Wander over to "Rurouni Kenshin"

Personally, I don't care much for shonen.  While I have a few gripes with it, like the over-simplification of some themes and over-use of comedy, the big thing I don't like is the way characters in action series can take deadly hit after deadly hit in fights that go on for episodes and still be standing.  Rurouni Kenshin has this trope, but it's not only great shonen, it's great, period.  For a lot of reasons.

I wish I could run a clip of the first few minutes of the series, because that would demonstrate a great point in favor of the show.  We see Kenshin in a situation in the first few minutes that tells us about his personality, current worldview, how he deals with violent situations, his former life, and current "occupation."  Already, we know more about Kenshin than we did about the Bride in the entire four hours of Kill Bill.  We see his personality, his appearance is intriguing (this short, long-haired guy was a great assassin?  Really?  But--cool scar!  How'd he get that?), and his reactions and reverse-blade sword tell us a bit about his philosophy and allude to his history.

Part of the reason is the Japanese voice actors, especially for Kenshin.  Mayo Suzukaze is utter perfection here.  Her vocal range gives Kenshin a lot of individuality.  He's a very original and three-dimensional character, so it's fitting that he should have an atypical voice.  He doesn't sound like a woman--he sounds like a kind, small man.  There's also the fact that Kenshin has a lot of verbal tics that don't translate to English.   Japanese has many pronouns for "I" depending on politeness, sex, age, etc.  He uses the very archaic and humble "sessha," meaning "this one" (NOT the same "this one" Cheza uses in Wolf's Rain).  However, when he reverts to his assassin self, his verbal tics ("Oro" and "de gozaru") vanish, and "sessha" changes to the more masculine and vulgar "ore," all of which are audible in the Japanese dub if you know what to listen for but appear nowhere in the English dub because English doesn't have multiple "I" pronouns.  These changes are essential for understanding how much Kenshin changed from the war days to peacetime and how he can fall back into that harmful personality if the situation's right.  (It's also a testament to the crafting of the character and the talent of Suzukaze that the Japanese rendering of the line "I will kill you?  That's my line" is not cheesy, as the English dub feels, but subtly terrifying.)  Please stick with the Japanese dub for this one.  As well, if you're going to watch the OVAs for this show, be warned that the English vocal cast changes whereas the Japanese cast remains the same.

A huge point in Kenshin's favor as a shonen series is that it is a historical drama.  It's not an action-comedy that happens to be set in the early Meiji period--it's about the early Meiji period, the dissatisfaction so many people have with the new government, and what assassins do once their services are no longer needed because swords are illegal.  Kenshin himself was based on an assassin who looked like a woman and used that to his advantage to carry out assassinations.  Much of, if not all, the conflict arises from various characters showing their distaste for the Meiji regime and wanting to undermine it in various ways.  This angle gives the show a lot of depth that most action shows lack.  It has a purpose: it's teaching us history and about how war changes people.

Another benefit is the inclusion of philosophy.  Most of the fights are duels of philosophy more than they are between swords/fists/spears, and learning swordfighting is as much about worldview as it is about slashes.  One fight ends when one combatant has been rendered completely unable to move, yet he wins because he has so thouroughly deconstructed his opponent's view on life that he must admit defeat.  The conflicts are much richer when words and minds fight alongside brute force.  Having said that, some fights do drag on a bit too long or suffer from the pitfalls of shonen where a character will perform some superhuman move and then say, "Oh, I was only at three steps below my optimum level," and then work up from there.  Those fights become a bit more aggravating, but this may be more of a issue with my opinion of shonen than an inherent flaw in the shonen-action genre.  As well, none of the individual fights last more than three episodes.

Sometimes the tone can be a bit uneven, especially in season one.  It will go from goofy comedy to serious drama a little too abruptly.  Season two, the pinnacle of the show, seems to balance this much better with a bit of comedy applied in the right places.

About once per episode, I wondered how silly, goofball Kenshin, when falling off a roof after being caught spying, getting chased by a girl, or playing blindman's bluff with the kids, was once the greatest assassin in Japan.  This is all in the series' favor--it demonstrates how an assassin can become carefree and how carefully he has to watch himself to keep from reverting to his manslayer persona.  It also inspires interest in his history, which is revealed in pieces in the series and the OVAs.

Rurouni Kenshin was followed by Samurai X: The Motion Picture and the OVAs Trust, Betrayal, and Reflection.  These OVAs are so different in tone and content than the TV show that I don't feel comfortable talking about them in this review.  They deserve their own review.

Seasons one and two are fabulous and great fun to watch.  Season three is much more mixed, as it is not based on the manga and suffers appropriately.  The first and last episodes are fine, the Christianity arc is decent, and the fake-Battousai episode is amusing, but the rest of the season is entirely skippable.  Definitely put this show on your list.

"Hugo" See This Film

Hey! I went to a theatre to see a movie!  First time in three years.

And Martin Scorsese did not let me down.  This is a wonderful film.  I smiled the whole way through it and all the way home.  It's not mean-spirited; it's wholesome but not devoid of conflict.  The conflict is all emotional--the journeys Hugo and Georges take are quite relatable and full of substance.
Though I would call it a PG movie for adults, I think that children would enjoy it too.  I don't think adults give kids enough credit for what they'll enjoy.  I know young children who like Babette's Feast and Branagh's four-hour Hamlet.  They like quieter, calm films sometimes, and other times they just like something because they do, even if they don't understand it.  Hugo is an emotionally healthy film for kids and mentally stimulating film for adults.  If you know about silent film and Scorsese's life, you will get more out of it, but it's not necessary to enjoy the film.  This is a true film, one that makes perfect use of the medium.  It's not a plug for film restoration, though it does clearly support it.  Instead, it maturely supports film preservation by showing how not doing so leads to deep unhappiness in certain folks' lives.  If no one remembers old films (or books or plays or songs for that matter), then what was the point of it all in the eyes of the ones who made them?  The material is handled subtly and depends on the audience to make the connections.

I hadn't seen a 3D film before, so I have no way to judge, but I did not find the image dark or murky.  Maybe it's getting better, or maybe Scorsese just utilised color very well, but it's a very clear, colorful film.  The 3D was never distracting.

I'm hoping for some acting nominations here.  And directing, visual effects, sound, editing, and picture.  Films like this used to win Best Picture, but these days, it's unlikely they're even nominated.  The Oscar race has mostly gone to PG-13 and R films.  I hope it gets some recognition.  Especially considering that Breaking Dawn Part One is the top grossing film of the weekend on the week that Hugo, The Muppets, and Arthur Christmas (all getting rave reviews) came out.

Shigurui: Death Frenzy

In the early Edo period, a cruel lord stages a tournament of eleven death matches between twenty-two samurai.  One of his vassals begs him to let the samurai fight with wooden swords to show their worth, as otherwise the only thing they will get is eleven dead samurai and a floor covered with intestines, but the lord refuses and begins the tournament.  The first two combatants are a blind ronin and a one-armed samurai.  It turns out that they have a history together, and the rest of the show fills in some of that history.

Technical details: the show looks gorgeous, with photorealistic characters, chiaroscuro galore, and a very limited color palette (mostly black, white, grey, and red) to complement the bleak story.  It's by Studio Madhouse, the same one that brought us the also gorgeous Death Note, Paranoia Agent, Claymore, Boogiepop Phantom, and Texhnolyze, so that should give you an idea of the art you'll see.  Since this is a very Japanese show about sword technique, I recommend the Japanese dub, since the actors in English are going to bandy around a lot of Japanese terms anyway.

Shigurui: Death Frenzy is a deconstruction of the romantic samurai film.  The show deals with the darker side of the samurai way, bringing up the harsher side of things like honor, proving your strength with the sword, succession, marriage, betrayal, apprenticeship, and the consequences of your actions.  The hallmark of the Kogan style showcased in the series is giving the opponent a new look, like cutting off an ear or nose.  Hardly the type of idyllic lifestyle depicted in Seven Samurai, The Hidden Fortress, or even the also deconstructive, but much more fun to watch, Rurouni Kenshin, where warriors strive to protect the weak (and keep those dojos clean).  Shigurui makes you think, "Why would anyone want to become a samurai at all?"  The lifestyle is completely devoted to sword fighting, innocent people may die so that the samurai can show the world they got revenge for the death of an apprentice while they look for the real killer, and the Kogan master, who does unseemly things to his daughter, is demented for most of the year and looks like he's a corpse in the third stage of decay.  Oh, and then there's the inherent violence.

This show is violent.  Violent violent violent violent violent violent violent violent.  Perhaps the most violent animation you'll ever see.  Or maybe just the most violent thing you'll ever see.  In twelve episodes, you'll see a lot of things that you never wanted to see, thing you never realised someone thought up, and things you never realised were even possible.  The show doesn't trivialise its excessive gore, however--the violence looks real and has plenty of consequences for all involved.  Like Texhnolyze, when someone is sliced with a sword, it matters.  The characters feel it, get bloody, and go into shock.  The wounds may even alter their lives.  The sword fights resemble actual sword fights, which are often over after a few slashes.  It's refreshing to see gore actually mean something instead of being there to excite the audience on a base level.  While unpleasant to watch, the violence is necessary to fully appreciate the darker side of the samurai.  Only watch this show if you've got an iron stomach.  You know, the kind of person who can watch Goodfellas while eating spaghetti.  Warning: don't eat Cherrios while watching episode 6.  Or anything else small and crunchy.

With harshness like this, a story better have some interesting, sympathetic characters so that you'll care when bad things happen to them.  But Shigurui doesn't.  There is nothing pleasant about any of these people.  You know you're in trouble when the only person you can pick out as the "hero" is the person who won't rape a girl when offered the chance.  Having only wicked, despicable characters can work--gangster films do it all the time because the characters are fun to be around in some way.  That doesn't happen here.  There's no one to root for, no one likeable, no one whom you'd invite to a party.  Though the show's only twelve episodes long, this lack of sympathetic characters poses a real challenge to sitting all the way through it.

The series also never comes back to its framing device of the death matches, which is odd, considering that the original manga does.  Nor do we see how one of the samurai lost his arm.  I've read the manga summary, and it looks interesting and quite tragic.  Too bad it didn't appear in the series, which could easily have been longer.

