Book

Movie
Director: Peter Jackson | Released: 2003
Screen Play: Fran Walsh
Starring: Vigo Mortensen, Ian McKellan, Elijah Wood, John Rhys-Davies, Orlando Bloom, Andy Serkis

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the Kings is the final chapter of J.R.R. Tolkien’s LOR series. Like its predecessors, the movie has a fair share of accurate portrayals of the book’s journey, and throws in its own elements as well. It is hard to argue against the book or film, unless you want to argue against one of the most beloved authors of all time or groundbreaking, record-shattering filmmaking. Still, like most stories passed down through the ages, The Return of the King has changed with the times. And if for nothing else, we can set the record straight here and now…
Time Lapse
One of the bigger differences in timing shows through when High Elf Elrond (Hugo Weaving) delivers Anduril, the fabled sword to cut the ring from Sauron’s hand, to Aragorn. In Tolkien’s version, Aragorn has the sword far earlier. About two books earlier. Jackson uses the sword as a climactic shift in Aragorn’s temperament. After receiving the sword, he starts acting like king–breaking hearts and kicking even more arse.

Long Live the…Pimp?
As I have mentioned in my reviews of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, there is much more romance in the screen adaptations of Tolkien’s story. In this movie, director Peter Jackson includes many dream elements for Aragorn (Vigo Mortensen) and Arwen (Liv Tyler). Their star-crossed love is magnified in the movie, whereas in the book you can hardly feel its presence. Jackson’s nurturing of the love story is an interesting interpretation of the original work, and it made me miss not seeing more of it in Tolkien’s writing. Tolkien focused far more on the journey of Aragorn and Ring-Bearer Frodo (Elijah Wood).

 Also, the lady Eowyn’s affection for Aragorn is exagerrated in the movie. In the movie she is a passionate woman devoted to her father, King of Rohan, her people, and Aragorn. The book portrays her much more of an Amazonian warrior, and her affection towards Aragorn is only suggested, rather than made into a mini soap opera.

Chopping Block
Jackson made some precise choices in making the film. Like I’ve mentioned, he wanted to focus heavily on the love stories. He also wanted to cut out new characters to focus on ones that were already established. Characters such as Beregrond, a citidel soldier, and the Dunedain, Aragorn’s kinsmen, didn’t make the final cut. Beregrond had lengthy scenes with Pippin inside of Gundor’s walls. He represents the strength of Gondor’s people and the attitudes of its soldiers. The Dunedain are Aragorns kinsmen and valiant warriors. They met Aragorn and rode with him through the Dimalt Road (Road of the Dead) in the book, but in the movie it was only Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas who accompanied him on the perilous road to the City of the Damned.

Though I didn’t really miss Beregrond in the movie, the Dunedain created a more realistic feel for medieval battle, whereas in the movie you get the feeling that it is one man versus an army throughout the saga. To be fair, though, the addition of the Dunedain made it difficult to learn the new characters and follow some of the plot lines, but only minorly.

Jackson also cut much of the action following the epic battle at Gondor. After the enemy is beaten back, there are chapters dedicated to the recovery of the survivors–mainly Merry and Eowyn. This is also the time where we watch Faramir court Eowyn, whereas in the movie this is totally left out. Tolkien also includes a history behind the Great White Tree–Gundor’s symbol and the mythical plant signifying the days of the King. Jackson includes the tree, but not with the depth that Tolkien provides. Tolkien’s details help create a history to Gundor and a sense of majesty to the return of the king, whereas the movie assumes much of these sentiments.

There are many cuts the movie makes. Some of the larger ones include: Aragorn’s staring battle with Sauron through one of the seeing stones is cut from the film; orc squabbling in the guard tower where Frodo is kept prisoner; much of Frodo and Sam’s (Sean Astin) adventures through Mordor.

It is also important to mention that the book and movie start at different points. The movie opens up with a flashback of Smeagol murdering his kinsmen for the One Ring; whereas the book upons up on the precipice of war with Gandalf and Pippin travelling to Gondor. Also, Jackson gives Pippin a singing scene…which I could have done without.

Bird-Eye Vs. First Person
Beating the dead horse, I have to mention one final time the differences in perspectives Tolkien and Jackson use in their versions of the LOR story. Tolkien prefers to deliver the story from a much larger point of view when describing battles, landscapes, and the characters’ journies. Jackson focuses much more heavily upon his cast. He uses cinematography to show an entire army storming the castle in the climactic battle, but you really watch the action unfold from the eyes of Gandalf (Ian McKellan), Aragorn, Frodo, and the supporting cast.

Reflection
In my opinion, the book and the film are equally worth viewing. Nobody can describe a landscape, or create an alternate reality, quite like J.R.R. Tolkien. It’s a brilliant art form long forgotten. Peter Jackson did an equisite job throughout the saga in visually representing the landscapes and creating an epic sized journey. He also did a great job at staying true to Tolkien’s vision when it counted. Frodo’s scene at Mount Doom; Aragorn’s storming of the Black Gate, and many other vital scenes were left in tact and represented honestly. 

The movies are wonderful companions for the books, but to be truly immersed in Middle-Earth, you are going to have to read Tolkien’s work. It is hefty reading, but truly rewarding.  Now that I think of it, Jackson created nine hours of film to represent the three books, so both are pretty lengthy but well worth the commitment.

Movie:
Director: Nick Cassavetes | Released June 2009
Starring: Cameron Diaz, Abigaail Breslin, Joan Cusack

Jodi Picoult certainly knows how to tug at your heart strings with medical dramas surrounding children, and the choices that parents must make. In both the written and on-screen versions of My Sister’s Keeper, you find yourself asking “What would I do?” If you’re looking for an answer, however, you’ll find the answer quite different between the two telling.

