The Reivers
The Reivers (1962) is William Faulkner's final novel, published just a month before he died. He may have intended the work as his ultimate triumph. It casts a retrospective and ruminative eye on the history of Yoknapatawpha, his mythical county. Critics and biographers have called the book nostalgic, because in the mellow tones of a grandfather the narrator tells his grandchildren about the Mississippi of 1905, focusing in the main on a seemingly simpler era, when an automobile was a work of wonder, and when a trip from Jefferson (Faulkner's version of Oxford, his home town) to Memphis could seem like an epic adventure.
In the novel, Lucius Priest (the grandfather) recounts the time he and Boon Hoggenbeck, a family retainer, become reivers (thieves) when they "borrowed" the Winton Flyer belonging to "Boss" Priest (Lucius's grandfather) and set off for the big city, where Boon could visit Miss Corrie in a Memphis cathouse, and introduce eleven-year-old Lucius to a world that (Boon assures him) Lucius will one day understand and avail himself of.
Lucius has been brought up to be a gentleman, so his escapade with Boon requires him to lie to his family about Boon's scheme, a lie made possible by Boss Priest having taken the train to attend the funeral of his wife's father, Lucius's other grandfather. Boon is supposed to lock up the automobile and not use it while Boss is away. The meaning of "gentleman," which involves taking responsibility for one's actions and abiding by a code of honor, is developed in references to Yoknapatawpha history in the first chapters of the novel, in which descriptions of the Sutpens, the Compsons, the McCaslins, and all the county's important families impinge on Lucius's consciousness. What he does, in other words, will be measured against what his forebears and predecessors have done. In effect, Lucius's decision to lie, to leave home, is a declaration of independence, but it is also another act in the drama of his community's history. In effect, Lucius as "grandfather" is telling his children their history, showing how the individual has to understand it in order to come to terms with himself.
Calling The Reivers nostalgic and a summation of Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha saga is understandable but also misleading, since doing so suggests that the novel is not in the same class as his earlier and presumably greater novels. Indeed, in just this way many critics and biographers have discounted The Reivers, taking the narrator's relaxed tone as a sign of the author's more indulgent and less complex art. This assumption, however, ignores the circumstances of the telling: a grandfather addressing his grandchildren. His narration is all about the child's discovery of the adult world as told by an adult to his own kin who will, in turn, discover the world in their way. To confuse Faulkner with his narrator—no matter how many similarities between them can be assembled—is to wreck the fiction and to deny Lucius Priest his independent existence as a character.
Certainly the darker events of Faulkner's earlier novels—the suicide of Quentin Compson, the castration of Joe Christmas, and revelations about the evils of slavery—are not explored. But their consequences are—especially in the figure of Ned McCaslin, Boss Priest's coachman, whom Lucius refers to as "our family skeleton." Ned is a black man, born in 1860, who claims that his mother "had been the natural daughter of old Lucius Quintus Carothers himself," the original progenitor of the clan. In other words, Ned claims direct descent from a founding father, whereas Lucius's line "were mere diminishing connections and hangers-on." To readers of Faulkner's other novels— especially Go Down, Moses, which explores the McCaslin genealogy and the white family's inextricable connections with the lives of the McCaslin slaves—Ned's pride and self-assurance are all the more appreciated. When Ned stows away in the Winton Flyer because he, too, wants a trip to Memphis, Boon cannot gainsay his presence, even though as a white man Boon ought to be able to master his so-called inferior in this highly segregated society.
Except that such segregation and racial distinctions keep breaking down and dissolving in the world of Faulkner's fiction. Ned represents the novelist's deft way of showing that dissolution even in an adventure story intended to entertain children. Compared to the wily Ned, Boon and Lucius are innocents abroad. Lucius has been rightly called a "motorized Huck Finn" (Inge, 91), and yet it is as if Faulkner takes "Nigger Jim" off the raft and puts him in control of the story that becomes The Reivers.
It is Ned who turns the seemingly simple road trip that Boon and Lucius have planned into a rococo plot that involves getting his kinsman, Bobo Beauchamp, out of trouble by trading the Winton Flyer for a racehorse, which Ned will then put up in a race against another horse, with the prize being the automobile and other winnings that will pay off Bobo's debts and return the vehicle to Boss Priest. So devious and intricate is Ned's strategy that it is not revealed until near the end of the novel, which becomes the denouement of a mystery of Ned's devising. In fact, only after the race is won does Ned divulge to Boss Priest the intricate series of events and developments that neither Lucius nor Boon has been able to explain. Without Ned as the mastermind, the novel has no engine, no way to proceed or to resolve itself.
Because Lucius is telling the story, remembering his childhood even as he invokes his status as a grandfather, The Reivers has a double perspective: Lucius then, Lucius now; the world then, the world now. Although a good deal has changed since 1905, the moral values Lucius seeks to impart remain the same and belong to the historical continuum that the novel itself enacts.
