Weaving Hugo - Jeremiah

We here at Three Geek Review are fascinated by storytelling in general. We also love it when a story proves to be so good that it is adapted to a different media from that whence it first appeared -- books being made into movies being a prime example. Maybe one day we will explore other avenues of this fascination such as video games that are made into movies -- i.e. Super Mario Brothers -- or books turned into radio plays, turned into movies -- i.e. "War of the Worlds.” No promises, though. Until then, though lets us once again turn our focus to books-into-movies.

Victor Hugo's “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” is more than a celebrated novel, it is an act of pure passion. A sort of literary opera, if you will. Emotions are felt at the most heightened levels. Quasimodo is not just infatuated with La Esmeralda, he loves her with every fiber of his hideous being. Dom Claude Frollo does not merely find Esmeralda attractive, he is consumed with an unquenchable lust. It is an operatic melodrama of the highest order.

Everyone knows the story, it's near impossible not to. It's been adapted to the screen many times, once even as a Disney cartoon. Yet it's not the story that pulses with power, it's the characters and the way Hugo weaves their lives together. Indeed one character has the foresight to even point out: “Or rather, we all ruined one another through the inexplicable workings of fate!” Even the naive Esmeralda, has the moment of clarity when she realizes, “that destiny was an irresistible force.”

The book contains a cast of dozens, each unaware of how their actions are affecting others, even in so far as to how their actions are in fact sealing their own fates. A king's order to attack the mob spells the end for La Esmeralda, a self-imprisoned woman besot with pure misery realizes that her precious lost love has been the person she most hated and ridiculed.

There are passages and lines in the novel that are, to put it simply, divine. The passage where Claude Frollo pours his desires and lust out to Esmeralda in her cell is breathtaking. The exchanges between Gringoire and almost anyone are bits of genius.

In other words, I loved this book, more than I thought I would. As I flip through the book now, I realize just how much I have underlined. Such as when the narrator informs the reader, “We regret that we are obliged to add that, due to the harshness of the weather, he was using his tongue as a handkerchief.”

That being said, I had my pick of cinematic adaptations to choose from. There was the version starring Lon Chaney (1923), the previously stated Disney animated version (1996), a British version simply called Esmeralda (1922), or the one I eventually chose.

This 1939 version stars the infamous Charles Laughton, arguably one of the greatest actors of his time, if not at least the most influential. For if Spencer Tracy ushered in the era of naturalistic acting, Laughton ushered in the era of voice inflection.

Directed by William Dieterle and adapted to the screen by Sonya Levien, this particular outing is mildly faithful to the novel. There are some changes, and most of them leave you scratching your head. But the movie is good, don't get me wrong.

The screen is magnetic when Laughton appears, and Maureen O'Hara as La Esmeralda is about as gorgeous as you can get when casting for this temptress. True, in casting O'Hara they went more in the direction of a daughter of Ireland as opposed as Hugo's “..daughter of Egypt”. But that's cool. Such things are expected -- especially considering the time period this was made -- but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The movie by itself is perfectly fine, a 3 ½ easy. The acting is solid all around, O'Hara is a bit shaky at times, but give that girl a close up or a scene where she interacts with Laughton and she'll knock your socks off. Laughton enraptures you with every move, and when the movie culminates to Quasimodo rescuing Esmeralda and climbing the great Cathedral yelling “Sanctuary! Sanctuary! Sanctuary!” it's a moment to behold.

The dialogue is perfectly good, though oddly, very little of it is Hugo's -- again, getting ahead. Dieterle does a good job of weaving the characters together and leading them to their respected end...

Damn it, I can't go on.

The movie is good. Really good, in fact, if you don't think about the book. But an adaptation, it BLOWS!

First off, the prologue is meant to feel like it's from Hugo. Believe me, it is not. I've already mentioned the O'Hara thing, so let me move on to one of the severe problems. The great and respected actor, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, turns in a fine performance as the young Jehan Frollo, Claude Frollo's younger, wilder, promiscuous and much more agnostic brother. The trouble is that in the movie he's the main character. He's the keeper of of Quasimodo, he's the one who is ensconced with Esmeralda. His older brother the archdeacon Claude Frollo (Walter Hampden) is relegated to the kindly older brother role -- barely even a secondary character, more like an extra with an odd amount of lines.

Confused? So was I.

Why would you change the roles like that? So the Frollo/Esmeralda relationship would seem more plausible or more acceptable? It's not supposes to be! It's supposes to make you squirm about in your own unease.

How about Pierre Gringoire (a young Edmond O'Brien) who, in the book, is intelligent yet entirely self indulgent, with his passions switching at the speed of turning a page. He's the novel's comic relief and, in the end, thanks to his own self indulgence, puts the final nail in the coffin for all involved in the love triangle. In the movie, he is a French Thomas Jefferson or John Adams. A brilliant philosopher who writes what amounts to be a prequel to “The Rights of Man”. Huh? Why?

King Louis XI (Harry Davenport) is portrayed as a progressive and noble free thinker. A man who wishes his peasants to revolt against the crimes of their times and break the chains of the church. Yet, in the book he is a true blue tyrant. A man who inspects prison cells and pretends not to notice the prisoner while enjoying the cries for clemency and release.

There are lots more, including the murder scene that all of the sudden takes place outdoors, instead of in an inn, and in such a manner that left my friend and I wondering what the hell just happened.

I seem to have written my longest piece yet. Like I said, the changes weren't bad per se, just confusing as hell. Even down to the gentrified ending and odd absence of Hugo dialogue, which is insane considering who you have to deliver it.

All in all, read the book. For Hayek's sake read the book! The movie, while perfectly good, does one of the more bizarre hatchet jobs I've ever witnessed. So much so that, after the movie was over, I kept screaming in my head Quasimodo's mournful last line of the book, “Oh! Everything I loved!

Book 5/5
Movie 3.5/5

Yours Until Hell Freezes Over,

Jeremiah