Tiff

I figured that since I have yet to finish Heart of Darkness, I should post a few words. For anyone who has ever read this very short Conrad novel, it is in my opinion on the difficult side. It’s just kind of labor-intensive. Anyway, I just wanted to say a few words about where my movie idea first came from.

When I first thought of reading the novels movies are and have been based on, I figured I would review movies that are currently being released. You know, just fairly contemporary stuff. For the time being, that is out of the range of possibilities – I need a job first. But that is not to say that every other film ever made from a book is out of the question, because I think those are just as important. All in good time, I suppose.

So when I approached the subject so zealously, I forgot my original conception. The second mistake I made was choosing the book before the movie. I now think that may have been be a bit backwards. A film has first to be made for me to read the corresponding novel.

Third, I wanted to address the kinds of movies I will be watching, because I feel that there will be at least two distinct categories: blockbusters and educators. Of course, not every movie will conform to my specifications. The blockbusters seem to have big budgets, lots of publicity and bigger stars (i.e Apocalypse Now). The educators, like Madame Bovary, often seem to be lower-budget films, have a minimal amount of advertisement, and may not employ the most well-known actors. They also may tend toward a more accurate representation of the literature. I would count on a Kenneth Branagh version of a Shakespeare play before almost any other director. I know he has respect for what he is producing. Plus, I tend to trust stage actors. Until next week!

So I watched the 1991 French version of Madame Bovary. It was directed by Claude Chabrol, who also adapted the screenplay from the novel. The film begins with Charles Bovary on his way to set Roualt’s (Emma’s father) broken leg. Of course, this skips over the first few chapters, but the remainder of the movie is reltively true to the novel. There are certain details that Chabrol specifically seemed to emphasize. In the beginning, it was Emma’s overt, nonchalant sensuality: sucking her finger when she pricks it while sewing, licking the bottom of her drinking glass and kissing the holy relic offered on her deathbed. But at the same time there were details that I thought unimportant to the progression of the plot: the ridiculously ornate wedding cake and Emma hearing the name ‘Berthe’ during the ball at La Vaubyessard. These do have significance, but in transferring a novel to film, there just isn’t room for everything. I think that this is one of the main problems of this transferrence: narration is usually impossible to realize in a film. Instead, the burden is placed wholly onto the actors to truly portray the personality and inner thoughts of a character, which could be unfortunate given the talent (or lack of talent) of the actor. I also wonder whether the late-Victorian novel isn’t a rather difficult type to make into a feature film. The intensity of description and complexity of plot make them rather lengthy pieces of fiction, too “boring” for most readers.

All in all, the film turned out to be rather tedious, even for a book of only about three hundred pages. It serves as a great educational version though, something you could show to a classroom of older students. The actors were decent, not terrible. Homais, the pharmacist, seemed an arbitrary lingerer. I don’t think his presence would make much sense to someone who hadn’t read Madame Bovary. For those who would like to read it, Madame Bovary is a relatively easy read. The plot is pretty straightforward; not as convoluted as a Dickens, and not with long, philosophical passages that leave your head spinning. And by the way, 2001: A Space Odyssey was an original screenplay by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke before it was a book, which was written after the movie. Instead, I think I’ll read Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and then watch Apocalypse Now, which is Francis Ford Coppola’s movie very loosely based on this short novel. An interesting comparison, no doubt. I’ll be reading from the Dover Thrift Edition.

Part II of Madame Bovary begins with the move to Yonville-l’Abbaye from Tostes. Emma is pregnant with Charles’ child. The description of her pregnancy and delivery are simple and to the point: “She gave birth one Sunday, about six in the morning, as the sun was rising” (80). I assume this to be the case because Emma doesn’t really care about her daughter (Berthe). She actually wants to have a male child, someone she could live through vicariously, as Emma seems to acutely feel the limits of her sex (79). But even if it had been a boy child, I feel that she would have been just as detached. I wonder if Emma would have loved a child conceived with another man, someone she loved. Maybe her detestation for her husband was transferred onto Berthe. But it could just as easily be true that Emma is so entirely selfish that she considers her daughter a nuisance in her pursuit of the life she desires.