My Sister’s Keeper is the story of Anna, her dying sister Kate, and the decision that may kill them.

Focus, Focus, Focus

Picoult’s novel is told from multiple points of view, including the over-protective mother (Sara) the rebellious brother (Jesse) and the semi-scumbaggy lawyer who handles Anna’s case (Campbell Alexander). As reading, I questioned how Cassavetes would be able to carry this over into the film, as it was often hard enough to follow through the novel format. The answer was simple: He reduced the number of characters, and dismissed most of their inner dialogue.  Instead, he walked through their stories as Kate paged through her memory book.

In this new format, characters are shallow shadows of the multiple stories that Picoult weaves. Older brother Jesse morphs from a trouble-seeking pyro living over the garage in the book to a silent artistic type who hangs out on the wrong side of the tracks in the movie. Whether Evan Ellingson (who plays Jesse on-screen) had the chops to play the harder version of Jesse, we’ll never know.

There’s also the seemingly small issue of Julia, the guardian ad litem appointed to research Anna’s situation and make a recommendation to the judge regarding Anna’s plea for medical emancipation. Her role, including a rekindled relationship with Campbell, provides more insight into each member of the family as she interviews each of them to uncover the effects that Anna’s illness has had on the family. Perhaps she was too hard to cast, or trying to weave a love interest for Campbell was too much for Cassvetes – either way, the entire character and story line erased as easily as if they’d never existed.

You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling

As with nearly any film, there has to be an element of romance. Since the romance between Campbell and Julia (above) was dismissed, a smaller relationship was brought to center screen: that between Trevor and Kate. The Romeo & Juliet story between the cancer-stricken teens provided plenty of tearful moments on-screen, as he held her while she was sick from chemo, her transformation for the hospital prom, and her eventual despair at his quick death. A mere side-story in the book, this became a central relationship to the movie. As Kate spoke to Anna about her life, and impending death, she indicated that she wasn’t afraid because maybe Trevor would be on the other side, waiting for her.

The other relationship that changed was that between Brian and Sara. The relationship would obviously be strained after 13 years of struggling with one child’s illness; but in the book you can feel the underlying love that has held the family together. Sara is harried and Brian escapes to the firehouse, but at the end of the day, there is love. Their film relationship slips farther apart in the movie, when Sara threatens to divorce Brian for taking Kate to the beach. He has simply had enough of her controlling and meddling and saving – he wants to be able to just live with Kate for the time she has left.

Staring Death in the Face

The most moving moments in the movie couldn’t adequately be captured on paper: Kate’s deterioration due to kidney failure.  Her portrayer, Sofia Vassilieva, was a beautiful young woman, dying of a terrible disease. Through the extraordinary work of the make-up artists, she lost her hair, her weight, and eventually it seemed obvious that she was on the brink of death. The most stunning was her eyes – as her kidneys failed, the toxins built up around her eyes, clouding their color. In Kate’s closing scenes, the increased translucency of her skin combined with the destruction of her eyes provided unforgettable images.

The endings between the two are strikingly different – while both culminate in a death, Picoult and Cassavetes take different turns. In either version, it’s a new twist on “what would I do?”

Movie:
Director: Ron Howard | Released: March 2009
Starring: Tom Hanks, Ewan McGregor, Ayelet Zurer, Skellan Starsgard

Yin and Yang. Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie. Books and movies. Angels and demons. All of these duos are opposing forces, yet they intermingle in an unending cosmic balance of good and evil. Books are often heralded as the better over a screen adaptation in terms of storytelling. But, movies more often rake in the bigger bucks and popularize the title.  Dan Brown’s thriller prequel to Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons resurrects the ancient rivalry between science and religion. And since Ron Howard has taken both of Brown’s bestselling novels and turned them into big production movies, perhaps Howard and Brown are now interlocked as opposites thriving for dominion over the same title. Preferably the movie would coincide with the novel in a tidy screen adaptation, but we all know that never happens. So, what demons does Howard have floating about this time?

Don’t Forget To Have Your Characters Neutered Or Spayed
Amongst the several things snipped and yanked from Brown’s original concept of Angels & Demons, is Howard’s apparent lack of sexuality and mojo. In the novel, Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is mainly a sexually supressed super-geek that has his nether regions awoken by a stunning Italian scientist named Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer). In the movie, Langdon hardly notices Ms. Vetra, and is instead more of the arrogant geek stereotype than the perv stereotype.

The sexy, impulsive Vetra seemed to have taken a few sedatives while making the journey from the book to the movie. Howard’s version of the character can’t stand in the shadow of Brown’s hot-blooded Italian vixen. In the book she chases her father’s killer with a clear abandonment of fear and disregard to danger. In the movie, though, she hardly ventures past the walls of the Vatican. Also, in the book she puts everyone in the Vatican on edge with her short shorts. The movie was kind enough to give her a plain black skirt…that went down to her knees. It’s okay for a character to dress conservative, but it detracts from Brown’s character who was clearly meant to be a source of sexuality and sexual tension for virtually every male character in the story.

To go one step further, Howard cut out the emotional bond that forms between the lead man and woman over the course of the story. He also removes (SPOILER ALERT) a sexy game of cat and mouse between Langdon and Vetra in a hotel in the book’s closing chapter. Rather, Howard opts for a much more pious ending to the movie. The movie’s ending isn’t bad, but it certainly doesn’t play to Brown’s romantic side of his storytelling.

The assassin also loses much of his virility in the movie. In my opinion this was a missed opportunity, as the hassassin in the book was a much more vicious character and source of chaos that played really well off of Langdon’s mix of genius and blossoming fondness for his female counterpart. Good villains are always a keystone to a great story–and Howard castrated this one.

