MovieChat Forums > The Quiet American (2003) Discussion > Greene's novel vs. the movie

Greene's novel vs. the movie

posted 19 years ago by NuYorkie
11 replies | jump to latest

I think there's a common problem with adapting Greene's writing style onto the big screen and as a result the movies based on his books appear just to skim the surface. It looks like the director tried to maintain the balance between the love triangle and the political theme and both parts of the plot got shortchanged. I enjoyed the movie, however a lot of truly wonderful intellectual observations, which in the book are mostly Fowler's monologues or dialogs with Pyle, got lost. Greene is a great analyst of human nature and I felt the screenwriter didn't take advantage of that maybe in fear of slowing down the pace of the movie. For example, there was a scene when Fowler and Pyle are stuck in the watchtower where in the book they had a long conversation about Phuong and Fowler's relationship with her. It showed Pyle's naivete understanding the oriental culture and the conflict between the two men. In the movie it was distilled to "I could never marry Phoung. My wife is a Catholic and would never give me a divorce". The weight of the conversation was shifted towards politics but didn't reach the depth of the book either. Would the movie suffer if this scene was made 5 minutes longer to get into the heart and mind of the two characters?

I'm curious to hear your views on that.

[–] NHkt 19 years ago

True, the scene in the watchtower did not get into politics like it did in the book. However, I thought this movie was SO well done, the finest performance ever by Brendan Fraser, and a very important movie for Americans today. Brendan Fraser should stick to doing roles like this. I don't think either of the plots got shortchanged. I thought it was quite close to the book - or at least closer than most other book adaptations. It is somewhat hard to adapt some of Graham Greene's novels to the screen because he goes so in-depth into the characters' souls. You can never get the same understanding of a character in a movie as you can in his novels. Despite this, The Quiet American is one of the best movies I have ever seen. The acting, the message, and the overall movie is wonderful.

[–] griffic-2 19 years ago

Yeah, unfortunately some text always has to be sacrificed in order to streamline a film. As long as the film maintains the "heart" of the original story, than it's pretty much a success, and I definitely think that The Quiet American does just that...you get a good sense of the political argument as well as the romantic triangle AND two really magnificent performances to boot!

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[–] NuYorkie 18 years ago

Greene is on the top of my favorite contemporary English language writers list. He writes beautifully constructed and well thought out sentences plus the characters in his novels are always very interesting and complex.

"The Quiet American" has some lengthy politics oriented chapters with several pages without a single line of dialog that may put you off if you don't like "wordy books" but whenever there's an interaction between the characters those passages are extremely engaging. Of course his style is a matter of personal taste but definitely worth giving a try.

[–] 18 years ago

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[–] NuYorkie 18 years ago

It's really hard to recommend a reading if you don't know someone's personality. If you saw and liked " The End of the Affair" I'd start with that book. One particular thing about Greene's style is that he likes the monologue narrative through which he reveals characters' personalities, motivations, inner demons etc. Bendrix scrutiny of Sarah, Henry, Smithe and himself is fascinating, brutally honest and real in exposing their flaws, weaknesses and a complex love/hate relationship the narrator has with all of them including God. You may want to visit TEOTA board if you want to get an idea what this movie/book is about and don't mind some spoilers.

Since it's a movie board I want to recommend those books that were succesfully made into movies so as a second choice I'd reach for "The Quiet American" or " Our Man in Havana".

I like S. Maugham. The recent adaptation of his novel "Theatre" called " Being Julia" with Annette Bening was great.

I read Conrad's " Heart of Darkness" and " The Secret Agent" both made into pretty good movies.

My other favorite authors besides Greene are T. Capote and Marguerite Duras(she's French though).

[–] 18 years ago

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[–] 18 years ago

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[–] NuYorkie 18 years ago

I'm glad you enjoyed it. Now you can try to read the book.

[–] 18 years ago

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[–] Jes' Sayin' (5983) a year ago

Yes, it would have been nice. But Hollywood knows most Americans don't have much time for philosophizing and they want the movie to be seen, so out it goes...