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The Glass Menagerie Book Compared to Film Tennessee Williams wrote a beautiful play called The Glass Menagerie. Paul Newman directed a movie called The Glass Menagerie according to the play. In this research we are going to compare and contrast the successes of the two maestros in their business: the film and the play. According to my humbled opinion the book was a very pleasurable and nice thing to read whereas the film was not. The Glass Menagerie is about a lower-middle class family living in an apartment in St.
Louis. The play centers on the conflict between Amanda and her two children Tom and Laura. Amanda and Tom argue constantly, and Laura is both physically crippled and painfully shy. Laura spends most of her time polishing her glass collection and listening to old records. Amanda strives to get Laura to break out of her shell and either attend business school, or find a young man to marry. Tom longs to quit his job working in a shoe factory to pursue the adventures he envisions from the movies he constantly watches.
With the exception of Karen Allens portrayal of Laura, the acting in this movie made the play uninteresting and at times almost comical. The movie was directed by Paul Newman. His direction did not deviate far from the original text. The dialogue was very close -- if not word for word -- to the text.
If any lines in the movie differed from the original play, it was only because the movie lines were paraphrased. The setting was exactly as Williams described it. Most of the play takes place in the family's small apartment; a few scenes that are outside on the fire escape landing, where Tom goes outside to smoke. The directorial decisions made by Mr.
Newman did not stand out, nor did the performances of his cast. The first of the mediocre performances is Joanne Woodward's portrayal of Amanda. In the text, Amanda is written as a frustrating woman whos only salvation from her distressing life is the memory of the endless procession of gentlemen callers from her youth. Amanda thinks back fondly on her earlier life and in comparison, her present life is tragic and heartbreaking. In Woodward's performance, Amanda is a loud, obnoxious chatterbox with an exaggerated southern accent. The scene in the play where Amanda puts on her old cotillion dress the night that Mr.
OConnor comes to dinner is written to give us a glimpse of how radiant and beautiful Amanda was in her youth, and to give her a brief moment to relive her glory days. In the same scene in the movie, Woodward comes off as almost comical. She looks exactly the same as she did during the rest of the movie except for the gaudy white dress she is wearing which appears to be too big for her. During the entire time Mr.
OConnor is at the apartment, Woodward's pasty appearance, over-the-top acting, and ridiculous dress is reminiscent of Bette Davis character in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? It is difficult to take the character of Amanda seriously because Woodward's performance is so embellished. The character of Tom is portrayed by John Malkovich. While his performance is not exaggerated like Woodward's, Malkovich's performance is dull and lacks fervor.
In the first scene, Malkovich is by himself on the fire escape giving the opening monologue which set the foundation for the story. While delivering the monologue, Malkovich is lifeless and it seems as though he could be reading the speech directly from a piece of paper in front of him. This first scene is a glimpse of how his entire performance will be. When reading the play, Tom comes off as a man who is frustrated with his life and dreams of one day leaving his mother and sister.
The only thing keeping him from leaving is his love for his sister Laura. In Malkovich's performance, his love for Laura is not convincing. He only seems interested in his desperate need to escape- not his sisters well being. A noticeable, yet minor difference is the fact that it is mentioned several times in the play that Jim had a face full of freckles and a rather large nose. In the scene where Jim and Laura are in the living room, she even called him freckles. James Naughton does not have freckles or a very large nose.
Also, Jim is supposed to be 23 years old, but Naughton looks and acts much older than 23. The only performance in this movie that is noteworthy is the performance by Karen Allen as Laura. Laura is a young girl who is both physically and socially handicapped. Overall, Paul Newman's production of The Glass Menagerie left a lot to be desired. Tennessee Williams play has been discredited by surprisingly poor performances by two talented actors. I would not recommend this movie to anyone who has ever read The Glass Menagerie and I dont believe the production was the way Tennessee Williams intended it to be.
Bibliography: Aiken, Charles. A Geographical Approach to Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie, in Geographical Review, Vol. 71, no. 4, October, 1981, pp. 446 - 459. Brooks, Clean. Tennessee Williams Works, Louisiana State University Press, 1963. The Glass Menagerie, By Will Finley, Library Journal, July 1999, Vol. 124 Issue 12, p 134. Michael Najjar, The Gale Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, accessed March 29 at: web Film The Glass Menagerie, directed by Paul Newman.
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Research essay sample on The Glass Menagerie Book Compared To Film