And Ned is the conduit of that continuum. He is forty-five years old in 1905, Lucius reports. And Ned will live to the age of seventy-four, "just living long enough for the fringe of hair embracing his bald skull to begin to turn gray, let alone white (it never did. I mean, his hair: turn white nor even gray. . . .) ." Although Ned responds to change, represented by the automobile, he has no interest in driving it or learning about the new technology. And yet his very steadfastness in the midst of change, his knowledge of his own mind and his place in the world, renders him able to adapt to every new and unforeseeable situation on the ride to Memphis and in its aftermath. In short, he cannot be distracted by novelty or deflected from his purpose.
On the other hand, the slow-witted Boon (he failed the third grade twice) is impulsive, a man who acts in the moment without taking aim. His poor shooting is legendary. He is all id to Ned's ego, with Lucius trying to manage his own inclinations and adhere to his upbringing while coping with the behavior of the shrewd black man born into slavery and the excitable white man saved from undoing himself by the grace of his gentlemen employers, beginning with old General Compson. Boon may be six-feet-four and weigh 240 pounds, but he has the "mentality of a child." He is a rough-hewn woodsman, with a "big ugly florid walnut-tough walnut-hard face." This physical description suggests an impermeable quality in Boon, who cannot learn from experience as Lucius does, or profit from it as Ned can. Boon can drive the action forward,j ust as he drives the Winton flyer, but he cannot plot his adventures or predict their pitfalls.
A case in point is Boon's confident belief that he can drive the automobile through Hell Creek bottom, a treacherous bog maintained that way by a farmer who makes his living dragging vehicles out of the mud. Even though Boon paid the man two dollars the summer before to pull out the Winton Flyer, he thinks that this time, with Ned and Lucius helping, he can use block and tackle to move the car through the sludge. After several efforts that saturate Boon and Ned with muck, Boon pays the man with the mules two dollars per passenger to rescue them from the mire. This episode is a perfect example of Boon's self-defeating actions, which tend to make his dilemmas worse than they were to begin with. In short, Lucius's up to now pristine existence, guided by the courtly examples of his father and grandfather, is enveloped in the mess Boon makes of his life.
Arriving in Memphis, the action shifts to the brothel, where Miss Reba is enchanted with Lucius's manners, such a contrast to the conniving Otis, a young nephew Miss Corrie is trying to reform. Lucius is smitten with Miss Corrie, whom he describes as a "big girl. I don't mean fat: just big, like Boon was big, but still a girl, young too, with dark hair and blue eyes and at first I thought her face was plain. But she came into the room already looking at me, and I knew it didn't matter what her face was." She may be a whore, but there is an innocence in her that Lucius connects with, and they quickly form a bond that leads to Lucius being cut by Otis's knife in a fight that starts when Lucius strikes out at Otis for denigrating Miss Corrie. She, in turn, decides to reform herself in order to be worthy of Lucius's devotion. Set against her sincerity is Mr. Binford's cynicism. He turns a critical eye on Lucius and tries to corrupt him, offering beer even though Lucius steadfastly refuses the drink, announcing that he has promised his mother that he will not imbibe until he is of age.
The novel's action shifts again when Ned shows up with a horse he has named Lightning, informing Boon that the Winton Flyer can only be recovered by winning a horse race. On the way to the race site, Ned, Boon, and Lucius encounter the sadistic deputy sheriff Butch Lovemaiden, who arrests Boon and Ned for possessing a horse that in fact is stolen property. The price of their release, Butch informs them, is a night with Miss Corrie. Seeing no way out, she complies and is later assaulted by Boon, who thus loses Lucius's respect.
The novel's exciting denouement centers on the horse race. Ned admits to Lucius that he believes he can make their horse a winner (Lightning has lost races against his rival, Acheron), but the neck-and-neck heats in which the neophyte jockey Lucius rides make the result anything but certain. After their triumph, Ned explains that he has studied the psychology of his horse and discovered its liking for sardines, which Ned carries with him at the finish line in sight of the galloping Lightning.
In the coda of the novel, Lucius comes home for his punishment, but he is spared the beating his father is prepared to give him when Boss Priest intervenes, suggesting that it is punishment enough for Lucius to live with a sense of his transgressions. "A gentleman accepts the responsibilities of his actions and bears the burden of their consequences, even when he did not himself instigate them but only acquiesced to them, didn't say No though he knew he should." To the young Lucius, expecting corporal punishment, the psychological and moral burden his grandfather places on him seems overwhelming. But Boss tells him, "A gentleman can live through anything." And this is surely what Lucius, as narrator, is telling his grandchildren without actually saying so directly. Lucius has lived to tell the tale and is the better for it.
All along, Ned has been preparing Lucius for the moment when he will have to confront Boss. Ned has known from the start that they could not get away with their adventure, or even just accept their punishment and be done with it. Instead, as in all of Faulkner's fiction, the past is never past. It has to be borne and contended with as an inextricable part of a community's and an individual's history.
