of the others holding down victims, Alex going to woman
MCU of F. Alexander on the ground struggling
OSS of Alex cutting off pieces of clothes of woman
MCU of F. Alexander on the ground
MCU of woman struggling
OSS of Alex cutting clothes of woman
MCU of F. Alexander struggling on the ground
OSS of Alex undressing woman and himself
MCU of F. Alexander being held down Alex singing to him
POV of Alex as he squats down to F. Alexander singing to
MCU of F. Alexander struggling on the ground
MCU of woman struggling
Cut
Cut
5. (4’13)
00:08:44
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
27 cuts
6. (3’16)
00:12:57
316
LS of Korova Milk Bar entrance, droogs coming down the steps and going to their
usual places
LS of droogs approaching their usual seats, Dim going to “milkwell”
LS of company of four men and a woman, woman starts to sing “Ode to Joy”
CU of Alex listening to woman
MCU to CU of woman singing
LS of droogs sitting and drinking, Dim mocking woman’s singing, Alex hits him
CU of woman looking at Alex
LS of droogs sitting, Dim and Alex arguing
LS of men and woman staring at them
LS of two men staring at them
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
LS of droogs sitting, Dim complaining
MCU of Dim
CU of Alex staring intently at Dim
MCU of Dim suggesting they go home
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
14 cuts
Total of Municipal blocks, Alex walking home
LS of municipal painting at Alex’s house all vulgarly decorated, Alex arriving to
elevator then going up the stairs
LS of bathroom and Alex from the back, urinating
LS of Alex taking off eyelashes in his room, lying on bed and taking out stolen
watch and money from his pockets
LS of underbed-drawer of Alex full of watches, cameras, etc.
LS of Alex on bed, jumping off
LS of underbed-drawer drawn out with a snake in it, Alex takes him out
LS of Alex sitting on bed, putting on a cassette
CU of a cassette of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony
LS of Alex putting in tape
CU of Goggly Gogol tape taken out, Beethoven put in
LS of Alex putting in tape
LS of Beethoven poster as music starts (zooming in)
MCU of naked woman poster (camera pastes down), snake, 4 Jesus statues
CU of Jesus statue’s face
CU of Jesus statue’s hand with nails
CU of Jesus statue’s foot
CU of the four Jesus statue’s upper body, legs, feet, hands in rhythm
CU of the four Jesus statue’s upper body
CU of the four Jesus statue’s upper legs
CU of the four Jesus statue’s upper hands
CU of the four Jesus statue
CU of Alex’s stirred face
CU of Beethoven’s face
LS of hanging board from downstairs, a man dressed as bride falling down, Alex as
Alex vampire, bomb explosion, vampire, explosion, vampire, ısemberek covered
by falling rocks, explosion and flames
Cut
7. (3’07)
00:16:13
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
9 cuts
46 cuts
8. (5’32)
00:19:20
LS of hallway, mother coming to Alex’s door in purple wig
LS of Alex’s bedroom, with him sleeping
LS of mother in hallway
LS of Alex’s bedroom, Alex lying in bed
LS of kitchen, father drinking
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
317
LS of father at the table
MCU of mother at table
CU of lock on Alex’s door being turned (zooming out), Alex comes out
LS of Alex from the back walking down the hallway, hands in his underpants,
camera follows, he comes back to his parents’ bedroom where he sees P.R. Deltoid
LS of Deltoid sitting on bed from behind and Alex looking into his parents’
bedroom
LS of Deltoid sitting on the bed
LS of Deltoid sitting on the bed from behind and of Alex standing in the door
LS of Deltoid sitting on the bed, Alex sits down next to him
LS of Deltoid sitting on the bed from behind and of Alex going to door in pain
after Deltoid hit him in the loins
LS of Deltoid sitting on the bed, drinking water off denture
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
15 cuts
9. (3’09)
00:24:52
MCU of girl with ice-cream at the record shop, Alex comes in (camera follows),
goes around and asks for his order at the counter
LS of girls with ice-cream at the counter, Alex staring at them
LS of Alex’s bedroom having sex with girls
Cut
Cut
Cut
3 cuts
10. (4’03)
00:28:01
Total of Alex’s houses stairway, droogs waiting for him
MCU of Dim laughing, Georgie coming in the picture behind him
MCU of Alex
LS of Georgie standing behind Dim
MCU of Alex
LS of four droogs in the staircase
MCU of Alex sitting in Dim’s lap, hearing about the new way
CU of Georgie
CU of Dim scared
MCU of Alex still sitting in Dim’s lap
CU of Dim repeating what Georgie says
CU of Alex
CU of Georgie
CU of Dim
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
14 cuts
11. (1’41)
00:32:04
318
LS of droogs walking beside water (slow motion)
LS of Georgie falling into water
LS of Georgie falling into water
LS of Dim attacking Alex with chain
LS of Dim falling into water
LS of Alex jumping in the air
CU of Alex’s hands drawing a knife out of his stick
MCU of Dim struggling out of water
OSS of Alex giving his hand to Dim
MCU of Pete backing away
OSS of Alex reaching out his hand to Dim, cutting his hand
MCU of Alex cutting Dim’s hand
LS of Alex cutting Dim’s hand
MCU of Alex’s face
LS of Dim holding his bleeding hand
OSS of Dim jumping back to water away from Alex
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
16 cuts
12. (1’24)
00:33:45
LS of Duke of New York, camera pastes down to where the droogs are sitting
MCU of Alex and Pete
LS of table with droogs
MCU of Alex
MCU of Dim and Georgie
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
5 cuts
13. (6’43)
00:35:09
Total of woman doing gymnastics surrounded by cats
Total of dark hallway in catwoman’s house
CU of door into LS of woman at the door listening to Alex
LS of house from outside with Alex at the door
LS of woman listening at the door
LS of droogs sneaking around the house
LS of hallway with catwoman coming upstairs
LS of droogs sneaking around the house
LS of door, huge penis sculpture in the foreground, lady coming in, going to the
phone
LS of house while Alex is climbing in through the window
LS of woman talking to the police on the phone
LS of door and penis sculpture while Alex enters
LS of woman at telephone
LS of door and penis sculpture with Alex
LS of woman at the telephone
LS of door and penis sculpture with Alex
Total of woman standing at the desk, focus on her while penis in foreground
LS of Alex swaying penis sculpture
LS of Alex at the door
LS of Alex at the door, hitting the penis sculpture
LS of Alex at the door, hitting the penis sculpture again
LS of woman at the desk in rage, attacking Alex with a Beethoven bask
POV as woman attacks Alex and he keeps her away with the help of the penis
statue
LS of them fighting
OSS of catwoman attacking
LS of them fighting
CU of woman attacking
LS of them fighting
LS of them fighting
LS of them fighting
LS of woman hitting Alex in the head
CU of Alex falling to the floor
Alex makes woman fall to the floor
Alex getting up with penis statue
Alex holding penis statue above his head to hit woman
CU of woman’s face screaming, camera moving in-out
Alex holding penis above his head ready to hit the woman
Zoom-in on poster with mouth, alternating with poster with breasts on it
LS of Alex holding the penis, listening to the police sirens, putting down statue and
leaving
Total of hallway with cats, Alex leaving, opening the entrance door
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
319
CU of Dim’s hands holding a bottle of milk, zoom-out to LS of droogs waiting
outside
LS of Alex being hit by bottle
Total of house entrance outside, droogs laughing at screaming Alex, leaving him
on the ground
Cut
Cut
Cut
46 cuts
14. (3’40)
00:41:52
LS of officer sitting on a chair looking at Alex
CU of Alex’s face, smiling
LS of other officer sitting on a chair, lighting a cigarette
MCU of third man in the cell, going to Alex
OSS shot of Alex being pushed to the floor
LS of cell as Alex hits man in the loins then he is hit
LS shot of officer outside drinking tea, PR Deltoid arriving, meeting sergeant
POV as Deltoid enters the cell
LS of Alex bleeding on the floor
POV of officers and Deltoid
LS of Alex on the floor
POV from below of officers and Deltoid
LS of Alex on the floor
POV from below of officers as Deltoid comes closer
OSS of Alex on the floor
POV of Deltoid from below, officers behind
CU of Alex’s face as Deltoid spits at him
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
17 cuts
15. (5’22)
00:45:32
Total of Staja from the air
Total of Staja from the air
Total of Staja from the air zooming-in
Total of jail, man folding towels then letting the new prisoner in
OSS of Alex and officer reporting Alex’s arrival
OSS of jail officers
OSS of Alex and officer
OSS of jail officers
OSS of Alex standing, officer leaving, Alex starting to empty his pockets
LS from below of jail officer’s desk
OSS of Alex standing at the desk, emptying his pockets
Total of hall, Alex undressing
LS of officer interrogating Alex, Alex getting undressed
OSS from below of Alex taking off underwear
LS of Alex standing at desk naked
OSS from below of Alex answering the questions of jail officer
LS of Alex standing at desk naked
OSS from below of Alex
LS of Alex naked, bending down, officer investigating him from behind
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
19 cuts
16. (2’28)
00:50:54
320
CU from below of chaplain’s face
MCU from below of jail officer
OSS of prisoners in the chapel rows, one of them blowing kisses to Alex
OSS of Alex looking in contempt at the person blowing kisses
OSS of kiss-blower
MCU from below of jail officer
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
CU from below of chaplain
Total of chapel from behind
Total of chaplain and first row
OSS of chaplain and jail officer singing hymn
MCU of Alex at the overhead projector
OSS of pervert man in the first row
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
12 cuts
17. (5’35)
00:53:22
Total of prison library with chaplain, camera following, pauses at Alex sitting,
reading the Bible
Alex reading the Bible
MCU of Christ carrying the cross followed by Alex dressed as Roman soldier
