Brad DeLong wrote: >
>>I've just watched _The Count of Monte Cristo_. The movie >>is good _qua_ movie, even thought I have some doubts wrt >>the conversion book -> movie. Namely: >> >>(spoiler space) >>. >>. >>. >>. >>. >>. >>. >>. >>. >>. >>. >>. >>. >>. >>. >>. >>. >>. >>. >>. >> >>IIRC, in the book Mondego's son is really his son, and the Count >>refrains from going in his revenge through the end, saving the >>boy's life, and becoming a little more heroic than in the movie, >>where he only spares the boy _after_ knowing that he is >>_his_ son. > >And in the movie Edmond Dantes winds up marrying his TWUE LOVE, his >original fiancee, while in the book he does not. > >The key differences are, I think, that we are a more romantic and >less realistic civilization than nineteenth-century France, and that >we also demand greater "tightness" of plot. > I think the key difference stems from the fact that we are a materialistic and amoral culture, so that the uplifting that book-Dantes got from _refraining_ from executing his revenge wouldn't be appreciated by the hordes that the m*vie-makers want to attract in order to increase their profit. Even at the destruction of the _spirit_ of the book, that _revenge_ is evil. Probably only a humanistic culture could make a true-to-the-spirit _Count of Monte Cristo_ movie. It's a pity that neither Cuba nor North Korea have the monetary resources to do it :-( Alberto Monteiro