Shigurui is worth watching if you want to see the samurai period film broken into tiny pieces, but it does have a few serious flaws that keep it from being the masterpiece it really could have been.  I recommend watching these episodes alternating with season one or two of Rurouni Kenshin--Shigurui will be an antidote to Kenshin's shonen-style violence where you can take hit after deadly hit and never even pass out, and Kenshin will cheer you up after Shigurui's bleak bleakness.

Book Review: "Ashfall"

Ashfall by Mike Mullin depicts the Earth after the supervolcano beneath Yellowstone erupts and turns the world into a dead wasteland.  This book is so frightening because it presents an entirely realistic, plausible scenario that could happen at any time and there'd be nothing we could do about it.  The book's epigraph says as much.  Our civilisation--computers, civilised medicine, clean running water, all of our art, even our species--could vanish instantly, and possibly never return, because of a natural event.

Ashfall never goes into lots of detail about the catastrophe, but the fewer details work in its favor.  We never forget that the sun no longer rises or that it is nigh impossible to do something as simple as walking because the ashen rain has the consistency of cement, making each footstep exhausting and time-consuming.  Even the action of breathing is deadly, requiring characters to take precautions when venturing outside.

The characters are entirely believable--they make near-deadly mistakes, they have great resourcefulness, they don't give up even when they know the world may never return to what they know as normal.  Alex and Darla, the leads, are so well-done that when the obligated love develops between them, it doesn't feel forced.  They are careful about their intimacy because Darla can't afford to get pregnant at this time and they can't find pills or condoms.  As well, when they say they sleep together, they mean they sleep together--they want to wake up able to reach out and touch the other person to know they both are safe.  Another character doesn't understand it, showing how much a euphemism can come to be the only meaning we understand for something.  Sleeping together doesn't always mean sex--it can mean "sleeping together."  It was a nice variation on the typical teen love story.

The only major pitfall I see in Ashfall is the inclusion of a villain.  In stories like these, the protagonists often come across hostile people, but in the capacity of one-shot obstructions, not long-running antagonists, which this book has in the first half.  The environment is the "enemy" in this story: the cold, ash, and lack of food.  No human can match that intensity.  A story like this doesn't need a villain, especially one that does something so incredibly stupid as what he does as his last act in the book.  Nobody would do something that idiotic for the sake of vengeance in this new, harsh world.  He would want to use everything he came upon and destroy nothing that could be of use to him.  Though the one question I always have about some of these apocalyptic scenarios: would people really turn to violent theft and cannibalism so quickly after a wide-spread devastating event?

If you like apocalyptic fiction in the vein of Threads and Swan Song, you should check out Ashfall. It's a quick but painful read.  I look forward to the sequel, Ashen Winter.

Television Censors are Morons

I'm not talking about editing Casino or Goodfellas so that tense scenes become comedy with all the profanity bleeped out ("Freak you Sam Rothstein, freak you!").  I'm talking about content edits that call into question the morality of the censors.  I present two exhibits for your approval:

#1: The Godfather on Spike TV.  When I watched this film, it was advertised as "unedited."  And for the most part, it was: all the violence and profanity was present.  Except for one thing.  On Michael and Apollonia's wedding night, right as she's taking off her shirt, the TV blurs her breasts out.

So let me tell you what the network has just told us: you can show two men being slowly strangled, a man being shot in the eye, a man being riddled with two hundred bullets, a guy shooting two other guys in the head, many persons being killed in gruesome manners at the same time as a baptism, a man beating his pregnant wife, and a man waking up with a bloody severed horse's head in his bed, but you can't show a woman taking off her shirt in front of her husband.  So, are woman's breasts the most evil thing we can see?  Gosh, I don't know how they expect 51% of the population to go their whole lives without looking down.  It's ridiculous.  Everybody's nude sometimes, and it's perfectly harmless and natural, but not everyone partakes in violence, which is damaging for reasons I hope I don't have to lay out.  Would they rather people strangled others instead of seeing others nude?  I think Spike needs to set its priorities straight.

But even better is #2: Apocalypse Now Redux on Bravo.  You know, some films just shouldn't be on cable.  I knew it would be butchered like the cow in that film, so I watched parts of it just to see how bad it got.  Every single profanity, mild and strong, was gone, as was the nudity.  Then, right at the end, Marlon Brando says, "We train young men to drop fire on people, but their commanders won't allow them to write 'fuck' on their airplanes because it's obscene."  Of course, Bravo edited out the word you'd think they'd edit out, even though in this context, it's not even swearing: it's merely stating a word.  They then proceed to show the rest of the scene uncut--Brando being hacked to death by Martin Sheen, and a real water buffalo being slaughtered by a real tribe for their real ritual.  Unstaged violence, real carnage.  When it was over, Bravo started it again and showed Martin Sheen punching the mirror unedited.  Real blood, people.

Thank you very much, Bravo.  You just proved Kurtz's point.

The All-Chicken Channel

Canada will launch the All-Chicken Channel--24 hours a day of chicken roasting.  Whoever thought of it, thinking that viewers would want to watch chicken roasting all day, and anyone who would want to watch chicken roasting all day instead of reading, quilting, fishing, dancing, playing music, gardening, target practicing, or just working, seriously needs a new hobby.

Comparing Film and Television Adaptations of "The Count of Monte Cristo"

Going through six film and television versions of the novel, I noticed many similarities between them and consistant differences between the adaptations and the book.  Here are some general observations and comparisons I made about the six film and television versions of The Count of Monte Cristo that I saw.  Some are inconsequential details while others are essential to the story's success or lack thereof.  All movies and series will be referred to by their year, except the 2004-05 series, which I will call the anime.  The three films (1934, 1975, 2002) are American productions; the miniseries are French; the anime is Japanese.

Celluloid used:
The Count of Monte Cristo.  Dir. Rowland V. Lee.  With Robert Donat, Elissa Land, and Sidney Blackmer.  Reliance Pictures, 1934.  Film
The Count of Monte-Cristo.  Dir. David Green.  With Richard Chamberlain, Tony Curtis, Louis Jourdan, and Kate Nelligan.  1975.  Made-for-TV movie
Le Comte de Monte-Cristo.  Dir. Denys de La Patelliere.  With Jacques Weber, Manuel Tajeda, and Carla Romanelli.  1980.  Miniseries
Le Comte de Monte Cristo.  Dir. Josee Dayan.  With Gerard Depardieu, Ornella Muti, and Jean Rochefort.  Cite Films, 1998.  Miniseries
The Count of Monte Cristo.  Dir. Kevin Reynolds.  With James Caviezel, Guy Pierce, and Dagmara Dominczyk.  Spyglass Entertainment, 2002.  Film
Gankutsuou.  Dir. Mahiro Maeda.  Studio Gonzo, 2004-2005.  Series

Comparisons between the Versions

The 2002, anime, and possibly 1998 versions make Edmond and Fernand friends instead of two men who met once briefly.

The 1934 and 2002 versions make it quite clear that the Count orchestrated Albert's kidnapping.  This is a very acceptable change because planning the kidnapping is something the Count of the book would do, considering his manipulative and all-knowing nature.  He would want to make absolutely sure that he could get into the lives of his enemies in a heroic way.  Both of these films also make Faria die in a tunnel collapse.

The three series contain all or nearly all of the characters.  The film versions cut many characters.  That's to be expected with the shorter running times.

Every single version except 1998 includes a sword duel between the Count and Fernand that was not present in the novel.  Only the 2002 version has Monte Cristo kill Fernand in said duel.

1934, 1975, 1998, 2002, and anime have the prison inform Mercedes of Edmond's "execution" or "death" shortly after his arrival.
The reason why Fernand doesn't just kill Edmond himself in the book is because Mercedes says that she will kill herself if Edmond dies, and Fernand knows she means it.  So, the problem is to get rid of Edmond without killing him, leading him and Danglars to write the letter.  Some adaptations remove the element of Mercedes' death promise, but with that gone and no other explanation given, there is no reason why Fernand can't just off Edmond.  It's a tiny detail, but an essential one to understanding why Edmond is sent to prison at all instead of having himself an accident.  After all, sending him to prison leaves the slight possibility that he will escape or be released one day, a chance Fernand and Danglars wouldn't want to take.  The 2002 film has an excuse: the two are friends, though Fernand is intensely jealous of Edmond.  Fernand might not want to kill Edmond on account of their friendship.  The anime also works, as Fernand actually does come to hate Edmond for loving Mercedes, even though Edmond had thought they were great friends.  Fernand hates Edmond so much that he wants him to suffer for all eternity.  Creepy.

The 1934, 1998, and 2002 versions have Edmond and Mercedes getting back together.  This does not work for the reasons I mentioned in my reviews--it would be an abomination of love, two changed persons trying to live out an old dream of youth.  They don't love each other as they are now, and they can't get who they were as youths back.

1934, 1998, and 2002 change the theme from the original "revenge is hollow" to "revenge is sweet and love conquers all."

1980 is the only one where the Count sails off with Haydee, which is how the book ends.

In the 1934 and 2002 versions, Mercedes does not love Fernand.  In 1934 she marries him to fulfill her mother's dying wish.  In 2002, she does it to conceal being pregnant with her and Edmond's child.  She loves Fernand as a brother in the book.  1934 also gives Mercedes a mother.  In the novel she is an orphan, which is one of her incentives to marry.

1934, 1975, and 2002 lengthen the proportion of time spent in prison.  In the novel, Edmond breaks out 1/7 of the way through.  In the films, it's closer to 1/3 or even 1/2.  This is a major reason why the revenge plots aren't as slow and deliberate as they should be.  The film has to show prison time, but it also has to stay within the 2-2 1/2 hours that filmmakers shoot for.

1980, 1998, and the anime get Fernand's name and history right--he starts out as a poor laborer, Mondego, and becomes Le Comte Fernand de Morcerf.  In the American films, he is born an aristocrat and keeps the name Mondego.  It is important that Fernand starts out poor because he gets everything he has--his title, fortune, honor, and wife--by screwing over various people: Edmond, Ali Pasha, Haydee, etc.  He starts with nothing and gains everything by underhand means, and all is revealed by Haydee, which humiliates him in the public eye.  If he starts out as a noble, he would still be a noble.  Starting out as a peasant, once it's revealed how he got his noble status, all his friends would shun him, taking away all he achieved.  In 1934 and 1998, he commits suicide out of social disgrace, not because Mercedes and Albert left him.

The anime is the only one that omits Faria.  However, it adds Gankutsuou, who fulfills the same role.

The Shawshank Redemption is the only one where the character is called "The Count of Monte Crisco."