The Reivers (1969), a film directed by Mark Rydell, and starring Steve McQueen and Juano Hernandez, who played Lucas Beauchamp in the film adaptation of Intruder in the Dust (1950), was generally well received by critics as a well-made family film. As Roger Ebert puts it, it was the kind of film that "neither insulted nor challenged the intelligence of any member of the family." Ebert also notes, however, that the film does not "particularly carry a Faulkner flavor," and is closer to Mark Twain because of its simplified adventure plot (http:www//rogerebert.com). Even so, most of the best lines in the screenplay are taken from Faulkner's novel. What the movie lacks is a narrative frame, even though it includes voice-over commentary by Burgess Meredith, which captures the memoir-like quality of The Reivers but cannot situate the significance of the story into the context of Yoknapatawpha history. Mitch Vogel deftly portrays Lucius's innocent but growing awareness of the adult world. But the production is seriously flawed in its casting of two major characters, Boon Hoggenbeck and Ned McCaslin, on which so much of the action and the morality of the novel pivots. McQueen, an actor with leading man looks who was more successful in dramatic roles, lacks Boon's curious combination of crudity and sensitivity—more a failing of the role as written than of the performer. And Rupert Crosse is too manic to play the sly and deliberate Ned; the result is a caricature of one of Faulkner's most fully realized characters. But most of the remaining cast and the screenplay capture the essence of the novel's minor characters, especially Charles Tyner as Edmonds, the owner of the Hell Creek bottom mud patch; Ruth White, playing Miss Reba, the brothel madam; Michael Constantine (Mr. Binford), who presides over the Memphis brothel; Juano Hernandez (Uncle Possum), Ned's ally and Lucius's refuge; Clifton James (Butch Lovemaiden), the mean deputy sheriff who covets Miss Corrie (Sharon Farrell), Boon's beloved whore; and Will Geer as Boss Priest, Lucius's grandfather, looking every inch the Southern gentleman.
The Reivers was shot in fourteen weeks almost entirely on location in Carrollton, Mississippi, "a time warp," according to McQueen's wife: "It was America still in the early 1900s" (Toffel, 206). Only the horse race was filmed on the Walt Disney ranch in Southern California. Steve McQueen seems to have had second thoughts almost immediately after agreeing to star in the picture. As his biographer Marc Eliot puts it, "Audiences wanted Steve," the star of Bullitt and The Thomas Crown Affair, to be "the king of cool, not a sweaty southern country boy." Moreover, McQueen was counting on William Wyler, one of the great Hollywood directors, who had filmed such classics as The Westerner (1940) and The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), to add depth and prestige to the film. But Wyler bowed out, and his replacement, Mark Rydell, dismayed McQueen, who knew the director from early work in television, and did not like him. Rydell was simply not in Wyler's league. And indeed, the film does, in some respects, go for the easy comedy of a made-for-television movie, even though the screenwriters, Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr., had successfully adapted parts of The Hamlet, "Spotted Horses," and "Barn Burning" as The Long Hot Summer (1958), starring Paul Newman, and wrote Hud (1963), another of Newman's best films. McQueen may well have thought their screenplay would do for him what it had accomplished for Newman.
McQueen's doubts about his taller, six-foot-five co-star, Rupert Crosse, complicated the production further. Boon is supposed to be the big man in the story, not Ned McCaslin. Even worse, Crosse, an untested actor in his first big role, seemed to take too long to warm up to his part, going through several takes that tried McQueen's patience. Boon is in fact a role for a great character actor—say Randy Quaid or Warren Oates—and there was simply no way for McQueen to lose himself in his part. Indeed, according to Eliot, after one or two takes McQueen had nothing left to contribute to a sharper interpretation of his character. Even with such problems, The Reivers was nominated for two Academy Awards: Rupert Crosse as best supporting actor (the first black actor to be nominated in this category), and John Williams for the musical score. But in both categories the film lost: to Gig Young in They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, and to Burt Bacharach for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The Reivers was a very modest success at the box office, and critics seemed unwilling to accept McQueen in an offbeat performance.
The film begins with shots of light glistening on a leaf and a boy in a boat fishing out on a calm lake, then introduces the dulcet voice of Burgess Meredith recalling life as a boy "a long time ago" in Jefferson, Mississippi, among a "pleasant and courteous people attending to our own business." It is unimaginable that Faulkner could write such a sentence, so ungrounded in particulars. Actually, the novel begins with grandfather describing the outlandish Boon Hoggenbeck and how he fit into the scheme of things in Jefferson.
Although filmed on location, the Southern setting seems generic, except for a black man picking cotton and a few shots of blacks tending garden plots beside small shacks. The action picks up with the arrival of the Winton Flyer by railcar, with the first shot of Boon and Ned next to one another full of anticipatory glee about the appearance of this new invention. In the novel, however, Ned never cares much for the vehicle and does not engage in the sort of bosom-buddy rivalry that the film sets up between him and Boon. What saves the film at this point is the closeup on McQueen's face in a shot that reveals a dreamy, lovesick expression, a yearning for this shiny yellow conveyance that seems to transport Boon out of his everyday life and into the realm of fantasy. But then the film turns into farce as Ned wrests control of the automobile from Boon and goes off across town on a tear, thus destroying the carefully delineated differences between characters Faulkner drew.
