The importance and role of the books as well as movies in our everyday life is unquestionable. Since the dawn of the cinema books are being transformed into films but never other way round. Although people consider seeing a movie more pleasurable than reading a book, it is not. At all costs, one should firstly read a book to understand the adaptation properly. Lord Jim written by Joseph Conrad is one of those novels which adaptation strays away from the book. The film directed by Richard Brooks does not present the complexity of Conrad’s narrative.
Lord Jim is one of the most crucial and important novels in British and Polish literature. The book introduces the reader to the complexities of existence between the heaven and the sea. Joseph Conrad wrote it in a characteristic style and an “unprepared reader” may find it difficult to understand the novel’s composition. Importantly, all characters gave their perspective in a non-chronological order.
Thus the readers have to re-construct the sense of the events and what actually happened in the story. Another fundamental aspect in the novel is exoticism. In the first place it is introduced through the voyages of the main character – Jim, as well as through a gripping correlation of two dissimilar cultures – European and Indonesian. The culture and understanding of the reality by ‘White-Europeans’ differs from the culture of Malays. Such reality allows booklovers to believe that the story is factual. In addition, this date creates unusual atmosphere of far-away kingdoms, exotic voyages and meetings with picturesque, uncommon people.
Lord Jim is often called adventurous book because of the main character’s fate. Jim dreamt from the beginning of his childhood to become hero at sea. When he started working as the first officer at Patna (old steamer), he desired to live up to his own romantic and adventurous expectations. Unfortunately, that idealistic believes are a destructive force, which does not allow him to live “normal” life. Jim ran away from the Patna with the rest of the crew, when the old steamer crashed with unspecified object, leaving eight hundreds pilgrims on the deck. That moment is the beginning of both: consecutive course of events and emotional problems of the main character.
In the film directed by Richard Brooks the events are in chronological order. Even thought Brooks tried to keep the movie as close as possible to the Conrad’s narrative, he did not manage to get the gist of the book. Naturally, he did not include all events that created the complexity of Conrad’s world and his characters. He excepted the fact that Jim spent a few weeks in the hospital after the collision of the steamer and presented only few of his voyages. Moreover, the plot of the film is showed just through the eyes of Jim and viewers were not aquatinted with perspectives of the other characters.
The film was shot on location in Cambodia and Hong Kong. That is way; this epic resonates with the power of its exotic and gorgeous settings which created breathtaking atmosphere. However, the director did not pay attention to the relationship between inhabitants of the Patusan and Europeans. He only portrayed Malays as in the novel, helpful, honest and well organised people. Furthermore, Peter O’Toole, the actor who plays eponymous character, was a charming and well mannered young Englishman whose personality was not complicated. Brooks said noting about Jim’s childhood and his wish to become a hero. In the film he appeared as a great sailor who made mistakes in the past and then wanted to live normal life. O’Toole did not reveal romantic and dreamy soul of Jim.
There is no doubt that Lord Jim, both the book and the film, analyze motives of human behaviour. Joseph Conrad in his novel brought up various aspects of human personality for the reader’s scrutiny; for instance, liability, morality, faithfulness to one’s own ideals, helplessness in the face if natural elemental forces, human dreams and hopes. In contrast, Brooks in his film focused mostly on the adventurousness of the plot, swift action and main hero excluding other gripping characters. That means one should rather read Conrad’s tale than watch the movie directed by Brooks.