The anime is the only one that preserves the emerald pillbox.  I don't know why I noticed this, but it's interesting that this detail about the Count taking drugs almost never makes it into adaptations.

1975 and 1998 omit the Carnival.

Villefort goes in insane only in 1975 and the anime.

The three films omit the serial poisoning.

Edward dies only in 1980; the only other version to even include him is the anime.  Without Edward's death, there is no catalyst for the change in Monte Cristo's view on revenge and he never realises the error of his ways.  The anime makes up for it by replacing Edward's death with relationships with Albert and Haydee, which make the Count feel remorse for his actions when his actions hurt them.

The series include Monte Cristo's alter-egoes; the films do not (presumably because of time constraints).

Not one version includes the rain of blood.

Not one version includes transvestite lesbian Eugenie.  Only 1980 and anime include Eugenie at all, and only the anime makes her important to the plot.

1934 and 1975 match Valentine with Albert, not Maximilien.

Only the anime preserves the way that Haydee reveals Fernand.  In the others, she just shows up or is ordered to speak by the Count.  It's important that she comes when the Count is away so "he can't stop her" because it speaks loudly about how the Count can control everything perfectly.  He leaves at a crucial time, taking Albert with him (an event represented only in the anime), so that Haydee can do what she likes to satisfy her revenge, and Albert can't support his father at a critical time.  She thinks that the Count will disapprove of her actions, so she can only expose Fernand when he is not around to stop her.

The anime is the only version where Edmond dies.

The anime is the only one to explore what happens to the characters in the years after the Count's scheming.  It is also the only one to show Haydee's emotional response after getting revenge on Fernand.

1934, 1998, and 2002 change Mercedes' surname to de Rosa, Igualada, and Iguanada.  I'm not sure why, since she's given the name Herrera in the novel.

Amount of time book Edmond spends in prison: 14 years.
Amount of time 1934 and anime Edmond spend in prison: 15 years.
Amount of time 1975 Edmond spends in prison: 14 years.
Amount of time 1980 Edmond spends in prison: ?
Amount of time 1998 Edmond spends in prison: 18-20 years.
Amount of time 2002 Edmond spends in prison: 13 years.
An inconsequential detail, but it's odd that most don't match the book.


Now, in conclusion, I sum up and rank order which ones are the best in certain areas.

Most faithful adaptation: Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (1980).  Nearly every scene and character is present.  With only seven hours, this leads to a rushed feel.  Then Gankutsuou, especially in the way of themes and characters--the change of time period is inconsequential.  Then the film The Count of Monte-Cristo (1975).  1998 contained many subplots but added too many frivolous ones and changed the title character too much.  1934 strayed too far as well.  2002 stands as the least faithful.

Best Count: Gankutsuou.  No contest.  A perfect representation of an alluring, intelligent, manipulative, sadistic, and overwhelmingly charismatic man who ultimately learns that the price of revenge is too high.  Next, I say Jacques Weber from 1980 because of his charm and ability to flawlessly slip into any persona.  Next, Richard Chamberlain.  Then Jim Caviezel, who lacks the dark edge but shines in the charisma/originality department.  Then Depardieu; his acting is fine, but he missed the character.  I'm not sure who he is, but he's not the Count of Monte Cristo.  In my mind, Robert Donat is the worst, possessing very little of what makes the Count who he is.

Best overall: Gankutsuou  (2004-05)
Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (1980)
The Count of Monte-Cristo (1975)
These three best represent the spirit and themes of the novel.  1975 somewhat lacks point 2, but it still does reasonable service to the book, especially with such a short running time.

These next three I would not recommend:
The Count of Monte Cristo (1934)
Le Comte de Monte Cristo (1998)
The Count of Monte Cristo (2002)
These three changed too many details, especially the theme of the story.  2002 was definitely the poorest of the six, with almost nothing to compare it to the original novel, which is the intent if you're going to name your film after and base it on a novel.  However, 1998 was not much better with its atrocious writing.  1934 at least works as a movie, if not an adaptation.


And finally...WiseWolf's pointless awards!

Best Mercedes: 1975
Best Fernand: anime
Best Danglars: 1980
Best Villefort: 1980
Best Caderousse: 1980
Best Albert: anime
Best Franz: anime
Best Eugenie: sort of unfair, since she only appears in two series, but anime
Best Haydee: anime, hands down.  She never gets a break in the others.
Best Faria: 1975 and 2002
Best "entourage" (Bertuccio, Ali, Jacopo, Luigi Vampa, Baptistin): anime
Best Andrea: anime
Best Maximilien: 1998
Best Valentine: 1998
Best costumes: 1998 and anime
Best score: anime
Best sets: anime

And now I've finished.  I hope you enjoyed this series of articles.

Count Me In: "Gankutsuou"

Gankutsuou.  Dir. Mahiro Maeda.  With the voices of Joji Nakata and Jun Fukuyama.  Studio Gonzo, 2004-2005.  Runtime: 10 hrs.

Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo is, to put it bluntly, the best adaptation of the Dumas novel that I've ever seen, a great story that is both well-told and a superb adaptation.

This is the series that PBS doesn't have the guts to broadcast.

Gankutsuou is the longest of all the versions of the story that I saw, running ten hours.  As this adaptation has some extreme differences from the others, I will give a few plot details that I didn't give for the other versions.  It is set in the 51st century, and space travel has become normal.  Outer space stands in for many places outside of Paris.  Eastern Space is the Orient, Janina is now a planet, Albert and Franz go to the Moon for Carnival instead of Rome, and the Count takes Albert cruising in deep space instead of to Normandy.  These are merely shifts in location and do not interfere with the actual story.  Nearly all of the story still takes place in Paris and Marseilles in France.  We begin at the Carnival on the Moon and follow Albert for the duration of the story instead of the Count, allowing us to see the story from a new perspective.  Though many science fiction elements run rampant, like space travel, holograms, aliens, and mechanical horses, some 19th century French aesthetics are preserved, such as arranged marriages, class distinctions, opera, and some clothes.  Horse-drawn carriages, 1940s cars, motorcycles, and hovercrafts share the streets.  It all meshes convincingly to create a future that is both exotic and familiar.  Setting the story in the vast future also alludes to the universality of the story: in the future, human nature will be the same as it ever was and wronged people will still want to make their own justice when the system fails to provide it.

Something fascinating happens when the focus is shifted to Albert.  We lose the point-of-view angle on the Count and see him more easily as the villainous man he is.  The Count of Monte Cristo is a classic anti-hero.  We love him and we hate him.  We admire him and are charmed by him, but we are apalled by the things he does to bring justice to those who wronged him a quarter of a century ago.  The audience should never completely root for the Count--we may delight in seeing his enemies go down, but we know that he is not in the right.  Many adaptations suffer from trying to make the Count too nice and completely right in his quest for vengeance.  Not this one.  He doesn't care how many innocents get killed, go crazy, or how much he has to play with their emotions or rip their families apart--he wants vengeance and justice and he will use any means necessary to get it, even to the extent of signing away his soul.

Which brings us to the Count himself.  Gankutsuou's Count is not charismatic.  He is made of charisma.  He makes everyone he meets fall in love with him or at least want to be friends with him because of his money and influence.  Monte Cristo captures everything that Dumas' Count is.  He's an original (carpeting a cave is too tame for this guy--he builds an underground ocean teeming with sharks under the Champs-Elysees), he's sophisticated and charming, he can have barbaric manners to disturb his enemies, he has very strong determination, and he's cooler than ice in dealing with people.  He is also very much a villainous anti-hero--we like him and understand his motives, but despise the horrific things he does for the sake of revenge, and he does some vicious things here.  This Count is, without a doubt, the best portrayal of the Count of Monte Cristo I've ever seen.  The animation and the voice actor, Joji Nakata, whose deep voice is perfect for the Count, combine to make a memorable character that embodies everything that Dumas wrote.  In the book, some aristocrats, like the Countess G---, liken the Count to a vampire because of his pale skin, dark hair, sharp teeth, and cold hands.  The anime gives him an exotic, vampiric visage with blue skin, blue hair, red and green eyes, pointy ears, and fangs.  One can see how people would become instantly attracted to him while at the same time wanting to keep their distance just a little bit.  The character designer did well in preserving the alluring looks of the Count while making him look unlike what Dumas describes.  The revenge schemes wrought by the Count on each of the three conspirators are complex and very close to what they are in the book, and each man is brought down by his own vices, preserving point #4 on my list.  Though the stock market subplot is included, Danglars' eventual fate is altered, but what happens to him is actually quite in line with what Dumas' Count would do.  We also get to see Danglars watch his bank plummet rather than being told.

Points #1 and 4 on my criteria for a good adaptation--the preservation of the Count's character and the complex revenge schemes--have been fulfilled.  #2--vengeance can't bring happiness-- is too.  Much of the remorse from revenge is transfered to Haydee, whose name is spelled in the subtitles as "Haidee."  The book never addresses how Haidee feels about having revealed Fernand's treachery.  In the series, she is shown afterwards to feel sad and empty; she is sure that she has done the right thing, but still cries and doesn't feel happy.  She then wants to save the Count from the emptiness that she feels, deepening her character and giving her more to do than simply be a Chekhov's gunwoman.  Haidee finally gets her moment to shine.  She goes through the same emotions that the Count does in the book, preserving the theme of "vengeance is a hollow victory" while still showing what happens when vengeance runs unchecked.  The Count also does feel remorse, but it's done in more subtle ways than in the novel.  After Albert leaves him in episode 15, the Count despairs over what he's about to do, because he's come to care for Albert and doesn't want to ruin his life.  Then, in 17, when Mercedes comes to him after he's revealed how he's used Albert and has accepted a duel to the death with him, we can see that the Count has been crying.  He might want to give up his revenge, but his deal with Gankutsuou will not allow him to do that.  He has to see his revenge through.  He even enjoys most of it, though not the parts the involve hurting those he loves (though Gankutsuou sees to it that he doesn't feel pity for them for long).  In fact, omitting the death of Edward as the reason for his epiphany strengthens the reality of his feelings and conversion.  In the book, he grieves because his revenge causes the death of a small child, albiet one he didn't really know.  Here, his revenge causes great pain for several people that he truly cares about, which strikes a deeper chord than the death of a child he hardly knew.  The Normandy trip (here a deep space trip) gains more significance as the Count tells Albert his own story while passing it off as something that happened to a friend.