flagging Jesus
MCU of Alex sitting by the Bible
Total of soldiers fighting in Biblical times
MCU of Alex as soldier, hand-held camera
Total of Alex fighting as soldier in Biblical times
CU to LS of Alex’s face eating grapes, zoom-out to show Alex among three halfnaked women
MCU of Alex, eyes closed, fantasizing
LS of chaplain and Alex reading the Bible
LS of chaplain and Alex leaving the library talking about the Ludovico
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
11 cuts
18. (3’37)
00:58:57
LS of prison yard, prisoners walking in a circle
Total of Prison hallway deserted, Minister of the Interior approaches,
LS of Minister coming into Alex’s cell, examining his Beethoven bust and print
LS of prison yard, prisoners ordered into lines
LS of Minister and prison officials coming out to the yard
MCU of Alex from profile, Minister approaches from the end of the line of
prisoners
LS of prisoner line, Minister and officials; Minister informed about his crime and
sees a perfect subject for the Ludovico in him
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
7 cuts
19. (2’09)
01:02:34
Total of prison director’s office, director sitting at his desk, Alex coming in
OSS of prison director sitting at his desk
LS of director, Alex and prison officer
LS of director, Alex and prison officer
LS of director, Alex and prison officer; Alex signs document
MCU of prison ward
MCU of Alex signing papers, smiling at director
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
10 cuts
20. (2’22)
01:04:43
Total of Alex and officers coming, they reach the Ludovico center, camera follows;
ward gives Alex’s records over
LS of doctors at the Ludovico reception
Cut
Cut
321
LS of prison ward
Total of Ludovico reception
MCU of prison ward and doctor signing the transfer document
Total of medical center entrance, Alex approaching reception desk, handcuffs
taken off
MCU of officers and Alex while taking off handcuff
LS of Alex leaving for his room
MCU of prison ward looking hatefully after Alex
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
9 cuts
21. (1’22)
01:07:05
Total of hospital hallway, ward standing, Dr. Branom approaching, camera follows
her to Alex’s room
OSS of Dr. Branom
CU of tray with medical instruments
OSS of Dr. Branom
CU of injection needle thrust into the medication glass
OSS of Alex lying in bed
OSS of Dr. Branom
OSS of Alex lying in bed, receiving his first shot
OSS of Dr. Branom
CU of Alex
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
10 cuts
22. (3’16)
01:08:27
LS of screening room, Alex in the middle being treated by a doctor
CU of Alex as his eyes are being propped up
LS of screening room, Alex in the middle being treated by a doctor
LS of doctors sitting in the back rows
MCU of Dr. Branom and Dr. Brodsky
LS of man falling of a staircase
LS of man being attacked by drooges
CU of Alex’s head with electrodes
LS of man being beaten up
MCU of man being beaten up
CU of Alex’s head
LS of woman being raped by a group of men
MCU of woman
MCU of woman and men
MCU of woman struggling on the ground
LS of screening room, Alex in the middle with doctor, who is dripping eyedrops in
his eyes
CU of Dr. Brodsky explaining the procedure of the treatment to the other doctors
sitting around
MCU of Dr. Branom
CU of Dr. Brodsky
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
20 cuts
23. (0’53)
01:11:43
322
MCU from below of Dr. Branom
LS of Alex lying in bed, Dr. Branom sitting in armchair beside his bed
MCU of Alex lying in bed
MCU of Dr. Branom from below
LS of Alex lying in bed, Dr. Branom sitting in armchair beside his bed
MCU of Dr. Branom from below
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
6 cuts
24. (3’33)
01:12:36
Documentary from WWII
Documentary from WWII; Nazi assembly in Nürnberg
Documentary, Nazi soldiers marching
Documentary, Nazi soldiers
Documentary, Nazi soldiers
Documentary, Nazi bombers
Documentary, Nazi bombers in action
Documentary, Nazi tank on sunflower field
Documentary, building bombed down
Documentary, Nazi soldiers breaking a door
Documentary, bombed down building
CU of Alex’s head with electrodes; realizes what music is played
Documentary of Nazi eagle
CU of Alex’s eye propped up, Alex screaming
CU of Alex screaming
LS of screening room with Alex and doctor in the middle
CU of Dr. Branom realizing Alex is talking about the background score
CU of Alex’s head
CU of Dr.Branom
CU of Alex’s head
CU of Dr. Brodsky realizing he is keen on music
CU of Alex’s head
CU of Dr. Brodsky
CU of Dr. Branom
CU of Dr. Brodsky
CU of Dr. Brodsky
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
39 cuts
25. (4’31)
01:16:09
Total of auditorium; Alex led in to the stage by doctor,
LS of Minister of the interior speaking to the assembled personages
LS of the assembled and Minister from the back
Total of stage
MCU of prison ward
OSS of Prison chaplain and ward applauding, Minister sits
LS of Minister sitting
Total of stage with Alex and a man coming from behind the curtains
Total of stage from backstage
LS of man and Alex on stage; man hits him in the face
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
323
LS of man and Alex on stage man stepping on his foot and torturing him
MCU of Alex on the ground, man stepping on his chest
POV shot of man from below
MCU of Alex on the ground, licking man’s shoe
MCU of prison ward smiling
MCU of Alex on the ground, licking man’s shoe
LS of Minister, Dr. Brodsky, and Dr. Branom
Total of stage from backstage, man leaving stage
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
20 cuts
26. (2’08)
01:20:40
LS of woman entering the stage from behind a curtain
LS of spectators
MCU of Alex on the ground looking at the half-naked woman
LS to MCU of half-naked woman in the spotlight approaching Alex
MCU of Alex looking at the woman
MCU of woman approaching
MCU of prison ward looking stunned
Total of stage from backstage, woman approaching Alex who is kneeling
POV of woman from below as Alex sees her
LS of Alex looking at woman’s breasts
POV of woman from below as Alex sees her
POV of Alex as he tries to touch woman’s breasts
LS of Alex looking at woman’s breasts, falling to the ground
LS of Minster, Dr.Brodsky, and Dr.Branom
LS of stage woman bowing and leaving
LS of stage from backstage, Minster approaching
Total of stage from backstage, woman leaving
MCU of prison ward applauding enthusiastically
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
18 cuts
27. (1’52)
01:22:48
LS of stage from backstage, Alex on the ground, Minister applauding
LS of Alex and Minister
LS of stage from backstage, Alex sitting, Minister talking to the assembly
MCU of prison ward looking stupid
LS of Minister and Alex prison chaplain comes to them and talks about choice
MCU of Alex looking suspiciously up at the chaplain
LS of stage from the backstage, Alex sitting, chaplain at one side, minister on the
other
MCU of Alex looking smiling at the minister, who, just like the chaplain now
holds on to his shoulder
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
8 cuts
28. (7’27)
01:24:40
324
LS of hall of parents’ apartment, Alex comes in, camera follows
LS of Alex’s room redecorated
Total of newspaper “Cat-Woman killer Alex is freed”
Total of the Daily Telegraph “Crime Cure will strengthen law & order”
Total of newspaper “Murderer freed: ’Science has cure’”
Total of living room where Alex’s parents and lodger read newspapers, Alex
comes in
MCU of Alex and father shaking hands
Total of living room
MCU of Alex talking to his parents
LS of father sitting in armchair
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
LS of mother and lodger sitting on the sofa
LS of father
MCU of Alex talking to parents, looking around
LS of father
LS of Alex looking around, asking father about the lodger
LS of mother and lodger on the sofa
LS of Alex talking to father, turning smiling to Joe
OSS of Joe and mother on sofa, Joe stands up
MCU of Alex and Joe talking
OSS of Joe falling on the sofa, mother protecting him
MCU of Alex being sick after trying to hit Joe
LS of Joe and mother on the sofa
LS of Alex sick, stumbling
LS of living room, mother realizing that his sickness comes from the treatment,
while Joe finds it revolting
LS of Alex sitting on chair, trying to get himself together
LS of father sitting in the armchair
MCU of Alex in distress
LS of father in armchair
Total of living room
Total of Joe and mother
MCU of Alex crying
Total of Joe and mother
MCU of Alex crying
Total of Joe and mother, mother crying
MCU of Alex crying over his sufferings
LS of Joe and mother, mother sobbing
MCU of Alex
LS of Joe and mother on sofa, Joe talking to Alex, mother braking down crying
MCU of Alex crying
Total of living room, Alex stands up to leave
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
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Cut
Cut
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Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
43 cuts
29. (0’52)
01:32:07
LS of Alex walking by the river
MCU to CU of Alex staring at the water
Total to CU of water
Cut
Cut
Cut
3 cuts
30. (2’35)
01:32:59
MCU of beggar approaching Alex
OSS of Alex still staring at water, then realizing the old man
MCU of old man and Alex
OSS of Alex
OSS of old man waiting for money, suddenly realizing who Alex is
OSS of Alex
MCU of old man and Alex
OSS of Alex starting to get sick as the old man attacks him
Total of street, Alex trying to get away, goes under bridge where the fellows of the
old man sit and attack him
CU of Alex being beaten up
CU of old man 2
CU of old man 3
CU of old man 4
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
325
CU of old woman
CU of old man 5
CU of old man’s teeth
CU of old man 5
CU of old man 3
CU of old woman
CU of old man 4
CU of old man 2
CU of Alex protecting his head
Total of old men beating up Alex, policemen arriving zooming in on Alex’s
stunned face
MCU of Dim as police officer
POV of Alex looking up at Dim
MCU of Georgie as police officer
POV of Alex looking up at Georgie
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
27 cuts
31. (2’45)
01:35:34
