Fiction Friction: Pragmatic Adaptations, Part 1

[David Flin]

@Thande has written part 1 of a series on adaptations of page to screen Here.

Discuss.

 

[Charles EP M.]

That's a weird missed step for Orient Express there. I've seen the 70s adaptation and the Suchet one, both included that - the Suchet one also adding an adaptation wrinkle, that this Poirot has been around so long, with so many specific moments of moral rage and refusal to bend, that

Spoiler

they end up making his decision to stay quiet a moral dilemma, something he feels sickened by because it goes against his beliefs, where in the 70s and a one-off film, a Poirot could go "oh well" because the victim was a real bastard.

 

[Thande]

That's a weird missed step for Orient Express there. I've seen the 70s adaptation and the Suchet one, both included that - the Suchet one also adding an adaptation wrinkle, that this Poirot has been around so long, with so many specific moments of moral rage and refusal to bend, that

Spoiler

they end up making his decision to stay quiet a moral dilemma, something he feels sickened by because it goes against his beliefs, where in the 70s and a one-off film, a Poirot could go "oh well" because the victim was a real bastard.

Yeah, I wasn't too keen on the Suchet version. Obviously as a Christian I am happy that the role led Suchet to come to genuine faith, but he really exaggerated Poirot being Le Bon Catholique in that one specifically. Maybe that's why Branagh bizarrely decided to do the exact opposite in his Poirots (especially the third one).

Amusingly enough, as this article got split in two (by me I mean not David) for wordcount, I didn't actually get as far as the example I originally wrote the article about - that'll be coming up in the second half.

 

[marktaha]

They should always stick.as closely as possible to the original book. I'd like to see a TV serial do what Erich von Stroheim did with "Greed" and include the entire book.