(SPOILER WARNING) In this version, there is no Faria to dig through the walls.  Instead, the spirit Gankutsuou appears to Emond in his despair to offer him a way out of prison.  The spirit is responsible for the radical change in Edmond's appearance.  The deal Edmond makes with Gankutsuou allows Edmond to have Gankutsuou's power and knowledge; in return, Edmond has to sign over his body and soul to the spirit when the revenge is complete.  This means that Edmond will not get to live the rest of his life once he has finished dishing out retribution.  He will have to live in his body not being able to control it for the rest of his life.  Alternately, as Noirtier suggests, his very soul might disappear.  That is definitely a fate worse than death--very little to enjoy there.  So, in this way, Edmond does get revenge partially for justice, but it's a lot more subtle than in the book.  Revenge in the moment is all he will get, and after that, his life is effectively over.  No more life of luxury, and certainly not with Haidee.  In addition, he partly does all this to avenge his father's death, as one line at a crucial point, right as he's losing his hold on humanity and letting the demon take control of him, tells us that he still knows that his father's death is a catalyst for his behavior.  That's point 3 to a degree.

The ending is purely bittersweet.  It takes place five years later and shows us how the survivors have gone on with their lives.  Those still living have succeeded in various ways, but their families are dead, crazy, and/or scattered.  It was also refreshing to see an anime give a series an epilogue episode instead of just ending and rolling the credits while the epilogue plays out underneath them (Romeo x Juliet, I'm looking at you).  This series deserves a proper finale and gets one.  Life does go on after a disaster.  Episode 24 is leisurely after the intensity of 23 but still packs a wallop in its final scenes when someone finds something behind the painting we had been seeing throughout the whole show.  The ending doesn't make you feel good like 2002's or 1934's films do--it makes you see the continual impact of betrayal and revenge.  And that's point 5.

The music wonderfully matches the story.  It combines classical music, like Tchaikovsky's "Manfred Symphony" and Giacomo Meyerbeer's "Robert le Diable," with original compositions.  The pre-existing music matches the story, as the characters attend the opera Robert le Diable in the novel, and Monte Cristo is compared to Manfred.  A series that is so operatic and epic should have grand music to go along with it, and the score obliges.  This is one of those series that I wish had an isolated music track as a special feature on the DVDs.  I would gladly sit through this series with only the music and visuals.  I guess the original soundtrack and classical music companion CDs will have to do.

... ...

..Don't look at me like that.

There's really only one thing I'll say against the series: the art style.  I've seen nothing else like it.  The first time I tried to watch it, I cut out after seven minutes, unable to take it anymore.  While it is dazzling, it is also very hard on the eyes at first, dizzying, and a little nauseating.  It screens in various textures and patterns which remain stationary as the characters move.  If you've seen the show Kablam! and remember Tommy's plaid jacket from those "The Offbeats" segments, that is what this show is like for everyone's hair, shirt, pants, scarf, dress, coat, cloak, and various other objects like tables, cups, and guns.  A character could turn around and the design that was on the back of the shirt is now on the front.  A cape could blow in the wind but appear not to move at all.  I think I finally figured out why the art is like this: most of the characters are aristocrats and have detailed clothing, so screening in patterns is the best way to demonstrate that wealth without the company going into bankruptcy trying to hand-draw those patterns.  Some patterns are subtle, like Valentine's clothes and Franz's hair, which match their personalities.  Others are loud: Danglars' clothes and house boast eye-bleedingly intense patterns and colors to underline his luxurious lifestyle.  The color palette of the show also looks like someone threw up Skittles at Acid Disneyland.  Nevertheless, once you get used to it, it's very unique and even pleasant at times, and you notice it less.  I will never again let an unusual art style be the reason I don't watch hand-drawn animation--I just might miss one of my favorite shows.
I have to make a defence of the use of mecha.  I was very surprised when mecha (giant person-piloted robots) showed up in episodes 18 and 23.  I actually thought that I'd stumbled into another series.  However, by the end of 18, I was sold, and I'm not a mecha fan.  It works because the show treats the mecha with respect and sincerity.  The combatants use them just like Frenchmen of the past used sabres and pistols.  People of the future use mecha to fight duels; there's nothing special about it to them, it's all they know.  The drama in the second half is also something special and would never work without the mecha.  Kudos to Gankutsuou for making giant robots sophisticated.  Episode 18 is also where the story takes a departure from the book with a what-if scenario: What if Mercedes hadn't been able to persuade the Count to spare her son?  It allows us to take a look at what happens when revenge runs unchecked while still keeping in line with the spirit and tone of the book.  Though there are sword duels, they're not particularly thrilling to watch, but instead horrific and gut-wrenching--you could not imagine Donat taking part in these duels. (There's the rest of point 5.)

The show's pacing and structure are perfect: there is not one single wasted scene, the plot elements are exactly where they need to be for the greatest impact, and the show moves at a fast pace, but not too fast to understand what's happening.  Every scene pushes the plot forward in some way, with no long scenes or episodes where the characters sit around talking about their flaws.  We see their personalities emerge and develop through their actions and reactions to strange situations, which is the best kind of development to have.  Despite the fact that we have a lot of characters and subplots to keep track off, all of them are neatly, but believably, resolved by the end of the series.
Mahiro Maeda seems to be the only director who's latched onto the fact that The Count of Monte Cristo is not a children's book.  Funimation effectively gives this series an NC-17 rating by making you confirm that you're 17 in order to watch it on their website.  The show has little violence (most of it unseen--the context is what's so disturbing), implied off-screen sex, an attempted rape, and very brief nudity, and that's about it.  But the themes of the story are very adult ones: betrayal, murder, manipulating young people, the past, revenge, love, trust, doubt, insanity, loss of identity and innocence.  That's what makes this anime mature--not the violence, but the seriousness of the themes and the sophistication of the storytelling.

This series is superb both as an adaptation and as a work on its own.  It fulfills the criteria I set down for a successful Count of Monte Cristo adaptation and is a marvelous piece of classy storytelling.  It brings something (many things, actually) new to the story while remaining faithful to the spirit and tone of the book, and that's exactly what you need to do if you want to adapt a story that's been adapted dozens of times already.  If you haven't seen it, seek it out and enjoy it, whether you normally watch anime or not.  You are in for a real treat.  If your eyes can handle the static patterns.  See it in Japanese; it preserves the French spoken by Gankutsuou, though it takes a few episodes to get used to Albert being called "Aruberu."

Final note: "Gankutsuou" means "king of the cavern" in Japanese.  It is the title of the novel in Japan.

Next: I wrap up my series with a list of general observations of and comparisons between the versions.

"Count"ing Down: 2002's "The Count of Monte Cristo"

The Count of Monte Cristo.  Dir. Kevin Reynolds.  With James Caviezel, Guy Pierce, and Dagmara Dominczyk, and Luiz Guzman.  Spyglass Entertainment, 2002.  Runtime: 131 minutes.

I am grateful to this movie for one thing: it led me to the book.  If I had not seen this film, I might never have gotten the desire to read such a long, epic novel.  So for that, thank you.

And my praise ends there.

Okay, almost.

Once again, we have Edmond Dantes framed for treason by Fernand and Danglars.  He goes to prison, meets a priest, escapes, finds a treasure, styles himself a count, and comes back to wreck havoc on his enemies.  Oh, and his fiancee has married Fernand.

The similarities just about stop there.  It very nearly is The Count of Monte Cristo in name only.  Director Kevin Reynolds might have made his own original revenge movie instead, changing the names of the characters.

Edmond and Fernand start out as friends, and Fernand frames him out of jealousy for his happiness and envy of his fiancee Mercedes.  Making them friends adds a layer of insidiousness not present in the novel.  Fernand in no longer a stranger but a trusted friend whom Edmond thought he could rely on.  Edmond then spends the next thirteen years in prison.  I liked that the film showed his despair.  He tries to hang himself after a few years but only stops when he latches onto the idea that God will give him justice.  Later, he will stop believing in God and be out for revenge for himself, not as Providence, failing point 3 (but, this can be forgiven).  Then Richard Harris comes along as Faria.  He's the true bright spot in this film.  He makes everything he touches sparkle.  He has a lot of energy and is fun to watch.  After Edmond breaks out, he makes friends with Jacopo.  It seems like every time someone makes an adaptation, they give Edmond different friends: sometimes it's Bertuccio, sometimes Ali gets in, sometimes Jacopo, sometimes Vampa, rarely Baptistin.  There's dissent over whether or not Luis Guzman was right in this movie.  He sort of sounds like he doesn't belong with his speech patterns, but I liked him.  Edmond meets people from all over the world, so why not someone like Luis Guzman?  He's a friend/servant who tries to keep Edmond sane.

In the book, the Count manipulates events so that his enemies do themselves in.  Their pasts come back to rob them of everything they achieved by wronging others.  In the movie, Fernand would probably have done himself in without Monte Cristo's help.  The Janina campaign is gone; instead, Fernand has gambling problems and is an adulterer.  Without the Count, he would surely have fallen into debt and ruin.  Monte Cristo hardly needs to do anything here.  Fernand should have been completely stable and so secure so that only the Count's drudging up of his past could make him fall from glory.  The film makes Fernand a wholy loathsome person, a guy with the word "villain" all but stamped on his forehead, who doesn't even seem to love anyone or anything, stripping away his cleverness, cruelty, and love of family that existed in the book.  He's so nasty that he hardly even seems like a real person.  There is one moment in this sequence, however, that is distinctly Monte Cristo--when Jacopo tells him about the bank debts and loans to Fernand, the Count says, "Make sure we own that bank by tomorrow."

"Jacopo, I need you to go buy a few things.  Some milk, a couple of horses, and the bank that Fernand uses.  Thanks a lot."

This is totally in line with book Monte Cristo: utter control and the funds to be able to to whatever he wants on a whim.  It resembles the incident in the book where he asks his servant Bertuccio to buy Danglars' horses at whatever cost and have them harnessed to his carriage by five...when it's two.  And Bertuccio gets it done.  That's power.  Caviezel's Count is also charming, dresses exotically, and speaks well.  He makes his entrance to the people of Paris by going forward in time, bringing back some Cirque du Soliel dancers, and having them bring down his balloon in front of his mansion.  He gets out and greets the people with a flat, "Greetings."  That's the Count.  Originality and a cool demeanor.  Yes, I believe that this Count could carpet a cave and talk plainly about it.