Of course, film foreshortens a novel's narrative, which provides context and background. Thus the film shifts quickly from Ned's joy ride, to Boss Priest's departure from town, to Lucius's lying to facilitate the unauthorized journey to Memphis. The highlight of the trip is their descent into Hell Creek bottom, with an amused Edmonds rocking on his porch just waiting for the moment when Boon will beg for his mule team to pull out the automobile. Several cutaway shots of Edmonds build on his smirk, which becomes full-throated laughter as Boon and Ned try to lever out the vehicle, splattered with mud from the spinning rear tires. The dialogue that ensues, as Edmonds brings up his team, is pure Faulkner and a classic of Southern humor. When Edmonds demands two dollars for each passenger, Boon tries to knock down the price by saying Ned is not white. The mules are color blind, Edmonds retorts.
The film includes some nice touches, such as Boon giving Miss Reba a hearty kiss when he enters the brothel, then turning to Lucius to tell him to make his manners—which includes executing a courtly bow. Meeting Miss Corrie, however, again spoils the scene, since she is not the big country girl turned whore of Faulkner's novel, but an elegantly dressed, beautiful model who would not out of place in a Gilded Age painting. In short—except for the overdone makeup—she is not the girl who belongs to Faulkner's Boon, although she is a looker who might well attract Steve McQueen. At the same time, Mr. Binford's arrival at dinner and his quick, none too pleased glance at Lucius, signal a return to the atmosphere of Faulkner's novel. When Lucius stands to make his manners and puts out his hand, Mr. Binford, absorbed in his dinner, eyes the boy and puts a plate of food in his hand, ignoring the courtesies Lucius had been brought up to observe. When one of the girls arrives late to dinner, Mr. Binford rails about the "trouble with you bitches" who do not know how to act like ladies. A shocked Lucius bows his head. "Don't you like it or can't you get it," Mr. Binford taunts Lucius, who refuses the offer of beer and is immune to Mr. Binford's sophistries, as he argues that Boss and mother are not there, and that Lucius is "on a tear" with Boon anyway. The ugliness of the scene is true to Faulkner, as Miss Reba objects to Mr. Binford's blunt language, and Mr. Binford tells her to "use your mouth to eat your supper with."
Just as Lucius is learning his way around the whorehouse, Ned shows up outside and calls to Boon. Obviously drunk, Ned announces he has traded the automobile for a horse. Ned would never behave this way in Faulkner's world because Ned is not reckless. He calculates risk and does not go off on sprees. But in the film he is made to appear the buffoon, and Boon becomes merely a comic character who upsets the evening in the brothel when he comes crashing down the stairs to confront Ned. Unlike the taciturn Ned of the novel, whose plans are divulged in a piecemeal, laconic manner, the movie's boisterous Ned simply states that acquiring the horse—and ultimately winning a horse race along with the automobile—is the only way the group can exonerate themselves in Boss's eyes. The Ned of the novel, on the other hand, knows that all he can do is ameliorate, not wipe out, the punishment for stealing the automobile.
The film veers back on course when Deputy Sheriff Butch Lovemaiden interrupts the progress to the race site. Clifton James plays Butch with just the right amount of easygoing menace, giving Miss Corrie the eye, and establishing his authority by sending Lucius to Uncle Possum's melon patch to retrieve a melon and a salt shaker for Butch's delectation. He is going to enjoy that melon the same way he will enjoy Miss Corrie. But this superb way of dramatizing character is spoiled because Butch becomes brutal too quickly. He shoves Boon over—not an action that could occur in Faulkner's novel, where Butch is more cunning and offensive, pushing Boon a little too hard, but not had enough to start a fight. Once again, the novelist's subtle development of action is sacrificed for a broader, slapstick humor. Juano Hernandez saves the scene with a single line (taken from the novel). When Butch says Uncle Possum knows him, Hernandez replies so dryly that no one can miss the point: "Everyone knows you, Mr. Butch." Uncle Possum is Ned's ally, who has seen Lightning in action.