Total of deserted street, car approaching
LS of Alex being dragged out of the car
LS of Alex’s and officers’ back as they drag Alex into the woods
Total of woods as the gang reach a tub at a deserted road, Alex is forced to kneel
and his head is forced into the water while being beaten
LS of Alex being held under water by Dim and beaten by Georgie
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
5 cuts
32. (4’13)
01:38:19
Total of thundering night sky
Total of road at night, HOME sign lit, pouring rain
Total of house at night
LS of Alex from the back as he is stumbling towards the house
LS of F. Alexander sitting at the type machine, as bell rings camera moves to other
side of the house where F. Alexander’s bodyguard is lifting weights
Total of hallway as bodyguard approaches, Alex falls in through the open door,
bodyguard takes him into his arms
LS of F. Alexander in a wheelchair
MCU of F. Alexander
CU of Alex’s bleeding face
Total of room with F. Alexander, bodyguard and Alex
MCU of F. Alexander
CU of Alex
MCU of F. Alexander realizing he knows him
CU of Alex
MCU of F. Alexander telling him he knows his face from the papers
Total of room, Julian takes Alex to take a bath
MCU of F. Alexander
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
17 cuts
33. (2’43)
01:42:32
326
LS of Alex in the bathtub
LS of F. Alexander sitting in wheelchair, talking on the phone about ruining the
government with the help of Alex, hears Alex singing
LS of Alex in the bath, singing
MCU of F. Alexander from below having something like a seizure
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
4 cuts
34. (4’27)
01:45:15
Total of Alex sitting at glass table, eating in bathrobe; F. Alexander carried down
the steps by Julian
LS of Alex eating with F. Alexander and Julian watching from left and right
MCU of Alex eating
LS of Alex from below, sitting, looking at F. Alexander pouring wine
CU of F. Alexander on the verge of an attack
MCU of Julian from below
MCU of Alex drinking wine, F. Alexander staring at him madly
LS of Alex from below
MCU of Alex examining the wine
MCU of F. Alexander
LS of Alex from below, F. Alexander pouring wine
MCU of F. Alexander telling Alex about his wife
MCU of F. Alexander
MCU of F. Alexander
LS of table company, F. Alexander going closer to Alex
LS of Alex sitting at table, F. Alexander talking to him
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
19 cuts
35. (3’44)
01:49:42
LS of table company
LS of Alex sitting at the table
LS of Alex and F. Alexander from the back
LS of house, F. Alexander’s friends approaching
Total of table company
OSS of Alex and F. Alexander
OSS of Julian and man
OSS of Alex and F. Alexander, woman asking him about being conditioned against
music
CU of F. Alexander getting more upset
CU of Alex’s head from the side held by F. Alexander in agony
CU of Alex’s head held
CU of F. Alexander’s face in agony
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
16 cuts
36. (2’54)
01:53:26
CU to Total of Alex’s face lying on bed, sleeping, Beethoven’s Ninth played,
awaking, trying to escape from the room
MCU to Total of F. Alexander laughing and friends
LS to CU of Alex banging his head into the floor, looking at the window
LS of Alex from the back, running for the window
LS of Alex jumping to the window, opening it
Total of house façade from below, Alex jumping out
POV shot as Alex is falling down
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
7 cuts
327
37. (2’46)
01:56:20
CU of hospital bed, Alex’s legs, face
Total of hospital room, nurse coming out of curtains half naked, doctor pulling up
his pants
MCU zooming out of newspaper
CU zooming out of Minister’s face in newspaper
Total of newspaper headline “Government accused of inhuman means in crime
reform”
Total of newspaper headline “Minister accused of inhuman cure”
Total of newspaper headline “Government is murderer”
Total of newspaper headline “Storm over ‘crime cure’ boy”
Total of newspaper headline “Alex’s death bid blamed on brain men”
LS of Alex lying in hospital bed, parents staring at him intently
POV of Alex from above
POV of parents
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
12 cuts
38. (3’26)
01:59:06
LS of doctor pushing a cart on hospital hallway, coming to Alex
LS of Alex in bed talking to Dr.Taylor
MCU of Dr.Taylor
CU of Alex smiling
MCU of Dr.Taylor
CU of Alex
LS of Alex in bed, dr Taylor preparing slides
CU of Alex
MCU of Dr. Taylor
CU of Alex
MCU of Dr.Taylor
CU of Alex
MCU of Dr.Taylor
Total of slides
CU of Alex looking at slide, trying to find an answer
MCU of Dr.Taylor
CU of Alex answering
Total of next slide
MCU of Dr.Taylor
Total of next slide
MCU of Dr. Taylor
Total of next slide
Total of next slide
CU of Alex answering and hurting his arm
MCU of Dr. Taylor
CU of Alex examining his arm
MCU of Dr. Taylor
CU of Alex
MCU of Dr. Taylor
CU of Alex
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
33 cuts
39. (4’44)
02:02:32
328
LS of Alex in bed, nurse feeding him
Total of hospital room towards hallway where the minister and a doctor are
Cut
Cut
approaching
LS of Alex in bed, nurse feeding him
POV of minister, doctor and a nurse sitting at the foot of Alex’s bed
MCU of Alex munching
LS of minister standing beside the bed, Alex still eating
OSS of Alex eating, minister feeding him in the meantime
MCU of minister
OSS of Alex being fed, smiling
MCU of minister telling Alex they never wished him harm
MCU of minister
MCU of minister
MCU of minister
LS of Alex in bed being fed by the minister
OSS of Alex asking about F. Alexander while chewing
MCU of minister
MCU of minister
MCU of minister
LS of Alex lying in bed, being fed by the minister
MCU of minister
OSS of Alex looking at the minister
MCU of minister
OSS of Alex looking stunned at the minister
MCU of minister
OSS of Alex in bed
MCU of minister
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
31 cuts
40. (1’19)
02:07:16
POV of hospital room, huge loudspeakers tolled in, men bringing in flowers, photo
reporters flood in
OSS of Alex and minister shaking hands while photos are taken
POV of reporters
MCU of Alex grinning, thumb up
MCU of minister grinning
MCU of Alex grinning, thumb up, face turning serious, eyes propped up
Total of Alex having sex with naked woman, people standing around in costumes,
applauding
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
7 cuts
41. (2’30)
02:08:35
02:11:05
Credits with Gene Kelly singing ‘Singin’ in the rain’
THE END
Cut
Cut
2 cuts
329
330
SHOT ANALYSIS:
THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT’S WOMAN
1. (2’03)
0:00:18
0:00:37
CU of Anna on set with mirror, camera to LS on set
CU of clipboard, LS of Anna/Sarah approaching, going on to the Cobb, walks by
the camera and to the end of the Cobb
Cut
Cut
2 cuts
2. (1’00)
0:02:21
Total of Lyme Regis street
FS of women packing out vegetables on the street market
LS of Shepard coming up the street with his flock
LS of Sam coming up the streets with a bunch of flowers
CU to MCU of Charles’ hand working on a fossil
LS of Sam with flowers on the street
LS of Charles shouting out of the window, ordering him to get the carriage ready
LS of Sam on street listening to him
MCU of Charles in the window
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
9 cuts
Total of Lyme Regis street with greens
Total of other street as carriage goes by
Mary running to the house, calling on Mrs. Tranter
MCU of Mrs. Tranter opening the door for Charles
MCU of Charles and Mrs. Tranter coming in to the drawing-room
Dissolve
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
4 cuts, 1
dissolve
FS of Mary running to Ernestina’s room to LS of Ernestina rushes for dress
FS of Charles and Mrs. Tranter in drawing-room, Charles goes over to the
conservatory to wait for Ernestina
MCU of Sam downstairs in the kitchen
Ernestina arriving to drawing-room
MCU of Sam eating apple and when Mary comes rushing to the window
MCU of Mary and Sam watching Charles and Ernestina from the window
Cut
Cut
3. (0’58)
0:03.21
4. (0’58)
0:04:19
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
6 cuts
5. (1’39)
0:05:17
LS Ernestina coming to the conservatory
LS of Charles waiting
MCU of Sam and Mary in the window
CU of Ernestina looking at Charles
OSS of Charles
OSS of Ernestina
OSS of Charles
CU of Charles and Ernestina
CU of Charles
CU of Ernestina
APPENDIX – SHOT ANALYSIS: THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT`S WOMAN
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
331
LS of them in conservatory from outside
MCU of Mary and Sam in window
CU of Ernestina
MCU of Ernestina
OSS of Charles
MCU of Ernestina
OSS of Charles
MCU of Ernestina
CU of Charles and Ernestina
MCU of Sam and Mary in window
MCU of Charles and Ernestina
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
21 cuts
CU of Mike in bed, camera zooms out to MCU revealing Anna
LS of Anna running out of the Royal Lion Hotel and her car leaving
Cut
Cut
2 cuts
OSS of Sarah drawing a dying old lady
MCU of Sarah sitting on stairs, drawing camera zooms out to LS of house interior
LS of street in Lyme Regis, Mr. Forsythe coming
LS of interior, coffin carried out, camera zooms in to MCU of Sarah and pastor
OSS of Sarah
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
5 cuts
LS of London street, Charles’ carriage approaching
CU of Charles in carriage
LS of carriage on street, camera follows till entrance
LS of Freeman’s Orient Wharf, Mr. Freeman approaching, zooming in to MCU of
Charles and Mr. Freeman, they move on, camera takes them low angle
MCU Mr. Freeman in office
MCU of Charles
MCU of Mr. Freeman
MCU of Charles
MCU of Mr. Freeman
MCU of Charles
MCU of Mr. Freeman
MCU of Charles
MCU of both as they shake hands and move to balcony, shot low angle so that
FREEMAN can be seen
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
6. (1’43)
0.06.56
7. (1’26)
0.08.39
8. (1’54)
0:10:05
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
13 cuts
9. (2’05)
00:11:59
332
MCU of Charles and Ernestina walking along the Cobb Charles explaining his visit
to her father
Total of Charles and Ernestina, Charles goes up steps
