Friday, September 7, 2007

Louis or Almostlouis? hmmm

Clifton Barney

Overall, I appreciated the movie more than the novel. The novel was confusing at times and the movie completely smoothed out those parts in the novel that posed questions in my mind. The movie does an accurate job of depicting each character. One of the only discrepancies I noticed was the scene where Louis comes to Clarissa’s house early for the party.
Louis does not cry uncontrollably as he does in the novel. Instead, Clarissa is the emotional wreck when the two speak and Louis is the more nostalgic one. This scene is almost completely different. Their dialogue and the setting are consistent, but almost everything else is not. First, I noticed that in the movie Louis says that he flew in the morning of the party. In the novel, he flew in a day or two before. I have no clue as to why this is done because I do not think that when Louis flew in is important as opposed to him being there for the party period. It may be just be a misinterpretation. Second, Louis does not go into detail about his relationship with the student and there is no realization that he is not in love. Third, the focus in this scene is switched to Clarissa as Louis tries to console her in her time of weakness and confession. This is changed in the novel to amplify the feelings the audience gets when Clarissa sees Richard commit suicide. So I do not think that this scene was meant to take anything away from Louis, but rather to strengthen the visual climax of Richard’s suicide.
Lastly, Louis is not showed as having an infatuation for Julia and her youth. This is left out for the sake of confusion. Instead of the audience wondering if Louis is bisexual, confused, or desperate for love it is modestly omitted. Its deletion could have been to help what I stated earlier. If the focus would have wavered any from Clarissa then the shock of the climax way have suffered (just a thought, but this would only have effected those who had not read the novel).

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