The novel’s assassin (or hassassin, as Brown refers to him for his Middle Eastern roots) is a sexual predator the likes of which we haven’t seen since American Psycho. He is also a killer without pause or mercy in the novel, but he is the utter opposite in the movie. Sure he kills the cops without blinking an eye, but when it comes to the unarmed Langdon and Vetra he has code. In the book he can’t wait to ravage Vetra as a prize for his terrorism over the Vatican, but he doesn’t even notice her presence in the movie.

Inspector Olivetti (Pierfrancesco Favino) also seemed to lose much of his alpha-male mojo in the movie. In the book he not only holds a higher rank in the Swiss Guard, but he was Langdon’s number one ballbuster. There was not one conclusion Langdon found throughout the story that Olivetti did not contest in the novel, but in the movie he acted more like Langdon’s lackey. This is not a total loss, however, as most of Olivetti’s arguments with Langdon were given to a character created just for the movie.

Easy Come, Easy Go
The movie added a main character while eliminating one of the novel’s main characters. Commandante Richter (Stellan Skarsgard) was a mish-mash of several characters from the novel. One scene in particular that he had in place of Maxmillian Kohler, the head of CERN research facility in the novel, was the scene where Camerlengo McKenna (Ewan McGregor) was branded with an Illuminatti brand. And just as a sidenote, the movie has a different brand for the Camerlengo than what Brown uses in the novel (for inexplicable reasons). Anyway, eliminating Kohler from the story created a deep rift in the storyline. For instance, in the movie Langdon is absconed from his Harvard life by the Vatican, but in the novel, he is rushed to the CERN facility at the behest of Kohler. Obviously, this created a chain-reaction of changes to the story and how characters met, etcetera. Also, as stated before, the Commandante received the majority of Olivetti’s dialogue with Langdon, for whatever reason.

The Right Stuff
One particular part the movie represented well was most of the assassinations. There were four in the book and three in the movie. But I guess three out of four ain’t bad. The ones that Howard did follow-through with were portrayed with startling accuracy. He unabashedly burned, maimed, stabbed and asphyxiated three out of the four kidnapped cardinals. As mentioned above, Howard spares the fourth cardinal from his watery grave. Also, there is something to be said for seeing the Vatican and outlying Rome. If you’ve never visited the area, this movie gives the audience a beautiful glimpse of the superior architecture and artistry amassed in the region.

Touch-Ups
There are many other discrepancies to be listed, of course. Many of them are minor and did not alter the story. But there were others that shifted the plotline severly. (SPOILER ALERT) For example, one of the cardinals survive the Illuminati assassinations in the movie. This changes the end of the film and how Langdon solvese the puzzle: the Path of Illumination. The assassin’s death is different (but not necessarily worse) in the movie. However, the confrontation between Langdon, Vittoria, and the assassin felt vastly different. There was also a much larger role played by Roman and Vatican police enforcement in the movie. This detracted somewhat from the drama for the main characters, as they had lots of security to back them up as opposed to going up against the Illuminati and its assassin alone.

The Camerlengo’s insanity levels and utter collapse were different as well. In the book he takes Langdon up in the helicopter while saving the city from the antimatter bomb. There is one parachute, and the Camerlengo leaves Langdon to his fate with the bomb miles above the Vatican. In the movie, Langdon never gets on the chopper. Also, the Camerlengo finds out much more about his father and why he shouldn’t have killed him. This is another missed opportunity for a chilling moment for the movie. Lastly, the Camerlengo is also deprived one of his biggest ‘church beats science’ speeches.

The movie also lacks Brown’s use of the media in the novel. There is a character by the name of Glick who is commissioned by the hassassin to cover the murders, and he and his camerawoman become players in the outcome of the story. One last change to mention is that Vittoria finds her dead father in his room. This doesn’t happen in the book and severly alters the sequencing of the story.

Movie:
Director: Ron Howard | Released: 2006
Starring: Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautao, Ian McKellen, Jean Reno, Paul Bettany
The Da Vinci Code is as controversial a novel as it is brilliant. Love it or hate it, this story’s depth and insight into the past–and using the past as a window to see our present–is something to admire. And it’s no mystery that this international blockbuster would eventually be made into a movie. The curiosity and fascination the book sparked in people obviously would make for a king’s ransom at the box office. So, is this the holy grail of screen adaptations, or another dead end on the quest for truthful screen adaptation?

Crappy Tour Guide
Dan Brown took careful aim to elaborate on the book’s settings. Afterall, in The Da Vinci Code characters explore some of the most famous buildings in Western Europe. Brown does this through third person narration and the lead character’s inner monologue. In using Robert Langdon’s (Tom Hanks) inner thoughts to explain the historical significance of these buildings, he is not only helping the viewer understand the importance of the locale and painting a clear picture for our imaginations, but he is also verifying himself as a historian and scholar.

In the movie, however, we do not get to hear Langdon’s admiration of the buildings or rambling thoughts on the cults and sects that dwelled there in centuries past. This has dire consequences on the validity of the character. Instead of hearing his expertise on the locations he takes us through from chapter to chapter, the movie proves his expertise in a quick and dirty prologue where he is lecturing an audience on symbology. The prologue is interesting, but fails to fill in the blanks on the dozen locations we see throughout the journey. It is only fair to note that Howard does provide some historical background, sporadically via flashbacks. But most of the historical significance is lost.

Removing these “tour guidesque” descriptions of places like Paris’ Louvre, London’s Westminster Abbey, Templar Church, and Chatteau Villette, really detracts from the experience as a whole. Imagine following a tour guide through Paris, but he doesn’t say anything at all about where he is taking you. That is how the movie feels in comparison to the novel.

