April 29, 2012
saturday UPDATE
I watched the 1960 film adaptation of Queen of Spades. The filmmakers made some changes to the story (Hermann finds the story in a book, Naroumov is a much bigger character) that did help it make the jump from page to screen... but as with most adaptations, they mainly focused on transplanting the plot and ended up missing some of the point.
Here are eight major events in the plot:
Hermann hears the story, Hermann sees Lisaveta in the window, Lisaveta arranges for Hermann to sneak inside the Countess' estate, Herman chooses to surprise the Countess and scares her to death, Hermann goes to the funeral, Hermann is visited by the Countess and receives the secret, Hermann denies Lisaveta, Herman tests the secret and loses his fortune and mind.
Hermann grows from a person who believes in "not sacrificing the necessary in the hope of winning the superfluous" to one who has sacrificed his sanity chasing the truth to a story about a gambling secret. Lisaveta grows from a naive ward of the Countess to a heartbroken pawn of fate.
In my opinion, Pushkin's point is to show the problems of manipulation that arise when fate places people with conflicting passions in relationships with each other. It's also a horror story about man's age old dance of death with Lady Luck, and about two doomed people who are screwed no matter how much they think they are exercising their own free will. To be a successful I need to make sure I really nail the characterization and development of these relationships between those eight aforementioned plot events. The relationships and the growth as Hermann pursues his goal--that is what is most important to transplant. Around that, I think a lot can be changed for the sake of an entertaining yarn.
AND MOAR SUSPENSE. Everything's better with more creepy and more suspense.
3 Comments:
QED42 posted on April 29, 2012 at 17:27 PM
Class is also a big issue in the story and I think for transposition reasons playing up the immigrant side of Herman's background might make more sense for the privileged characters prejudice against him.
I also wonder if Herman was ever a good guy or not. He rips off a poem that the girl won't recognise to woo her and Naroumov claims that Herman commited crimes 3 times before? Could it be that he just doesn't gamble because he is poor but then the greed gets to him with a "sure thing"?
molotok posted on April 30, 2012 at 07:03 AM
Hermann isn't an immigrant himself, possibly his parents/grandparents were. Pushkin tags him of a German descent to stress that he is very organized, very strict, very tight with emotions. That's a typical sterotype Germans have in Russia(no offense to anybody).
I believe Hermann is a neutral character, at least mostly. And the "crimes' that he commited are more moral or ethical than real ones.
I don't believe you can say that Pushkin brings "class issues" up in this short story, that would be some what incorrect. Saying that rich vs poor is more true.
KRANTZ posted on April 30, 2012 at 15:53 PM
I think Hermann is neutral as well. He represents the story's desire to eliminate chaos, and logically pursues that through the chance encounters in his life. What's interesting is that despite being a very logical person, Hermann has a vibrant imagination and obsesses over the possibility of the Countess's tale being true. He does rip off the poem at first, but then his letters to Lisaveta grow more and more inspired and passionate. He's not poor (his only goal is actually just conserving his inheritance, he is a pretty happy character when things are ordered), so he's not greedy--more like the Countess' tale allows him to imagine the possibility he can eliminate the role of chance (in life and in cards). I think it is less about class conflict or rich vs poor and more about the role of chance in determining who is who.
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