MCU of Ernestina shot high angle
MCU of them talking
MCU of Charles coming up the steps
LS of Cobb with waves, Sarah standing at the end of the Cobb
MCU of them looking at her
LS of Cobb
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
MCU of Charles and Ernestina high angle
MCU of Charles and Ernestina low angle
MCU of Charles and Ernestina high angle, Charles decides to go and warn Sarah
OSS of Charles
MCU of Ernestina high angle
CU of Charles
MCU of Charles and Ernestina, Charles standing above her on steps
LS of Charles from behind, running on Cobb
LS of Charles from front to back as he is running on Cobb
LS of Charles from front to back as he is running on Cobb again
LS of Charles standing on Cobb with his back to the camera, shouting to her
MCU of Charles in artificial lighting
CU of Sarah from behind, slowly turning her head
MCU to CU of Charles in artificial lighting
MCU to CU of Sarah
CU of Charles
CU of Sarah turning back to sea
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
25 cuts
10. (0’45)
0:14:04
CU of glass with embroidery beside it
MCU of Charles drinking
MCU of Ernestina doing needlework
LS of them in drawing room / OSS of Ernestina
MCU of Charles sitting and drinking
MCU of Ernestina
MCU of Charles
MCU of Ernestina
MCU of Charles
CMS of Ernestina sitting closer to Charles
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
10 cuts
11. (2’46)
0:14:49
LS to MCU of Sarah coming to gate through the woods
Total of Mrs. Poulteney’s house
LS of Sarah sitting in the dark foyer of Mrs. Poulteney’s house
CU of Sarah looking at Mrs. Fairly
CU of Mrs. Fairly bringing in tea to Mrs. Poulteney
CU of Sarah looking scared, breathing deeply
LS of Sarah, Millie appearing on left trying to warn her
MCU of Mr. Forsythe opening the door to OSS of Sarah outside
CU of Mrs. Poulteney
OSS of Sarah approaching
LS of Mrs. Poulteney’s drawing room
OSS of Mrs. Poulteney
MCU of Sarah while Mrs. Poulteney and Mr. Forsythe seen in the mirror behind her
OSS of Mrs. Poulteney and Mr. Forsythe
MCU of Mrs. Poulteney and Mr. Forsythe shut low angle
OSS of Mrs. Poulteney while Mr. Forsythe is leaving
MCU of Sarah with the mirror behind her, camera zooming in
MCU of Mrs. Poulteney low angle
CU of Sarah and mirror
MCU of Mrs. Poulteney
CU of Sarah and mirror
CU of Mrs. Poulteney
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
333
CU of Sarah
MCU of Mrs. Poulteney low angle
CU of Sarah
Cut
Cut
Cut
27 cuts
12. (1’28)
0:17:35
0:18:17
0:18:24
CMS of Mike and Anna in bed, Anna reading out from book
CMS of Mike going to window
CMS of Anna on bed, reading
CMS of Mike closing the window
CMS of Anna on bed, reading, Mike coming back and sitting on bed
CU of Mike’s hand writing with Union Jack pen
CMS of Mike and Anna on bed
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
7 cuts
13. (1’41)
0:19:03
0:20:36
CU of Charles’ hand hammering fossils
LS of Charles hammering on the Undercliff
CU of Charles’ hand hammering
CMS of Charles with pipe and hat
LS of woods, Sarah approaching
LS of Charles standing out and getting out his telescope
LS of woods as seen by Charles through telescope
MCU of Charles looking into telescope
LS of woods and Sarah walking as seen by Charles through telescope
LS of woods and Sarah walking as seen by Charles through telescope
LS of Charles coming down the Undercliff
MCU of Charles looking for Sarah
LS of Sarah at the bottom of the valley
MCU of Charles looking for Sarah
LS of Charles from behind going after Sarah
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
17 cuts
14. (0’16)
0:20:44
LS of Sam on street with flowers
Cut
15. (1’10)
0:21:00
334
LS of Charles on Ware Commons, climbing, camera zooming in to MCU of him
low angle
LS of Sarah with her back to a tree, bay below with ship
LS of Charles approaching her
OSS of Sarah and the bay
CMS of Charles studying Sarah
LS of Sarah sleeping
LS of Charles coming closer
LS of Sarah awaking, looking at him stunned
MCU of Charles
LS of Sarah still stunned, shying away
MCU of Charles
LS of Sarah
MCU of Charles turning away, Sarah in the background
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
13 cuts
16. (0’20)
0:22:10
LS of kitchen at Miss Ernestina’s, Mary comes, camera follows to door, OSS of
Sam standing at the door, whistling
Cut
17. (1’02)
0.22:30
CU milkman pouring milk
LS of Charles in dairy taking milk
CU of Charles sitting down to dairy window
CU of milkman
MCU of Charles from outside, sitting in the window
LS of Sarah approaching on the road to Lyme with sea and horizon in the
background
MCU to CU of Charles
LS of Sarah
CU of Charles and milkman in front of dairy
LS of Sarah
MCU of Charles and milkman talking of the French Lieutenant’s Whore
LS of Sarah walking away
MCU of Charles
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
13 cuts
18. (0’43)
0:23:32
LS of Ernestina reading in her room, Mary comes in, camera follows
CU of Ernestina’s hand holding the note from Charles “For my Beloved”
Cut
Cut
2 cuts
19. (1’04)
0:24:15
LS of Charles following Sarah on path, moves in to MCU
OSS of Sarah
OSS of Charles
OSS of Sarah
OSS of Charles
OSS of Sarah, stepping closer LS Charles, looking into his eyes
MCU of Charles looking after her stirred
LS of Sarah leaving, looking back at him once
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
8 cuts
20. (1’24)
0:25:19
MCU of Mike in conservatory
LS of Anna looking for the part they are to rehears
LS of Mike and Anna
MCU of Anna still reading, playing with her skirt
MCU of Mike
LS of Anna lost
LS of Anna from back walking towards Mike
MCU of her falling
MCU of Mike
OSS of Anna sitting on floor
MCU of Mike standing against door, smoking, tapping
LS of Anna and Mike going back to place
LS of Anna from other side “I see you.”
MCU of Mike “Miss Woodruff!”
LS of Anna zooming in
Anna towards Mike, slipping
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
335
16 cuts
21. (2’13)
0:26:43
MCU of Sarah and Charles high angle
MCU of Charles low angle
OSS of Sarah high angle
CU of them as they hear barking
LS of Sarah walking away, hiding behind tree
MCU of Charles
LS of tow men with dog walking on path
MCU of Charles
LS of Charles picking up his stuff, going to her
LS of Charles and Sarah walking on path
LS to MCU of Charles and Sarah walking
MCU of Charles
CU to LS of Sarah as she walks away
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
13 cuts
22. (0’39)
0:28:56
MCU of Mrs. Poulteney, camera zooms out revealing Sarah on left, Mrs. Poulteney
in the middle and Mrs. Fairly standing next to Mrs. Poulteney
Cut
Cut
2 cuts
23. (0’19)
0:29:35
CU of bells in basement
MCU of Mary spying behind door frame
LS of Ernestina opening the door to visitors
MCU of Mary still behind door frame
LS of Mary and Sam and cook in kitchen
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
5 cuts
24. (2’20)
0:29:54
336
LS of Sarah helping Mrs. Poulteney to sit down
LS of drawing room
MCU of Charles
MCU of Sarah and Mrs. Tranter
OSS of Ernestina and Mary bringing in tea
MCU or Mrs. Poulteney
OSS of Ernestina
LS of drawing room
MCU of Mrs. Poulteney with Sarah in the background
MCU of Sarah looking shortly at Charles
MCU of Charles from a little below
OSS of Mrs. Poulteney and Sarah with Mrs. Tranter
LS of Charles
OSS of Mrs. Poulteney
LS of Charles
MCU of Sarah serving tea
OSS of Ernestina serving tea
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
LS of Charles receiving tea saucer from Ernestina
CMS of Sarah helping Mrs. Tranter, looking at Charles
LS of Sarah bringing tea to Charles
CU of Sarah drawing note out
CU of Sarah putting note into napkin
MCU of Charles looking at her stunned
LS of room
MCU of Charles
LS of Sarah serving cake
CU of Charles’ hands getting out the note
LS of room (Charles with his back), Ernestina rebuking Charles for not warning
Sam
CU of Charles opposing
OSS of Ernestina
CMS of Charles looking at Ernestina
OSS of Mrs. Tranter, Sarah and Mrs. Poulteney
OSS of Ernestina already looking ashamed
MCU of Sarah sipping tea
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
42 cuts
25. (2’11)
0:32:14
CMS of Charles coming to the graveyard
MCU of Charles and Sarah
CU of Sarah
MCU of Sarah and Charles, he behind her back
MCU of Charles and Sarah, he looking around
CU of Charles
MCU of them as Sarah asks him to listen to her story later on the Undercliff
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
7 cuts
26. (0’57)
0:34:25
CU of Mike and his reflection in the window
LS of Anna sleeping on bed
MCU of Mike looking at her wondering, sitting on bed to OSS talking to Anna
Cut
Cut
Cut
3 cuts
27. (3’10)
0:35:22
CU of faces of mad men on photos
CMS of Grogan and Charles studying telescope
MCU / OSS of Grogan low angle
CMS of Grogan
MCU of Charles sitting, smoking a cigar
MCU of Grogan
MCU of Charles
CU of photos of mad women
MCU of Grogan
MCU of Charles
MCU of Grogan
MCU of Charles
MCU of Grogan
MCU of Charles
CMS of them, to OSS of Grogan telling Charles about Sarah crying
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
337
MCU of Charles high angle
MCU of Grogan
MCU of Charles
MCU of Grogan low angle
MCU of Charles
MCU of Charles
MCU of Charles
OSS of Grogan pouring out more drink
MCU of Charles
MCU of Grogan
MCU of Charles
MCU of Grogan
MCU of Charles
MCU of Grogan, explaining Charles that Sarah does not want to be cured
MCU of Charles smoking, pondering
MCU of Grogan finishing his drink
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
33 cuts
28. (7’41)
0:38:32
338
CU of Sarah staring out at sea
MCU of Charles with his back to a tree, listening to her
CU of Sarah
MCU of Sarah, zooming out, around her, Charles revealed in the background
MCU of Sarah
MCU of Sarah looking back at Charles
LS of them
MCU of Charles
MCU of Sarah
MCU of Charles
CU of Sarah as she is going into more intimate details
MCU of Charles
POV of Sarah’s back
MCU of Sarah with Charles in the background
CMS of her standing up
MCU of Sarah letting her hair out
CMS of Charles
CMS of Sarah playing with her hair
CMS of Charles
CMS of Sarah
CMS of Charles
CMS of Sarah with her hair let out on one side, saying ‘I gave myself to him.’
