Pierre Niney in The Count of Monte Cristo
Noni Ford discusses the art of adaptation and the motivations of the titular character in the new French blockbuster The Count of Monte Cristo.
“Moral wounds have this peculiarity — they may be hidden, but they never close; always painful, always ready to bleed when touched, they remain fresh and open in the heart.” — Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
Though many directors have tried and are likely to try again in the not too distant future, it’s a herculean task adapting a grand epic novel into a film. A feature of any epic are the twists and turns that are rampant in the stories of our protagonists, with story elements that fit well into each pocket of the story as constructed by the author. The sheer number of characters involved usually requires a fair amount of parts in any production as each is so beloved by fans of the book that to cut them would be nothing less than a capital offense. Between the screenwriter and director, many negotiations and concessions must take place if a film with less than three hours runtime is going to take shape.
As far as adaptations go, though, much of the story found in the book is only somewhat shortened in Alexandre de La Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte’s The Count of Monte Cristo. Which may be the reason why the film runs at two hours and 58 minutes, although you could definitely make the case for cutting out more of the story or paring down some of the threads of interconnected plots. However, I think the greatest magic trick any film over two hours can pull off is making you committed to these stories and these characters so that the time flies by during your screening. In a story where the main motivation is revenge carried out after a long period of suffering, necessity dictates that the movie run longer to capture all of the intricacies and the measured nature of the Count’s plans. This decision ties us more to our story’s leading man and keeps us engaged, with story cuts applied mostly to the ending and some characters who have their conclusions wrapped up neatly so that the final scenes pack more of a punch.
Poster for The Count of Monte Cristo
I’ve been a longtime viewer of European classic novels adapted for film. There are many pitfalls that I’ve seen, and there are common quirks I’ve also been able to identify in the American adaptations (many from the last few years) of these classics, one of the more glaring quirks being when seemingly every character has a regional accent or adopts a somewhat generalized British accent despite the story often having no basis in England. While ideally the film would keep all dialogue in the origin language of the text, this seldom happens, and maybe because I expect this to usually be the case I hope for at least an accent from the region of the story. Though similarly missing the mark, that would at least show some degree of acknowledgement for the literary work’s genesis. Instead, we get American English. For any language adaptation, there are subtleties that are lost that can’t quite be accounted for or replicated. More than that, though, some stories are tied to a national identity and memory that are often not properly depicted in an American adaptation. This asynchrony produces a mixed bag of results and often delivers a product that misses the spirit of the text. Which is why it is so important that De La Patellière and Delaporte’s Count of Monte Cristo features regional dialects found in the story, from French to Romanian. It’s also why I’d advocate watching this adaptation and ones like it first.
Pierre Niney as the aforementioned title character, Edmond Dantès, believably pulls off the transformation of his character from young adult to world-weary patriarch of a rather interesting array of “children.” There have been many adaptations of Alexandre Dumas’s famous book, some of which are already primed to come this year or next. There have been both film and miniseries adaptations, with the miniseries I’m sure telling a fuller amount of the book. I wonder, though, why precisely this text has been returned to so many times. There are several novels and plays about revenge (Hamlet, Wuthering Heights, Carrie), and while many have their own adaptations, Monte Cristo is in a category all of its own when it comes to the sheer number of screen reimaginings — and I don’t think that’s simply due to its age (it was originally published between 1844-46).
I wonder if part of the thrill that brings writers, directors, and audiences back to this tale is the timespan of it all. There isn’t just a period of months or a season in which our vengeful lead is cooking up a plan; instead years are passing by as he desperately seeks to escape his imprisonment and bring down a reckoning on his nemeses. As we watch him toil and as he is robbed of his former life, we can tap more into his suffering and his pain. Add to it all that he is truly innocent, completely and unjustly sacrificed for the gains of men who seek out fortune no matter the ethical cost, and it is easy to sympathize with him. Throw in that he is also a victim due to his socioeconomic status and you empathize with him.
Dantès imprisoned after years in subpar conditions
When Dantès carries out his various schemes, we feel a sense of triumph and cheer him on as he pays back the wrongs done to him. But even in our shared delight at the retribution befalling the villains of the story, it is hard not to question if this is all truly worth it. He now has the power and means to make a new life and instead of leaving France entirely, he stays and gives up more of his life to these men that ruined so much of it already. As much as we want Dantès to dole out punishment, it does seem rather all-consuming, his desire for payback. But who among us can’t understand the need to even the scales and to rain down judgement upon those who are reprehensible, even when you know in doing so you are giving more of your energy to the past then the present or future? Once wronged so terribly, it is hard to forget the experience. The human aspect of the push-pull he finds himself in makes the story more than simply a neat, orderly tale of consequence. It gives it legs and allows comparison to other aspects of life where emotions are so overpowering that it proves difficult to walk away and “let things go.”
Dantès and his friends as he sets himself up for a wonderful life
As honorable as the count is and as stalwart as he can be in his plans and decisions, he is still a man in recovery from a deep wound. The betrayal he felt at such a young age and at a time he was making his way ever clearer in the world cuts him so deep that it isn’t something he can ever fully heal from. He is a free man again by the beginning of the second act, yet as he grasps for threads of a life he used to live he finds nothing and no one waiting for him. He is alone in the world and his anger is all he can rely on to fuel him forward as he moves into a new fortune and a new identity. Drifting between man and ghost, he enters society for a course of destruction prepared. As to what ends this way of life brings, you’ll have to come to the Cinema’s screening on April 19th to find out.
IU Cinema will be showing The Count of Monte Cristo on April 19 at 7pm as part of the International Art House Series.