What we watch on the screen over the course of a film is the culmination of the skills of the artists: writers, directors, animators, actors. When a book is made into a film, screenwriters can use aspects of literary design, which have the ability to alter the themes of the original text for dramatic effect or viewer satisfaction. The End of the Affair (1999) is a great example of how easily this can be accomplished using changes in point of view and narrative configuration when moving from novel to film. The screenwriter (Neil Jordan) simplifies Greene's original story about the conflict between religious love and human love, resulting in a more basic love story. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Graham Greene wrote The End of a Story in the first person, from the point of view of Maurice Bendrix, an emerging writer in World War II England. It is implied that Greene based the character of Maurice Bendrix on himself, expressing anger and bitterness towards his own lover through his writing. In the novel, Bendrix is presented as jealous and stubborn, and seems to be tormented by an eternal and incurable frustration. In the second paragraph of chapter 1, Greene uses the word “hate” seven times as a quasi-warning to the reader about the nature of his book. This is not a happy story, and the narrator, even less happy. It's harder to sympathize with the book's first person as the pages of lament and self-pity blur into a seemingly endless tunnel of doom and depression. However, the film gives a different impression of Bendrix. In the novel Sarah does not seem real, but rather a kind of dream that he desperately clings to, a vision of desire. The reader cannot see her, and so the only way we know her is through Bendrix's words of jealousy and hatred and the parts of her diary that Greene allows us to read. In the film she is a beautiful woman - played by Julianne Moore - who the audience could also fall in love with. In this way, it is easier to sympathize with Bendrix as the first-person nature of the book is somewhat lost by adding a third dimension to the other characters. Seeing the characters on screen, working and reacting to each other, falling into and out of love and hate, helps the audience relate. They are more human, more tangible and those who have been in love can better understand their pain. This change altered the theme of hate in the story. The novel, at least for the first three books, is truly a story of Bendrix's hatred, while the film presents it as a tragic love story encouraging the audience to empathize and support his love and lust for the beautiful Sarah. One major difference between Greene's book and Jordan's film is the emphasis on religion. This is attenuated from the novel to the film by the change in the narrative configuration, by the passage from subjective to objective reality. The novel is titled “The End of the Relationship” for a reason, as it works to find out why the relationship ended. Greene writes a heartbreaking verse from her story as she explains that Sarah ends the relationship as a result of a promise she made to God when she thought Bendrix had been killed by a bomb: “I will believe…I will deliver him.” forever, just let it be alive alive... Men can love without seeing each other, can't they? They love you all your life without seeing you, and then he walked through the door, and he was alive, and I thought now began the agony of being without him." (76) These lines from Sarah's diary foreshadow her impending inner turmoil between.
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