I’ve written about movies straying,
from the original source material and how that irks me. What I’ve
failed to note however, is the fact that they’re almost forced to.
As powerful as they are, films are very limited in scope. They only
have so much time, to get the point across.
Classic Movie Trailers: 3 Days of The
Condor (1975)
The average running time of a motion
picture, is one hundred and twenty minutes; that’s two hours. Think
about the time that you’ve spent, pouring over your favorite book,
or watching your favorite TV show. When you sit in the theater
however, you want a much shorter experience; so the production should
quickly provide you, with a beginning, middle and end, before sending
you on your way.
Remember, there are no serials anymore.
You’re not going to be presented with a cliffhanger, to try to hook
you into coming back next week. They might try to hook you into a
sequel, by not providing you with a suitable ending, but that’s a
subject for another essay, at another time. The point is, you should
be leaving the theater with a complete story, not just a piece of it,
Unfortunately, when the movie you’re
watching, is an adaptation of a novel, you run the risk of doing just
that. You might also find, that you’re still confused, walking into
the parking lot. I wasn’t quite there, at the end of “3 Days of
the Condor”, but I did feel like I got a slice, of a much bigger
pie. It was, in fact, a piece of a larger whole; they did a good job
of hiding it, for the most part, but I ultimately thought, that the
script could have been simplified.
What happens when you’re reading a
novel, and you lose track of who is who? Well, I imagine that you can
go back and clarify some things. You might also give the story a rest
for a while, and come back to it later. Similarly, you could stop and
rewind the DVD or Blu-Ray; I don’t know how many of us do that, but
the option is there. At the show however, you can’t even pause.
A common thing, that film
interpretations will do, is they’ll combine characters. If they
choose not to do that, they run the risk of overwhelming you, with
too many faces. The more actors they add, the less time each one
of them has on screen, to connect with you. After watching this
movie, I felt I knew Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway’s characters,
but Max von Sydow, was the only antagonist I had a read on.
I think it was, a little bit of a
missed opportunity. This is the kind of movie, that makes you want to
go into work and smack your boss around. After that, you might walk
into the CEO’s office, and punch him in the nose. It’s that kind
of a rousing experience, but It lost some of that power, when I
didn't recognize a face onscreen.
The wonderful
thing about movies, is that they’re brief. The stories on film are
simple and narrow, while novels have the time, to go wide and be
detailed. That isn’t to say, that “3 Days of The Condor”, is a
bad movie; it's very enjoyable. There's action, intrigue, and a
star-studded cast in the film, which does a wonderful job.
Unfortunately, we aren’t given sufficient time to enjoy all of
them, or to appreciate the depth of the conspiracy.
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@ChannelSeals
See “3 Days of The Condor” on
www.netflix.com !
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