After this point, the action speeds up, centering on the horse race in a series of scenes that adhere closely to Faulkner's novel. But there is a moment, when the horse race is presented in slow motion, which Burgess Meredith's awe-struck, lilting voice announces as the film cuts between closeups of Lucius on the horse and the pounding of the horses on the track: "Carried on the back of Lightning, racing on a jet black shape, it took me completely. Blood, skin, bowels, bones, and memory. I was no longer held fast on earth but free, fluid, part of the air and the sun, running my first race, a man sized race, with people, grown people, more people than I could remember at one time before, watching me run it. And so I had my moment of glory, that brief fleeting glory, which of itself cannot last, but while it does it's the best game of all." These lines are not in the novel, and yet they approximate not only Faulknerian style, but the denouement of the film about a boy's coming of age--if not by any means quite the story the novelist conceived--nevertheless encompassing a moment that Faulkner himself might well have emphasized in a screenplay of his own devising. The rhythms and repetitions of the speech sum up not merely the style of The Reivers, but also of Faulkner stories about flying, leaving the earth, and attaining a brief kind of exaltation and apotheosis of what it means to be a striving, questing human being.
In the midst of the celebrations over the winning the horse race, Lucius looks up to see Boss Priest, whose authority is emphasized in a low angle shot making him seem statuesque in his uncompromising dignity. The stern moment is softened when Boss inquires of Lucius, "What happened to your hand?" But before Lucius can explain, Boss says, "Never mind. We can talk about it later. I can see you are busy now." Lucius keeps glancing back at Boss, as members of the crowd lifts the boy to their shoulders. The scene prepares, of course, for the reckoning back home, which occurs in a beautifully shot interior scene, in which Lucius's father is seen to be about to whip him when a door is heard to open, and Boss comes down the steps. The dialogue is close to Faulkner's own. Again, the low angle shots—this time of Boss seated in a rocking chair scrutinizing a cowed Lucius—emphasize how much the boy has to answer for, which is more than a beating can possibly rectify, Boss has told Lucius's father, Maury. The deep focus of the scene, with an ashamed Lucius, his back turned away from his grandfather, standing some eight feet away, confessing, "I been telling lies." Boss says dryly, "I've been aware of that." But then he leans forward and opens his arms, telling Lucius to "come here," thus proffering his understanding of the gentleman's code exactly as Faulkner wrote it. Lucius may suffer his grandfather's loss of respect and trust for "a while," but not forever, Boss assures him—again with open arms, as Lucius runs to his grandfather's embrace. Burgess Meredith's voiceover, as in the speech about riding Lightning, admirably sums up the ethos of Faulkner's novel, as Lucius remembers "my face against his stiff collar of his shirt, and I could smell him, the starch and the shaving lotion, and the chewing tobacco. And finally the faint smell of whisky from the toddy which he took in bed every morning before he got up." As Will Geer, almost in tears himself, bids the crying boy to wash his face—as a gentleman always does—rocks back in his chair, it is hard not to believe that Boss, too, is remembering his youth and what it was like to break the rules and pay for breaking them.
Like the novel, the film wraps up loose ends. Boon wants to make it right with Lucius, who is still offended because Boon hit Corrie. McQueen, playing Boon at his ingratiating best, informs the boy that he is going to marry Corrie. The scene plays well in cinematic terms, because Lucius and Ned are seated in the automobile, which is, for once, not in motion, instead serving as a resting point for the story as these reivers reckon with the consequences of their actions. Boon, standing by the right front fender, says Lucius will feel better a year from now when he visits Boon and Corrie and their new baby, name Lucius Priest McCaslin Hoggenbeck. "Only name he could have," Boon tells the beaming Lucius, who sighs with satisfaction as Boon cranks up the Winton Flyer. Then the camera pulls back so that the automobile is shown to be on blocks, the wheels removed. Obviously Boss is taking no chances. The credits begin to roll as the threesome pretends to be setting off on another adventure.
The novel ends with a short scene between Miss Corrie and Lucius, after she has married Boon and had their child. Lucius looks at the child and remarks that it is just as ugly as Boon. Lucius wants to now what she is going to call "it." Not "it," she replies, "Him. Can't you guess?" Lucius asks "What?" "Lucius Priest Hoggenbeck," she announces, putting an end to the novel. Perhaps Faulkner's ending is just as cute as the film’s, but it is a little more down-to-earth, emphasizing the impact Miss Corrie has had on Lucius. Her presence at the novel's conclusion emphasizes the sense of responsibility, obligation, and respect that are reaffirmed for Lucius. The film, on the other hand, returns Lucius to the scene of the crime. Given the film's emphasis on the adventure story aspect of the novel, this tack makes sense—if not exactly Faulkner's sense.
The film of The Reivers, while sometimes capturing the mood and ethos of Faulkner's novel, is nevertheless very much a Hollywood product, suiting plot and character elements to the star. Darwin Porter recounts, "[T]o virtually everyone on the set, it soon became obvious that the movie's plot was being too greatly altered from Faulkner's original" (Porter, 324 ). Boon is an uncomfortable fit for Steve McQueen, although the actor has the physicality, ruggedness, and exuberance appropriate to playing Boon, and it was daring of the star to want to deviate from his glamorous tough guy persona. McQueen struggled to make the film authentic and objected when this line from Faulkner's novel was cut from the screenplay: "What's it going to look like, me, a white man, chauffeuring a nigger to Memphis." Rupert Crosse agreed with McQueen because, as Penina Spiegel reports, "[I]t was honest as well as historically accurate. That was the way people in real life spoke” (Spiegel, 228).
