After church on Sunday my wife and I enjoyed an afternoon at the Kennedy Center watching opera, courtesy of some tickets we received for petsitting a cute little dog named Roxie. The opera we saw was Nicholas Maw’s adaptation of William Styron’s novel Sophie’s Choice.
With this viewing I hit an artistic trifecta, having in the past six months read the novel (courtesy of a 25¢ purchase at a thrift store in Williamsburg, VA by fellow blogger I Love Taco Bell) and seen the film version. If I had the time or the inclination (or was enrolled in some expensive graduate film school), I believe I could come up with an esoteric thesis for dissecting the material and comparing/contrasting the various artistic modes used to tell the thoroughly depressing material in three different mediums, and whether those mediums enhance or detract from the story itself (as well as shed new light on the nightmare and evil of the Holocaust). But who has time for that?
Obviously all three have their strengths and weaknesses. As source material for the film and opera, the novel provides a wonderful framework to work from. Director Alan J. Pakula does a very faithful adaptation of Styron, and Maw does a faithful adaptation of Pakula and Styron. Each version is tragic without resorting to false notes or manufactured emotions. The novel and film effectively use realism to get the story across. The opera (at least this version of it), with its sparse set and use of many, many photographs dangling from the rafters, creates a dream-like vision of memory and loss. Of course some of the audience members complained, wanting more realistic sets (perhaps reflecting their fondness for the film) and others debated the omission of some details from the original story (I suppose wanting more detail regarding the character Stingo's various sexual mishaps) as well as the significance of the title, “what exactly was Sophie’s Choice?”. Those complaints of course were trivial to the visceral appeal.
Spoiler Alert!!!
The opera ends with the narrator asking “Where was God at Auschwitz?” a classic theological questioning dealing with, among other things, theodicy and suffering, to which the narrator retorts, in some ways as the voice of God, “Where was Man?” The layered complexity of such questions only adds to the overall power and impact of all versions of Sophie’s Choice.
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2 comments:
Someone wrote a LTE in the Post after its review of the production complaining that it did not issue a spoiler alert.
I don't think "knowing" the plot should detract from viewing the production/movie. Not in this case, anyway.
Depends on the production. Reviewers need to give enough plot detail to provide context for the critical aspects of the review. However, too much detail can detract from potential viewers overall reaction to a film. For instance, "The Crying Game" for me was a better film because I wasn't fully clued in on the "surprise" thus affecting my response. In the case of Sophie's Choice, knowing that Sophie is a holocaust survivor or that Nathan is mentally ill I don't think detracts from the overall impact. However, revealing the scene at the train station might.
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