Topics for Discussion

Directed by Karel Reisz

Screenplay Harold Pinter

Sarah/Anna Meryl Streep

Charles /Mike Jeremy Irons

Ernestina Lynsey Baxter

Awards: Nominated for 5 Oscars. Another 9 wins & 12 nominations

The most commercially successful of Fowles' novels, The French Lieutenant's Woman, appeared in 1969. The film version of the book from 1981 was made by Karel Reisz. The story, set in the Victorian period, followed the book, but the modern subplot, a film within a film, was created by Reisz and Harold Pinter, who wrote the screenplay. "There was trouble with the proposal scene," wrote Fowles in his diary, " and one day Karel rang me up to see if I could help - he felt it was too curt and quick. 'Harold says he'll do anything, but he simply can't write a happy scene.'"

Before them Fred Zinneman had planned to direct a film based on the book, but he did not find the right actress for the title role. The script was written by Dennis Potter. Also the directors Mike Nichols and Franklin Schaffner wrestled for a short with their own versions. Fowles had little to do with the making of the film. Reisz later said, that for him the project came alive when Meryl Streep was signed.

The French Lieutenant's Woman, set largely in Lyme Regis in the 1860s, re-created the Victorian melodrama. Fowles moved between past and present, added footnotes, quotations from Darwin, Marx, and the greats Victorian poets, and commented Victorian politics and customs. This experimental novel had different endings, one heart-warming, another shocking. "In some ways the unhappy ending pleases the novelist. He has set out on a voyage and announced, I have failed and must set out again. If you create a happy ending, there is a somewhat false sense of having solved life's problems." (Fowles in The New York Times, November 13, 1977)

Topics for Discussion

1. The problem of visualization

It is generally recognized that books stimulate the productive imagination of their readers better than movies. Do you agree or disagree? Was your own picture of the Fowles’s novel different from that of the film? Did you like the choice of the leading actors?

John Fowles: ''What I like about the novel is that the reader actually supplies images. And so no one line will ever be read the same, even if it's from 'War and Peace.' Of countless millions of readers, each will visualize it from his own memory stock. And so, one thing I'm a little suspicious of in the cinema is that, although you have to imagine in terms of motivation and psychology, the actual images are given to you.''

John Fowles: It was interesting seeing Meryl and Jeremy doing the parts, because no novelist actually has a very clear vision of his characters. You have a clear vision spiritually, psychologically, but you deliberately don't describe them physically. Because that's an important thing in your relationship to the reader. The reader fills in certain details. Insofar as I had visualized Sarah, she really wasn't like Meryl. Sarah had these strange, rather large eyes... exophthalmic eyes. And Meryl's face is more regular.

John Fowles: I think he [Jeremy Irons] is just marvelous. Strangely enough, there are almost no young English actors now who can act upper class without playing the idiot. But Jeremy... someone who is upper class, a gentleman, in quotes, he doesn't make you laugh.

John Fowles: Романисты испытывают какой-то прямо-таки архетипический страх, что иллюстрация «затопчет» текст, точнее говоря, что воображение их читателей (которое играет жизненно важную творческую роль в целостном восприятии книги) будет придавлено, сковано набором конкретных образов… Но мне представляется, что в этом кроется некое испытание, вызов, которым автору было бы глупо пренебрегать…

Если текст действительно стоящий, он выдержит «визуализацию»… Если же образ «топит» текст, значит, сам текст все равно никогда бы не выжил… Существует гораздо больше способов, чем один-единственный, чтобы рассказать одну и ту же историю – даже в пределах одного и того же средства информации, не говоря уже об иных.

(excerpt from the Fowles’s essay on "The French Lieutenant’s Woman)

2. The concept of the movie

The dazzling design of the novel "couldn't be less cinematic”, according to the critics. Several distinguished directors came to grief trying to develop a script - or even a concept.

Some think the Pinter’s work is brilliant - a cinematic equivalent of Fowles's contemporary narration - while others resent the interrupted flow of the Victorian love story. What is your opinion?

John Fowles: Еще одна важная проблема с «Женщиной французского лейтенанта» - стереоскопическое видение романа, как выразился один критик, то, что он написан одновременно и викторианской, и с сегодняшней точек зрения. Ни один из режиссеров, над ним работавших, не захотел обойти эту «диахроническую» дилемму, хотя решения они предлагали самые различные…

Первоначальное общее решение было воспользоваться приемом, уже опробованным в романе: создать персонаж, который был бы имплицитным автором и в то же время участником викторианского сюжета; персонаж, который мог бы вступать в действие извне, а потом отходить в сторону и его комментировать…

Теперь, оглядываясь назад, я убеждаюсь, что единственным возможным выходом был тот, который отыскали Карел и Харольд. До этого мы все были не способны заметить его существование, ослепленные более насущной в тот момент проблемой – как ужать и так тесно забитую, возможно, перенасыщенную сюжетными линиями книгу, чтобы вместить ее в два часа экранного времени. Мысль о том, чтобы добавить совершенно новое измерение, новые взаимоотношения к уже существующим, никогда не мгла бы придти в голову никому – и вполне резонно, – если бы с нами не было Харольда Пинтера… он умеет сократить длинное и сложное так, чтобы не исказить его сути.

(excerpt from the Fowles’s essay on "The French Lieutenant’s Woman)

3. Understanding Sarah

The novel grew out of a dream the author had of a woman standing at the edge of a quay, looking out to sea. She was the central character, the soul of the Fowles's work from the very beginning.

John Fowles: That was a deliberate intention in the book, that her motives should not be explained. That may well be because I began to realize that I didn't understand her myself. And therefore you make a virtue of your own defects. But you do have to feel how your characters would feel, and that you don't do rationally.

John Fowles: Everything that is in the film certainly was arrived at by following certain logics. For instance, although Sarah acts in ways which are pretty inscrutable, we found an internal logic in her which we feel quite secure about.

Karel Reisz: ''John was a sort of uncle to the project. When we had a draft, we showed it to him, and he made suggestions, mainly about the Victorian dialogue. He was like a professor supervising his research students. He came in when asked and not when not asked. He told me, 'You and Harold go off and do what you like... but just don't explain Sarah.'

Could you guess the motives of the heroine? Who do you understand better, the Sarah of the book, the Sarah of the movie, or maybe Anna? Are the two Sarahs equally mysterious?

4. What is in the end?

How many endings are there in the novel? In the movie? To your mind, which is the most probable one? Which would be the best variant for Charles?

Библиография

1. Фаулз Дж. Экранизация «Женщины французского лейтенанта»// Кротовые норы. – М.: Махаон, 2002. – С.65 – 76.
2. Biography of John Fowles. – http://www.fowlesbooks.com/biography.htm
3. Fowles, J. The French Lieutenant’s Woman. – www.artefact.ru
4. Garis, Leslie. Translating Fowles Into Film – http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/31/specials/fowles-translating.html
5. John Fowles. – http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/jfowles.htm

1. The French Lieutenant’s Woman (movie)

1. The French Lieutenant’s Woman (Audible audio book)

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