For his part, Mitch Vogel seems pitch perfect—an achievement which, in part, can be credited to McQueen who, according to Vogel, treated the young actor in a tender, avuncular way, just as Boon does Lucius in the film (Terrill, 286). Rupert Crosse played his role as written with superb grace and humor, but the character simply does not measure up to the subtleties of Faulkner' s Ned McCaslin, a role that Morgan Freeman could play to perfection in a remake of the movie.
The Reivers is, as Penina Spiegel notes, a "lark of a film, happy and infused with warmth, a slice of bygone Americana . . . a film of youth tinged with sadness at the all-too-certain knowledge of its passing" (Spiegel, 226). In this respect, the film captures a vital aspect of Faulkner's novel, which is, after all, subtitled "A Reminiscence."
Works Cited
Eliot, Marc. Steve McQueen: A Biography. New York: Crown Archetype, 2011. Web. Inge, M. Thomas. William Faulkner. New York: Overlook Duckworth, 2006. Print. Porter, Darwin. Steve McQueen, King of Cool: Tales of a Lurid Life : Another Hot, Startling, and Unauthorized Celebrity Biography. [Staten Island, NY]: Blood Productions, 2009. Print. Terrill, Marshall. Steve McQueen: Portrait of an American Rebel. New York, NY: D. I. Fine, 1994. Print. Toffel, Neile McQueen. My Husband, My Friend. New York: Atheneum, 1986. Print.
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Because of those spiritual taught by his grandparents, Lucius could establish the beliefs of right and wrong in his early age otherwise he would be easy to get lost after a series of events. Those inherited beliefs did help him to be mature eventually after he saw all the bad and greedy sides of people. Different from the novel, the film develops the idea of gentlemen mainly focused on Lucius’s four days adventure in which the 11 years old gradually grew and understand the spirits of gentlemen in his journey.
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In the movie, the protagonist Lucius played great role as gentleman through his some certain activities. When Lucius went to Memphis, he did not drink on the dinner table as requested because he followed his promise which he made with his mother and family. Also, he raised his voice against Otis who was accused of peephole business and he fought against and cut his hand with Otis’s knife. Otis charges other children of the neighborhood to watch Corrie’s activities with her guests in the room, which Lucius thought was unfair. Eventually Ms. Corrie had known and was crying because eleven year old boy fought for her and she promises not to do the work in whorehouse, instead she will fine something else. The community history has been violated when Lucius has been temped to go to Memphis, stayed in whorehouse, participated in horse race and so forth. But, at last Lucius admitted everything to his grandfather that he did neglect the responsibility and family discipline which have proved of being gentleman.
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We can see the Idea of the gentleman in the film in a few scenes. For instance when lucius hears from the other boy that Corey is a whore he fights for her as he feels she is insulted. Furthermore we can see a gentleman behavior from lucius every time he meets new person. The novel creates a better understanding not only of his behavior as a gentlemen but also the values he has in such young age that distinct him from the other men, there is a feeling as he is the mature and not Boon.
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The film explores the idea of gentleman through the use of Lucius. Lucius acts gentlemanly with his treatment of corrie. when Corrie’s nephew calls corrie a whore and tires to profit off her, he fights Otis and protects her honor. Lucius even loses respect for Boon when he finds out he has hit Corrie. We can see that Lucius’s grandfather emphasizes being a gentlemen when he tells Lucius that a gentlemen accepts the consequences of his actions.
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In the novel, Boon kept talking about the Hell Creek bottom all the way and he thought he did prepare for it well so he rejected Ned’s proposal of choosing other routes before the car really ran into a quagmire. However, those scenes just happened all of a sudden in the film. Besides that, Lucius had been sitting in the car when Boon and Ned tried to pull it out in the film, but in the novel, Lucius was also the one who get off and try to rescue themselves. In addition, the farmer saved them first before he was being paid in the novel.
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GuanXing hit the nail on the head with the differents in the Hell Creek bottom scene. Boon talked up Hell creek on the ride in the book and didn’t in the film. I think it was left out of the film mainly to keep the movie’s time down. It wasn’t necessary to set the scene in the film. Though he did pay after the tow in the book, one thing that was similar between was the sense of humor in this scene. The way Boon handles paying for the pull out made me chuckle in both the novel and film. Definitely one of my favorite scenes.
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The film could have speed up the action because of two reason. First reason is to move the story along. The audience would not want to watch a long scene where actors are stuck in the mud, plus the story will not progress. Secondly the audience would not want to see such a famous actor like Steve McQueen in such a scene that casts him in a bad light.
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Watching the film after reading the novel, the hell creek scene seems quite short. One of the differences i noticed is that in the film the hell creek scene comes as an accident, while in the novel Boon had talked about it on the way there. Furthermore in the novel Lucius was in the mud as well helping instead of being in the car.