Caviezel's Count does have the charisma and exoticism that the part needs.  However, he fails on another major point. (SPOILER COMING)  The Count exacts revenge and rides off happily into the sunset with Mercedes (and in this case, his biological son as well).  His enemies get punished, no innocents are harmed, Monte Cristo has no regrets, and he's thoroughly rewarded for his behavior.  While Caviezel displays the charisma and originality of the Count, he fails to show the darker, sadistic side.  If the Count were not so diabolical, he would probably never carry out a revenge scheme that must have taken the whole nine years between his escape and arrival at the Rome Carnival to plan.  He would buy a villa, retire to Florence, start a hotel, buy an old boat, and going out charter fishing every day.  Without the nasty side, he would forgive his enemies and live his life in peace and luxury.  This character change is a fault of the writing instead of the acting, however.  The writers wrote out the events that come out of the Count's sadistic planning and the pleasure that the Count gets from watching people suffer as he did.  Nevertheless, it still fails in criterion #1 on my list.  Without all the facets of the Count's character, the story loses some impact, as we don't get to see how vengeance changes him for the worse.  He also loses some appeal: he's a good guy and that's it.  He doesn't have that villainous streak that makes him appealing and appalling.  He claims at one point that he will kill Albert, but he doesn't seem like he would actually do it.  Dumas wrote a great character with charm, talents, and demons.  There's no need to change him.

The revenge plans are changed beyond all recognition.  I read the book after the movie and had not a single part of the vengeance spoiled for me.  Villefort's and Danglars' families are omitted, leading the Count to take revenge solely on them.  This contributes to the Count's softer character: no innocents have a chance to be harmed, which is part of what causes the audience to dislike the Count as the book goes on.  The only innocent who has a chance of being harmed is Albert, as the Count says on the island that he wants revenge on Mercedes as well for marrying Fernand, whereas in the book he forgives her.  He doesn't make his enemies suffer enough.  Does he make Villefort slowly lose his mind over a series of months from the deaths of his hosehold and then reveal the illegitamate child he had with Mde. Danglars to all Paris?  No.  Does he mess with the telegraphs and stock market for weeks, then kidnap Danglars and starve his money out of him?  No.  Does he set up a scandal for Fernand, ruin his name, make his wife and child turn against him, and almost kill the child after setting him up to challenge him to a duel so that he has a legal excuse to murder him in front of his parents?  No.  That's making them suffer.  Life without the things that they gained from betrayal.

I saw the movie several times and I'm still not sure what happens to Danglars.  His love of money is what the Count should make work against him, but I think he gets nearly killed and arrested instead.  Hmm.  So what was the Count's huge scheme against him?  Just imprisonment?  That's not nasty enough for the Count, nor is it fitting for a banker who could buy himself comfort (good food, blankets, wine, time outside, letters) in prison.  Villefort is taken to jail, which seems a fitting punishment for a procureur du roi who unjustly sent a man to prison to save his own pride and position.  I'm still a bit miffed that Villefort's family was omitted, because he cared for them just as much as his position when it came down to the wire, and also that greatly shortens the time that Villefort slowly suffers and loses his mind, but since they've been cut out, Villefort's position and freedom are all he has left, and those are stripped from him.  His fate gets a pass (though he'd probably be able to buy comfort in prison too).

Fernand's doesn't.  His fate is quite sad in the book.  He kills himself after losing the last things he loved--his wife and son.  When they leave without saying goodbye or looking back, he sobs horribly and shoots himself.  The film changes all of this into something far less satisfying and complex.  For one, Fernand begins life as a count's son and inherits the title and fortune, omitting all of the backstabbing he had to do in the book to obtain his title, money, prestige, and family.  Then, Fernand loses his money and ends up dueling the Count, who reveals himself as Edmond.  He actually has a pistol loaded and aimed at Edmond when Mercedes and Albert show up out of nowhere.  Fernand then shoots Mercedes because he thinks that it will damage Edmond the most. (For the record, when he said that line, I said, "Shoot him in the head!"  Even though a head-shot would have been hard to pull off in those days.  Moving along.)  Edmond actually wants to show mercy to Fernand before Mercedes is shot and is willing to leave Fernand ruined but alive.  Once Fernand shoots Mercedes and prompts Edmond to fight, Edmond is not accountable for killing Fernand.  After all, Fernand started the fight.  Thus, we get a feel-good ending where the bad guy who doesn't fight fair and was given a chance to start over is killed by the good hero who was willing to show mercy.  I think we've seen this cliche enough and it's time to put it in the grave.

(EPIC SPOILER) A major change: Albert is Edmond's son.  What.  The.  Crap.  Mercedes and Edmond had sex before marriage; she got pregnant and married Fernand to save face.  Albert accepts Edmond as his father with no questions.  This change brings up the idea that the biological father is more important than the father who raised the child.  I've seen it done many times where a child finds out that its "real father" is not the man who has raised it and suddenly hates that father and goes to find the biological one (coughWarriorCatscough).  Fernand might not have been a great father, but he was still there in Albert's life, and Albert must have cared about him somewhat.  In fact, he does, as in their final scene together he asks, "Forgive me, Father," for being so stupid not to see the Count's plans earlier.  We don't even see most of their lives; maybe Fernand was a great father for several years and only recently declined in his affection.  Albert has lived with Fernand for sixteen years.  Suddenly he has no problem going to live with a guy whom he hardly knows, who by the way killed the father who raised him?  It would have been more interesting if Albert had been appalled by the whole affair and decided to leave France altogether, or at least get away as fast as he possibly can from these weird people who really can't let go of the past.  That would inject some reality into the sappy ending.

Yes, this picture does it too: Edmond and Mercedes reunite.  I explained why this doesn't work in my earlier reviews, but in a nutshell, the two have changed so much in twenty-four years that they're not the same persons anymore, and living together would only remind them of the happiness they wanted to have but can't now.  In this version, they rekindle their love, decide to leave the country together, and even have sex again after Mercedes comes to see Edmond after recognising him at her party.  Now, that plot thread may have gone somewhere if Mercedes had told Fernand that she slept with the Count of Monte Cristo; Fernand's cheated on her, now she's cheated on him.  He couldn't satisfy her, so she looked to the new, mysterious nobleman.  Would Fernand care or not?  Would he throw her out of the house...or feel better now that she's had an affair too and can't call him out for his infidelities?  Would their marriage have finally split, or would Fernand have decided to try to be a good husband again?  The film doesn't even explore this topic.  Mercedes just tells him that Edmond is actually Albert's father, and Fernand hardly even cares, like he's guessed it already or was just waiting for an excuse to leave his disappointment of a family and is happy to have one.  Gosh, this film doesn't do anything interesting.

A few little mistakes that bugged me: I can believe that the Count has beautiful teeth: he definitely has the money to have dentures made.  But how in the world does that cheap string stay on Mercedes' finger for over a decade?  How do Edmond and Faria stay alive on one tiny bowl of soup per day?  And how does Edmond almost become a ship's captain without being able to read and write?  Another tiny one is that none of the characters appear to age.  Book Edmond doesn't recognise himself after looking at his reflection fourteen years after the start of his imprisonment, so none of his friends could be expected to recognise him twenty-four years later.  This movie has sped up the time to sixteen years, yet still none of them look it.  Error in the makeup department, perhaps?

This film very basically follows the book with some plots and characters, but fails to bring alive the spirit of the novel.  It should have been altered a little more and made into an original story with a different title and different character names.  Omitted from this telling are the rather important characters Haydee and Andrea.  They are essential as Chekhov's gunwoman and gunman, so without them the film has to construct a new revenge scheme that doesn't resemble the book's in execution or spirit.  I'm upset that this movie is called Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo.  This is not Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo.  It's something else entirely.  It contains none of my criteria for an adaptation that follows the book in theme and spirit and fails to capture even the essence of the classic book.

This book simply does not work as a two-hour movie.  Dumas originally published it as a serialised work, the modern equivalent of which is the television series, or more specifically, the miniseries.  I have noticed that the series are, generally speaking, more faithful and better adaptations than the films.  True, movies should work on their own, but why name your work after someone else's work if yours hardly resembles theirs?  Again, make something original inspired by the work if you want to tackle entirely different themes and completely change the characters.  I've said it before in this review series and I'll say it again: this story should not be a film.  There is nothing wrong with making a fifteen-hour miniseries.  There's a great joy and comfort in being able to watch the same story play out over fifteen weeks, the story and suspense building and becoming more intricate all the time, characters coming and going.  Do it, BBC or HBO!

Characters omitted: Haydee, Andrea, Bertuccio, Baptistin, Ali, Caderousse, Heloise, Edward, Valentine, Maximilian, Julie, Franz, Debray, Beauchamp, Chateau-Renaud, Hermine, Eugenie, Louise, Major Cavalcanti, Barrois, Countess G---, Teresa, Peppino, and all of Edmond's aliases.  Noirtier is also effectively cut; he is renamed Clarion and does not play the part he has in the book.  Louis Dantes is also given a different role by committing suicide rather than dying of loneliness and starvation because no one cared for the old man when Edmond left.  The cruelty of his death is another thing that gives Edmond the drive to revenge.

Five down, one to go:
from 2004, Gankutsuou.

I made a poem.

Down for the Count: 1998's "Le Comte de Monte Cristo"

Le Comte de Monte Cristo.  Dir. Josee Dayan.  With Gerard Depardieu, Ornella Muti, and Jean Rochefort.  Cite Films, 1998.  Runtime: 7  hrs.

This is the second of three television series I'll review and the second and last French version.  Gerard Depardieu is the title character, wrongly imprisoned for years before he busts out and discovers a treasure that he can use to get revenge on his enemies.  In some ways, it would seem like this is the perfect adaptation.  However, in all the essential areas, and even in looking at the film narrative on its own, this translation is sorely lacking.

This one begins many years in Dantes' imprisonment, which is an interesting choice.  For some reason, he has groomed hair.  In regards to the prison time, this series actually has the opposite problem of film adaptations.  In shorter versions, the tendency is to take up 1/3 to 1/2 of the film, or about 45 minutes, with prison.  In a seven-hour miniseries, 45 minutes would be the perfect amount of time to spend in prison, as we still have six more hours to spend on the real meat of the story and prison would be in the right proportion to the rest of the story.  Edmond breaks out about 15 minutes into the series.  No joke.  In the one format where prison time could be extended, it's severely shortened, and the show suffers for it.  We see no relationship with Faria, no teachings, no real digging, and little despair.  Oddly, I don't remember learning exactly why Danglars betrayed him.

