Warning: This post will contain spoilers from both the film and the novel by Dan Brown.
This week, there's been a lot of buzz about Lionsgate finally publicizing the release date for the upcoming "Hunger Games" film. I've read different reactions, predictably: some people are really excited for the films, some are apprehensive, and some are downright irritated that once again, Hollywood is predicted to completely destroy the real story and alter it to better suit the big screen. The last tends to be a relatively normal reaction for lovers of literature, those people who will go see films based off of their beloved books, and then turn around and disgustedly rehash the removed or altered details, swearing that the Hollywood machine has "ruined" the story.
There are some occasions where film and literature can exist harmoniously. And there are some film versions of books that are just...travesties.
Last night was David's regularly-scheduled Thursday EMT class. I was alone in the apartment, knitting and bored, so I decided to Netflix a film that I had had an interest in seeing, but David did not: Angels & Demons. Please note right here that I am not, nor do I claim to be, a film editor, and that everything I write hereon in is my personal opinion, completely biased from having read the book first.
I have to give Ron Howard credit. I didn't think he could screw up much more than he did when he made The Da Vinci Code into a film. I was wrong. The film version of Angels&Demons is barely even a shadow of the novel. Similar characters (although they have completely different names and personalities), same location...entirely different story.
Second disclaimer: I don't think that Angels&Demons is a top-quality novel. I think it's a fun novel, especially if you get the illustrated version so you don't have to sit in front of the internet looking up every piece of art that Brown describes. I enjoyed it more than Da Vinci Code, because I thought the story line (especially the climax -- more about that later) was amazing. I wasn't expecting Howard to keep to the letter of Dan Brown's work. I was expecting some changes. I was mildly surprised that Howard removed such vital characters as CERN's director, crippled atheist Maximilian Kohler, and the scientist whose death sparks the whole charade is merely Vittoria Vetra's partner, not her father, the scientist/priest Leonardo Vetra. I was disturbed when the Hassassin was downgraded to a nameless and motive-less Guy Pearce-doppleganger. I was stunned when the final kidnapped preferiti, Cardinal Baggia, was saved, instead of fatally drowning. I could overlook all of that though.
What I can't, and won't overlook, is Ron Howard ripping out the crux of the story, in the character of the Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca (renamed Patrick McKenna in the film so he could be played by a dreamy Ewan McGregor, because who doesn't like a flick involving a handsome priest?)
At the heart of the story (in both film and book) is the war between science and faith. The pope, a progressive who is pro-science, is dead, later discovered to be murdered. The preferiti are kidnapped and assassinated, one by one -- "sacrifices on the altar of science," as the Hassassin states. In the book he is in league with the mysterious man who hired him, a man code-named Janus, who claims to be a member of the Illuminati, bent on destroying the Catholic Church. At the end of both book and film, the hero, Robert Langdon, discovers that it is the Camerlengo who rigged it all, who is Janus, and who hired the Hassassin, not to destroy the Church, but to revitalize it, and pin the aggression on men of science -- his spree of death beginning with the discovery that the pope, his mentor, fathered a child, destroying his faith in the elderly leaders of the church.
The climax of the book comes when the Pope's confidante, an elderly cardinal, reveals before the Camerlengo, Langdon, and the College of Cardinals that the pope did father a son...through in-vitro fertilization, not through natural conception, because he wanted to remain faithful to his vow of chastity. The son who was the product of that conception was none other than the Camerlengo himself. Such possibility for filmmaking drama!
With such changes made, and the crux of the story irreparably altered, the viewer (especially the viewer who is familiar with the book) is left wondering why? Why, Ron Howard? Why would you change that? Why would you turn the tortured character of the Camerlengo into nothing more than a crazed fundamentalist bent on becoming Pope? Why would you carve the entire climax out of this film?
Needless to say, I'm glad I never went and saw this when it was in theatres, and that I waited to watch it on Instant Queue on Netflix. I won't be watching it again. Shame on you, Ron Howard, for turning what was at least an interesting and enjoyable read into merely a shadow of its former self.