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In the movie, When Boon, Lucius and New were heading to Memphis, they had to pass Hell Creek. In Hell Creek the road was muddy and swampy, the car got stuck in that muddy sport, Boon and Ned had to got off to pull out from soft mud, but they failed. The houseman pull out the car with his horses and had charged six dollars which was very expensive. In the novel, Hell Creek is described that, Boon and Ned were talking about Hell Creek and it should be on the way to Memphis, they were looking for it. The road was dry and dusty, the land was vacant, children and dogs were running toward to fence or road to watch as they pass. while driving a wide valley lay before them, the road descending from the plateau toward a band of willow and cypress which marked the creek. Boon was anxious of talking to Ned because he wanted to drive the car and alternative way to skip Hell Creek.
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i feel like the movie made the hell creek bottom scene look more like a accident then something that happened because of Boons stupidity and stubbornness. In the novel, Boon was well aware of the dangers of Hell creek, however in the film it makes it seam like he remembered the dangers when he was stuck.
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In The Reivers, the brothel became the place where people get rescued and changed. In this transition, both Corrie and Boon were spiritually rescued by the honest values of an eleven-year-old boy and forever changed his life path. By the end, Corrie decided to quit brothel and lived by her own hands as well as Boon made decisions what he thought is right to marry his beloved wife Corrie disregarding the secular bias.
However, the brothel in The story of Temple Drake speeded up the real fall of Temple and destroyed all possibilities for her to establish correct moral values and the abilities to make right decisions. In the brothel, she gradually accepted her fate as a southern bell and all of her optimistic and positive minds are buried by the values of southern Puritan Woman.
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The house was whorehouse, and the people in the whorehouse would live like a family. They were having meal in dinning table together, people come and have good hospitality by ladies who work in the whorehouse. It was ironic because little boys had access to it as guests anyhow. Importantly, ladies were inspired especially Corrie by young boy Lucius through his respect and honesty. Ladies were start thinking to quit working in the brothel.
On the other hand, in The Story of Temple Drake, Temple has been raped by street boy Trigger and force her to be in the whorehouse. Although Temple was delicate and indifferent in relationship, rather she was liking having intercourse with various people and that’s how Temple end up in the whorehouse.
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Right couldn’t agree more, i mean it was a brothel i couldn’t have imagined it existed. It was interested to see Corrie being inspired by Lucius, i think she was impressed with his manners and his maturity, as she was looking up to him.
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Lucius was quite gentle, When Miss Corrie’s nephew Otis proudly tells Lucius all about Miss Corrie and her activities as well as the peephole business where Otis charges the children of the neighborhood to watch her activities with her guests, Lucius could not take it easy way, he could not tolerate the insult and he fought with Otis and cut his hand which made Ms. Corrie cry and make her feel better to young Lucius.
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Otis is ungentlemanly compared to Lucius, particularity in regard to his aunt Corrie. Lucius being a gentleman, feels the need to protect Ms Corrie. When Otis tries to take advantage of his aunt, Lucius must be a gentleman and help a lady in need.
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Ms Corrie works in a whore house she is not surrounded by southern belles or genetleman. When Lucius defends her from Otis, she experiences gentleman-like behavior for the first time in her life. Someone was willing to defend her so she feels more self worth.
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In “The Reivers” the film portrays the brothel as someone visited their aunts house, they have dinner as a family, and they have guest rooms for little children just in case, it looked like quite the experience i have to say. On the other hand, in “The Story of Temple Drake” Brothel was portrayed as somewhat darker, there was no silver lining to Temples life as she had to become another southern bell, no place for kids for sure.
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I don’t have knowledge of such brothel exist nowadays anywhere. Even I have watched couple movies where I have not seen such facilities. But it seemed to me that the brothel was look like family business.
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Ned was a black servant of Boos Priest, although Ned had not enough education but he was very clever. When Ned traded the car in exchange of a horse, he was determined to win the car back. He gave all the instructions to Lucius how to win the horserace and win back the car, otherwise it would be trouble for all three. Once Lucius gave up to participate in the race, but Net made him agree back to win the car.
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Perhaps this isn’t what the question is asking but I have noticed that Faulkner likes to adapt the dialogue to fit the style of the picture he is trying to paint. He uses improper grammar when writing conversations in a way that allows the reader to get an idea of what different cultures are like whether it be the short choppy British dialogue or the unmistakable cliché southern speaking style.
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Ethos is a Greek word meaning the spirit of a culture or a community. I think we can understand the ethos of the Boss when he decides what the right punishment will be for him as he remembers his own times when he was breaking the rules, and paying for his mistakes.
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What I think Faulkner means Ethos in the novel is the lifestyle, attitude, culture and the values of people and family. As Boss Priest is an elite in the community which has been passing on generation to generation. So it was expected from family or community to Lucius will carry on with Ethos or Ethics.