Probably the biggest flaw of this series is the title character and Depardieu's portrayal of him.  There's nothing wrong with his acting.  The problem is that he doesn't act the part of the Count of Monte Cristo.  He does not fit into his disguises very well, either physically or in character.  When Jacques Weber does it in 1980's series, he completely disappears into every persona, Busoni being completely unrecognizable as the Count, Sinbad, or Wilmore in looks, voice, and personality.  Depardieu uses more or less the same voice and personality for every persona.  His Busoni is just as forceful as his Count.  He is shown trying out various disguises and voices, but that's the only point in his favor.  He's serviceable in his alter-egos, not amazing, and I'm surprised that nobody noticed that Busoni and the Count looked alike.  Weber pulls it off; Depardieu doesn't.

But all of that could be pushed aside if it weren't for the bigger problem: I could not see him as the Count.  When I was making my notes, it didn't feel right to call him Monte Cristo or to think of him as Monte Cristo because he is so far off the mark from the character.  He seems too warm, happy, down-to-earth, and too much like a normal person.  But the Count is not normal, and he's almost not even human.  When he attends an execution in Rome in the book, he smiles in satisfaction, finding the whole idea of human punishment fascinating, and tells Albert and Franz about different methods around the world.  Here, he finds the whole idea vile and smiles when the prisoner is released.  He's also supposed to be so sophisticated that he's above society.  The series shows Bertuccio teaching the Count fine manners.  I liked the idea--no version so far has shown us exactly what Edmond did in the years between escape and revenge to create his persona as the Count, and to have it shown would be an interesting sequence.  However, the teachings come after the Count has come back to society.  They are presented almost as a crash-course in etiquette before he goes off to meet Albert in Paris.  So, Edmond has come back for revenge without having set himself up as a cultured nobleman or studied manners and culture for years.  Considering that the Count is manipulative and seeks to control all events, that doesn't seem right.  He should be aloof and cold, not warm and in-your-face as he is presented here.  Much of his wardrobe also seems out of place, with blonde hair and pastel colors that brighten him up too much.  Clothes and colors are important, and these give us a pleasant view of a man who should be an anti-hero we grow to dislike.  He gets points for exoticism in employing servants from Africa and Asia and keeping them in their native garb, but that's it.  He is not the Count, one of the most fascinating characters in stories.  Cave-carpeter or not, I cannot give him a pass for point 1 (preserving the Count's character).  You can cut subplots in adaptations, but don't mess with the engaging characters that we liked from the book.

This miniseries also makes a grave misstep by giving us a brand-new character: Camille, a poor widow whom Bertuccio finds so that the Count will have someone to go somewhere with.  Unlike the 2004 version that neatly inserts a new supporting character (or rather, a building on a minor character from the book) into the periphery and fits him/her into the the fabric of the story, Camille is thrust into the foreground and events are altered around her.  She lives at Auteuil, she makes Mercedes feel jealous of Edmond's attention, she doesn't like Haydee's arrival, etc.  The Count says that he wants a women to been seen with at the opera and about town.  But he already had a woman to be seen with--Haydee, who doesn't even show up here until 3/4 of the way through.  Not only was Haydee a woman, she was a Greek princess who propped up the Count's love of the exotic.  He calls her a slave that he purchased in Constantinople, but of course she isn't really; he frees her in France, but he puts up the appearance of a mistress so that he'll have an excuse not to get involved with women.  What we get with Camille is a love triangle that detracts from the overall experience by adding romance where none was ever needed.  Superfluous characters who exist only to add a romance angle have no business in a story about revenge and its all-encompassing effects.  The original novel has a lot going on in it.  A fluffy love story dilutes the effects of the original themes and turns the story from "how does revenge affect the soul" to a simpler "which woman will he end up with?"

Camille brings up a point I've never seen an adaptation do: question what the Count of Monte Cristo's first name is.  He must have one, but in the aristocracy, first name use is rare.  She decides to give him a name to use in private.  Guess what it is.  Go on, guess.  What would be the sappiest, most ironic name for her to give him?  That's right: Edmond.  How silly.  Mercedes also gives him the same name while they're out rowing on a river.  At least hers is excusable because she's thinking of the man she really loved, but it's too cloyingly sentimental for two women to give him the name that is also his own.  Had Depardieu played closer to the character, he would have refused to let them address him by a first name at all: he would insist on the continued use of "M. le Comte."  That would allow for a great deal more distance from everybody, as book Count keeps his distance from his own humanity to accomplish his goals.

Camille isn't the only character to give the story problems.  The writers also make this translation problematic with their version of the princess Haydee.  Haydee...oh my gosh, what do they keep doing to you?  You never seem to catch a break in films.  She appears in two scenes: the scene where she's brought to Paris (and hidden until the trial!), and the trial.  In the book, she at first appears to be a wall hanging but turns out to be instrumental to bringing down Fernand.  She also loves Monte Cristo, refuses to leave him when he frees her, and gives him a reason to live at the end of the story.  He feels that he has nothing left to live for, but she tells him of her love and he thinks that maybe they could have a happy life together.  No guarantees, just a possibility.  He tells everyone in Paris that he doesn't need a mistress--he has something better, a slave he bought in Constantinople.  Of course, she isn't a slave, but it's the act they put on.  She's in plain sight all the time and is free to do whatever she wants but holds the key to his revenge. She's a much better person for the story than the fluffy Camille.

Now comes maybe the worst part of Haydee's inclusion: in a scene near the end, the Count tells Camille that Franz and Haydee have fallen in love and are planning marriage.

Writer 1: "Hm, we have this character who was important in the novel, but we cut her out most of her part so we could add Camille.  What should we do with her?"
Writer 2: "I know!  Let's match her with another character whose part also got trimmed down to two scenes!  The Count and Mercedes get matched up, why not these two other characters?"
Writer 1: "Great idea!  And we'll do it off-screen, too, so we don't have to waste any more time on it!"

It was completely irresponsible of the writers to match up two characters just for the sake of matching up two characters.  Neither one of them have much to do in this version of the story; all Haydee does is reveal Fernand.  Franz is talked about for two episodes, finally appears, and refuses to marry Valentine after hearing the truth about his father's death.  Matching them together off-screen does absolutely nothing for the story.  It's degrading to do this to two characters who never meet for no story reason, and smacks of poor writing.  Will poor Haydee ever get a chance to shine?

The Max/Valentine subplot is given free reign here.  They meet in secret, Villefort disapproves, the poisoning happens, and they eventually get to meet at the Count's house, where Max expects to commit suicide.  I felt very little emotionally during the entire seven hours, but when I saw the scene where Max comes into the room where he expects to die and sees Valentine instead, I felt genuinely happy for the two of them.  Unlike in the novel, however, where the success of their relationship is directly tied to the Count regaining his humanity, Depardieu says he will help Max because "I like Max, he likes Valentine, therefore I like Valentine."  This is present in the book, where there is also the added idea of the Count helping them and giving them his fortune to try to atone for the sins he's committed in playing God.  Still, the series brings their conflict to life vividly.

On the other hand, Andrea gets completely sidelined.  A modified version of him appears who is called Toussaint.  It's revealed early that Villefort is his father.  There is no Andrea Cavalcanti/Benedetto character or subplot.  Monte Cristo tells his guests the story at Auteuil about the baby who was born and buried alive, but that baby, Andrea, never appears and gets into the fabric of society.  He never gets found out and doesn't expose Villefort, which was the whole point of putting Andrea in the story in the first place.  If the creators had planned on not having Andrea reveal Villefort publicly, they should have cut him out.  They could keep the new character they created, but should limit his role to killing Caderousse, and then take out all references to the child altogether.  What we get with Toussaint is a lot of setup but no payoff.  He just vanishes from the story and Mme. Danglars is left wondering whatever happened to her son after she reveals to her husband that it's probably his fault they never had children (sorry, Eugenie--I guess the scriptwriters didn't care about you either).  Introducing a character, setting up his subplot for a revelation, and then neglecting to show that revelation is a prime example of poor writing.

This series does a great disservice to the story by integrating more romance and giving it a happy ending.  There is a possibility that the Count and Haydee will have a happy life together after the end of the book, but it's only a chance, not a certainty.  This series devotes too much time to giving the Count a love life or the appearance of a love life that was never there before.  TCoMC is not a love story.  In the last scene, Edmond writes on a note, "Edmond Dantes has returned."  However, the point in the novel was that Edmond could not return.  The good parts of him died in prison.  He has changed beyond recognition into a cynical, bitter man.  Edmond then meets Mercedes on a beach; they smile, run into the water, and kiss (blech).  They both also say they've given away their money to live simpler lives, and now they can live the poor, happy life they always wanted to have.  That's just precious.  But that's not the theme of the novel.  The novel's got a lot of things to say about revenge, but learning to love isn't one of them.  Betrayal tore them apart in such ways that they both irrevocably changed.  They can't get their old selves back, and that's what strikes a chord with the audience.  There are everlasting, extensive effects to betrayal and revenge.  He can't love her because she didn't wait for him and he's become cynical; she can't love him because she married someone else and he discredited her husband.  This series damages itself by tossing out these ideas and replacing them with a scene where Mercedes suddenly is happy to see Edmond again and they resolve to live together, with no transition scenes in between to explain the change: Camille just tells him to go to Mercedes and love her.  If you want to make a story where a hero gets revenge and gradually comes to appreciate his old love, then do it, but don't pass it off as The Count of Monte Cristo.

In this version, nothing stops him from feeling good about his revenge.  Nothing terrible happens to show him that he should never have assumed the role of God.  Once he gets his revenge, he tells Danglars that he will be merciful in letting him go, but "I feel mercy is less fulfilling than vengeance."  This is the exact opposite of what the novel conveys.  I always got the feeling that the Count intended to starve Danglars out of all of his money before releasing him (or letting him die of starvation if he were so pig-headed that he wouldn't pay for food to save his life).  After Edward's death, he revises his plan a little and lets him keep 50,000 francs.  Here, nothing stops him from complete and total revenge, and he learns nothing.  He comes to the conclusion that revenge is more satisfying than forgiveness, which contradicts the novel's main theme and lessens the impact of the story.  The Count of Monte Cristo as a book lasts in part because of what it has to say about revenge: it's hollow and won't fix what you've lost.  This 1998 series says the opposite, and fails utterly as an adaptation.  Edmond learns nothing but how good revenge feels.  In one scene, he breaks into a church and tells the priest that he intends to replace God (in dishing out justice).  That's a proud claim, one that is shattered in the novel but held as sacred here.  It turns into another revenge tale about a hero who justly punishes the wicked with no consequences.

