Category: Music and MoviesSubmitted: 2000-03-15Word Count: 1072Sophomore Composition1,000 Wd. ReportOctober 27, 1999There are many positive things and negative things about the movie and the story. In the movieyou have a chance to see what Elizabeth looks like.
That alone could be a positive and negative thing. The movie is more glamour than thought. In the movie your mind has more free will so therefore this isthe better of the two. The thought in the movie that, there is unlimited communication between the two,takes away your imagination and the curiosity of what they will say and how they will say it in the lastmessage between the two of them. The changing of the time period was a very smart and interesting thingdone in order for the movie to fit exactly into place. In the story the little details is what makes itimportant.
Such as the marble floor in the Post Office, or that in the story, the Post Office is small. All ofthese little details are left out in the movie. Although it doesnt seem like a great deal, the little details doplay a large part in the importance of the Postal Office in the story. Although the story seems moresimple in the word sense, it also leaves a lot of room for the mind to wonder what it is like back in the1800s. Therefore the story is more open for the mind and it is more pleasing. A girl in a high-necked dark dress with cameo brooch at the collar.
Her dark hair was swepttightly back, covering the ears, in a style which no longer suits our ideas of beauty. But the stark severityof that dress and hairstyle couldnt spoil the beauty of the face that smiled out at me from that oldphotograph. This above is the description stated in the story that described Helen Elizabeth Worley. This description is not of lustrous beauty, but of the true love he felt for her.
This statement anddescription is made at the end of the story. The movie gave you the chance to make your opinion on looksbefore you even began to know her. You are sort of forced by your eyes to make judgments on herpersonal appearance in the movie. When you make judgments on appearance then you dont get thepicture of this story, or any story for that matter.
The imagination is one of the most powerful tools youcan have, and in the movie you dont use it that often, because the movie paints the picture for you. The unlimited amount of communication is a very important change from the story to the movie. The idea that their is unlimited communication between two distant times seems more impossible thanjust being able to contact someone two or three times. The little center desk drawer stood half-open asId left it, and then, as my fell on it. I realized suddenly that of course it, too, must have another secretdrawer behind it. I hadnt thought of that.
It simply hadnt occurred to me the week before, in myinterest and excitement over the letter Id found behind the first drawer of the row: and Id been too busyall week to think of it since. But now I pulled the center drawer all of the way out, reached behind it andfound the little groove in the smooth wood I touched. Then I brought out the second secret little drawer. It seems more possible and logical, as explained in the quote above, to be able to communicate only alimited amount of times rather than unlimited. This also keeps great suspense on what they will say in theletters because they are more precious because they cant continue to send that many more letters.
It must easily be one of the oldest postal substations in the borough; built, I suppose, not muchlater than during the decade following the Civil War. And I cant imagine that the inside has changemuch at all. The floor is marble; the ceiling high, the woodwork dark and carved. The outer lobby isopen at all times, as are post-office lobbies everywhere, and as I pushed through the old swinging doors, Isaw that it was deserted. somewhere behind the opaque blind windows a light burned dimly far in the rearof the post office, and I had an impression of subdued activity back there. But the lobby itself was dimand silent, as I walked across the worn stone of its floor, I know I was seeing all around me precisely whatBrooklynites had seen for no telling how many generations long dead.
The Post Office has always seemedan institution of vague mystery to me: an ancient and worn but still functioning mechanism that is notoperated, but only tended by each succeeding generation of men to come along. It is a place whereoccasionally plainly addressed letters with clearly written return addresses go astray and are lost, to end upno one knows where and for reasons impossible to discover, as the postal employee from whom youinquire will tell you. And its vague air of mystery, for me, is made up of stories–well, youve read them,too, from time to time: the odd little stories in your newspaper. A letter bearing a post-mark of 1906written half a century ago, is delivered today–simply because inexplicably it arrived at some post officealong with the other mail, with no explanation from anyone now alive. Or sometimes its a postcard ofgreeting–from the Chicago Worlds Fair of 1893.
And once, tragically, as I remember reading, it was anacceptance of a proposal of marriage offered in 1901–and received today, a lifetime too late, by the manwho made it and who married another woman. The quote from the story tells a very detail descriptionthat is important to the mind so it makes a clean picture of the Postal Office to all of the readers. It is oneof the most important of the faults from the movie that is gone. Simply because it gives the mind a detailand mental picture of the Postal Office. Now the end is near. The above paragraphs describe why the movie is by far worse and lessfavored versions of The Love Letter, by Jack Finney.
All in all their are many faults in the movie andthe story.