Selective Memory
There were too many bits and pieces of the novel left out of the movie, but there were a few surprise changes that are debatably for the better or worse. The most significant of these, in my opinion, comes in the end of the movie where Langdon and Sophie (Audrey Tautao) find the Priory of Sion’s documents in the bottom of Roslin Church. This doesn’t happen in the novel, as they get their answers from a more direct source. In the novel they do not find documents or the holy grail, but Sophie gets her memory back and finds her grandmother in a cottage by the church. From her we learn about Sophie’s past in a triumphant reuiniting–rather than Langdon extrapolating her history by pilfering the Priory’s ancient documents. Trading the scenes at grandma’s cottage for an extra scene at the church where we are led to believe Langdon and Sophie will be beat-down by the Priory, also leaves a hole in Langdon’s quest, as Sophie’s grandmother helped Langdon discover the current location of the grail. In the movie he figures it out himself.

In Landon and Sophie’s next dialogue scene, Langdon becomes this waxing philosopher on religion and spiritual power–which is 100% contradictory to his unwavering academic personality. Plus Howard leaves out their promise to reunite a month later in Italy–boo! The least he could have done for the brainiacs in the audience is promise them a hot date with a Frenchie for all their booksmarts.

Other notable changes come in all of the extra gunfire added in the movie. Shootings in churches? Oh boy. Howard also cut out the cocky usher from the Templar Church scene, which was a nice little episode of drama and a hint of suspense. The hospital scene with Inspector Fache (jean Reno) and Bishop Aringarosa (Alfred Molina) was cut, and left those two characters as enemies rather than friends. And for a quest movie to cut out an entire puzzle from the story was odd to me. Langdon solves two cryptex puzzles in the novel, but only one in the movie–an edit made to save time I’m sure. There are many more, but I’ll spare you the smaller points. But if I missed anything else major, please chime in. I don’t claim to be a Da Vinci Code conspirator, so by all means, conspire.

Characters
I’ve heard people grumble about Tom Hanks as Langdon, but I don’t think he was all that bad. Maybe Russell Crowe could have fit the mold better, but I digress. As mentioned before, the audience really doesn’t get to know just how deep Langdon’s intellect goes. And to put insult to injury, rather than displaying Langdon’s academic supremecy, Howard gives him a weird photographic memory superpower where he moves objects in his imagination to solve puzzles. What?! Just let the genius bore us with too much information! That’s what geniuses do!

The puzzle-pieces are hardly an obstacle in the movie, but they are nearly characters unto themselves in the novel. Also, charactesr spent little time on admiring the artificats found, whereas in the book pages were spent on describing the objects found. All-in-all, the characters, excluding Leigh Teabing (Ian McKellan) seemed blase about the adventure. The majority of scenes that made Sophie useful to the quest were cut or given to Langdon–which is odd since the movie is about discovering women’s rightful power in the world. But, then again, the big theme of the book is about the church depriving women of power–much like Howard stripping Sophie of her scenes. Instead, she comes across as dumb eye-candy…pity.

Also worth mentioning are little tweaks, like how Teabing is much more menacing and Fache is much more tame in the movie, while they were the exact opposite in the novel.

Verdict
The movie is a so-so flick, but does the movie shame in my opinion. But, alot of the things the movie fail to convey are very hard elements to express in film. The characters, locations, and objectives of the story just seemed hollow in comparison to the novel. Let’s hope Howard’s Angels & Demons is a better interpreation Brown’s work. Stay tuned for the review.

Movie:
Director: Peter Jackson
Screenplay: Fran Walsh, etc.
Starring: Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom, Bernard Hill, Ian McKellan, John Rhys-Davies
Release: December 2002

The Two Towers is the second installation of J.R.R. Tokien’s Lord of the Rings saga. Director Peter Jackson took greater departures from this book than the previous adaptation in part one, The Fellowship of the Ring. He seems to have stuck to his award-winning formula, in that he added more conflict, and romance than Tolkien focused on in the book. Some of the risks Jackson took were difficult to swallow and even nudging up to cheesy for commercial fans, let alone stout Tolkien fanboys. Besides adding some soap-opera elements to the film, Jackson decided to play Jenga with Tolkien’s sequence of events as well.

Because I have not yet read the third and final book, The Return of the King, I can not definitively say whether every “extra” scene Jackson added that I did not find in the book was pulled from his own bag of tricks or bumped up from Return of the King. Maybe you can fill in some gaps for me. But, if you take a look at Fellowship and Two Towers movies, you’ll notice that he as already staggered Tolkien’s story and criss-crossed some parts from each. But, being that I haven’t read anything about Frodo (Elijah Wood) running out into the open and offering the Ring of Power to Nazgul (the enemy) in Two Towers, I’m about 99% sure Jackson conjured this up for a little dramatic flair. But let me back up and start at the beginning.

Split Personality
Along their path to Mordor, Frodo and Sam (Sean Astin) are tied up and taken prisoner by Faramir, captain of Gondor. Simple, right? Wrong. And here’s where Jackson starts playing with Tolkien’s vision. In the book they are not bound and taken as prisoners, but led by mutual agreement to Faramir’s lair. In the book, Faramir finds out the Frodo is carrying the Ring of Power through Sam; whereas Gollum (Frodo and Sam’s guide) gives up the big secret of Frodo’s parcel in the movie.

Faramir knows some lore about the Rings of Power, but his knowledge is different in the film and movie. In the book he knows about a powerful trinket-not a ring per se-that has the power to fully restore Lord Sauron’s destructive powers. But, in the movie he knows the lore of the Rings of Power. In both he finds out Frodo is carrying the One Ring, but in the book he is not corrupted by temptation and sets Frodo free (with vital provisions!)