CMS of Charles
CMS of Sarah sitting down in front of him, looking into his eyes
OSS of Charles standing up
LS of them, Sarah looking out at sea
MCU of Charles
CMS of Sarah
MCU of Charles
CMS of Sarah, Charles coming to her, almost strokes her hair
LS of Charles behind her
MCU of Charles
CMS of Sarah
MCU of Charles
LS of Sam and Mary approaching on path
LS of Sarah and Charles low angle
LS of Sam and Mary playing
MCU of Charles and Sarah, she laughing at them
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
LS of Sam and Mary
MCU of Sarah and Charles, she still laughing
CU of Charles
CU of Sarah
MCU of Charles and Sarah, he sends her away, she wants to touch him as he wanted
to touch her before, then puts her hair back up again and leaves
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
43 cuts
29. (1’03)
0:46:13
LS of Anna and Mike on beach, zooming in
CU of Anna, denying to be sad
CU of them kissing, then Anna looking away
Cut
Cut
Cut
3 cuts
30. (0’31)
0:47:16
LS of Sarah approaching
LS of dairy
LS of Sarah
MCU of Mrs. Fairly as she sees Sarah
MCU of Sarah walking by, knowing she is seen
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
5 cuts
31. (1’10)
0:47:47
LS of Mrs. Poulteney’s house at night
OSS of Sarah’s image in mirror
CU of her hand drawing her self-portrait as a mad woman
CU of her face’s reflection in mirror
CU of her drawings
CU of her reflection in the mirror, camera zooming in
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
6 cuts
32. (0’35)
0:48:57
MCU of Charles at home
LS of letter coming in under door
MCU of Charles
MCU of Charles picking up letter
CU of letter
MCU of Charles stunned, thinking what to do
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
6 cuts
33. (1’36)
0:49:32
LS of port, carriage rushing by
LS of port, Charles jumping out of carriage, running to Grogan’s door, camera
moves in to MCU of Charles stirred, waiting for the door to open
MCU and OSS of house maid opening the door
LS of foyer in Grogan’s asylum with two old ladies in the foreground, Charles
coming in in the background
LS of Grogan’s office
OSS of Grogan
MCU of Charles realizing that Sarah is gone and is being looked for
OSS of Grogan
MCU of Charles
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
339
OSS to MCU of Grogan as Charles is telling him he has received a note from her
Cut
10 cuts
34. (0’31)
0:51:08
LS of woods at night, Sarah coming up the hillside and going into the barn
Cut
35. (2’46)
0:51:39
CU of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species and Grogan’s hand on it
MCU of Grogan vowing silence
MCU of Charles
OSS of Grogan, pouring out drinks, analyzing Sarah’s behaviour
MCU of Charles listening to him, camera zooming in
MCU of Grogan
MCU of Charles stirred by what he is hearing
OSS of Grogan
MCU of Charles
MCU of Grogan
MCU of Charles
CMS of room, Charles standing up, Grogan talking on
OSS of Charles emphasizing that Sarah in not a prostitute
OSS of Grogan realizing Charles is half in love with Sarah
OSS of Charles explaining that nothing improper happened between them
OSS of Grogan
OSS to MCU of Charles
MCU of Charles with Grogan in the background
OSS of Charles telling Grogan he will honor his vows to Miss Freeman
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
9 cuts
36. (0’55)
0:54:25
LS of Lyme Regis at dawn
LS of Charles on bed, half undressed, his pipe gone out, then as he is standing up
camera zooms out
MCU of Charles looking out of the window on the Cobb
LS of bay
CU of Charles
MCU of Sarah turning around in slow motion
MCU of Charles terrified
MCU of Sarah turning back towards sea
MCU of Charles behind the window
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
9 cuts
37. (5’07)
0:55:20
340
CMS of street, Charles rushing out of hotel
LS of Charles coming up the hill, the sea behind him and cows around
LS of woods as Charles is walking up a path and arriving to barn
MCU of Charles looking in for her
LS of Sarah in hay, sleeping
MCU of Charles relieved to find her
LS of Charles going in to cover her
MCU of Charles low angle as he is taking his coat off
CMS of Sarah awaking frightened
MCU of Charles calling her name
MCU of Sarah
MCU of Charles
Cut
Dissolve
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
MCU of Sarah still little sleepy
MCU of Charles
OSS of Sarah frightened, Charles trying to cover her again
MCU of Charles
MCU of Sarah as Charles hold out his hand to her to help her up, she kissing his
hand
MCU of Charles while Sarah kissing his hand, asking her to control herself
LS of them, Sarah fainting
CU of Charles holding her close, kissing
LS of them kissing
MCU of them kissing
LS of Sam and Mary approaching
MCU of kissing
LS of Mary and Sam seeing them
MCU of Charles and Sarah putting their heads down, Charles rushing out
LS to OSS of Charles rushing out, shouting at them
LS of Mary walking away
MCU of Sam and Charles
LS of Mary and Sam leaving
OSS of Charles coming, Sarah putting her cloak on
CMS of Sarah
OSS of Charles apologizing for his behavior
CMS of Sarah stunned
OSS of Charles telling her that people want to send her to an institution
OSS of Sarah
OSS of Charles giving her money
OSS of Sarah looking at him with loving eyes until she gets the money
OSS of Charles
OSS of Sarah bothered by his indifferent tone, asking whether they are to meet
again
OSS of Charles telling her no
OSS of Sarah putting on her hood
OSS of Charles telling her she is a remarkable person
OSS of her leaving
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
44 cuts, 1
dissolve
38. (1’38)
1:00:27
CMS of Anna getting out of trailer, walking through benches where other staff
members are eating, sitting down to Mike’s table
MCU of them at the table
OSS of Anna bothered
OSS of Mike
OSS of Anna telling him she will miss him
LS of set with Anna and Mike in foreground, assistant calling Mike, he insisting on
seeing her in London
OSS of Anna talking annoyed with assistant
OSS of Mike
OSS of Anna
OSS of Mike
OSS of Anna promising to meet him in London
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
11 cuts
39. (0’50)
1:02:05
LS to MCU of Charles coming into his hotel room
MCU of Sam while asking about his future plans
Cut
Cut
341
MCU of Charles with Sam in the background
Cut
MCU of Charles sitting down, Sam standing above him, Charles would not look into Cut
his eyes or at him at all
CMS of Charles standing up, leaving the room
Cut
5 cuts
40. (0’51)
1:02:55
LS of carriage coming to Ernestina’s, Charles getting out with his pipe in his mouth
LS of Charles stepping in the house after Mary opens the door
OSS of Charles giving money to Mary
OSS of Mary
OSS of Charles
LS of Charles approaching the drawing room, Mary in the background
CMS of Mary examining the coin she got
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
7 cuts
41. (1’53)
1:03:46
CMS to MCU of Charles looking at Ernestina from the conservatory
LS of Ernestina with bows
MCU of Charles looking down, sad, picking a flower
LS of Ernestina, Charles walking into the picture
CMS of Ernestina, camera moves around them to reveal target
LS of garden, Charles and Ernestina going to get arrows
LS of them walking back to shooting position
OSS of Ernestina looking up on him, asking for a kiss
MCU of them as Charles kisses Ernestina on cheeks but she want more, he kisses
her with opened eyes
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
9 cuts
42. (0’24)
1:05:39
LS of Exeter street, Sarah approaching with luggage and goes into Endicott Hotel
Cut
43. (0’58)
1:06:03
342
CMS of Charles playing tennis with Montague
LS of tennis court
CMS of Charles passing the ball back
CMS of Henry
CMS of Charles
LS of Henry
LS of Charles passing the ball back
LS of Henry
MCU of Charles’ mad face
LS of Henry
MCU of Charles’ mad face
CMS of game keeper
CMS of Charles taking ball
LS of Charles passing the ball
LS of Henry
CMS of Charles
LS of Henry
