Literature and Cinema

FILMS BASED ON NOVELS

Novel: The Wings of the Dove by Henry James

Film: The wings of the dove by Iain Softley

Set amid the splendor of London drawing rooms and gilded Venetian palazzos, The Wings of the Dove is the story of Milly Theale, a naïve, doomed American heiress, and a pair of lovers, Kate Croy and Merton Densher, who conspire to obtain her fortune. In this witty tragedy of treachery, self-deception, and betrayal, Henry James weaves together three ill-fated and wholly human destinies unexpectedly linked by desire, greed, and salvation. As Amy Bloom writes in her Introduction, “The Wings of the Dove is a novel of intimacy. . . . [James] gives us passion, he gives us love in its terrible and enchanting forms.”

(Source: LibraryThing.com)

Novel: A Passage to India by E. M. Forster
Film: A Passage to India by David Lean

The main incident of the novel is the accusation by an English woman that an Indian doctor followed her into a cave and attempted to rape her. Doctor Aziz (the accused man) is a respected member of the Muslim community in India. Like many people of his social class, his relationship with the British administration is somewhat ambivalent. He sees most of the British as enormously rude, so he is pleased and flattered when an English woman, Mrs. Moore, attempts to befriend him.Fielding also becomes a friend, and he is the only English person who attempts to help him--after the accusation is made. Despite Fielding's help, Aziz is constantly worried that Fielding will somehow betray him). The two part ways and then meet many years later. Forster suggests that the two can never really be friends until the English withdraw from India.

(Source:classiclit.com)

Novel: The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Film: The Remains of the Day by James Ivory

The novel The Remains of the Day tells the story of Stevens, an English butler who dedicates his life to the loyal service of Lord Darlington (mentioned in increasing detail in flashbacks). The novel begins with Stevens receiving a letter from an ex colleague called Miss Kenton, describing her married life, which he believes hints at her unhappy marriage. The receipt of the letter allows Stevens the opportunity to revisit this once-cherished relationship, if only under the guise of possible re-employment. Stevens' new employer, a wealthy American, Mr Farraday, encourages Stevens to borrow a car to take a well-earned break, a "motoring trip." As he sets out, Stevens has the opportunity to reflect on his unmoving loyalty to Lord Darlington, the meaning of the term "dignity", and even his relationship with his father. Ultimately Stevens is forced to ponder the true nature of his relationship with Miss Kenton. As the book progresses, increasing evidence of Miss Kenton's one-time love for Stevens, and his for her, is revealed.
Working together during the years leading up to the Second World War, Stevens and Miss Kenton fail to admit their true feelings. All of their recollected conversations show a professional friendship, which came close, but never dared, to cross the line to romance.
Miss Kenton, it later emerges, has been married for over 20 years and therefore is no longer Miss Kenton but has become Mrs Benn. She admits to occasionally wondering what her life with Stevens might have been like, has come to love her husband, and is looking forward to the birth of their first grandchild. Stevens muses over lost opportunities, both with Miss Kenton and with his long-time employer, Lord Darlington. At the end of the novel, Stevens instead focuses on the "remains of [his] day", referring to his future service with Mr Farraday.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Novel: The Four Feathers by A. E. W. Mason
Film: The Four Feathers by Shekar Kapur
The novel tells the story of British officer, Harry Feversham, who resigns his commission from his regiment just prior to Sir Garnet Wolseley's 1882 expedition to Egypt to suppress the rising of Urabi Pasha. He does this for his own personal reasons, rather than cowardice. However, he is faced with censure from three of his comrades for cowardice, signified by the delivery of three white feathers to him, from Captain Trench and Lieutenants Castleton and Willoughby, and the loss of the support of his fiancée, Ethne Eustace, who presents him with the fourth feather. His best friend in the regiment, Captain Durrance, becomes his rival for Ethne.
Talking with Lieutenant Sutch, a friend of his father, an imposing retired general, Feversham questions his own true motives, and resolves to redeem himself by whatever means necessary, travelling on his own to Egypt and Sudan, where in 1882 Muhammad Ahmed proclaimed himself the Mahdi (Guided One) and raised a Holy War. On January 26, 1885, his forces, at the time called Dervishes, captured Khartoum and killed its British governor, General Charles George Gordon. It is mainly in the eastern Sudan, where the British and Egyptians held Suakin, that the action takes place over the next six years. Durrance is blinded by sunstroke and invalided home. Castleton is reported killed at Tamai where a British square is briefly broken. Feversham's first success is with Willoughby, by recovering lost letters of Gordon. He is aided by a Sudanese Arab, Abou Fatma. Later, disguised as a mad Greek musician, Feversham gets imprisoned in Omdurman, where he rescues the now Colonel Trench, who had been captured on a reconnaissance mission, and they escape.
Returned to England, Feversham has his honour restored and the feathers returned. Trench admits he instigated the feathers. Durrance yields Ethne, and travels to Germany to seek a cure for his blindness. Ethne and Feversham wed. The story is rich in characters and sub-plots, which the filmed versions perforce trim, along with making major changes in the story line, with the best known 1939 version centered on the 1898 campaign and battle of Omdurman, only hinted as a future event in the novel.

(Source: Wikipedia)