1. At the beginning of the novel, Colm? Tobin described life in this small Irish town in detail. Although his writing style is very simple ("free indirect questioning+dialogue"), he doesn't describe the local conditions and customs too much, but his delicate writing style extends some senses for us, and the reader seems to have left a figure in those streets, shops and bedrooms.
The film omits these much-needed backgrounds and begins with an action: Alice is going to America and resigns from Miss Kelly. In the novel, Alice made this decision after a long struggle.
There is a very important foreshadowing at the beginning of the novel, which lays the groundwork for the love between Alice and Jim. Alice accompanied her girlfriend to a dance, thinking that Jim would invite him to dance, but in fact she didn't. This foreshadowing will play a great role in understanding why Alice came back from America and fell in love with Jim.
But unfortunately, the film was deleted. So at the end of the film, it is hard for the audience to understand why Alice is married in America and still developing a relationship with Jim.
3. The length of the novel left for Alice to return to Ireland is actually only 40 pages, accounting for about1/5; But almost 1/3 of the film tells Alice's life in Ireland. In fact, it not only lengthened the length, but also added an "obvious intention" ending: on the ferry to America again, Alice taught another Irish girl who went to America for the first time.
Analysis: The above three changes are understandable. Because movies need action to promote the development of the plot, it is especially necessary to keep those violent actions (such as parting) that will bring emotional impact to the audience. At the same time, it is difficult for images to give a story an artistic conception and atmosphere, and it takes a lot of time to describe the background, which is not allowed by movies (but TV dramas can do it). As for the final development of the clip, it is nothing more than ending Alice's return to Tony, "more touching and more reasonable".
Second, emotion and image.
1.Colm？ Tobin's writing style of "free indirect questioning+dialogue" makes the intonation take into account the inside and outside of the characters to a certain extent, and makes the novel saturated with a touch of emotion (think of Woolf's novels). Although it is too difficult for movies to restore this sense of language (need Claire? Denny's sensual image), but it is criticized that Brooklyn has fallen into the over-lyricism like an idol drama: think about Alice's soft light on the deck of the ferry bound for the United States, making the scene look fake; Lyric strings are also used in movies to infect the audience's emotions, but it is better to use some bright drums (many English dramas are used, such as the soundtrack of Carol).
2. It is precisely because of the writing style of "free indirect questioning+dialogue" that the novel produces a paradox: Alice, as the heroine, is the most vague image, although she has the most pen and ink; On the contrary, although the characters around Alice only have a few simple actions and a few words, their images are vivid.
In the movie, the situation is just the opposite. Sylvia wrote it. The heroine played by Ronan is lifelike, and the film revolves around her. But the supporting actors around can only catch a glimpse of the figure occasionally. On the one hand, this is caused by the characteristics of the film itself, but also reflects the level of the director.
As mentioned in the above article, Alice in the novel is actually an introverted, delicate girl with no big market. On the contrary, Elsa? Ronan's angular face has destroyed this imagination. Although Alice in the film is sometimes shy of strangers (when she first arrived in the United States), she is basically an extrovert (for example, she resigned "directly" from the beginning, and there is a long description in the novel to describe her hesitation; Take the initiative to accept Tony's courtship, sexual initiator, etc. Of course, this change can be regarded as the director's appeal to his own creation, but apart from the original work, the female image created by the film is actually weak. What the audience needs is some external means (such as separating emotional moments such as death+sensational music) to feel the emotions of the characters in order to achieve a complete image.
This is the source of the problem. Can the characters in the film be directly formed through performance? Some excellent movies helped us to answer the questions. In the films of Fahati and luc dardenne, only a small number of hieroglyphs of characters are performed by actors, and more are formed in the context of stories. For example, in Fahati's films, the characters are often formed through dilemmas.
Third, novels and movies.
Novels and movies operate in different ways, and the way of appreciation is naturally different. An audience who constantly compares images with words can't get the real experience of movies. The statement of "loyalty to the original" is not only an insult to the original novel, but also an insult to the art of film. Obviously, film has more uses. Only when we can't see the creative value of a film should we go back and compare it with the original to see where the problem lies. And this should be regarded as an appropriate move for the movie Brooklyn.