'Children of Men' Film Adaptation

josiehenley

josiehenley

I watched the film ‘Children of Men’ last night and was deeply disturbed by the scenes of violence, bombings and human rights violations in our predicted future. It seemed to me that the director had taken incidents that have happened elsewhere in the world and transposed them onto the UK. So there were soldiers, tanks and gun battles in desolated streets which could have been news footage of Beirut or Iraq, only every so often a very British item would appear such as a telephone box or the front of a recognisable building. I think that this was highly effective in bringing home the atrocities that have happened in recent years, demonstrating that it could easily happen to us.

However, this didn’t happen in the book! I read the book only a couple of years ago so I remember distinctly that there was little mention of the way the refugees were treated, only that they were held in camps, and there were hardly any gun battles, the main one happening in a rural area. The book was written in the early nineties, so before news footage of people with bags over their heads being beaten became commonplace. It seems that the film has taken the premise and basic plot of the book but changed so much as to be virtually unrecognisable. The races of some of the characters have changed, and race has become much more of an issue in the film than it was in the book. Many other aspects and events were changed, to the point that I may as well have been watching a film based on a different book.

Most film adaptations miss out bits of the book, or change the order of events to make it more visually stimulating, but these substantial changes altered the story considerably. I’m not saying that I thought the film was bad – I thought it was very good and effective, albeit extremely scary and disturbing. The book was also disturbing but for different reasons. I can see that the change is a reflection on what our predictions of our future might be compared to what the predictions were 15 years ago, but should it have been renamed? I’ve seen films that are based on books but substantially changed, and renamed (such as the film ‘Lost and Delirious’ and the book ‘The Wives of Bath’).

Carol

I didn't see it but can see what you mean.
It's manipulation to make it seem more relevant to our society, I suppose.
I don't usually watch 'Waking the Dead', but hubby was watching it last night. The story started with a double murder, and then fifteen years later while the empty building is undergoing work two entwined skeletal bodies fall through the rotting ceiling from this hidden room.
The story revolves round a collapsed bank, politicians, police cover up's and God's Banker who was found hanged under Westminster Bridge, and Opus Dei.
The writer has taken factual stuff that did occur at the time and used it openly as part of the plot, or where needed changed the names.