Unfortunately, Jackson decided it’d be more exciting for Faramir to be hypnotized by the One Ring and steal Frodo to Gondor-to use the One Ring against Sauron. Now, since Faramir is supposed to be educated in the history of the One Ring that deceives the human race to the ruin time and time again…why would he opt to bring it to men? So, rather than Frodo leaving Faramir with a new friend and fresh food, he is kept-and in turn enemies find Frodo and come within a claw’s grasp of ripping the One Ring out of Frodo’s outstretched hand.

This leads to another major point. Jackson’s interpretation of Frodo makes him far more corrupted than Tolkien’s. At times in the movie, Frodo wants to be taken by the enemy. In the book, the Ring takes Frodo over at times. Frodo is considerably stronger in the book: in his manner of speak when talking to Faramir; when battling the seduction of the One Ring; and in dealing with Sam, his companion.

Stop Hitting Yourself
Continuing these observations of Jackson’s disregard for Tolkien’s subtle characters, Gollum is an absolute lunatic in the movie. A true on-screen drama queen. He has a full-blown split personality: a frothing, fuming monster willing to kill anything to get the One Ring back; and the gentler Smeagol, Frodo’s faithful lap dog. The audience watches several monologues/dialogues of these characters choosing Frodo’s fate. The mean side chastises the soft side like a bully straight out of 6^th grade. In the book, Gollum is much more steady. He grumbles about the journey, but he leads on. Readers catch on to his plot in the same scene as the movie-but he seems far less deranged-but equally maniacal.

Frodo, as stated earlier, is far more wretched in the film. Jackson does well in paralleling Frodo and Gollum as the same character (but 500 years different in age). But, this leads to Frodo treating Sam like the whipping boy in the film; whereas in the book they are still very much companions. But, in all fairness, the little love triangle between Frodo, Sam and Gollum is something to behold. Better than watching soaps (way better special effects).

Three’s Company
Just like Jackson’s effort to insert romance in Fellowship of the Ring, he continues Aragorn’s (Viggo Mortenssen) and Arwen’s (Liv Tyler) romance in Two Towers. Though Tolkien gives us very little to go on in the book, Jackson spends a chunk of time on sweet sappy reminisces-and in Two Towers he adds a third party: Eowyn of the House of Rohan. Though this is (up to this point) unfounded in Tolkien’s books, Aragorn and Arwen, who once were an item; broke up because he is human and she is elf (cue waterworks here). Enter human lady, Eowyn. Eowyn instantly falls in love with Aragorn (of course), but Aragorn wants his elf-lady back (of course!) All Jackson is missing to solidify this as a big-screen soap is extreme close-ups of overly dramatic facial expressions and Susan Luchey. Alas, in all fairness, Tolkien’s story has a faint heartbeat and it’s hard to blame Jackson for trying to give the girls more screen time. A major deviation, but arguably makes the story more well-rounded.

Battle of the Beards
Other major drama that Jackson adds is a wizard duel. Gandalf (Ian McKlellan) tries to break Saruman’s spell over Theoden, King of Rohan (Bernard Hill). The “battle” is a mental one, where they exchange words (Saruman speaks through Theoden telepathically), and Gandalf triumphs by removing Saruman’s presence and restoring Theoden to a healthy, conscious state.

Jackson loves adding wizard duels in the movies, though Tolkien takes a more subtle approach in the novel. In fact, Tolkien holds a brain-duel between these two wizards in Two Towers, but it is in no way related to the duel mentioned above. In the book, Gandalf and Saruman meet face to face after Saruman’s tower, Orthanc, falls at the hands of begrudged Ents (in lamens, walking trees). Saruman tries to persuade Theoden and Gandalf to befriend him and take over the world. But, Gandalf wins, breaks his staff, and leaves the broken wizard to rot in his tower. It’s a pretty intense bit of the book.

All in all Jackson did not create a bad movie. The Two Towers is packed with action and drama, and he vividly portrays the major battles accurately. But, he starts to seriously break off from the books in the movie. The endings are very different, placing all the characters at different points in the journey, and I just do not know where the third and final chapter, Return of the King is going to go. Stay tuned.

Book

Movie:
Director: Peter Jackson
Screenplay: Fran Walsh
Starring: Elijah Wood, Viggo Mortensen, Ian McKellan, Orlando Bloom
Release: 2001Rating: PG-13

It was only a matter of time before someone made a film of The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R. Tolkien’s first book of the The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The story is a masterpiece. The characters each have their own plight and rite of passage. The conflict and journey are epic. But it’s a slippery slope to try and adapt a timeless story such as this for the big screen. To quote a character from the story, “Stray but a little and you will fail.” Fortunately, Tolkien proves to be a wonderful guide in his wizardry and craft, and paved a clear path for director Peter Jackson and screen writer Fran Walsh. All they had to do was follow the map.

It should be noted that Tolkien did not completely render every nook and cranny of his saga. To detail every hillside or facial feature of characters or elven craftsmanship in their weapons would have taken a lifetime-and he had bills to pay. Rather, he used broad strokes for such things, letting the reader fill in the gaps. This is where the movie comes into play, and for the most part movie is a wonderful compliment to the book.

To go one step further, the screen writer did a wonderful job of creating little scenes here and there that reward the Tolkien fan club. For instance, we find the main character, Frodo (Elijah Wood) and his companions sitting under what looks to be monsters carved into stone. These statues, however, are actually a trolls turned to stone in the saga’s prequel, The Hobbit. But, for every nuance added, there was one taken away.