The odd thing about it is that his revenge is too merciful, even though he claims to not like mercy.  He's much more of a hero than an anti-hero.  He's not ruthless enough in dishing out retribution.  (SPOILERS) He offs Villefort's family without caring, but doesn't drudge up Andrea to complete the deal, and seeing how the Andrea character was basically present, there is no excuse for not including this payoff.  He doesn't make Danglars feel how peasants feel: people charging you outrageous sums of money for small things--he just imprisons him, tells him that food will cost money, then immediately takes all him money and lets him go.  Villefort's is even less acceptable.  He tells his wife to kill herself to save face.  That's all fine.  He then makes her do it in his presence.  That's too macabre for his character.  1980 does it right: Villefort comes home, after realising that he does care about his family and that he's told his wife to kill herself, to stop her; she waits until he enters the room, then swallows the poison in front of him and falls down dead.  Having lost the rest of his family, his pride, and position as procureur du roi, this hits him hard.  1998's Villefort doesn't seem upset when Valentine dies.  He says he would never let his daughter be executed, but he doesn't act that way when she dies.  In short, it doesn't seem like the Count punished him that much, stopping at giving him the appearance that his daughter is dead.  Sorry, that's not good enough.  It is his actions towards Villefort that ultimately make him see the wrongs he's committed in taking justice into his own hands.  This Count also does not let his enemies guess who he is before he reveals himself.  In each of the cases, he merely tells them at the offset that he was Edmond Dantes, obliterating any suspense.  He doesn't play with them or give them clues to make them guess who he is.  They've forgotten him and he wants to make them feel worse about it by making them guess his true identity before he finally reveals it.  Yes, this Count is too kind.

Do I have anything else good to say?  Well, the costumes are good.  The plots against the three men are also represented very well (except for Villefort), coinciding with point 4.  Edmond repays the good before going on a "rampage of revenge."  So rarely do screen versions include this phase of his life that it was refreshing to see it.  Most adaptations focus solely on revenge and forget that the Count, in taking Providence's stead, also rewards the good.  The Count does indeed disguise himself as Wilmore and, as Julie has been omitted, has an old woman whom he met in Marseilles give Maximilien the money just before Morrel tries to kill himself.  And in this version, Wilmore comes in for the debts instead of buying them out, so he gets to witness firsthand the happiness he's brought.  So much happiness, in fact, that it kills poor Morrel.  This subplot is the only place where I'd say this series improves upon the 1980 miniseries.  The bankruptcy subplot takes two scenes, but they are long scenes separated by other scenes, creating suspense, which I felt 1980 lacked.

The costumes are good, some of the acting is good, and the subplots involving anyone named "Morrel" were done well, but this series isn't good, not even judged on its own.  The writing is very poor, the pacing was off, and the characters were mostly badly done for the most part.  The themes and characters are changed too much, and those things are what make the novel so memorable.

Next up: James Caviezel in the most recent American film production, 2002's The Count of Monte Cristo.

Ac"count"ing for Weber: "Le Comte de Monte-Cristo"

Le Comte de Monte-Cristo.  Dir. Denys de La Patelliere.  With Jacques Weber, Manuel Tajeda, and Carla Romanelli.  1980.  Runtime: approx. 6-7 hrs.

This is going to be one of the oddest reviews I've ever done.  I was able to see this series only online, as it has never been put on video or DVD.  Someone very kindly uploaded it on YouTube.  In French.  With no subtitles.

I don't speak French.

My Spanish helped me pick up a word here and there, but I effectively could not understand what anyone said.  However, I am quite familiar with the novel and was able to follow the story with no problems, always knowing what scene I was in when it started or at least by the halfway point.  That was a unique experience.

This was the most faithful adaptation of all The Count of Monte Cristo versions I saw.  I was stunned that nearly every scene and character was present.  And presented in about six hours.

One advantage with not being able to understand the actors is not knowing if the acting was good or bad.  The actress playing Haydee is very expressive with her voice, but her eyes don't follow the anger in her words, but I couldn't tell whether this was a deliberate part of her acting or not.  I was pleased with the performances from Caderousse, Danglars, and Edmond.  Weber takes a naive young sailor and turns him into a sophisticated count with style.  Even more impressive is his ability to disappear into any disguise.  For Abbe Busoni, he wears a wig, glasses, false skin, and cotton in his cheeks, and adopts a gravely voice to become unrecognisable as Edmond, the Count, or any of his other aliases.  He adds the right amount of an English accent-tinged French to his Lord Wilmore persona to make himself believable as an Englishman.  His performance as the Count is so different from Edmond, Busoni, and Wilmore that no one could ever mistake any of these men for each other.  He is cool, collected, and suave; his actions, mannerisms, and desire for sadistic justice line up with the book Count in their manipulation and iciness.  Without the dialogue, though, I couldn't tell if his words were charismatic, charming, or what not.  Even so, I give him a pass for point 1 on my list.  He does well as the Count, whom I know carpeted a cave because I saw the cave, and him in it in his Sinbad the Sailor disguise.

Speaking of the cave, I like that Edmond finds only one casket of treasure like he did in the book.  In some adaptations, he finds dozens of trunks.  In the book, he gets about 15 million francs from the treasure and, through years of investments, ends up with about 100 million francs even after all his purchases.  It's a little detail that doesn't interfere with any telling, but it seems more realistic that Spada had one trunk of treasure than twenty.

The fates of the three conspirators are good.  Danglars' is quite appropriate and matches the novel.  Villefort's is nearly the same, except he is not shown to lose his sanity.  This is acceptable to me, as the rest of his punishment is certainly fitting enough.  Fernand's is, thankfully, the same--he kills himself for the right reason this time.  I liked that the series preserved the way that Caderousse cannot tell that Busoni is Edmond even after he has taken the disguise off.  Time has worked on the two so much that Caderousse can't recognise his old acquaintance.  Edmond couldn't even recognise himself after spending fourteen years in prison--how could a friend recognise him twenty-four years after last seeing him?  The makers didn't speed up the recognition time--they let Caderousse take his time in discovering who Busoni really is.  It also lets us see the horrid truth: the four men who consigned Edmond to a miserable prison for life out of pride, lust, greed, and drink can't even remember what he looks like.  They've given him pure misery and can't even be bothered to honor his memory.  The mostly intact fates of the betrayers and the ways they arrive at them are line with the book.  Each is brought down slowly and with great patience by past mistakes and has the things that they truly care about taken from them.  Patience is what Monte Cristo has plenty of, as well as the desire to have them do themselves in, so he doesn't do the quick "kill the enemies" gig.  This is a very important element that some adaptations leave out.  They simplify the revenge scheme, which undermines the entire point of what Monte Cristo wanted to accomplish.  He crafts slow punishments that fit each one of them so that they can endure the slow torment that he suffered.  For Danglars, his greed.  Fernand, his wife and son.  Villefort, his family and position (and, in the book, his sanity).  They all also lose their honor and social status.  This fits point 4.

The ending remains the same as the novel.  Mercedes lives her life alone in Marseilles, Monte Cristo sails off with Haydee, and Max and Valentine are left the fortune.  I am very pleased that this version did not follow the Edmond-and-Mercedes-get-back-together cliche that other versions fall victim to.  The two lovers are so different, too changed from their experiences.  The Edmond they knew is gone, so little does he resemble the suave and bitter Count.  They want each other as they were twenty-some years ago, which cannot happen.  If they were to get together, they would not be happy.  They would have too many painful memories, memories of a time when they would have been happy, and broken fantasies of what could have been a happy life together.  They would be trying to live out a dream that they had many years ago, and the results would be a travesty, a farce of love, two lovers trying to bring back what they had, though their characters have changed.  They've turned into people they hardly recognise and no longer resemble the ones they loved.  Many adaptations forget these essential dynamics and have the two reunite to give the story a more happy ending.  However, this story needs bittersweetness as part of its message on the destructiveness of revenge and betrayal.  As well, it's more realistic than a happy ending, and even though the book is a Romantic novel, it still has tinges of Realism to make the themes shine through.  The Count also sees that innocent children suffer from his plans--he's visibly saddened by Edward's death and makes amends by rescuing Valentine.  I think it fits point 2 of my criteria wonderfully, and 5 as well.

Since the series included most of the scenes and subplots from the 1500-page novel in only six hours, the series felt quite rushed at times, and that is quite something when you can say that a six-hour version of a novel rushes through everything.  During dialogue scenes, the pace slowed down to allow for natural conversations.  But, I did feel like the action was rushed at times, like the creators were rushing us from scene to scene after giving us just enough time to comprehend what we've just witnessed because they wanted to fit in everything they could.  For instance, the Edmond-saves-Morrel-from-bankruptcy subplot is here, but is distilled down to about five minutes while including every nuance of it.  With that kind of rushing, suspense is lost.  We don't have time to develop sympathy for Morrel's predicament or wonder if he is going to get out of it.  On the other hand, I appreciated the inclusion.  Many adaptations leave out the rewarding phase of the Count's scheme.  He not only punishes the wicked, he rewards those who did right by him.  Morrel tried to get him out of prison, and Caderousse brought him up to date on what's happened in the world, so they get money to help them out of their financial woes and to preserve their honor.  This subplot is a good one to include and matches my #3 point, but it could have been spread out a bit.

As well, because of the compression, I never got the sense that Edmond despaired in prison.  In the novel, he spends years feeling sorry for himself; he tries to starve himself to death at one point and bashes his head against the wall at another and leaves a permanent blood stain on the stone.  None of this is present, jumping from his arrival to Faria's introduction six years later almost immediately.  The Edmond/Faria relationship also was not as protracted as I would have liked.  Faria explained how he made his tools in prison, but I did not see any of the teaching that is so crucial to the creation of Edmond's Monte Cristo identity.  Of course, maybe I missed the dialogue where Faria said he would teach Edmond.  Even so, I didn't see any teaching, making this a case of tell-don't-show that does not pay off.  However, some of the pacing worked well: the first third of the show is spent on Edmond's life, prison time, and rewarding phase, ending with his farewell to goodness and humanity, leaving about four more hours for the his schemes.

