Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Book-Movie Comparison: A Single Man


And here’s one more post about A Single Man, as long as I still have the book fresh in my memory. This is an instance where I saw the movie prior to reading the book, and even though it takes some major liberties, I do continue to love the film – I love both for what they are, what each brings individually (spoilers for the book and the film, which aren’t always the same thing!)

I’ve mentioned before what I regard as the film’s greatest asset: its use of color to create a visual depiction of George’s depression and grief after the loss of Jim. I love the way most of the film is shot in a washed-out sepia tone, only letting the colors shine fully for 1) flashbacks to George’s life with Jim and 2) the fleeting moments in the present where George makes a brief connection with someone that cuts through the fog of his melancholy. I put it up there with Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “Carrion Comfort” as masterfully, genuinely capturing the sheer weariness of depression.

Which pairs masterfully with the opening sequence of the book, in which George wakes and gradually “becomes.” The book’s art is in its words while the film’s strongest poignancy is visual, but both are equally effective at painting a picture of what George is experiencing.

The film is less effective at recreating other aspects of George’s emotions, chiefly his annoyance at society and his anger at homophobia. However, it doesn’t fail to do so. Rather, it doesn’t really try to do so. The movie’s version of George is a different animal, unflappably cool and stiff-upper-lip about 90% of the time, and Colin Firth plays that version to a tee. It makes me ache to see him quietly going about his day, with no one recognizing how heartbroken he is. Part of this, I think, is just an intentional choice on the part of Tom Ford and co., but I imagine part of it is that George doesn’t express nearly as much of his anger and annoyance out loud. It’s all in the narration, his inner thoughts about his neighbors and fellow professors and front steps in San Francisco. It’s always tough to fully bring out a character in an adaptation who, on the page, is so internal. In that way, maybe it’s better that the film veers off and does its own thing, making its own clear choices instead of failing to measure up to the book’s.

While the film doesn’t mix in as much humor as the book does, it still pulls it in in small ways. Firth’s staid delivery makes for a nice deadpan on the mescaline story, and I enjoy the imagined visual of Grant and his family in their fallout shelter while Grant drones on about using different contractors so no one guesses what you’re building (that’s probably the moment in which the film best captures George’s wryer aspect.)

I will say, though, that after I read the book, it did bother me that the movie uses the connective tissue of George planning to commit suicide at the end of the day. I understand the urge to give the day some added weight right at the beginning, because the book is really just “a day in the life” for the most part. But suicide? It makes me sad that the 2009 film hits the “tragic gay” aspect harder than the 1964 novel. In the book, George is grieving and aimless, but he keeps going. This is one day, and he plans to do it again tomorrow. He isn’t building up to killing himself. Even though the film uses the device well and shows us a lot about their version of George through his actions leading up to it, I wish it made different decisions in that area.

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