Director’s Cuts
Tolkien had a wild imagination and a classic style. So, when the journey sets out, it passes through several common scenarios that we see in many stories, but with Tolkien’s fantastical flair. The Lord of the Rings is a fantasy sci-fi story at heart, but Tolkien at times may have gone too far for the average movie-goer.

For example, Frodo quickly finds that he is being chased along his journey, and flees to a dark, treacherous forest-which is a standard writer’s tool for confusion and/or evil (classic style). While traveling through the Old Forest, Frodo and his hobbit companions are entranced and Sam Gamgee (Sean Astin) and Pippin (Billy Boyd) are engulfed by a carnivorous tree (enter Tolkien’s imagination). But a man-of-the-wood named Tom Bombadil beats the tree with the power of song.

The movie skips over the perils of the Old Forest entirely. But, I can see how the director might foresee the average audience finding a hobbit-eating tree bested by a singing, skipping woodlander a bit too much sci-fi. Instead Jackson simplified the formula: Sauron, Ringwraiths and orcs are the bad guys; hobbits, humans, elves, dwarfs are the good guys.

To expand on the concept of eliminating songs from the movie, there are many poems and songs excluded from the movie. In practically every chapter of The Fellowship of the Ring someone’s singing an old story or working on a new lyric. It’s not surprising that they were left out, though, as the movie has to keep its mainstream appeal, and people probably wouldn’t care much to hear the actors’ vocals. Unfortunately, stripping the movie of songs and rhymes leads to several scene changes, and some interesting lore. None of the “filler” for the missing songs damage the story, and they fit well enough with the journey’s flow.

Live By The Sword
The book is also far less violent and alludes to conflict much more than it embeds the audience in it. The wizard battle between Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and Saruman (Christopher Lee) in the tower Isengard is an exaggerated version of Gandalf and Saruman’s quarrel and Gandalf’s capture. Also, how Gandalf escapes is twisted to eliminate the introduction of another character (a beast-master wizard named Radagast).

In the climax of the movie a final battle on the hillside of Amon Hen claims the life of Boromir (Sean Bean) in a valant effort to regain his honor in sacrificing his life for the sake of his hobbit companions. Meanwhile, Frodo and Sam flee the fellowship to seek their fate alone. In the book Tolkien leaves us with only Frodo’s path, as Boromir’s final stand is not revealed yet.  The movie provides a rewarding climax, however, and it is not totally unfounded. The second book, The Two Towers, records the battle on Amon Hen.

Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), a classic hero character, is a lost hero looking for strength within. Tolkien gives us a glimpse of Aragorn’s impotence and refusal to lead, but in the movie he is much quicker to grow into the leader. The biggest change for Aragorn, in my opinion, is Anduril, his sword and heirloom. In the book, he carries a broken hilt in his sheath. This is the heirloom that he seeks to remake one day upon the rise of the human race, and it is remade into Anduril, the blade that defeated the evil Sauron in the Battle for Middle-Earth. In the movie, the sword is found in the elven city Rivendell, where it lays broken in shards.

The movie couldn’t afford to have Aragorn not fighting, so he needed to have some sword, if not the mythical Anduril-but in the book he has no need for a sword as of yet. The battle with the Nine Ringwraiths on Weathertop is one of the few instances where he fights for his companions, he used torches-but in the movie he used torch and blade.

Love Conquers Author
The movie makes way for a strong female character and love interest, in yet another attempt to create a blockbuster event out of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings saga. Arwen (Liv Tyler) saves Frodo from certain doom on the way to Rivendell. With her aid the Ringwraiths are washed away in a flood she commanded with her elf craft, and Frodo is healed by the elf elder, Elrond (Hugo Weaving). While Frodo heals, Aragorn and Arwen share moments of forsaken love between human and elf, but in the book they hardly speak. Rather an elf named Glorfindel saves Frodo and his horse rides Frodo across to safety where Elrond and Gandalf create the flood. But, there’s always room for romance, even if a little re-writing is in order.

In a funny way, you could say that Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin) and Frodo are also a couple. Sam is bound to Frodo as his servant. In the book their relationship is much like this: Sam calls Frodo master regularly and follows him with the loyalty of a dog. In the movie they make sure to not use the word master, and replace the servant-master relationship with one of love and commitment.

Whether or not all the little changes add up and destroy the book’s foundation, or if you believe that taking something old and making something new is the best way to treat Tolkien’s classic, the movie does do most of the book justice. Gandalf’s final battle, the temptation of Galadriel (Cate Blanchett), personification of the One Ring, Bilbo’s (Ian Holm) corruption, and countless other parts of the book are represented with outstanding accuracy. Unfortunately, a lot of back story and references to the prequel, The Hobbit are lost, but as a whole it is a testament to the book.

Book:

Author: Richard Yates
©1961, Vantage Books.

Movie:

Director: Sam Mendes
Screenplay: Justin Haythe
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet
Release: 01/23/2009
Rating: R

If you’re going to see Revolutionary Road because you’re anxiously anticipating the conclusion of the love story between Leo and Kate that started in Titanic, well, you’d best stay home. Revolutionary Road isn’t a love story; it’s a story of how you lose yourself when you’re wrong about love.

It’s the story of a suburban couple in 1950. April and Frank Wheeler’s lives are not so different from their neighbors, when you look through their plate glass windows. But once you go inside the cover, inside the front door, you discover a dark world.

A Painful Glimpse

“Hopeless emptiness. Now you’ve said it. Plenty of people are onto the emptiness, but it takes real guts to see the hopelessness.”

So says John Givings, the most honest character on Revolutionary Road, despite the fact that he’s a mental patient. Hopelessness and emptiness are the unhappy bedfellows that lead Frank and April Wheeler to anger and despair.