LS of Charles
LS of tennis-court
LS of Henry
CMS of Charles
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
LS of Henry
MCU of Charles
MCU of game keeper
Cut
Cut
Cut
24 cuts
44. (0’42)
1:07:01
MCU to LS of Charles dressing, telling Henry to send money to Sarah
MCU of Montague
MCU of Charles declaring he wants to hear no more about it
Cut
Cut
Cut
3 cuts
45. (0’30)
1:07:43
LS of street in London, carriage arriving, Charles getting out
LS of entrance interior, Sam letting Charles in
Cut
Cut
2 cuts
46. (1’46)
1:08:13
CU of punch bowl to MCU of Charles and his friends
MCU of them sitting drunk
MCU of friend who wants to go for a little drive around town
MCU of Charles
MCU of friend
MCU of Charles
CMS of them standing up, Charles asking where they are going
LS of dining hall, Charles walking unsteadily, then falling
Wipe
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
7 cuts, 1
wipe
47. (1’42)
1:09:59
LS of London street, little boy approaching, giving a letter to Sam
LS of interior of house, Sam closing the door, opening the letter
MCU of Charles sleeping on the sofa, zooming out as Sam enters, wakes him, then
zooming in again to MCU
CU of letter with three words ‘Endicott’s Family Hotel’
MCU of Charles throwing letter away
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
5 cuts
48. (0’37)
1:11:41
CU of Sarah’s hands packing out shawl, humming, zooming out to LS as she walks
to the other room putting the shawl on nightgown, zooming in to MCU as she is
looking out of the window
Cut
49. (1’28)
1:12:18
CU of Charles’ hand writing a letter
LS of room as Sam is bringing in tea, asking Charles’ advice about business,
Charles refusing him again
Cut
Cut
2 cuts
50. (0’42)
343
1:13:46
LS of Exeter train station, steamer coming in
LS of Sam packing out luggage, Charles going off to stretch his legs
Cut
Cut
2 cuts
51. (5’15)
1:14:28
LS of street in Exeter, Charles coming uphill, going into Endicott’s Hotel
CMS of Charles going to desk
CU of Mrs. Endicott
MCU of them
LS of Betty Anne and Charles going upstairs
OSS of door, Betty Anne letting in Charles
CU of Sarah stunned to see him
MCU of Charles stepping in
LS of Sarah high angle, her leg bandaged
MCU of Charles
MCU of Sarah
MCU of Charles
MCU of Sarah
MCU of Charles
OSS of Sarah high angle
LS of Charles taking his coat off
MCU of Charles
OSS of Sarah
MCU of Charles
OSS of Sarah crying
MCU of Charles
CU of Sarah
MCU of Charles
CU of Sarah
MCU of Charles
CU of fireplace as ashes fall out
MCU of Charles looking at fire
MCU of them trying to put out embers
CMS Charles cleaning away ashes
MCU of them, Charles still putting out embers
CMS of Charles finished
MCU of Charles putting back blanket over her legs, holding her hand
CU of hands
MCU of them kissing, zooming out as Charles is taking Sarah to bedroom, putting
her down on the bed
MCU of Charles low angle, undressing
CMS of Sarah on bed, Charles laying on her, kissing her
MCU of Sarah
OSS of Charles
OSS of Sarah, crying out
CU of Charles staring at her with incomprehension
MCU of Sarah drawing him back to her, kissing him
MCU of Charles
CU of Sarah
CU of Charles as he ejaculates
CU of Sarah caressing him
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
45 cuts
52. (0’47)
1:19:43
344
LS of street in Exeter, Sam approaching and entering the Endicott’s hotel
LS of Sam from outside, asking about Sarah and Charles
Cut
Cut
2 cuts
53. (2’35)
1:20:30
LS to MCU of Sarah and Charles lying in bed talking about the French lieutenant
story, about their future Charles promising her to come back for her
Cut
54. (0’24)
1:23:05
LS of window from outside
LS of Sam looking at the window, watching for Charles
LS of windows
Cut
Cut
Cut
3 cuts
55. (0’51)
1:23:29
LS of bedroom, camera zooming in, Sarah and Charles kissing, MCU to OSS of
Sarah who sets Charles free of obligations, then lies on bed
Cut
56. (0’58)
1:24:20
LS of platform at Exeter train station, Mike running with a sandwich towards train
MCU of Anna and Mike kissing, he desiring her, she leaving
LS of platform as Mike is getting off
Cut
Cut
Cut
3 cuts
57. (3’34)
1:25:18
CMS to LS of Ernestina playing cards, Charles entering
OSS of Ernestina, Charles taking her hand
OSS of Charles telling her he is not worthy of her
OSS of Ernestina
CU of Charles
CU of Ernestina
LS of them sitting in drawing room, Charles standing up telling lies
CU of Ernestina not looking at him
CU of Charles
CU of Ernestina
CU of Charles
CU to LS of Ernestina who wants to run out but runs towards the conservatory
instead
CMS of Ernestina as Charles is sitting with his back to her in the background
MCU of Charles from back, holding his head
MCU of Ernestina from behind
MCU of Charles holding his head, pondering
MCU of Ernestina realizing that he is lying
OSS of Ernestina
CMS of Ernestina and the room behind her
OSS of Ernestina
CMS of them talking
OSS of Ernestina
CMS of them
OSS of Ernestina, blaming the other woman to separate them
CMS of Charles who will not discuss her with Ernestina
MCU of Ernestina cursing him
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
26 cuts
345
58. (1’11)
1:28:52
CU of letter Charles is writing to Mr. Freeman, Ernestina’s voice still heard
CMS of Charles at his desk, writing
CMS of Sam bringing him brandy, to OSS of Charles
OSS of Charles high angle
MCU of Sam
OSS of Charles high angle
MCU of Sam
MCU of Charles
MCU of Sam quitting his job
MCU of Charles
CMS of Sam leaving the room
MCU of Charles
CMS of Charles rushing to the door
OSS of Sam denying service
CMS of Charles at the door, mad
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
15 cuts
59. (1’06)
1:30:03
LS of street in Exeter shot from the entrance of the Endicott Hotel, Charles coming
LS of Charles entering the hotel, on hearing that Sarah has left Charles runs upstairs
LS of Charles running on stairs
LS of door from inside as Charles comes in, Mrs. Endicott shouting at him, Charles
then suddenly turns around, camera zooms in fast as he orders her to get out
CU of Charles, running to the door of the bedroom
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
5 cuts
60. (2’30)
1:31:09
CMS of Mike at the telephone, dialing
MCU to LS of Anna reading on bed, Davide answers the phone
CMS of Mike hanging up the phone
MCU of Anna with Davide in background
MCU of Davide
CMS of Mike staring at the phone, his wife comes in, he asks her about lunch on
Sunday
MCU of Davide high angle, answering the phone
CU of Anna talking to Mike on the phone
CU of Mike inviting her to lunch on Sunday
CU of Anna accepting the invitation
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
10 cuts
61. (0’59)
1:33:39
CU of newspaper, detective reading out the advertisement
LS of detective’s office with Charles and detective
MCU of Charles
CMS of office
MCU of Charles
CMS of office
MCU of Charles low angle, holding his coat, leaving
MCU of detective low angle
MCU of Charles slightly low angle
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
9 cuts
62. (0’10)
346
1:34:38
LS of street in London, car approaching
Cut
63. (0’39)
1:34:48
LS of Charles’ living-room in London, Montague sitting, reading
Cut
64. (0’16)
1:35:27
LS of costume designer’s shop, Anna trying on the material of her dress
Cut
65. (1’18)
1:35:43
MCU of lawyer low angle, reading out confession of guilt
MCU of other lawyers
MCU of Montague and Charles listening to the confession
MCU of Mr. Freeman, half profile, sitting in huge armchair
MCU of Charles
CMS of room, lawyer standing up, above Charles
OSS of Charles and Montague
CMS of lawyer standing above Charles
CMS of lawyers
MCU of Charles and Montague
MCU of lawyer
MCU of Charles and Montague
MCU of lawyer
MCU of Mr. Freeman, half profile, in huge armchair
MCU of Charles
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
15 cuts
66. (0’21)
1:37:01
LS of designer’s shop from outside, Anna rushing out, getting into the car, car
leaving
Cut
67. (1’10)