One technical thing that could have been done better: the camerawork.  The presentation is very theatrical with its long takes and faraway shots.  The long takes during dialogue scenes let the tension build, such as the scene where Danglars talks to Hermine about her infidelity.  In many other scenes, the camera is too far away and objective to make an impact, like when Edmond "breaks his ankle" on the island and at the end in the cave when he and Haydee talk.  Moving the camera a little closer and moving it around in some shots would have increased the emotional impact and made us feel like we were in the story more instead of observing it from a distance.  The last shot was fitting: the Count and Haydee sail away on a ship while the credits roll.  Yes, there's an adaptation where the Count hooks up with Haydee!

I count it extremely impressive that a series is so close to the book it's based on that it can still reach me even when I can't understand what anyone says.  Of all the adaptations that I could have seen without dialogue, I'm glad it was this one--a few of the others were so far off the mark that I would never have been able to follow them without English dialogue or subtitles. 

The most faithful adaptation?  Definitely.  The best?  Though it contains all my criteria for a good adaptation, no, not in my opinion.  Had this been twice as long and opened up the rushed scenes and subplots, it probably would have been the best, as the markings of greatness are there.  As it is, however, it's still an adaptation that's worth your time if you know French, if you don't know French but know the book well, or if it is ever put out on DVD someday.  And if it is, I will gladly view it again (with subtitles, perferably).

Three down, three to go: Gerard Depardieu in 1998's Le Comte de Monte Cristo.

Let Me Count the Chamberlains: "The Count of Monte Cristo"

The Count of Monte-Cristo.  Dir. David Green.  With Richard Chamberlain, Tony Curtis, Louis Jourdan, and Kate Nelligan.  1975.

I told you there'd be bad puns.

This is the shortest of all the versions I watched at 104 minutes.  The story has been super-condensed, but the movie still ends up being a reasonably faithful translation of the book.

The first part of the novel--the arrival at Marseilles to finding the treasure--is represented perfectly.  In fact, a little too perfectly.  Edmond finds the treasure halfway through the film, which leaves little time for seeing what punishments Edmond crafts against the men for doing this to him.  Nevertheless, Edmond's early life, his time in prison and relationship with Faria, and finding the treasure were great to watch, bringing the novel alive.  I loved the detail about Faria hiding the treasure map in his cross, as well as his line, "Spend this fortune, which God has been hording for you, in good and holy ways."  He knows what Edmond's thinking and tries to deter it by telling Edmond how lucky he is to be receiving this treasure that has been hidden for centuries.  It must by God's will that he have this treasure, so use it for good things!  Edmond's probably thinking instead,  "If God's been hording it for me, then why should I not act as God and punish the wicked?

The first major change comes with the omission of the carnival at Rome.  This change actually does nothing to the narrative fabric of the film.  The Count simply shows up at Danglars' bank to open an account after a scene in which Danglars talks about the new nobleman, giving us a buildup to his first appearance.  With no Carnival at Rome, Monte Cristo walks into Paris by himself instead of being invited after a "coincidence
led him into the life of Albert.  He comes with a purpose instead of accidentally geiting involved in Parisian life after just happening to be around to rescue Albert from bandits, meaning that the conspirators could never suspect that he came to Paris for a reason other than because Albert invited him.  It lessens his control, but on the other hand, it condenses the story in an acceptable way and clear way.

So, how does Chamberlain measure up as the Count?  His transformation from sailor Edmond to wealthy Monte Cristo is impeccable.  He doesn't talk much, has fine manners, knows art, and keeps a chilling silence, which puts Danglars on edge when he comes to open an account.  And we learn all this in one short scene.  His bribing of the telegraph operator keeps in line to his personality: he offers the money and the note, and then says nothing more, letting the man decide while the Count holds out five years' worth of pay.  We don't get to see much of his real allure, but the film grants us less than an hour post-prison escape to get to know him.  We hear more than see the exotic around him.  He is classy, cold, quiet, and has very good aim with a pistol.  He has a fascination with the macabre in talking to Villefort about "an eye for an eye" that lets us know that he's very thirsty for the justice he describes.  His voice is good for a nobleman, and his clothes--black shirt, opera cape, hat--fit his personality and rank.  He reminds me a lot of Kenneth Branagh in Hamlet: they both wear black and have platinum blonde hair.  Edmond has black hair in the book, but white casts the same impression as black here (white also being a color of death and mourning in some parts of the world)--a cold figure who dresses in stark colors and keeps himself aloof.  I give him a definite pass for point 1, though I would have liked to have seen much more of what he did with his money--I'm not quite sure if this guy would carpet a cave, though if he did, you can expect he'd be humble about it.

On a shallow note, I liked how cool he looked when he rode his horse on the surf in his opera cape and hat.

Too many characters are introduced who don't go anywhere.  The Count meets Noirtier, and then the old man is never seen again, the Villefort family subplot having been severely cut back and changed.  Valentine (her personality severely altered) appears in two scenes, but never gets much to do.  This version, like 1934, makes her Albert's girlfriend and she exists here solely as someone for Andrea to court as a way to get into Villefort's family instead of having her own plot thread intertwined with Monte Cristo's.  I don't mind Noirtier's appearance, I only wish that he had appeared again.  The same goes for Valentine.  Andrea tries to court Valentine and take her away from Albert, but this is the last we see of her, never knowing if, in this translation, she ever finds happiness with Albert.  We're just told that Andrea wants to marry Valentine, and the latter's father is appalled to find out that Andrea is not real nobility.  The shorter running time has a lot to do with this.  With more time, this problem would have been solved.

In fact, hardly anyone has many scenes in this cut.  Even the Count himself has little screen time, but what we see of him makes a good impression.  The story is streamlined and heavily condensed, yet still makes sense.  We know who everybody is, whom they're related to, who's insulted by whom, etc.  It's not hard to follow.  It just goes by too quickly, not giving us enough time to appreciate all the trouble the Count had to go to in order to set up this scheme or the agony his enemies go through, nor do we notice tiny events that have huge significance later.  That's one of the joys of reading the long novel: everything takes so long to unfold that we don't realise just what is happening until the end, and upon re-reads, we can follow the plots closely.  Here instead, he does a thing and the payoff is immediate.  This film works as an escapist story, but not as a full experience and exploration of humanity.

The schemes themselves are effective, with the Count humiliating each man appropriately.  Andrea's mother is no longer Hermine Danglars, but another woman who died in childbirth.  With Danglars apparently unmarried for time constraints, this is the best way to further demonstrate Villefort's cruelty: not only did he have an affair, he killed the result of it after the mother died, leaving no trace of what she died to produce on the earth.  What a horrible jerk.  Fernand's final fate is probably just what book Monte Cristo would have wanted to happen had not Fernand taken matters into his own hands.  Once again, the only problem is that there is a scene of setup, then the payoff--hardly enough time to take in the plan and appreciate/despise the man responsible.

The best scenes by far are the ones between the Count and Mercedes, and even though they have only two real scenes together, they convey the sorrowful tone of the book perfectly.  The first is the one that begins with "Edmond, you will not murder my son."  This scene contains much dialogue from the book and is better for it.  He tells her that she is forgiven for marrying Fernand, and that Fernand is forgiven for taking fourteen years of his life, but Fernand is not forgiven for leading Louis Dantes to die of starvation.  True, book Count never forgave Fernand for the prison years, but it's just as effective to say here that his prison time meant nothing so long as his father was taken care of, and the death of his father is a sin he will not forgive.  In having the Count say this, the film does what most adaptations don't.  Edmond is out for revenge, yes, but also for justice as the Avenging Angel.  The duel with Albert happens, which unfolds wonderfully as Monte Cristo is prepared to die as he shoots away from Albert, who also shoots away, knowing that the Count had every right to expose Fernand to the papers.  After the duel, Monte Cristo, like his book counterpart, sees this incident as proof that he should continue in his quest for vengeance, not for only himself, but for his dead dad.  Point 3 fulfilled.

Sadly, point 2 is somewhat missing.  A theme doesn't really seem to be present here.  It's more of a swashbuckling tale of a man's quest for vengeance in the guise of the Avenging Angel.  What nearly makes up for it is the final scene where Mercedes leaves France to go to Africa to support her son.  She rejects Monte Cristo's offer to accompany her to provide support.  Monte Cristo then acknowledges that they were once in love as young people but now cannot be together because of what they've done.  Mercedes agrees and even remarks that Edmond is dead.  And I promptly rejoiced.  The meeting is solemn and full of melancholy.  She wishes him happiness, but not with her.  And how could they live together?  His actions have forced her son into the army to regain his good name, and she feels guilty about marrying and not staying faithful to his memory.  Every note they strike rings true; nothing is sentimental or forced.  This confrontation has come naturally from their experience, providing a fitting conclusion to a story that began with young Edmond and Mercedes hugging on the pier, believing they were in for an innocent marriage.  They end up separated with the knowledge that their correspondence is likely at an end.  This adaptation probably handles the Edmond/Mercedes relationship better than any other.

It is here that the Count admits that his revenge brought him no joy, but we never see it.  What we really needed was a scene or two of the Count in despair over what happened.  When the book's Count realises he's gone too far, he hopes that he can stop the rest and that nothing else that he didn't intend will happen.  Things get out of hand, innocents die, and we lose sympathy for the Count.  We think, "Is this right?  Is it okay for him to tear apart these families, kill people indirectly, and destroy the finances of those who banked with Danglars?"  But here, we root for the Count completely, never doubting that he is right.  Even the threat of killing Albert is off because Albert challenges the Count and is of age.  However, the melancholy of the ending helps atone for this omission.  Revenge on the people who screwed you over still cannot bring back what they screwed out of you.  The two were torn apart by betrayal, but even though they actually could get together legally at the end, emotionally, they are incompatible.  So, even though we see none of what the Count's vengeance has done to him personally, this last scene, with its heart-breaking reality, and wanting to avenge his father more than himself, makes up for it and passes for the novel's theme of revenge bringing a hollow victory. 

With the story being shortened to film-length, we don't get the take the time to see just what lengths the Count will go to for revenge and appreciate how long it took him to set this up and see it paid off, nor do we see the story explore its themes properly.  Maybe this story shouldn't be film-length.  While some subplots could be excised, too many are necessary to the framework and themes, and time itself is what we need to show how manipulative and patient he is.  However, Chamberlain's version works well as an introduction to the book and is good enough on its own to recommend.

Next: 1980's French miniseries Le Comte de Monte-Cristo.