It is also in this section that Emma meets Léon and Rodolphe, her two great loves. Léon falls in love with her almost immediately, a fact she notices a while later. It is not clear whether Emma feels the same all the time and the reader is simply not made aware (although they certainly share some kind of connection, and she finds him to be attractive and intelligent – they are sort of kindred spirits), or if she only languishes into love when she finds out his feelings toward her. In my opinion, Emma is a totally self-absorbed being. Her “love” comes about only through attention paid to her. Beforehand, she is very careful to guard her feelings. Léon leaves Yonville for Paris to pursue his studies in law. He never tells Emma of his feelings, but there is an unspoken tension that exists between the two at his departure. Very soon after, Rodolphe appears on the scene. He is rich, something of a landed nobleman who lives outside small towns in large country estates, enjoying the “quaint,” simple lifestyle. He plans from the moment he meets Emma to have her as his mistress, and never intends for their relationship to extend beyond that, a true cad: “Monsieur Rodolphe Boulanger was thirty-four years old, his nature course and his intelligence shrewd; he had a broad experience of women and was something of a connoisseur. He considered this one [Emma] very pretty; so he was thinking about her, and about her husband” (116). He ends the relationship after four years. He and Emma are planning to run away together, and he writes her a letter full of dramatic language, explaining that he cannot allow her to ruin her life, but he also can no longer be in her presence, for fear of temptation. He leaves Yonville, never to be seen again by Emma. Part II ends with Emma and Charles attending an opera (Lucia de Lammermoor) in Rouen (a neighboring town, perhaps city, large enough to house a theater). While there, the couple runs into Léon, and it can only be assumed that the unspoken love of Emma and Léon will now be indulged.

Part III plus the review of the movie is next week. What should I read next? I was thinking something modern or contemporary, maybe some science fiction? I need some ideas!

This section of the novel is not at the heart of what Madame Bovary is famous for (i.e. adultery, immorality). But it is an excellent introduction to the real character of Emma Bovary, who is not truly revealed until her marriage to Charles. Until then, the reader experiences Emma as a completely sensual being, through Charles’s eyes. They have just enjoyed a drink in this particular passage: “As it was almost empty, she leaned right back to drink and, with her head tilted, her lips pushed forward and her neck taut, she laughed at finding nothing, while the tip of her tongue, poking between her beautiful teeth, delicately licked at the bottom of the glass” (22). After their union, the focus shifts from Charles to Emma. She believes love to be something she has read about in books: “In her longing she confused the sensual pleasures of luxury with the rapture of love, and elegance of manners with sensbility of feeling” (53). When she finds this to be false in her relationship with Charles, she tries to charm up a reasonable lifestyle: “She had to derive a kind of personal profit from things, and rejected as useless anything that did not contribute directly to her heart’s gratification-for her temperament was sentimental rather than artistic, and she longed for emotion, not scenery” (34). When this attempt at creating a more interesting life also proves fruitless, Emma becomes inconsolable. She is at times self-absorbed: “Sometimes Emma would tuck in the red border of his sweater under his waistcoat, adjust his necktie, or discard the soiled gloves that he had been about to put on; and it was not, as he supposed, for his sake; it was for herself, out of an overflow of egocentricity, out of nervous exasperation” (56). As part and parcel of her disillusionment and self-absorption she suffers from, Emma experiences acute ennui: “She would close her door, poke the coals, and, faint from the heat of the fire, feel boredom bearing down upon her again, even more oppressively. She would gladly have gone to the kitchen to chat to the maid, but a sense of propriety held her back” (58).

Part I of Madame Bovary also contains great examples of Flaubert’s style of narration, which came to be known as free indirect style. It is a combination of two voices instead of only one. As the reader we get Emma’s tone of prejudice and sentiment: “But a man, surely, should know everything, should excel at many different things, should initiate you into the intensities of passion, into the refinements of life, into all its mysteries? But this man taught nothing, knew nothing, desired nothing,” as well as the understanding and sophistication of the all-seeing narrator: “He believed she was happy; and she resented him for this settled calm of his, for his untroubled dullness, for the very happiness she brought him” (38).

My Part II analysis will appear next week. I know that this way of progressing seems sluggish, but I’m trying to figure out the best way. Bear with me…