1:37:22
MCU of Charles in carriage
LS of street in London
MCU of Charles as a whistle indicates the end of work
LS of carriage coming to a crossing, halting as worker women come
MCU of Charles looking out of the carriage window
CMS of women coming from work
MCU of Charles drawing back to the darkness of the carriage
MCU of women passing by
MCU of Charles
MCU of women
MCU of Charles
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
11 cuts
68. (2’26)
1:38:32
MCU of poor homeless girls, prostitutes
LS of street with prostitutes and gentlemen
CMS of woman in mist
LS of street as Charles is getting out of a carriage
CMS of woman
CMS of Charles
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
347
CMS of woman
LS of street as Charles is walking by
CMS of Charles behind a carriage
LS of bar entrance
CMS of Charles on the other side of the horse
LS of bar entrance, women being thrown out, another walking into the picture with
a hood on her head, turns and looks back at Charles as Sarah did on the Cobb
MCU of Charles staring at her
CMS of woman and the trouble behind her, she walks off
MCU of Charles
LS of street as Charles follows the prostitute, she is waiting for him in the mist
LS of woman in mist, she stops by a lamppost, Charles approaches her, excuses
himself but comes back after all and they go off together
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
17 cuts
69. (4’51)
1:40:58
CU of knocker on door, Lizzy opens the door
MCU of Mike playing table-tennis in his garden
MCU of Anna, looking sad, Davide goes to bring her a drink
LS of the garden
CMS of Mike playing, looking at Anna in the pause
MCU of Anna looking back at him sadly
CMS of Mike playing
LS of actress Ernestina and actor Grogan, Mike’s wife, Lizzy and their dog
MCU of Anna from profile, actress Mrs. Poulteney from behind
MCU of actress Mrs. Poulteney and Anna listening to her mindlessly
OSS of garden with people
MCU of Davide and Mike
OSS of Davide inquiring about the ending
OSS of Mike opening a bottle of wine
OSS of Davide telling him there are two endings in the book
OSS of Mike confused about the endings
MCU of Davide
OSS of Mike not answering properly
LS of actress Ernestina and actor Grogan in garden, he playing with the dog
LS of Anna coming to the porch, meeting Mike’s wife
OSS of wife as Anna is asking about the garden
OSS of Anna
OSS of wife
OSS of Anna
OSS of wife as Anna is coming closer confused
OSS of Anna telling her she envies her
OSS of wife not understanding
OSS of Anna
CU of wife telling Anna not to envy her
CU of Anna
MCU of Anna turning and leaving
LS of actress Ernestina and actor Sam at piano
LS of interior of Mike’s house, actor Grogan and actress Mary playing
backgammon, Charles walking into the picture, camera zooms in on him to MCU as
he is looking for Anna
CMS of Mike and Anna in room, kissing, planning what to do, Anna obviously
trying to get out of the situation, then Anna and Davide leaving and Mike sinking
onto the sofa
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Fade
out/in
33 cuts,
1 fade
70. (0’05)
348
1:45:49
THREE YEARS LATER
Fade
out/in
71. (0’53)
1:45:54
LS of hotel garden, bay, Charles sitting outside, starring out at sea
MCU of Charles, a butler delivering him a telegraph
CU of telegraph “She is found under name Roughwood Montague”
MCU of Charles reading
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
4 cuts
72. (1’22)
1:46:47
LS of water surface, steamer approaching
MCU of Charles with his telescope looking at the woods, searching for the house
LS of woods and house zooming in
MCU of Charles with telescope, zooming in on him
LS of Charles coming up the path, steamer leaving
LS of house with a boy as Charles approaches and asks for Mrs. Roughwood
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
6 cuts
73. (5’31)
1:48:09
LS of interior, two girls playing, the boy looking for Sarah
MCU of Charles and boy in the background, Sarah seen through bars in white dress,
hair let down
LS of foyer, Sarah holding on to the bars, going into her room
CMS of Sarah
MCU of Charles
CMS of Sarah
OSS of Charles with beautiful view behind him
MCU of them talking
OSS of Charles
LS of them in atelier
CMS of them from behind, he looking at her drawings
MCU of them
MCU of Charles shout at her to answer him
OSS of Sarah scared, Charles stirred on hearing that she forced herself upon him
MCU of Charles
OSS of Sarah
MCU of Charles
LS of them as he grabs her and drags her down on the bench, she telling him about
finding her freedom
LS of him wanting to leave, but as she wants to prevent it he tosses her onto the
floor
LS to MCU of them on floor, she asking for his forgiveness
LS of Charles and Sarah rowing out in a boat under a dark arch onto open water
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Dissolve
Cut
20 cuts, 1
dissolve
74. (2’50)
1:53:40
LS of party with 80s music, Anna dancing with actor Grogan
CMS of Mike talking to actor lawyer, indicating Anna he wants to go off with her
CMS of Anna still dancing
CMS of Charles going back to talk to the other
CMS of Anna saying goodbye to actor Grogan
LS of Anna going up steps
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
349
LS of people dancing, Mike looking for Anna
LS of Anna running up the stairs in set, sits down, packs her stuff and pauses for a
moment to look into the mirror
LS of Mike saying goodbye to actor Grogan
LS of Mike coming up the steps, saying goodbye to actress Ernestina
LS of Mike coming into Anna’s dressing room, touches her wig, turns lights off,
goes to the other room and on hearing a car leaving, rushes to the window
MCU of Mike opening the window, camera zooming in to CU as he shouts “Sarah!”
LS of him in set lighting a cigarette
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
Cut
13 cuts
75. (0’24)
1:56:30
LS of Charles and Sarah rowing away
Fade out
GLOSSARY
CMS:
CU:
ES:
FS:
LS:
MCU:
350
Close medium shot
Close-up
Establishing shot
Full shot
Long shot
Medium close-up
No. of Shots
1
Darlington Hall on auction
3:05
16
Dissolve
1:55
8
Cut
2
3
Miss Kenton reading out her letter written to Stevens in
voice-over
Stevens serving Mr. Lewis, toast burnt
Stevens takes the vintage car
2:04
0:44
14
3
Dissolve
Dissolve
Miss Kenton in
Darlington Hall
for the first time
4
Stevens’ letter to Miss Kenton read out in voice-over
New employment
5
2:06
0:56
10
6
Dissolve
Cut
2:31
21
Cut
1:20
6
2:19
15
Cut
2:46
26
Cut
2:01
6
Cut
1:04
8
Cut
2:48
28
Cut
Segments
Darlington Hall in
the 1950s
6
7
Miss Kenton first
refused
8
Hunting at Darlington Hall, the arrival of Miss Kenton
Miss Kenton interviewed by Stevens
Lord Darlington in his library, Mr Stevens Senior
introduced to him
Miss Kenton spots silver vase
Miss Kenton walking outside, cutting flowers
Miss Kenton brings flowers to Stevens’s parlor
Miss Kenton ordered not to call Mr Stevens Senior
William
Dignity and being
a great butler
explained
Mr Stevens Senior
deteriorating
Dinner of Lords
preparing the
conference
The Chinaman
affair
Tea of Lords
preparing for the
conference
9
10
11
12
13
End-ofsequence
Editing
Scenes
Length
SEGMENTATION:
THE REMAINS OF THE DAY
Dinner for the servants
Stevens explains what dignity is
Mr Stevens Senior tells the story of the tiger and the
English butler in India
Mr Stevens Senior cleaning, leaving the dustpan on the
landing
Miss Kenton reports to Stevens
Lords talk about the anti-German French delegate, Mr.
Dupont
Mr Stevens Senior’s nose dripping
Mr. Cardinal protesting against Nazi dictatorship
Lord Darlington explaining how the living standards of
the Germans have increased
Mr. Cardinal’s question about the Jews left unanswered
Miss Kenton notes to Stevens that his father displaced a
Chinaman
Miss Kenton quarreling with Stevens about his father’s
ability to go about his chores
Stevens leaves without showing any sign of
understanding
Lord Darlington concerned about Mr. Dupont and Mr.
