Madame Bovary as Film and Novel

Paper Summary:

In this article, the writer discusses that in trying to bring 'Madame Bovary' to the screen, director Vincent Minelli had the problem that much of the story depended on Gustave Flaubert's brilliant narrative. In a novel, Flaubert's crafted sentences had held readers' attention for decades, but a translation into film seemed an insurmountable obstacle. The writer notes that Minelli found a device, by which he could have a narrator, a character playing Flaubert, introduce the movie, and at various time move the plot along. To do this, Minelli opens not with the novel itself, but with the trial of Gustave Flaubert on charges of presenting a morally degenerate woman as his heroine, thereby threatening to corrupt the morals of all of France. The writer maintains that as a novel, Madame Bovary remains a standard of the literary canon, one of the premier examples of realistic fiction, and effectively a benchmark against which much of modern realistic fiction is judged. The writer concludes that the movie is regarded as creditable, however it is not considered one of the great cinematic classics. A modern viewer sees the artificiality and yearns for more realistic movement in this movie version of a realistic novel.

From the Paper:

" Trying to defend the movie, Flaubert paints a reasonable picture of the farm to which Charles Flaubert, a young doctor, has come one rainy night to attend to the broken leg of Emma Roualt. After he has set the patient's leg, he and Emma meet, and they are smitten with one another, he because she is a beautiful young woman, and he because she imbues him with a host of romantic ideals that he simply does not have. By his own confession, he is a rather simple, hard-working country doctor, but she declares him to be the most handsome and dashing man in the world."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Flaubert, Gustave, Madame Bovary. London, England: Penguin Books, 1995.
• Maraini, Dacia. Searching for Emma: Gustave Flaubert and Madame Bovary. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
• Madame Bovary. Dir: Vincent Minelli; perf. Jennifer Jones, James Mason. DVD. MGM/UA Home Video, 1985, 1949.

More papers on Madame Bovary as Film and Novel:

• Film Review # 134317 : "Madame Bovary" as Film and Novel"
• Analytical Essay # 50799 : "Adultery in Literature and Film"
• Book Review # 107175 : "Gustave Flaubert's "Madame Bovary"

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