It’s a rare occasion when a movie is able to do justice to the book it was based on. Rarer still is a film can be called “as good” as its source material. Rarest of all is when a Hollywood screen production leaves out entire characters and half the plotline, changes the book's tone and moral, and still manages to come out almost, if not as good, as it was in print. “East of Eden,” written by John Steinbeck and adapted for the screen in 1955 by Elia Kazan, is one of those atypical cases.
It may not be fair to call the film “East of Eden” a full adaptation, because it only deals with the second half Steinbeck's novel. The book covers the story of the Trask family through the generations, starting with the painfully troublesome Adam and his younger, more honest brother Charles. The reader follows Adam from his hometown in Connecticut and across the country, into the arms of the beautiful Cathy and the Salinas valley in California.
Any reader of Steinbeck will recall the author’s devotional love to the Salinas valley. He spends much of the novel describing its sights, sounds and nuances, discussing its history and agriculture, right down to its humble citizens. The novel is as much about the land as it is about the people, so much so that the setting is elevated to a character in its own right (something I have only seen perhaps one other time in my reading).
Through trial and tribulation, including Cathy’s abandonment of him and their two sons, Aaron and Cal, Adam becomes an honest man. We are introduced to a second generation of Trask rivalry, wherein kindhearted Aaron is favored by his father and sulking Cal longs for the mother he never had. At one point Cal, determined to find an explanation for his difficult nature, sets out in search of his mother. This is where the film comes in. Cal -- played perfectly by James Dean ‑ arrives at his mother’s “pleasure house.” What follows, in both film and novel, is Cal's series of attempts to make sense of his life and make amends with his father, his brother and his brother's fiance, Abra, as the U.S. is dragged into World War I.
Most likely, it is Dean’s singular performance that elevates the film to such heights. As Cal, he shows the audience his every internal struggle, using facial expressions and oddly slurred speech that would seem cheesy or overdone on any other actor. The beauty of the performance is such that even as we know which brother is the “good” one, we cannot help but wonder who to root for.
Throughout both films there are many allusions to the biblical story of Cain and Abel, the prototypic tragic sibling rivalry, but this is the biggest difference between book and film. While the book questions whether anyone is truly fixed in their nature and if the brothers might one day switch roles, the film blames not the sinner, but those unwilling to forgive him. In this way, the book and film become almost independent of each other, and audiences of both can count themselves lucky to have received not one, but two incredible tales.
Be the first to comment on this article!