The Scarlet Letter (1995)

TRUE LOVE ALWAYS WINS

A LOVE STORY THAT MAKES YOU FEEL ALIVE AND FULL OF DESIRE TO LIVE AND LOVE June 17, 2008

The Scarlet Letter

I went to see The Scarlet Letter twice in one week!!! Just loved Gary Oldman in this role. You will fall in love with him too. Brilliant and savage tale. Not to be missed. April 25, 2008

Picky picky

I don't understand why so many people are being so picky about this movie deviating from the book. I'm in the middle of reading the book right now. There is maybe a total of 10 minutes worth of action written into it and I'm not surprised that creative license needed to be taken for the screenplay.
I love the story line and the way the actors portrayed the deep and painful struggle between their hearts and the status quo of the times.
Gary Oldman is overwhelming in his role. I can't tear my eyes off the screen. I'm not as crazy about Demi, but the movie is very worth watching.
April 11, 2008

From perplexity to propaganda

When I saw the DVD box billing this as "An erotic tale of forbidden love!" I knew that this would be at least entertaining, if not actually good. I was right, but not in the way I thought. Instead of being "so bad it's good," (see: the Star Wars prequels, Troy, and the first Batman movie) this was a stunningly well-done piece of propaganda for contemporary social issues. The viewer presented with free love in the form of a passionate hookup with spiritual undertones, an eerily oppressive religious institution, a group of noble (but of course "worldly") women fighting against said religion and the patriarchy that runs it, indigenous people warring against their white oppressors, lecherous men who will rape those who reject thir sexual advances... you get the picture, I'm sure. This is all done with reasonably convincing acting, unconventional camera work (...you really wouldn't have thought knees were erotic before watching this film), and of course, a heart-wrenching, albeit forgettable, soundtrack. That said, this is a film that aims for the heart and not the brain; if you do not empathize with the characters and their situations all the way, there's really no power in it. The intellectual complexity of the story is thus lost almost completely, seeing as one perspective is forced upon the viewer as "correct." Towards the end, the film degenerates into the typical Hollywood "good guy"/"bad guy" dichotomy and of course, the "good guys" win. Sadly predictable... but still, this is still kind of enjoyable in its own way, mostly as an intellectual exercise in the emotional forms of rhetoric made possible only by the development of motion pictures.

I would feel comfortable giving this three stars, seeing as it does have a redeeming value for the discerning viewer just by being so transparently biased and provoking so many questions. However, my conscience won't let me. You see, this film is supposed to be based on a book by Nathanial Hawthorne, which just so happens to be one of the greatest novels ever written in English. What makes the novel so great in the first place is the way it deals with the manifold complexities, ambiguities, and contradictions inherent in the human experience. How does - and should - marriage relate to love? What is the role of law in society? Are human institutions capable of doing the work of the divine? Hawthorne addresses these sorts of questions in such a way that leaves the reader questioning them; he will not settle for an angry, emotional rant against the hypocrisy of puritanical society and the pain caused by a marriage without mutual affection. That would be far too easy and would not truly address the questions that would motivate such a polemic in the first place. The fact that such a rich and complex intellectual work has not only been turned into an "erotic tale of forbidden love," but an overly zealous and preachy one at that seriously irks me. In the hands of a Kubrick or a Fellini, I could very easily see a film adaptation that maintains the foreboding symbolism and moral ambiguity of the novel. The fact that the filmmakers chose to take another, simpler, route is a sign of their failure to keep to the spirit of the book. I couldn't care less how "freely adapted" the plot was if the spirit was preserved (see Fellini's Satyricon for a fine example of how this can be accomplished). But it wasn't. Two stars... but only because it's at least well-done propaganda. Production values have to come into play somehow... April 9, 2008

A Truly, TRULY, Terrible Movie Beginning To End!

I hope if O sama is captured by the US he is forced to sit through this movie ten times a day.

Demi More's laughable and yet still painfully boring production of The Scarlet Letter is simply one of the worst motion pictures ever made. It is not merely bad, but remarkably bad. I found it completely absurd, tedious, ludicrous, and felt it was "freely adapted" to the detriment of the depth of the original source. This feminist, new agey re-telling of a classic bears scant resemblance to the Hawthorne tale and is unworthy of sharing the title. Sometimes a free adaptation can improve upon the original novel, as with the 1990's version of The Last of the Mohicans, but in this case the reverse was never truer. I could go on and on with what is wrong with this film but why don't I just say EVERYTHING is wrong with this film. Never have I laughed harder AT, not WITH, a movie in my life.
March 18, 2008

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