The Proust Screenplay: a la Recherche du Temps Perdu

Rating:
Summary: Too bad this was never made into a movie.
Review: A screenplay of Proust's In Search of Lost Time sounds like a hopeless project. In the most recent translation, Proust's novel ran to over 4,000 pages. Reducing this to a screenplay would seem to require cuts of such magnitude that nothing of the novel would be left. Indeed, those movies that have been made of the novel usually are of a small part, like the Swann in Love section of Swann's Way. Pinter, however, managed to pull off the impossible. He concentrated on key events in the novel, and even more on key images. It is hard to say whether this would have worked with someone totally unfamilar with the material. However, presenting Proust's novel in any literal fashion would be impossible, and probably contrary to what he attempted to accomplish in his novel. Pinter's screenplay, for anyone who has read the novel, is a tremendous success. Unfortunately, it was never made into a movie.

Rating:
Summary: Too bad this was never made into a movie.
Review: A screenplay of Proust's In Search of Lost Time sounds like a hopeless project. In the most recent translation, Proust's novel ran to over 4,000 pages. Reducing this to a screenplay would seem to require cuts of such magnitude that nothing of the novel would be left. Indeed, those movies that have been made of the novel usually are of a small part, like the Swann in Love section of Swann's Way. Pinter, however, managed to pull off the impossible. He concentrated on key events in the novel, and even more on key images. It is hard to say whether this would have worked with someone totally unfamilar with the material. However, presenting Proust's novel in any literal fashion would be impossible, and probably contrary to what he attempted to accomplish in his novel. Pinter's screenplay, for anyone who has read the novel, is a tremendous success. Unfortunately, it was never made into a movie.

Rating:
Summary: Pinter takes a stab
Review: Harold Pinter's screenplay of Proust's novel is commendable. It does not try to cram too much in, but instead relies on a more imagistic adaptation. Raoul Ruiz's recent movie "Time Regained" wasn't dissimilar--although named after the last volume, it really drew from the whole work. However, I have to feel that even so, it was of little interest to those not familiar with the novel. I think a movie based on Pinter's screenplay, as good as the screenplay is, would suffer the same fate. It would be a visual tone poem for the Proust fan, capturing one thing but leaving out a dozen others. The meat of the novel is in the narration, and I'm afraid the best way to translate it to the screen would be through a miniseries, even a regular series. It's the only medium that stands a chance at duplicating the scope of the novel. One has to remember that its great length is no accident, it helps constitute the very nature of the story. Pinter ought to expand his screenplay, like Proust expanded his early drafts of the recherche, to give a greater impression of the time lost, and give it to the BBC or something.

Rating:
Summary: Pinter takes a stab
Review: Harold Pinter's screenplay of Proust's novel is commendable. It does not try to cram too much in, but instead relies on a more imagistic adaptation. Raoul Ruiz's recent movie "Time Regained" wasn't dissimilar--although named after the last volume, it really drew from the whole work. However, I have to feel that even so, it was of little interest to those not familiar with the novel. I think a movie based on Pinter's screenplay, as good as the screenplay is, would suffer the same fate. It would be a visual tone poem for the Proust fan, capturing one thing but leaving out a dozen others. The meat of the novel is in the narration, and I'm afraid the best way to translate it to the screen would be through a miniseries, even a regular series. It's the only medium that stands a chance at duplicating the scope of the novel. One has to remember that its great length is no accident, it helps constitute the very nature of the story. Pinter ought to expand his screenplay, like Proust expanded his early drafts of the recherche, to give a greater impression of the time lost, and give it to the BBC or something.