When is Hollywood going to stop tearing our literature apart?
This week, there's been a lot of buzz about Lionsgate finally publicizing the release date for the upcoming "Hunger Games" film. I've read different reactions, predictably: some people are really excited for the films, some are apprehensive, and some are downright irritated that once again, Hollywood is predicted to completely destroy the real story and alter it to better suit the big screen. The last tends to be a relatively normal reaction for lovers of literature, those people who will go see films based off of their beloved books, and then turn around and disgustedly rehash the removed or altered details, swearing that the Hollywood machine has "ruined" the story.
There are some occasions where film and literature can exist harmoniously. And there are some film versions of books that are just...travesties.
Last night was David's regularly-scheduled Thursday EMT class. I was alone in the apartment, knitting and bored, so I decided to Netflix a film that I had had an interest in seeing, but David did not: Angels & Demons. Please note right here that I am not, nor do I claim to be, a film editor, and that everything I write hereon in is my personal opinion, completely biased from having read the book first.
I have to give Ron Howard credit. I didn't think he could screw up much more than he did when he made The Da Vinci Code into a film. I was wrong. The film version of Angels&Demons is barely even a shadow of the novel. Similar characters (although they have completely different names and personalities), same location...entirely different story.
Second disclaimer: I don't think that Angels&Demons is a top-quality novel. I think it's a fun novel, especially if you get the illustrated version so you don't have to sit in front of the internet looking up every piece of art that Brown describes. I enjoyed it more than Da Vinci Code, because I thought the story line (especially the climax -- more about that later) was amazing. I wasn't expecting Howard to keep to the letter of Dan Brown's work. I was expecting some changes. I was mildly surprised that Howard removed such vital characters as CERN's director, crippled atheist Maximilian Kohler, and the scientist whose death sparks the whole charade is merely Vittoria Vetra's partner, not her father, the scientist/priest Leonardo Vetra. I was disturbed when the Hassassin was downgraded to a nameless and motive-less Guy Pearce-doppleganger. I was stunned when the final kidnapped preferiti, Cardinal Baggia, was saved, instead of fatally drowning. I could overlook all of that though.
What I can't, and won't overlook, is Ron Howard ripping out the crux of the story, in the character of the Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca (renamed Patrick McKenna in the film so he could be played by a dreamy Ewan McGregor, because who doesn't like a flick involving a handsome priest?)
At the heart of the story (in both film and book) is the war between science and faith. The pope, a progressive who is pro-science, is dead, later discovered to be murdered. The preferiti are kidnapped and assassinated, one by one -- "sacrifices on the altar of science," as the Hassassin states. In the book he is in league with the mysterious man who hired him, a man code-named Janus, who claims to be a member of the Illuminati, bent on destroying the Catholic Church. At the end of both book and film, the hero, Robert Langdon, discovers that it is the Camerlengo who rigged it all, who is Janus, and who hired the Hassassin, not to destroy the Church, but to revitalize it, and pin the aggression on men of science -- his spree of death beginning with the discovery that the pope, his mentor, fathered a child, destroying his faith in the elderly leaders of the church.
The climax of the book comes when the Pope's confidante, an elderly cardinal, reveals before the Camerlengo, Langdon, and the College of Cardinals that the pope did father a son...through in-vitro fertilization, not through natural conception, because he wanted to remain faithful to his vow of chastity. The son who was the product of that conception was none other than the Camerlengo himself. Such possibility for filmmaking drama!
With such changes made, and the crux of the story irreparably altered, the viewer (especially the viewer who is familiar with the book) is left wondering why? Why, Ron Howard? Why would you change that? Why would you turn the tortured character of the Camerlengo into nothing more than a crazed fundamentalist bent on becoming Pope? Why would you carve the entire climax out of this film?
Needless to say, I'm glad I never went and saw this when it was in theatres, and that I waited to watch it on Instant Queue on Netflix. I won't be watching it again. Shame on you, Ron Howard, for turning what was at least an interesting and enjoyable read into merely a shadow of its former self.
When is Hollywood going to stop tearing our literature apart?
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