If I haven't seen the original work, this movie naturally doesn't appeal to me at all. After reading the original, the film’s horror is really outrageous. Naturally, it is very hard to shoot. It takes so many people and equipment to get to the place where the birds do not shit, and occasionally a few shots are extremely classic, but the film is grossly wrong in terms of the tone. Anne Prue’s works have been rendering the harsh environment, the messy town and the disordered life, using entries from the "Ashley Knots" as subtitles with rich meaning, and Quill’s family nightmares continue Entangled. In the adaptation, it becomes a peaceful, quiet and tidy northern town, a bright editorial office, and a life full of warmth. The basic tone does not follow the original. The keynote is the usual Hollywood practice: middle-class values, warmth, and disregard of the most expressionistic environmental descriptions in Anne Prue's original work. Withdrawing from this environment, the difficulty of survival and the powerlessness of life that were originally focused on has become a story of a widowed man breaking away from the psychological shadow under the inspiration of love. This is not bullshit and what is it.
The story has also been extensively deleted: The second daughter of Quill was deleted, which is not a big problem, but Quill’s previous job was changed from an intern reporter to an ink worker, and the image of a colleague who replaced the absent father was deleted. This is also a story ensemble, but it is unreliable to delete Quill and Aunt's repairs to the old house. In the original book, Quill came to Newfoundland to get rid of the nightmare memory of losing his unfaithful wife. The process of repairing the house was a process of trying to get rid of the shadow of family history. The film completely weakened the role of the old house, a prop with a strong symbolic meaning. . In the original work, the comparison between the fate of Quill and the Jack family, the reflection of the painful memories of Quill and Wei Wei, the complex and rich narrative structure formed by the entanglement of Quill’s absent father and the two spiritual fathers. Great simplification is of course necessary for the film, but it also greatly weakens the charm of the original work.
I naturally approve of the director’s casting. Kevin Spacey is much more handsome than the Quill in the book. Such a standard American man’s appearance is still in line with the principle of this film adaptation: delete the so-called ugliness and evil and express warmth and humanity. The actors of the old aunt are very well chosen, which is in line with the description of the original book. I saw the expansion film saying that the role of the bunny in the film was played by three almost identical little girls. It was really good, but I didn't see it at all. In short, there is no need for more comments on the performance. Now that the story is changed to this way, let's follow the pattern of a family melodrama. Such an adaptation is really frustrating. In particular, I noticed that Anne Prue herself is also included in the screenwriter. I really don’t know what she thinks. "Brokeback Mountain" is a classic, and the success of the adaptation is because it is a short story, and it is a pity that such a powerful feature-length work has been cut. What is certain is that "Ship News" won the Pulitzer Prize not because of its warmth, but because it dares to face ugliness and evil. After deleting these films, there may only be one shot worth watching, that is Kui. The scene in Er’s dream, the scene when the Quill family moved the old house to the sea a hundred years ago, and a line of people dragging huge houses on the white snowy field, just like Russian realist oil paintings, and can’t help thinking of Herzog’s " On Landing in a Boat. That kind of desolation and vastness is the realm that the original novel is difficult to express. Perhaps the audience lacks the courage to face such a crude life. Hollywood movies are always designed to allow you to live an extra week when you are desperate.
View more about The Shipping News reviews