In Revolutionary Road, author Richard Yates does not introduce you to another syrupy sweet version of the 1950s American dream. He does not bring you into the happy world of Leave it to Beaver and My Three Sons – the typical world we think of when most of us daydream about the 1950s. There are no sock-hops, no picturesque family dinners. This becomes painfully clear from the moment that you open the pages, or the images appear on the screen. April has been in a play – a failed community production. Despite her training as an actress, she can’t save it – setting a tone and theme that reverberates throughout the pages and reels.

April tries to escape from their suburban life through her heartfelt plea with Frank to leave their home and move to Paris. In the movie, Winslet’s April kneels in front of DiCaprio’s Frank, tears in her eyes, and gives him the opportunity that virtually any man should want – if they’ll move, she’ll get a job, and he can be a man of leisure.

The book is riddled with arguments, fights and days of silence – the painful silence that we’ve all felt after a big family blowout. As uncomfortable as those fights are, they’re nothing in comparison to the gut-wrenching fights that Winslet and DiCaprio bring to the big screen.

Where would any good drama be without misguided motives and heaping platefuls of guilt? The same is true of Revolutionary Road. Through Yates’ use of flashbacks in the written story, we learn that Frank and April didn’t get married because they were madly in love, but rather because of an unplanned pregnancy. April offers to abort the child, Frank disagrees, and they end up in the suburbs with 2 children, and eventually a third on the way. This is just one of many flashblacks that we miss in screenwriter Justin Haythe’s adaptation. While abortion is a touchy subject in any genre, or timeframe, it is especially so in the 1950s – but their previous decision is vital to understanding how Frank and April have ended up where they are.

Revolutionary Road does not end in a beautiful reconciliation between April and Frank. Their final fight reveals that April no longer loves Frank – and Frank wishes she’d aborted the baby. They’d debated an at-home abortion for weeks in the book (only for days in the movie)but the days clicked by, and by the time the final fight came around, they’d reached the point of what seemed to be no return. April calmly and cleanly botches the procedure at home, and accidentally escapes the grim storybook life. Frank is left behind with the house and two children – and you really couldn’t tell if Frank was more upset about the loss of April or the new responsibilities that irrevocably change his complacent lifestyle.

Revolutionary Road reminds us that behind the bright exterior, every family has a darker side. Inside each of us, a revolution is brewing.

Book:

Movie:

Director: David Fincher
Screenplay: Eric Roth
Starring: Brad Pitt, Kate Blanchett
Release: 12/25/2008
Rating: PG-13

If someone had told you about an amazing autobiography he read about a man-child who was born old and died an infant, then the next day another person were to recount a wonderfully strange documentary film about an un-aging man named Benjamin Button, you would be hearing two starkly different tales. These men share a name, yes, but with different families, upbringings, home towns, personalities, adventures, romances, and growing up in different time periods, it’s hard to say that there is only one curious case of a Button.

In Fitzgerald’s original short story, Benjamin Button was born in 1860 Baltimore, Maryland. His mother was never known to the reader-my guess is that she did not survive the birth, as Benjamin entered the world as a 5′8” man-child. Ben’s father, Roger, was infuriated with what he found at the hospital, as what resembled a 70-year-old man with a long wispy beard was in the nursery speaking to him and the nurse. Roger wanted little to do with anything that would tarnish his social status, and a freak-of-nature newborn became an eyesore to his otherwise pristine reputation.

To compound Roger’s problems, the family doctor quit after delivering Ben; the hospital refused to keep him longer than a day under their care; and his father, Roger, was forced to take him back to the Button estate. But Roger took him in and raised him as a Button-though Ben was force-fed an infant’s upbringing-and he had no taste for warm milk, baby rattles, or games with other boys. He did, however, enjoy cigars, flipping through encyclopedias, and hanging out with Grandpa Button. All-in-all, Roger was a far more loving father than his doppelganger, Thomas Button.

We find Fincher’s version of Ben born in 1918 at the Buttons’ New Orleans duplex. Ben’s father Thomas steals him away in a crazed attempt to abandon the newborn. After attempting to throw the wrinkly, pint-sized infant into the Mississippi River, Thomas leaves Ben at the steps of a last-stop home for the elderly. Thomas spent the years bouncing between the whiskey bottles and brothelsHere, a woman named Queenie finds the hideously aged baby in blankets and takes him in. Though he had a youth’s curiosity, he didn’t think himself any different from the real 70-year-old residents. He is seen playing with kids visiting their grandparents at the home, adventuring in New Orleans, and playing with army soldiers.

The Buttons’ family tree, according to Fitzgerald, shows Roger Button as the successor to a wholesale hardware company, while Thomas Button manufactured and sold buttons. Go figure. Both had their share of success, but Roger shared success with Ben, who became increasingly acceptable to Roger as he progressively (or regressively, I should say) un-aged. Thomas, however, found success due to manufacturing demands from WWI, and only cared to pass the business to Ben as his life was passing by. Ben Button via the short story has a son named Roscoe. He takes over the wholesale company, and becomes increasingly irritated by his adolescent father winding back to a chubby-cheeked baby. Ben via Fincher’s movie has a daughter named Caroline and a lover named Daisy.

Both Benjamin Buttons became adventuring individuals. Fitzgerald’s wished to study at Yale, like his father before him. He was rejected and scoffed as he looked like a 50-year-old when he enrolled. He enlisted in the military and fought in the Spanish-American War. Ben, in the movie, worked on a ship when he began adventuring from his home. The ship was recruited by the navy for WWII and he saw some action off the shores of Japan. It becomes clear that Fitzgerald’s Benjamin is a man driven by vitality and adventure, while Benjamin in the movie seems to be more of a drifter. But, Fincher’s Benjamin always felt the call of home. This in large part was for his true love, Daisy.

