The French Lieutenant's Woman ... adapted from an earlier novel by Claire de Duras, written in 1823, called, Ourika ...

I wish to raise the issue here with my readers, and budding writers, or indeed, developed writers, of The French Lieutenant's Woman, the reason i wish to do this is because i re-visited the film recently and stated in one of my writing pieces that i 'loved' the film, and this is something which is worth raising that when we say we love something, or we loved something because of the reason that you give, and, really, I have to say, and it is important to raise this, that actually you have to be careful about what you say you love, when you say it indiscriminately. I 're-visited the film because of the Meryl Streep film catalogue, which I wrote to you about, which I only saw when it was shown on television about thirty odd years ago and then promptly forgot about it. It's easy to say we love something because we think we like the person portraying the character if it is a visual dramatic piece of work, it becomes easy to say, the film was this or that, and then we state our barely founded opinions, and we forget about it very quickly afterwards as I have said. The thing is, the film is very different from the book, and it seems all escriteurs and dramatists have taken liberty with what is actually an original piece of writing, about a serious illness or malady that affected certain numbers of the population which was not medically proven in 1823 when the novel was originally written by Duchesse, Claire de Dumas, a French writer, regarding a mental and physical disorder affecting the nerves. The book was adapted from the original novel in 1977, seemingly, by John Fowles, who was apparently an avid reader of Thomas Hardy novels and 're-imagined in writing, Sarah Woodruff, the character written about in his re-written model as a more avant garde Tess of the D'urbervilles. To continue, the film was adapted for screen by Harold Pinter, a Playwright, and of course the story was somewhat glamorised, and especially around the character, Sarah Woodruff, played by Meryl Streep, and very well played. The thing is the film is very much about people having affairs which only struck me in the recent viewing of the film, and, to be honest, it's horrific to consider the consequences of the characters' behaviour as characterized on film, with Jeremy Irons as one of the other protagonists. In the film, he is engaged to a young girl called Ernestina, the young daughter of an industrialist, Charles is her fiance, who works in anthropology, Sarah Woodruff is barely considered in terms of her family and background, she appears in the film as though she is simply transplanted to earth from whence nobody knows and her character is deemed to be of a nervous disposition affecting the mind, but the thing is, in the film, again, I barely recall the details of the book, in the film she is portrayed as a very artistic person, a graphic artist, the mind of an artist is extremely complex and when subjecting itself into a piece of artistic work of merit, it is my theory that there is no way such a person could possibly have any kind of disorder as their intelligence would simply not lead it in that direction. If a person's mind is engaged comprehensively in something that is correct, you cannot go wrong, as it were. And so I have some difficulty accepting the premise of the story that basically says Sarah Woodruff is mad. She is not in the least mad,. Charles, no doubt a very bored person, perhaps anthropology (I may have to define what Charles does as it may not strictly be referred to as anthropology), did not fulfill him in the way he felt it should, but then again he seemed to give in easily to the distractions available to someone of his position at the time, mens' clubs and brothels, which seemed to have been available to someone of his stature in Victorian society. In the film, Anna, who is the actor, played by Meryl Streep, says from a newspaper or quarterly paper that she is reading in the hotel room she is staying in with Mike, a married person, whose wife is called Sonia, who Anna meets later in the film at Sonia's and Mike's house one Sunday when some of the crew and cast are invited there for an afternoon of food and drinks, Anna, herself has a noivo, a boyfriend, who is French and is called Davide, and, Mike, who is Jeremy Irons, after some totting up says that. Your victrorian gentleman could look forward to approximately two point four fucks a week in London alone, for instance, taken from a demographic of millions of visits being made to prostitutes who numbered in their thousands at that time in that particular city alone, and although the fact could not have escaped him or Anna, they were both complicit in doing, in modern times, when there is no rhyme or reason for them to engage in profligacy, exactly what Victorian women of limited financial means were doing, and uneducated Victorian men were leading themselves into. So, Charles in the film, as in the modern adaptation of the novel decides it would be fascinating to be fascinated by a person in Sarah Woodruff who is independent, applies herself to work to help support herself and has her own interests and a fully formed character and personality entirely different to Ernestina, perhaps, although I would dispute that Ernestina is any less able than Sarah, personally I see Ernestina as well informed in mind as in body as Sarah, only differently disposed. I don't know why Charles decided upon Sarah's life, pure wickedness it seems and so he places Sarah in a compromising position and leads her as a man of sight leading the blind into an ill fated affair du'amour, and at the same time, in the film, running parallel with the Victorian story, the dramatized lives of the actors portraying their characters are themselves involved in an affair. I did not like the story. It is uncomfortable to watch because immediately you are thinking of the person or persons at home or elsewhere whose lives are being torn apart by the horrible behaviour of the protagonists involved. There are no excuses. It's just not right. And so, when I 're-read what I had written, because I said I appreciated Meryl Streep's films, I extracted The French lieutenant's woman as a case in point. I think it's important if we don't feel comfortable about situations or people and what they do that we raise the matter and say why, which is what I have done here. Angela De Freitas