Music! and Mystery!
New Crowded House came out in the US today! Pre-ordered, obtained, listened to a lot. I swear, if I ever met Karl Urban, the first question out of my mouth would be, "So do you love Neil Finn only sort of, or oh my god so much?" I'm so pleased that I have new music for the plane (this, plus the new National and Erykah Badu).
Another thing that came out in the US this week is the recent adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express and I found it strange. I had to go back to the book to double check what I remembered.
So what they decided to do was change the entire tone of the book and make it all about Poirot having some crisis of conscience. True, Poirot's line is always that no murder is okay because people should not "play the God," but in the book Poirot himself comes up with the alternate solution to be presented to the police, and then M. Bouc makes the decision. Instead, here Poirot says that he's going to tell the police the truth, and then at the last minute does not.
On top of that is some religious weirdness. First, when in Istanbul Poirot, Mary Debenham and Col. Arbuthnot see a woman being stoned for infidelity. It was pretty graphic in the show-something I really didn't need to see-and pretty gross as presented, where Mary freaked out and Poirot later said, well, that's what they do here. It would have been one thing if it had been in the original book-a bit of yucky, but period-accurate, British Imperialism-but as an addition it was a bit much.
On top of that, the Swedish nursemaid who'd become a missionary, Greta Ohlsson, has this whole weird conversation with Poirot about how Catholicism is bad because it allows penance for forgiveness. At the time I thought that was weird, Luther-like stuff, but we also see Poirot praying with a rosary (does this ever come up in the books? I don't remember it) and later, when he's lied to the police, he walks away with the rosary in his hand, very upset. (I half-expected him to toss it into the woods.)
They also removed all the comic relief, in order to put in all this darkness. They took out the entire plot point about the woman in the dragon robe, and Mrs. Hubbard going on and on about her daughter and how things are done in America. Then they changed how Cassetti got away with it from his having a lot of money and general blackmail to specifically corrupting the prosecutor (the father of McQueen), which allows Poirot to shout at the kid about how his dad should have done his job even though Cassetti had threatened his son. They also make a stronger link between Cassetti and the Mafia, which I'm not sure was necessary. And finally, they remove the detective Hardman and have the Greek doctor be one of the twelve in his place, so he can conceal evidence and distract Poirot with his own theories.
I love David Suchet as Poirot, but I think I'll stick to the 1974 movie for this title. Bringing out the inner life of a character is one thing, but changing up the book this much in order to make a point feels like a bit much.
And now White Collar is back! YAY!
crossposted from Dreamwidth |
comments | comment at Dreamwidth
Another thing that came out in the US this week is the recent adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express and I found it strange. I had to go back to the book to double check what I remembered.
So what they decided to do was change the entire tone of the book and make it all about Poirot having some crisis of conscience. True, Poirot's line is always that no murder is okay because people should not "play the God," but in the book Poirot himself comes up with the alternate solution to be presented to the police, and then M. Bouc makes the decision. Instead, here Poirot says that he's going to tell the police the truth, and then at the last minute does not.
On top of that is some religious weirdness. First, when in Istanbul Poirot, Mary Debenham and Col. Arbuthnot see a woman being stoned for infidelity. It was pretty graphic in the show-something I really didn't need to see-and pretty gross as presented, where Mary freaked out and Poirot later said, well, that's what they do here. It would have been one thing if it had been in the original book-a bit of yucky, but period-accurate, British Imperialism-but as an addition it was a bit much.
On top of that, the Swedish nursemaid who'd become a missionary, Greta Ohlsson, has this whole weird conversation with Poirot about how Catholicism is bad because it allows penance for forgiveness. At the time I thought that was weird, Luther-like stuff, but we also see Poirot praying with a rosary (does this ever come up in the books? I don't remember it) and later, when he's lied to the police, he walks away with the rosary in his hand, very upset. (I half-expected him to toss it into the woods.)
They also removed all the comic relief, in order to put in all this darkness. They took out the entire plot point about the woman in the dragon robe, and Mrs. Hubbard going on and on about her daughter and how things are done in America. Then they changed how Cassetti got away with it from his having a lot of money and general blackmail to specifically corrupting the prosecutor (the father of McQueen), which allows Poirot to shout at the kid about how his dad should have done his job even though Cassetti had threatened his son. They also make a stronger link between Cassetti and the Mafia, which I'm not sure was necessary. And finally, they remove the detective Hardman and have the Greek doctor be one of the twelve in his place, so he can conceal evidence and distract Poirot with his own theories.
I love David Suchet as Poirot, but I think I'll stick to the 1974 movie for this title. Bringing out the inner life of a character is one thing, but changing up the book this much in order to make a point feels like a bit much.
And now White Collar is back! YAY!
crossposted from Dreamwidth |
comments | comment at Dreamwidth