In the movie Ben met Daisy when he was a hobbling, bald man-child. Daisy was no more then 10-years-old, but she saw a spark in the eyes of Benjamin, and they played much like normal kids do. Throughout out the movie they come in and out of each others’ lives. The two characters falls in love, but at different times. It creates wonderful tension. The short story, though, is a much dryer affair. Ben meets Hildegarde at a party. They dance in a formal arrangement. She loves him for his aged look and tranquility, though she was a young and beautiful woman. They age and cross each other as Ben groes young and she loses her vitality. They grow to dislike each other and Hildegarde moves to Italy (an unexplained event).

Narration is also a heavy point of divergence in the movie. We never know who the narrator is in the short story. Whenever there is a third-person narrator it is always an interesting discussion to have about who you think the narrator is, but Fincher leaves very little room for interpretation in the movie as he selected Benjamin’s daughter Caroline to read his journal back to his dying lover Daisy. Starting at the end is very fitting for Benjamin’s life, so having his daughter read the journal is perfect. It also give the story a beating heart because we watch how a passive individual grows attached to the story, then finds out how it impacts her own life-much like how the story interacts with the audience in the theatre.

To expand on the idea of unexplained events in Fitzgerald’s story, most occurrences in seem more like bullet points rather than momentous, life-shaping experiences. It’s like reading a slide show of somebody’s life in reverse. Fitzgerald flat-out states, several times, in essence that he is going to skip over some parts of Ben’s life. It is almost as if Fitzgerald rested on the laurels of conceiving this original concept, but did not explore its possibilities.

The movie does a far greater job of making Ben a full-blooded human being burdened with all the problems and anxieties unique to each individual. Fincher’s departures, and wholly creating a new Benjamin Button may be cruel to the Benjamin in Fitzgerald’s story, but it works, which is the most important part. Also, ending the movie on a Hurricane Katrina/Ninth Ward homage is a nice touch-you can thank Mr. Pitt for that, I’m sure.

Movie:
Director: Mike Newell
Starring: Benjamin Bratt, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Javier Bardem
Release: November 2007

I expected Love in the Time of Cholera to be a beautiful love story – perhaps one that would join the line of Gone with the Wind. In some ways, it is like Gone with the Wind, in the sense that the traditional love story is reinvented in a completely new way. In just the back panel of the book, you discover that while Florentino loves Florentina for over 50 years, that doesn’t slow his prowess – he has 622 affairs during that time. Now, how would one portray that on-screen without it quickly becoming an x-rated film?

Love

Oh, how many of us have felt the infatuation of young love – the kind that songs are written about. One song in particular comes to mind for young Florentino (Javier Bardem) and Fermina (Giovanna Mezzogiorno).

“… ‘Cause when you’re fifteen and someone tells you they love you,
You’re gonna believe it…”  – Taylor Swift, Fifteen

Such is love for young Florentino and Fermina. Their early relationship is developed through a series of letters (enhanced, on-screen by stolen glances in church and at carnival).  He loves her from the moment he sees her, and doesn’t hesitate to tell her in every possible way. When her father, perfectly portrayed by John Leguizamo, discovers that she’s agreed to marry Florentino, he wisks her away to the countryside.

Love is different when you’re 18, especially in a time when an 18 year old woman is the head of the household. When Fermina sees Florentino again in the market after a 2-year hiatus, she instantly realizes that Florentino is not the man that she had imagined. She immediately breaks off their engagement. Florentino falls into most unmasculine displays despair, and Fermina moves on. She eventually agrees to marry Dr. Juvenal Urbino, and Florentino starts his 622 affairs.

Overwhelming Description

Marquez relied very little in dialogue through the book – rather telling the story through the thoughts and statements of fact. I admittedly was worried about how the movie would turn out, as so much of a film is typically told through character dialogue. Newell’s team did an outstanding job of using the description and thoughts to build missing dialogue, and use the background that was needed to build the story.

Newell also left out elements that were less important to the story – such as the way that Urbino liked the smell of his pee after eating asparagus, or that Florentino needed frequent enemas. While these elements of the novel were… interesting… they rarely added to the depth of the story, and were fine deletions from the screenplay.

The Naughty Bits

Since Newell left out the smell of asparagus pee, he needed to spice up the storyline somehow – so he enhanced the stories of Florentino’s 622 affairs. The depictions were much more graphic, bordering on x-rated, as Florentino explored physical love with a wide variety of women, in a wide variety of places and positions. He detailed them all in a journal, which was notably absent from the novel. In fact, the only reference that I can recall to the exact number of affairs he had was from the back panel of the book.

Florentino’s tastes were varied. At times, it seemed like he would sleep with any woman who presented the opportunity. He often slept with widows, as they seem to be the most free with their lives. He doesn’t limit his affairs there – he also has an affair with a married woman, leading to her untimely death at the hands of her jealous husband.

As an old man, he also sleeps with much younger women – in particular his young charge America. In the movie, she’s in college, studying to be a teacher; but in the novel, she seems much younger. Enough younger, in fact, that their affair seems to have a very Lolita quality. No matter – the age difference of 50+ years could definitely be considered a ‘naughty bit’.

Worth it?

Without ruining the end (which you know from the beginning), I’ve been asking myself the question about whether the book or the movie were worth the time I invested in the reading and watching. To be sure, there are parts of the story that I will likely never forget (Florentino’s lover who used baby pacifiers as part of the sexual act), there are more parts that I’ll never remember from both the book and the movie. I’ve still not made up my mind, so you’ll have to decide for yourself.