Lewis arriving on the same day
Lords making fun of Americans
Mr Stevens Senior approaching and falling with the silver
tray
APPENDIX – SEGMENTATION: THE REMAINS OF THE DAY
351
Mr Stevens Senior taken care of by Lord Darlington and
taken upstairs
Lord Darlington
about Mr Stevens
Senior and the
Germans
14
15
Last conversation
Last dinner at
conference
352
Shots of Darlington Hall from outside
18
1:43
10
Cut
19
Stevens’ pep-talk to the staff
0:55
14
Cut
20
Arrival of the first guest, Mr. Lewis
Lord Darlington asks Stevens to talk to his godson about
the beauties of nature
Stevens goes to the park and tries to talk to Mr. Cardinal
about “birds and bees”
Mr. Cardinal notes that Mr. Dupont has arrived so
Stevens rushes off
2:36
20
Cut
1:58
13
Cut
1:27
10
Cut
3:26
20
dissolve
1:13
16
Cut
1:43
12
Cut
21
23
Mr. Dupont complaining about his blisters
27
28
29
Mr. Lewis comes to talk to Mr. Dupont privately
Other guests arrive along with German ladies
Lord Darlington opens the conference by talking about
the importance of having a strong Germany in Europe
Mr. Dupont needs another bath for his feet
Mr. Lewis goes after him to talk to him again
Mr Stevens Senior taken ill
Mr. Dupont says Germany wants peace as they do
Mr Stevens Senior taken upstairs in a chair
30
Bells ringing
25
26
Conference dinner
prepared
Cut
Cut
24
The conference
16
15
22
Guests arriving for
the conference
2:11
2:46
17
Birds and bees
Cut
Preparations in the kitchen
Mr Stevens Senior getting ready for the day
Stevens orders a young footman to wait at table
Stevens enters Mr Stevens Senior’s room and tells him he
is not to wait at table from now on
Mr Stevens Senior offended as he had been waiting at
table every day in the last 54 years
Mr Stevens Senior notes that it was not his fault but that
of the pavement, wants Stevens to have them fixed before
the gentlemen trip
Mr Stevens Senior practices his steps down at the
summerhouse which is noticed by Miss Kenton and by
Stevens
Mr Stevens Senior gets his new duties with the trolley
16
Preparing for the
conference
15
Lord Darlington in his library talks to Stevens about his
father’s accident and asks him to hinder any such
accidents in the future
Lord Darlington about the importance of the conference
that can have an influence on the course of European
politics
Lord Darlington talks about his friend, Karl-Heinz
Bremann
Mr Stevens
Senior’s duties
changed
1:22
31
32
Cooking in the kitchen
Stevens at dinner table with measuring rod
Stevens visits his father who is in bed upstairs
Mr Stevens Senior’s confession about his wife and how
he had fallen out of love with her
Mr Stevens Senior expresses his hope that he had been a
good father to Stevens as he is proud of him
German lady’s speech about how Germany wishes peace
and enjoys the spirit of goodwill at Darlington Hall
Mr. Dupont’s speech
Mr. Lewis’ speech about gentlemen amateurs
Lord Darlington’s answer to Congressman Lewis: here
amateurism is called honor, while professionalism means
greed and power
Mr Stevens
Senior’s death
33
At the deathbed
Stevens on his trip
Jewish girls taken
in to Darlington
Hall
34
35
36
37
38
39
Sir Geoffrey’s
influence
40
Life backstairs
41
Lord Darlington
and anti-Semitism
42
43
Cut
0:56
1
Cut
2:51
13
Cut
1:25
4
Dissolve
1:53
8
Dissolve
1:05
9
Cut
0:58
4
Cut
1:03
2
2:01
10
German lady singing
Mr. Cardinal wants to chat with Stevens about fish and
the beauties of nature
Lord Darlington appreciates Stevens’ and the staff’s
achievement
Stevens goes to his father’s room
Doctor comforts him that Mr Stevens Senior did not
suffer
Stevens takes the doctor to Mr. Dupont
Stevens picks up a letter from Miss Kenton in a little
shop
Shopkeeper saying bad things about Lord Darlington
He denies to the shopkeeper that he knew Lord
Darlington
Miss Kenton’s letter read out in a voice-over in which
she asks him to meet her in the Sea View Hotel
Elsa and Irma introduced to Lord Darlington
Lord Darlington practices his German on them
Meeting Mr Benn
again
36
Footman comes in to call Stevens out
Miss Kenton tells Stevens his father has died
Stevens cannot come upstairs just now and allows Miss
Kenton to close his eyes
Stevens excuses himself and refers to his father who
would have wanted him to continue with his work
In the drawingroom after the
conference
4:36
A car approaches Darlington Hall
Sir Geoffrey and his footman, Mr. Benn get out
Miss Kenton and Mr. Benn great each other as they have
known for long
Sir Geoffrey elaborates his fascist views at the dinner
table (for him concentration camps are equivalent to
English prisons)
Sir Geoffrey does not eat meat
In Stevens’ parlor Stevens and Mr. Benn chat
Stevens reveals what it means to be contended to him: to
serve one’s employer well
Mr. Benn doubts the morals of the conversation going on
between Lord Darlington and Sir Geoffrey
Stevens is touched by music
Stevens confesses he cannot listen to the conversation at
table as it would distract him
Miss Kenton comes in with fresh soda and leaves the
gentlemen alone
Mr. Benn makes a remark about her prettiness
Stevens confesses he would be lost without her
Lord Darlington reading Stewart Chamberlain’s The
Foundations of the Nineteenth Century and observing
Jewish girls making fire for him
Lord Darlington makes Stevens let go the Jewish
housemaids
Stevens tries to oppose
Cut
353
44
The Lizzy affair
The Ford breaks
down
45
46
47
48
Stevens
questioned and
humiliated over
politics
50
Lord Darlington does not leave room for discussion as he
looked into the matter and realized that there are larger
issues at stake
The news is told to Miss Kenton
Miss Kenton gets upset and declares it a sin
Stevens excuses himself by stating that Lord Darlington
has looked into the matter and he trusts him
Miss Kenton threatens him she will leave should these
girls be dismissed
New employee, Lizzy at interview
Miss Kenton takes full responsibility for her
Stevens teases Miss Kenton about her intention to leave
Miss Kenton confesses her cowardice as she has no
family to go to
Stevens tells her she means a great deal to the house
Miss Kenton wants him to confirm his statement upon
which Stevens changes the subject back to Lizzy
51
Stevens in pub where he talks to the locals who are
expecting Dr. Carlisle
Stevens deceives the locals about his identity stating that
he had to do with politics before the war
Mr. Smith elaborates on his notions of democracy
Lizzy and Charlie
Stevens irons newspaper
53
Stevens opens curtains in the library
Lord Darlington tells him Lord Halifax was impressed by
the silver
Lord Darlington inquires about the Jewish girls,
confessing it was wrong to let them go
Stevens tells Miss Kenton about what Lord Darlington
said
Stevens states she was just as upset about the matter as
Miss Kenton upon which Miss Kenton asks him why he
always has to hide his feelings
Stevens confesses that Lizzy developed under Miss
Kenton’s attention
Miss Kenton teases Stevens about Lizzy and pretty girls
Lizzy and Charlie kissing in the park
Charlie notes he knows for whom she is picking the
354
55
1:07
8
Cut
2:45
26
Dissolve
4:22
26
Dissolve
1:12
21
Cut
3:42
18
Dissolve
0:58
3
Cut
2:19
13
Cut
0:54
3
Cut
Dr. Carlisle gives Stevens a lift
52
54
Cut
Mr. Spencer questioning Stevens about current issues of
politics and economy
Dr. Carlisle figures he is a manservant upon which
Stevens confesses he is the butler of Darlington Hall
Dr. Carlisle asking about the Fascist Lord Darlington
Stevens denies knowing him but later admits to it
Stevens defends Lord Darlington as a he was a gentlemen
and excuses himself as he was only there to serve him
Dr. Carlisle asks him whether it would have been better
to make a mistake on his own and not on the account of
Lord Darlington
Stevens confesses he is about to make his own mistake
right
The aftermath of
the Jewish affair
5
At sunset Stevens’ car breaks down as it is out of gas
Stevens cannot be of any assistance
Mr. Spencer’s conclusion is that democracy is crazy
Dr. Carlisle and
Stevens
2:15
Book scene
Feeling like a
spinster
flowers
Miss Kenton brings flowers to Stevens’ parlor
Miss Kenton inquires about the nature of the book
They almost kiss but Stevens finally sends her away
2:56
7
Cut
57
Lizzy hands in his notice
1:48
18
Cut
58
Miss Kenton very upset and tired
Stevens cancels their cocoa evenings as they are
Miss Kenton takes the next day off
Miss Kenton goes to town to meet Mr. Benn
Mr. Benn does not agree with Stevens’ blind devotion
Mr. Benn tells her he wants to open a boarding house in
Clevedon
Mr. Benn proposes
Miss Kenton and Mr. Benn kiss
Lord Darlington in his room, sitting in the dark obviously
in doubt
1:56
11
Cut
4:01
19
Cut
0:43
1
Cut
0:51
1
Cut
1:54
20
Cut
0:34
7
Cut
1:50
8
Cut
0:39
1
Cut
2:44
18
cut
3:29
27
Cut
3:42
16
Cut
2:57
15
Cut
3:43
19
Cut
56
59
60
Lord Darlington in
doubt
The secret
political meeting
and the marriage
proposal
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
Stevens meets
Mrs. Benn
Mr. Cardinal arrives unexpected to spend the night at
Darlington Hall
Stevens realizes it is Miss Kenton’s day off
Miss Kenton tells him Mr. Benn has asked her to marry
him
Stevens shocked yet no response
Miss Kenton tells him she is thinking about it
Stevens says nothing about the matter
Lord Darlington and Mr. Cardinal at dinner
Lord Darlington will not let his godson sit in at the
meeting
The Prime Minister, Lord Halifax and the German
ambassador (Ribbentrop) arrive
Ribbentrop orders his men in German to note down the
paintings
Ribbentrop tells the gentlemen Germany does not want to
drag Britain into war
Miss Kenton taken to the door by the police
Miss Kenton tells Stevens she accepted Mr. Benn’s
proposal
Stevens has nothing to say upon which Miss Kenton
offends him
Stevens leaves her without any reaction
Mr. Cardinal typing his article
Mr. Cardinal makes Stevens sit down and tells him these
are criminals from Berlin who make use of Lord
Darlington
Stevens comes for wine and Miss Kenton excuses herself
Stevens breaks the bottle of wine on the stairs
Stevens goes into Miss Kenton’s room upon hearing her
crying but only talks about the alcove
72
Stevens drives on
73
Miss Kenton/Mrs. Benn is getting ready
Mr. Benn comes to her hotel and tells her their daughter
is expecting a baby
Stevens reading her letter over again
Miss Kenton arrives and they talk about Lord Darlington,
Mr. Cardinal and the current staff problem
Miss Kenton makes him clear that she cannot come back
to service
74
75
355
On the piers
76
Saying goodbye
77
Back in
Darlington Hall
78
79
356
Miss Kenton and Stevens sit on the piers and Miss
Kenton tells him by leaving Darlington Hall she only
wanted to annoy him
Miss Kenton says many people look forward to the
evening, as it is the best part of the day for them
At the bus stop Stevens asks her to make the best of the
time she has with her husband
Paintings are being hanged and everything is made ready
for the arrival of Mrs. Lewis
Stevens tells Mr. Lewis a new housekeeper is expected to
take up her duties
A pigeon flies in but is chased out by Stevens and Mr.
Lewis
Darlington Hall bearing off
END CREDITS
2:31
6
Cut
1:49
17
Cut
3:30
22
Fade out
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the modern english novel on film

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