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One example of Hollywood censorship I have seen is in the novel and film Fight Club. In the Chuck Palahniuk novel the protagonist, who remains unnamed throughout, has a hole in his cheek through which you can see his teeth throughout the entire story. In the film however, Ed Norton, who plays the protagonist, has no such hole in his cheek at any point in the film. I think that Hollywood had decided it would be too graphic to display such a wound throughout the entire film. And while the film itself is rather graphic in nature, this is just one of the few things that Hollywood felt was too much for the public to have to deal with the entire time.
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Oh that is a great example. I totally agree though, it would of been too graphic for it’s intended target audience especially with a run time of nearly 140 minutes. Although I do find it strange to have left out a noticeable feature of the character the film itself was already R-rated.
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Especially in todays films and TV shows I think it would be fair to say that censorship isn’t even used. Rather we should call it aesthetic discretion as showing too much violence or too much nudity may deter a major part of your intended audience who may not be able to handle. I think a good example of this is Quinten Tarantino who teeters on the line of too much and not enough constantly but backs up his lack of discretion with little things like the sound effects and music that accompany his films.
Here is a clip that shows some of the little things that may keep an audience intrigued.
https://vimeo.com/118431867
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In the filming process of “Double Indemnity” , Breen’s Office has sent letters to Paramount warning that the film was completely unfit to show on the screen because of the “general low tone” and “sordid flavor”. The portray of Walter Neff would make people feel sympathy for criminals and the suicide scene in the end to escape the legal sanctions was intolerable. In order to comply with the Breen office, the script outline has to be rewritten before shooting. Chandler and Wilder made considerable changes especially the ending to fit the criteria of Hays Code (the character of Barton Keyes was transformed as an eventual nemesis served as the moral standards for audiences) but keep more Cain’s original dialogues as possible.
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Sex is another example. They don’t show the actual act. instead they may show kissing then a door being closed or lights dimmed. In novels, writers are more detailed, graphic even. In 50 shades of grey,the book is more graphic and detailed than the movie.
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The Christian Church played a large role in terms of censorship. The idea is to protect the innocence of society and not fill it with immoral works.
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Holly has an investment in the Star. The film culture does not give the same censorship as the novel. For example in The Reivers, when the family was taking a ride and Sarah the grandmother accompanied, Lushus, the grandfather spit tobacco out the window and it flew back on to Sarah’s goggles. Even though, in film this may be a funny scene, no Star would want that roll. Even more, how would the fan base react toward that treatment to a woman. The audience was groomed with a certain expectation.
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The controversial film the outlaw made in the 40’s is a classic example of film censorship. In the film, the director, Howard Hughes was accused of overemphasizing Jane Russell Breast in a particular scene. Howard Hughes went as far as designing a special bra for Jane Russell to emphasis her breast. Unsurprisingly the production code cut scenes from the film and refused to allow the movie to be seen for a few years.
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When a Faulkner novel, and in most cases any novel, is adapted to Hollywood it somewhat loses some of its character when the star roles are cast to big Hollywood names. I think that the excitement and anticipation of seeing a popular novel put on the big screen masks the loss of the novelty. When the actors are cast their previous and sometimes typical roles are wrongly cast on a film, taking away from the feeling you et about the character from the novel alone.
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Now these days it is quite common to find Hollywood take an approach on adapting a novel onto the big screen. Most noticeable include Harry Potter, the Hunger Games, Maze Runner,etc. At times there is some connection lost between the original novel and it’s film adaptation. The same applies in a similar sense to adapting a Faulkner novel. This is in regard to the casting of it’s characters. Studios hire well recognized actors and actresses to portray these characters. The style and role that particular actor/actress brings is often carried on over to the film. In some cases not being entirely faithful to the original character source and adapting an alternative version
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book is made into a film it looses content and meaning or rather has a new content and meaning!
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When adapting a Faulkner film, Hollywood cast big stars to draw in box office success; even if the character in the movie doesn’t fit the description in the book for example, Steven Mcqueen does not fit the description of Boon. They will also change the dialog and censor out scenes or words that are too graphic
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I agree with Ebony. When adapting a film, the characters traits definitely get changed depending on the star that is casted. Steve Mcqueen nor Rupert Crosse seem like the right actor to play the parts of Boon and Ned but once case the film kind of adapts to their acting style. Hollywood would rather have a big star and change the story a little than keep it true to the story.
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having his name on a film would bring people to the box office. The problem is that many themes that Faulkner touches upon can be mature and these studios had a production code to follow. So Faulkners adaptations were very “fantasy like” and less true to his original work.
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This caused the unpopular ideas or themes that Faulkner covered to be overpassed or even changed and altered to have a good sweet ending compared to a full blown sad story
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When Hollywood adapts a Faulkner novel, often times the actors do not fit the role of the characters. Extremely handsome actors might play roles that are meant for uglier actors. Hollywood has even invented female characters to create a love interest with the male actors. Also the ending of Faulkner adaptation also are changed to have a more happier ending.
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