Characters, actors, and minimalist writing…
By the first, I mean literary characters: Hercule Poirot, James Bond, or Jack Reacher, for example. By the second, I mean actors who portray them: David Suchet, Sean Connery, and Tom Cruise, for example. Same goes for female characters: Eliza Doolittle and Queen Elizabeth, for example, and the actors Julie Andrews and Hellen Mirren. Note that I am listing those actors I identify with the characters, the ones that stick in my mind.
Having read both Agatha Christie and Ian Fleming before seeing movies made or inspired from their books, it’s a wee bit unusual that when I saw Suchet as Poirot or Connery as Bond on the silver screen, they matched my mental images of the characters. Same for Hellen Mirren as the Queen, although the latter, already larger-than-life and still quite a character, was never a main character in any book I ever read. The movie version of Doolittle was Audrey Hepburn—she never matched my image of Eliza because I developed that by reading Pygmalion, much more a commentary about British aristocracy than My Fair Lady. Cruise as Reacher didn’t match my mental image at all, and probably represents the worst error in casting ever made (Cruise could play a pilot in Top Gun because he’s short; why did they choose him to act the part of the six-six Jack Reacher?).
In this small sampling, sometimes Hollywood gets it right, sometimes not. When they don’t, what is the problem? It’s easy to blame casting directors—I just did with Cruise—because they sometimes think that a big-name star or starlet will overcome any resistance the viewing public might have for the person in a role (or worse, they don’t think most moviegoers read books). While that might explain the choice of Cruise, perhaps the fault doesn’t lie with Hollywood. While Lee Child’s thriller prose is terse and straightforward, I wouldn’t call him a minimalist author—I’ve always found his descriptions leaving little room for my imagination. The prose pounds you like a steady sledgehammer, driving ever forward, and the reader is reduced to being a spectator.
Christie was a centrist author in that sense. She described crime scenes and settings with a lot of detail, sometimes in excess, but many actors could portray Poirot and have done so well. Recent news about Kenneth Branagh portraying Poirot in a remake of Murder on the Orient Express might be the exception (surprise! he’s also the director). In Christie’s novels a minimalist viewpoint is adopted with respect to her portrayal of characters. That’s understandable in a sense: there’s a plethora of potential perpetrators and describing them too well could lead to a spoiler, although sometimes you end up hating one and therefore thinking he’s the doer of the deed when he’s not (misdirects are common in mysteries). I always formed in my own imagination a picture of the character and his traits—whether Christie led me there or not. Maybe Hollywood just did well in the casting in the few movies made, but I enjoyed both book and movie, which is often not the case.
For a more modern example, I recently wrote about the movie versions of Forsythe’s Day of the Jackal. The first version follows the book well. Better still, Michael Lonsdale as Claude Lebel and Edward Fox as the Jackal matched my mental images of the main characters—Forsythe, as a journalist, is a minimalist writer who allows the reader to participate in the creative process. The Bruce Willis version (he was the Jackal and a complete caricature of the assassin in the book) was terrible, and there was no French inspector, just the completely miscast Richard Gere as an Irish terrorist—Hollywood tried to “modernize the story,” and it was a flop. Note that modernizatioh doesn’t always lead to a flop, but it can lead to big deviations from the novel. After the first Bourne movie, the next two weren’t like Ludlum’s books at all, but in #1 Matt Damon fit my image of Jason Bourne.
I’m a minimalist writer simply because I don’t like being a passive spectator when I read. Once upon a time I played baseball (I was the team catcher because I was the only player who wouldn’t blink behind the plate when the batter swung). I rarely watch MLB; same for PGA tournaments. Video games are better than movies in that sense. I guess books are somewhere in between. A good book can hold my attention whether it’s minimalist writing or not. A better book gets me so involved and stretches my imagination that it’s hard to put down. I prefer the latter and strive to write them. Some reviewers have mentioned that characteristic in my novels. I’m pleased when that happens. It means I have been successful as a minimalist writer in my own small way.
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Aristocrats and Assassins. In #4 of the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series,” Castilblanco and his wife are on vacation in Europe when a terrorist starts kidnapping members of European royal families. Castilblanco and eventually Chen work with authorities to discover the terrorist’s agenda. This fast-moving mystery/thriller/suspense novel is on sale now at Smashwords in all ebook formats; use coupon code VN74R.
And look for this new mystery/thriller/suspense story coming this spring from Penmore Press: Rembrandt’s Angel pairs Scotland Yard’s Arts and Antiquities Inspector Esther Brookstone with Interpol Agent Bastiann van Coevorden, as their search for dealers in stolen artwork leads to exposing an international conspiracy. Bastiann first appeared in Aristocrats and Assassins and played a prominent role in Gaia and the Goliaths. Esther made her debut in The Collector. This new team of sleuths discovers that pursuing stolen artwork can become surprisingly dangerous.
In libris libertas!
